The colonial conflicts that started with the
Age of Discovery in the late XV century often pitted unlikely foes against each other. In the XVI century, the Ottoman and the burgeoning
Portuguese naval empires clashed across the Indian Ocean and Africa in a series of direct
and proxy conflicts in order to gain colonial dominance. In this video, we will try to depict the most
famous episodes of this long and complicated conflict. These long videos are extremely time-consuming
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a circumnavigation of Africa in 1498, the reach and power of the Portuguese had been
growing rapidly in the Indian Ocean. In 1500, the same Portuguese armada that had
made first landfall in Brazil continued on to India, bombarding Calicut and establishing
Portugal’s first Asian factory in Cochin. By 1504, Portuguese ships were regularly plundering
Arab shipping in the Indian ocean, with a blockade of the Red Sea earning them the ire
of the Mamluk Sultanate and of their trading partner Venice. Seeing that it can’t oppose the Portuguese
on its own, Calicut’s ruler - the Zamorin sent envoys to the Mamluks in 1504. The Mamluks were the strongest empire in the
Indian Ocean at the time, but its military was mostly made of elite cavalry, while the
navy was often neglected. The small ships called dhows used by the Mamluks
were inferior to the Portuguese vessels, as they could only carry light guns. So, the ruler of Egypt Qansuh al-Ghawri sent
his own envoys to the doge of Venice Leonardo Loredan, who agreed to help against Portugal. Another power to join the alliance was the
Sultanate of Gujarat ruled by Mahmud Shah I, which also reeled from the Portuguese piracy. Venetian carracks and galleys, which were
mainly used in the Mediterranean, sailed to Alexandria, where they were disassembled. From here the ship parts were sent to Suez
by land and assembled again. Led by Emir Hussain Kurdi, the fleet left
the city in November of 1505. Along the way, the Mamluks spent time fortifying
the cities in Western and Southern Arabia against a possible Portuguese attack, as well
as recruiting mercenaries in Arabia, and Nubia, so despite the fact that the travel time to
India usually took less than 2 months, the fleet arrived at Diu only in September of
1507, where they were joined by the Gujarati navy led by Malik Ayyaz. Despite all the attempts of the allies, they
weren’t able to convince other states in Western India to join their cause. The fleet was significantly smaller and weaker
than the Mamluks and their Venetian allies had originally planned, and only had 6 carracks
and 6 galleys, which were joined by 30 smaller Gujarati galleys and four great carracks under
the command of Diu’s governor, Malik Ayyaz, with a largely mercenary force of over 4000
crewing them. Further reinforcement came in the form of
dozens of small boats from Calicut, their gunwales reinforced with cotton bales to strengthen
them against Portuguese cannon fire. In terms of manpower, the combined Muslim
fleet carried over 5,000 soldiers, sailors and oarsmen, notably including 450 elite Mamluks. The Portuguese fleet opposing them under the
command of Lourenço de Almeida consisted of 19 ships and 1200 men, leaving the Portuguese
rather outnumbered. The size of the Portuguese ships would give
a significant advantage to Almeida in the coming battle, as would the formidable array
of cannons each could bring to bear - but possibly the greatest advantage the Portuguese
would have was the naval inexperience of Emir Hussain and the Mamluks, and the inconsistency
of Malik Ayyaz in his dealings with his allies. As the battle was being fought over his own
city, Ayyaz had more to lose than Hussain or the Zamorin of Calicut, and so seems to
have tried to hedge his bets by making several overtures to the Portuguese - unknown to the
Mamluks - following the Mamluk-Gujarati victory in the Battle of Chaul in 1508. It is possible that some of the disarray the
allied fleet was in upon Almeida’s February 1509 attack can be attributed to Ayyaz committing
less than fully to the defense, perhaps even having struck a secret deal with Almeida beforehand. But given the rage Almeida had been in since
his son’s death at Chaul, it is entirely possible that Ayyaz was rebuffed, and that
the shocking boldness of Almeida’s frontal assault on the Diu harbour simply caught the
Mamluks - little experienced in naval warfare - off-guard despite advance warning from Calicut
of Almeida’s approach. Almeida’s fleet approached Diu from the
East, sailing at all speed towards the well-defended harbour. As battle was first joined at 11:00 on February
3, the Mamluk fleet and the bulk of the Gujaratis remained at anchor in Diu’s harbour under
the protection of its shore batteries while the smaller, oared vessels - both some Gujarati
light galleys and the fleet from Calicut, ill-suited for the exchange of gunfire that
was to begin the battle - had positioned themselves in the Diu channel to the West of the harbour,
intending to fall on the Portuguese fleet from behind once the boarding started. As Diu’s shore guns would leave Almeida
at a disadvantage in a long-range firefight, while a close-quarters battle of grapples
and boarding actions would favour the numerically superior Muslim fleet, Almeida might have
seemed to be sailing into a trap. Nevertheless, he wasted no time in closing
to the grappling range, with only one short exchange of fire between the two fleets occurring
before the Portuguese vessels sailed boldly into Diu harbour. The superior gunnery of the Portuguese was
put to full use, sinking one of the twelve Mamluk ships nearly immediately, while the
Gujarati shore gunners soon found themselves unable to safely fire into the tightly-packed
melee of ships. On the decks of the grappling ships, the heavily-armoured
Portuguese soldiers were more than holding their own against their more numerous opponents,
and though the well-trained Mamluks fought bravely and fiercely, many of the mercenaries
in the diverse Gujarati force lost their morale and abandoned their ships and posts under
the noisy barrage of the Portuguese matchlocks. These early firearms proved more useful as
a psychological weapon than for their killing power, however, with volleys of arrows from
the decks and crow’s nests of the Muslim fleet taking a toll of their own on the Portuguese. Hussain’s flagship was boarded early in
the battle, with the fight eventually involving two ships from each side as reinforcements
turned the tide in one direction or the other, but the decision of the Muslims to remain
in harbour had granted the initiative and mobility advantages to the Portuguese, who
quickly found themselves with the upper hand. This mobility advantage would prove the decisive
factor, as, despite their advantages, the Portuguese were still gravely outnumbered. Had the large fleet in the Western channel
been able to join the melee unopposed, as Hussain had planned, Almeida’s fleet would
likely have found itself trapped, surrounded and overwhelmed in short order. But Almeida himself, in his flagship Flor
do Mar, did not join the melee, instead continuing quickly westward past the harbour battle with
two other ships to cut off the lightly-armed oared vessels in the channel. Hussain’s decision to split his fleet was
rapidly proving disastrous - as he had kept all the ships with heavy cannons in harbour
in preparation for a firefight that never came, the fleet in the channel was all but
helpless against Almeida’s flagship despite the overwhelming difference in numbers. All of Hussain’s ships that might have been
able to engage Flor do Mar and immobilize or board it had been pinned down in the harbour,
unable to intervene in the unfolding debacle. By giving up the initiative to Almeida and
allowing the Portuguese to choose their engagements, Hussain had allowed a significant portion
of his forces to be neutralized by a small Portuguese task force. Over the course of the battle, Flor do Mar
fired more than 600 cannon shots into the tightly-packed vessels in the channel, sinking
many before powder began to run low. In the harbour, with their reinforcements
cut off, the Gujarati and Mamluk forces soon began to break against the well-armoured and
well-trained Portuguese soldiers. As dusk approached, nearly all of the ships
in harbour had been pacified, their crews either leaping into the sea to swim for shore,
perishing in battle, or surrendering themselves into the brutal captivity of the vengeful
Almeida. Soon only one large Gujarati carrack remained,
larger than any other ship in the battle and too close to shore to be boarded by most Portuguese
vessels. But despite its size and sturdy construction,
the immobilized vessel was no match for the concentrated firepower of the victorious Portuguese
fleet, and had no available avenue to escape as the smaller boats in the channel had. With its sinking, the harbour of Diu fell
silent, the Portuguese having won a decisive victory that would secure their dominance
in the Indian Ocean for decades. Portuguese losses were remarkably light, at
32 dead and 300 wounded. On the Muslim side, the Mamluks suffered the
worst losses by far, losing their entire fleet and most of their men, though Emir Hussain
escaped to shore with a small party to return to Cairo. The losses suffered by Malik Ayyaz’s largely
mercenary force were similarly steep, bringing the total death toll to over 1500. After a decisive Portuguese victory at the
Battle of Diu in 1509 against Calicut, the Mamluks, and the Sultanate of Gujarat, Portugal’s
dominance in the Indian Ocean would be unchallenged for nearly three decades. Central to these early Portuguese campaigns
was Afonso de Albuquerque, a masterful admiral and statesman. Acting with considerable autonomy in waters
far distant from his homeland, he had already seized Muscat and Hormuz before the Muslim
stand at Diu, and was elevated to become governor of Portuguese India in the same year, with
the conquest of Goa following soon after. Despite a failure to capture Aden, by his
death in 1515 Afonso had established an effective network of ports and bases that would allow
the Portuguese to fight on even terms a world away from their home shores. For the Mamluks, on the other hand, the loss
of Indian trade was devastating. The flourishing trade port of Alexandria fell
into stagnation and decline, with spices instead flowing into Lisbon. In an attempt to make up the loss, the Mamluks
turned to oppressive taxation, causing instability and discontent. This proved to be one of the greatest factors
in allowing the Ottoman Sultan Selim to rapidly defeat what had once been a major rival, with
the local nobility of Syria defecting en masse to Selim when he invaded in 1516. By the beginning of February 1517, Ottoman
armies had entered Cairo and subjugated the nation. In doing so, Selim indirectly landed his first
blow against the Portuguese, as their initial aim had been to capture Egypt and take control
of the established trade routes rather than diverting them through a long chain of expensive
and vulnerable bases. But Egypt’s change in rulers did not change
the realities faced by Arab merchants in the Indian ocean, and the Ottomans quickly found
that they had inherited their predecessor’s piracy crisis. Though no outright hostilities would occur
between the Ottomans and Portuguese during the reign of Selim, there was no doubt that
war was inevitable, and each empire sought to gain allies and influence among the local
rulers of India and East Africa in order to strengthen their position. Of chief importance were the ports of Aden,
Hormuz, Basra and Diu, most of which would change hands more than once over the decades
to follow. In their search for allies against the Portuguese,
the Ottomans found common cause with the Somali Sultanates of Adal and Ajuran, and with the
Sultanate of Gujarat in North-Western India. Gujarat had formerly been a dominant regional
power before the Mughal Empire’s incursions by land and Portuguese power at sea left it
weakened and diminished, forced into tributary status to stronger empires to retain its autonomy. After being on the losing side of the Battle
of Diu, a humiliating defeat in the heart of its territory, Gujarat would turn to the
Ottomans for aid in maintaining control of its crucial trade ports. With the Balkan and Persian wars still looming
and without access to the Persian Gulf, however, direct Ottoman intervention would be minimal
at first. Some efforts were made to shore up the Ottoman
Red Sea fleet prior to the capture of Basra - in 1525, Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha reorganized
the old Mamluk fleet, with Selman Reis again serving as admiral after a short imprisonment,
possibly for his earlier defection to the Mamluks. Having already beaten the Portuguese fleet
once off Jeddah in 1517, arranging his galleys in a tight formation under the cover of the
shore batteries so as to force the ocean-going Portuguese ships to either retreat or fight
a Mediterranean-style battle of boarders and fire ships, Selman managed to do what both
the Mamluks and Portuguese had failed to do and had secured effective control of Yemen
by 1527. This marked the first serious Ottoman challenge
to Portuguese dominance in the Indian Ocean, and Selman’s victories encouraged the numerous
Muslim rulers in western India to turn to the Ottoman Empire for protection as their
suzerain. In the following years, Ottoman soldiers and
military experts would be sent to the courts of Gujarat and Calicut, simultaneously strengthening
the defenses of crucial port cities, increasing the influence of the Ottoman Sultan abroad,
and giving credibility to his recently-adopted title of Caliph. One of these consulting Ottoman generals would
soon be called on to do battle with the Portuguese, on the site of the Portuguese triumph of 1509
- Diu. Together with Surat on the opposite side of
the Gulf of Khambhat, Diu was among the most important trading hubs of Western India, and
would represent a major prize for the Portuguese. It was thus in Diu that the Ottoman-Portuguese
wars would start in earnest, with a large Portuguese fleet of over 400 ships, carrying
close to 6000 soldiers, attacking the city’s Gujarati and Ottoman garrison in 1531. Led by Afonso’s successor as governor of
Portuguese India, Admiral Nuno de Cunha, this new fleet was significantly stronger than
the one that had been victorious against the Mamluks in 1509. And unlike the first fleet, this one carried
a fearsome mixed army of Portuguese soldiers and conscripted auxiliaries from the Malabar
Coast, which had shown its effectiveness in numerous engagements already. However, despite boasting complete naval superiority
over the mere 18 Ottoman ships arrayed against them, de Cunha had met his match in Mustafa
Bayram. The unparalleled Ottoman artillery crews dealt
severe damage to the besiegers, while the narrow waterways separating Diu island from
the mainland frustrated Portuguese efforts to bring the firepower of their large fleet
to bear. This first siege of Diu demonstrated the limitations
of both empires - while de Cunha could not overcome the combination of Gujarati numbers
and Ottoman gunnery to capture the city, neither could Mustafa Bayram destroy de Cunha’s
fleet to end the threat it posed. The fortress remained Gujarati, but the sea
remained Portuguese, with de Cunha plundering Surat and other poorly-defended Gujarati ports
after withdrawing in defeat from Diu. The Ottoman-Portuguese wars would not begin
in earnest until seven years later, though. In a bizarre twist, the roles of the two empires
would be almost completely reversed in the second siege. Increasing military pressure from the Mughal
Empire, combined with the inability of the Ottomans to protect their maritime interests,
drove Sultan Bahadur to sign the Treaty of Bassein in 1534, and cede numerous islands
and territories, including Bombay and Diu, despite the successful defense of the city
three years prior. In the same year, Suleiman took Baghdad from
the Safavids and gained the nominal fealty of Basra, opening a new avenue to the Indian
Ocean. With his war in Persia ending and affairs
in Europe quiet for the time being, Suleiman finally turned to confront the Portuguese
head-on, building shipyards in the Suez and Yemen, and greatly expanding his Red Sea fleet. The drowning of Sultan Bahadur during negotiations
aboard a Portuguese vessel in 1537 provided the spark of war, and in 1538 the Ottoman
fleet under the command of Hadim Suleiman Pasha attacked Diu Fort, laying siege to the
same city they had helped defend seven years prior. Though the Ottoman fleet numbered only 80
ships compared to the 400 ships the Portuguese had fielded in 1531, they were of heavier
build than the light galleys comprising most of the Portuguese fleet, and it carried a
similar force of soldiers. Though a naval engagement still would have
favoured the Portuguese, the Ottoman armada had caught the Portuguese largely by surprise
and arrived unopposed on September 4th after capturing and plundering Aden en route. Da Cunha and other Portuguese admirals had
expected the Ottoman fleet to make for Muscat or Hormuz, but once again it was here - Diu. Upon landing, the 6,000 Turkish soldiers aboard
the royal galleys of the armada disembarked to join a larger force of 16,000 Gujarati
soldiers under the command of Khadjar Safar, which had been besieging the fortress for
the past two months, though with little success due to a lack of ships and cannon. Also present was the Ottoman captain Hoca
Sefer, who had maintained a small Turkish force in Gujarat after Mustafa Bayram’s
departure to preserve the waning influence of the Ottoman Sultan over their Indian ally. With only 3,000 Portuguese in the fort, of
which only 600 were soldiers under Antonio de Silveira’s command, the vastly superior
Ottoman and Gujarati numbers appeared insurmountable, especially when backed by Ottoman siege gunnery. But the Portuguese still held a number of
advantages. Firstly, the fort they were defending was
newly-built along European lines, greatly superior to the outdated medieval fortifications
it had replaced. A small bastion in the channel to the north,
placed halfway between the fort and a redoubt on the mainland, allowed chains to be drawn
across the Diu Channel to cut off the Ottoman galleys. Secondly, the alliance between Suleiman and
Mahmud Shah III of Gujarat was weaker than it might seem. Despite the Portuguese having abandoned the
city of Diu without battle upon the arrival of the Gujarati army, falling back into the
fort to make their stand, a force of Ottoman janissaries ransacked it shortly after disembarking. The senseless damage enraged many Gujarati
nobles, and with Mahmud Shah’s succession already disputed, he risked losing his throne
if too much of the nobility turned against his Ottoman patrons. This diplomatic breakdown would hamper the
Ottomans in the coming siege, with the Gujaratis reluctant to supply the hungry Ottoman force. And lastly, the Ottomans were not willing
to risk their fleet in open battle so far from their home shores, putting them under
pressure to capture the fort quickly before Portuguese reinforcements from Goa could arrive. Despite these various disadvantages, the Ottomans
made rapid progress building siege works about the surrounded fort, and by September 28th
a punishing bombardment was underway. But the first hasty attempts to storm the
walls were repulsed with significant losses. As the volleys continued over the coming month,
various attempts would be made to weaken the defenses. First, Khadjar Safar targeted the Portuguese
strongpoint on the north bank of the Diu Channel, assaulting it with Gujarati forces backed
up by Ottoman guns. The small fort’s 40 Portuguese defenders
held firm, however, and Khadjar’s attempt to smoke the defenders out with fire ships
was foiled when a Portuguese nighttime attack lit the craft prematurely. This initial Portuguese victory would be short-lived
- on October 1st, the redoubt’s commander Francisco Pacheco was forced to surrender
after narrowly beating back a second assault by hardened Janissaries. Despite an agreement between Suleiman Pasha
and Pacheco to grant safe passage to the fort, the remaining defenders were imprisoned on
the Pasha’s galley. The redoubt had been silenced, though this
was a small victory, and all the Ottomans had to show for most of a month of effort. In attempt to avoid the losses a continued
siege would entail, Suleiman Pasha had the captured Pacheco write a letter de Silveira,
detailing the good treatment he had received on the Pasha’s galley, and the overwhelming
power of the Ottoman army, in an attempt to secure de Silveira’s surrender. This would prove unsuccessful, however, with
de Silveira viewing Pacheco’s imprisonment as an act of treachery by Suleiman. With the negotiations a failure, the Ottomans
returned to the siege, with the last of their artillery unloaded and in place by October
5th. But even with the full force of their army
brought to bear, attempts to assault the fortress through the partially-collapsed bulwarks on
October 12th and 13th failed, and the efforts of Ottoman sappers to breach the walls with
gunpowder charges were hampered by barricades erected within the walls by the Portuguese
noncombatants. The next target of the besiegers would be
the sea fort in the Diu channel, with Ottoman galleys attempting to storm it on October
27th and 28th. But without any surrounding landmass to disembark
besiegers on, attackers would be forced to scale the sea fort’s walls directly from
their galleys, a difficult task in the face of the cannonfire and fire bombs of the well-stocked
Portuguese garrison. 18 galleys in total would be committed between
the two attacks, but despite significant casualties, the defenders of the sea fort successfully
weathered the attacks and forced the battered galleys into retreat. After the failure to capture the sea fort,
the cracks were beginning to show in the allied siege effort. The simmering dispute between the Ottomans
and the Gujarati nobility left Suleiman Pasha’s army in a precarious position for supplies,
and despite the strength of the Ottoman fleet, they were unable to prevent swift Portuguese
foists from making landings to resupply and reinforce the defenders. Faced with the possibility of being cut off
by the Portuguese fleet in Goa, Suleiman Pasha could not risk prolonging the fruitless siege. On October 30th, the Ottoman forces began
withdrawing back to their ships. De Silveira knew better than to drop his guard
while still surrounded, however. His vigilance would pay off when the Ottoman
retreat proved to be a last ruse by Suleiman Pasha, who launched a massive final attack
on the morning of the 31st. The majority of the Ottoman-Gujarati army,
as many as 14,000, attacked under a heavy artillery barrage. The 600 soldiers that had held the fort at
the beginning of the siege had since dwindled to 100 or fewer, with more of the soldiers
now imprisoned on Ottoman galleys than remaining to defend the fort. But with the situation as dire as it had become,
much of the fort’s civilian population took up arms in its defense as well, with some
sources suggesting a group of female soldiers saw active duty in the frenzied battle. The damage to the fortress bulwarks was severe,
and at several points along the walls Gujarati or Ottoman soldiers succeeded in winning their
way onto the ramparts to raise their banners above the beleaguered fort. But just as in the initial assaults, the time
constraints the besiegers faced worked against them. In their haste to crush the remaining opposition,
the troops attacking the walls were exposed to significant friendly fire from the ongoing
cannon volleys. Though the fighting on October 31st would
stretch the defenders to the breaking point, the attackers were again repulsed - and though
similar attacks on the following days would have inevitably ended in an Ottoman victory,
no more would be forthcoming. A relief force of 24 Portuguese galleys was
mistaken for the vanguard of the governor’s powerful Goa fleet, while a small sortie by
the remaining defenders created the impression that the fort was still garrisoned to withstand
another attack. On November 6th, the Ottoman fleet hurriedly
embarked for Yemen, while Khadjar Safar torched his camp and withdrew to the mainland. A mere 40 soldiers remained fit for battle
inside the fort when the relief fleet arrived, yet they had held off the largest Ottoman
expedition ever dispatched to India, with the Turkish armada returning to Yemen 1200
men lighter. The failure to capture Diu was a major loss
for the Ottomans, weakening their influence in India and straining their critical alliance
with the Gujarat Sultanate. Spice would continue to work its way around
the Cape of Good Hope, with even the merchants of Venice at times forced to purchase from
their Portuguese rivals. But Suleiman’s efforts in the Indian ocean
had not been for naught. The construction of shipyards in Basra and
Aden had greatly strengthened the Ottoman position compared to the feeble Mamluks, while
Ibrahim Pasha and Selman Reis’ improved fleet had forced the Portuguese to end their
long Red Sea blockade. Therefore, though the Ottomans had failed
to drive the Portuguese from the Indian Ocean, they did succeed in reinvigorating the Egyptian
spice trade, with Arab and Indian merchants again braving the risk of Portuguese piracy
to sell their wares in Alexandria. The old and new trade routes would uneasily
coexist over the next decades as the rival empires competed for dominance. With this new balance of power established,
the Ottomans and the Portuguese continued to jockey for dominance elsewhere, and their
conflict spilled into Africa. When the exploring Portuguese first made landfall
in the diminished kingdom of Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, during their early forays into
the Indian Ocean, it seemed to them an exotic hermit kingdom hidden from the world and from
the passage of time. To them, this was a devoutly Christian kingdom
ruled by the crusade-era legend of Prester John surrounded by coastal Muslim states and
pastoral tribes. The Prester John myth held powerful sway over
Europe for a century or more, with official Papal envoys even being sent to find and coordinate
with the illusive emperor. There were, of course, many differences in
reality: For one, Ethiopia was anything but a hermit kingdom. Under the Empire of Axum, which Christianized
only shortly after Rome in 330 AD, Ethiopians traded and clashed with Rome and Persia as
a near-equal - even dominating the Southern areas of Arabia for long stretches of time. Though Indian Ocean trade had become a largely
Islamic enterprise since the conversion of the coastal regions, with Muslim traders and
dynasties establishing themselves as far south as Zanzibar by riding the reliable monsoon
winds, Ethiopia remained closely connected to the wider Indian Ocean. Though rival Sultanates rose and fell among
the Somalis, none were able to create a single state to unify the coastal regions, leaving
them to generally accept Ethiopian suzerainty. Muslim merchants ruled the waves during the
15th century, but tributes and taxes poured into the coffers of the Negus, and Ethiopia’s
slaves and ivory flowed unabated to markets in Egypt and India. An Ethiopian delegation had even attended
the council of Florence in 1441, where they were excitedly welcomed as subjects of Prester
John despite their every assertion that their Negus, or Emperor, was called Zara Yakob and
bore no such title. The years just prior to the Ottoman entry
into the Indian Ocean had not been kind to Ethiopia, however. Throughout the 14th century, the nearest thing
to a Muslim rival to the empire had been the Sultanate of Ifat under the Walasma dynasty
- a disunified state, ruling over a coastal merchant elite often loyal to the Ethiopian
Negus and a pastoralist, semi-nomadic population generally unconcerned with the borders or
conflicts of the two states. An attempt by Sultan Sabradin to invade Ethiopia
in 1332 led the warrior king Amda Seyon to sack and conquer most of Ifat, Further conflict
in the following decades led to the Sultanate’s destruction by Amda Seyon’s grandson Dawit
in 1403. But from its ashes would emerge a far more
formidable foe. As Ifat crumbled, the Walasma dynasty split
in two - some of the ruling family opted to remain in the former lands of Ifat, retaining
some wealth and influence. The more militant branches of the family headed
East to found the Sultanate of Adal, centered in Harar. In the century that followed, succession crises
and weak monarchs would weaken Ethiopia’s hold over both its coastal Muslim tributaries
and the increasingly powerful Christian feudal nobility at home, while Adal prospered from
trade and bolstered its military might through the conversion of Afar and Somali pastoralists
to Islam. Still, in 1516 Ethiopia remained strong, and
with the aid of a Portuguese fleet, Negus Lebna Dengel scored a significant victory
against Adal, killing its Sultan Mahfuz and even burning Ifat’s old capital of Zeila. Chroniclers triumphantly declared the Muslim
threat ended forever. But the following years would change everything. In 1517, Selim the Grim conquered Egypt and
gained his first foothold in the Indian Ocean. Adal would be quick to forge ties with this
powerful new neighbor, allowing for the acquisition of modern armaments Ethiopia largely lacked
- the Ottomans, for their part, saw Adal as a useful ally given the partial Portuguese
blockade of the Red Sea. The succession crisis sparked by the death
of Mahfuz led to the usurpation of the state by the former soldier Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim
in 1520. Despite never claiming the title of the Sultan,
Ahmad, called Gragn for his left-handedness, was militant and visionary, who intended to
overthrow the Solomonic empire by conquest, positioning himself as the Negus of a Muslim
Ethiopia. In 1529 he launched his first forays into
the Ethiopian highlands, challenging Lebna Dengel and sparking a war that would outlive
them both. The first encounter between the two kings
was a decisive victory for Gragn. Bolstered by Ottoman-manufactured firearms
and possibly even a contingent of Ottoman troops, Gragn inflicted heavy casualties on
the larger Ethiopian army before driving it from the swampy field in the battle of Shimbra
Kure. Such a dramatic victory a mere fifty kilometers
east of today’s Addis Ababa threw the empire into disarray, and after a brief period of
consolidation, Gragn pushed northwards, easily overthrowing Ethiopian power in the largely
Muslim regions of Shewa and Amhara. He granted long-suppressed local elites the
authority they had lost under Ethiopian rule, efficiently integrating new territory as fast
as his armies could conquer it. Further confrontations would solidify Adal’s
advantage over the crumbling Ethiopian army - General Wasan Sagad, tasked with guarding
the Eastern and Southern provinces in the wake of Lebna Dengel’s withdrawal, was killed
in battle at Mount Busat in 1531, while other Ethiopian armies broke and scattered before
the shock and awe created by the unfamiliar cannons. During the second battle between Gragn and
Lebna Dengel, at the fortress of Amba Sel near the Bashilo River, Labna Dengel was almost
captured by the victorious Imam while his army routed around him. By the end of 1531, only the fortified central
highlands remained securely Ethiopian. The once-great warrior-king of Ethiopia was
a virtual prisoner in the innermost regions of his empire, with the Adalites dominant
as far west as Lake Tana. In the more Christian-dominated areas, stiffer
resistance was put up to Gragn’s advance. Axum represented a major prize for Gragn,
being the seat of the first great Ethiopian empire, a legacy Gragn wished to invoke in
a close echo to the Ottomans’ own claims of successorship to the Roman Empire. Yet here, a few Turkish Christian converts
had furnished the Ethiopian defenders with firearms of their own. Though Axum would fall with the rest of the
Tigray region after a difficult siege, with Gragn destroying the Church of Mary of Zion
in punishment for its stiff resistance, it did check his advance until 1533. The degree of direct Ottoman support Gragn
received in the earlier years of his campaign is rather unclear, highlighting another failing
of the Portuguese chroniclers that otherwise provide a remarkably detailed account of the
conflict. Nevertheless, the devastating impact of Ottoman-made
arms is undeniable in the rapid collapse of the Horn of Africa’s strongest power. Lebna Dengel was helpless to oppose Gragn,
and after the fall of the royal compound of Amba Geshen, spent the last years of his life
an effective fugitive within his own realm. Alongside the widespread fighting, famine
ravaged the highlands, cut off from crop tributes, and subject to frequent raiding. But all was not lost for the Solomonic kingdom,
and the following years would see a new force enter the fray, countering the Ottoman support. In 1535, with his own armies on the run, the
vanquished Emperor had sent an appeal for aid to the king of Portugal. Portuguese aid would not arrive within his
lifetime, but the call for help he sent may well have saved his dynasty. Not long after the ascension of his son Galawdewos,
400 Portuguese musketmen, along with numerous craftsmen and gunsmiths, arrived in Massawa
in February of 1541, where they were joined by small contingents of loyal Ethiopian warriors. Sebla Wangel, Queen Mother of Ethiopia, served
as their guide and attache as they marched out in hopes of joining their force to that
of Galawdewos. Pushing into the Tigray region, they won a
number of decisive battles, despite the greatly superior numbers of the Adalite garrisons. Gragn himself was injured during an utter
rout at Jarte, leading Christavao’s chronicler Miguel de Castanhoso to declare that with
a hundred horses to pursue with, the whole threat of Adal might have been ended. However, the rainy season slowed Christavao’s
advance into Tigray considerably, and a number of Adalite-held fortresses still stood between
him and Galawdewos. And while the local populace largely supported
Christavao as a fellow Christian, Adalite forces in the region remained an ever-present
threat. By 1542, the broader Ottoman-Portuguese war
was at its height. The defeat at Diu had been just four years
earlier, with the Ottoman fleet still at large as Sultan Suleiman searched for new ways to
undermine his Portuguese rivals. Thus, when Ahmad Gragn’s call for help brought
news of the Portuguese presence in Ethiopia to Suleiman’s attention, the Adal war became
a new front against a major rival. Determined not to allow Portuguese-backed
Ethiopia to gain a presence in the Gulf of Aden and block off the Red Sea again, and
hoping to stamp out the tenacious Christian kingdom entirely, Suleiman authorized a sizeable
expedition to enter the war on the Adalite side. From Zabid in Yemen, 900 Turkish and 2000
Arab soldiers embarked across the Red Sea to aid their African ally. When Christavao returned to Wofla in August
1542, fresh off of his victory seizing Amba Sel back from the Adalites to open the path
to Galawdewos, he was unwittingly walking into the jaws of the much larger Ottoman-Adalite
force. On August 28th, the Portuguese expedition
was shattered in the Battle of Wofla. Some 120 Portuguese managed to escape the
slaughter, fleeing with Sebla Wangel, while the rest either fell in battle or became prisoners
of the Sultan. Christavao was among the captured, though
he would not live long in Ahmad Gragn’s custody. After 13 years of war, with the Portuguese
defeated, Ahmad Gragn seems to have concluded at this point that his victory was complete. To an outside observer, this conclusion might
have seemed a safe one. But Gragn’s assumption that the remaining
Portuguese had simply scattered was incorrect. The 120 soldiers left of the expedition had
in fact retreated back through Amba Sel to join up with Galawdewos. As their excess supplies and powder had been
safely stored in Amba Sel when Christavao met with disaster in Wofla, they were able
to arm and train numerous Ethiopians to fight as musketmen. Several long months were spent in training
and preparation, with the first Ethiopian-made muskets and gunpowder being produced to further
narrow the advantage in arms and numbers held by the Adalites. Finally, on February 6th, 1543, Galawdewos
marched out for Lake Tana at the head of this new combined army. Lebna Dengel’s army had been unprepared
for gunpowder warfare, and Christavao’s had been small and unfamiliar with the landscape. But Galawedos’ combined the strengths of
both into something far greater. On February 21st, his army met the Adalites
in what would be the deciding battle of the war. Though outnumbered, they took Ahmad Gragn
and his forces by surprise, secure as the Adalites were in their victory. Accounts of the battle are unfortunately somewhat
questionable, most significantly the numbers of soldiers involved, with the chronicle claiming
9,000 Ethiopians against 15,000 Adalites. As the Ethiopian monarchy had only just a
few years earlier been effectively exiles, it seems unlikely they could have so rapidly
mobilized an army larger than the army Lebna Dengel had drawn from the whole of a unified
Ethiopia. And as the Adalites were not on active campaign
when they met Galawdewos at Lake Tana, well within what they considered safely subdued
territory, it is equally unlikely that Gragn would have had the entirety of his forces
mobilized - most of the warriors he had relied on during his conquests were pastoralist tribes,
which would have returned to their lands and herds with the plunder of the previous years’
victories. But even if the numbers are exaggerated, the
significance of the battle’s outcome can hardly be overstated. The Adalites fought bravely and competently
despite the disarray the Ethiopians had caught them in, buoyed up as they were by the skilled
Ottoman and Yemeni gunners and by their own years of hard-won experience. But the addition of gunnery to the Ethiopian
army would doom the Adalite campaign. Leading from near the front, Ahmad Gragn found
his position the target of concentrated volleys of musket fire. Soon enough, a bullet found its way through
the Adalite lines to the intended target of the barrage, killing the Imam and shattering
Adalite morale. Another tradition holds that their surprise
and disorganization allowed for a single Portuguese musketeer to rush a gap in their lines, reaching
Ahmad Gragn himself as he shouted orders over the deafening musket fire. Mere moments later, both fell, mortally wounded
- the musketeer having shot Gragn through the breast before being set upon by the surrounding
Adalite soldiers. This heroic account is not related by Castanhosa
and is likely a fabrication, but however the Imam’s death came to be, its impact on his
forces was the same. The past 14 years of war had been the product
of one man’s vision - the shock of his death broke the morale of the Adalites, and in a
remarkably close echo to the Portuguese flight after Christavao’s death, the remnants of
the Turkish and Yemeni force fled back to the coast of Adal with Gragn’s widow Bati
del Wambara. On the battlefield they left behind, Gragn’s
body was beheaded, with the grisly trophy displayed to all surrounding countryside to
spread word of the great conqueror’s passing. The war would drag on for five years further,
with Adal under the control of Gragn’s nephew Nur ibn Mujahid due to his son’s capture
by the Portuguese, though Gragn’s death had largely ended the existential threat Adal
posed to Ethiopia. Though Adal retained much of its strong army,
Nur failed to inspire the same dread or loyalty his uncle had, leading to a gradual Ethiopian
reclamation of the lost territories. Nur’s legacy would not be in the form of
conquest, but in the construction of Harer’s impressive and still-standing walls. Soon the war turned to stalemate and then
to peace between the two bloodied and exhausted powers. Adal retained dominion over the coast and
freedom from the tributes a stronger Ethiopia had levied on the coastal Muslim states in
ages past, making the war a victory from the Ottoman perspective. Though Ethiopia would retain its ties to Portugal,
it would not play any major role in combating the Ottomans in the Indian Ocean without proper
coastal access. But from the perspective of Adal, and especially
Ethiopia, the war had been catastrophically destructive. The following decades would see a new force
emerge to challenge both states in the form of migrating Oromo tribes, with the battered
and exhausted nations helpless to combat their advance - Nur’s great walls would be put
to the test not by the Ethiopians they had been built to ward off, but by the Oromo,
shortly before the Sultanate's collapse in 1577. The Ottoman defeat at Diu in 1538 might have
seemed like a significant blow to Ottoman ambitions in the Indian Ocean. However, despite the failure of Hadim Suleiman
Pasha, governor of Ottoman Egypt, to capture the port, the more extensive campaign of 1538
was welcomed in Constantinople as a huge success. On the military side, control of Yemen had
been won by the Ottoman fleet before it departed for Diu. But Hadim Suleiman, despite his age and infirmity,
was also waging a determined diplomatic campaign against Portugal - one that was expanding
the Ottoman reach far faster than ships or soldiers could. At the same time Hadim Suleiman was besieging
Diu, a fleet of freebooting corsairs - operating out of the Kerala region and led by Pate Marakkar
- began preying on Portuguese shipping in South India and the Sea of Ceylon, allied
with the Ottomans in a close echo to the Barbary Corsairs of North Africa. Even as far away as modern Indonesia, the
outreaches and political connections of 80-year-old Hadim Suleiman were winning bloodless victories
for the Ottoman Empire, with four ships bearing a tribute in spice from the Sultan of Aceh
arriving in the Red Sea in 1538 before returning to Aceh the following year loaded with Ottoman
troops under the command of Hamad Khan. Even in Gujarat, the defeat at Diu had not
been as complete as it might have seemed. The Ottoman merchant community in Gujarat
held enough political sway in the Sultan’s court to get their leader, Khadjar Safar,
appointed Governor of Surat - and enough wealth to organize fortifications and ships of their
own in preparation for another attack. In light of these successes, Hadim Suleiman
Pasha would be elevated to the position of Grand Vizier by Suleiman the Magnificent in
1541, heralding a period of intense Indian Ocean focus for the Ottoman Empire. On the Portuguese side, by 1541, the situation
was beginning to look rather dire. Portugal remained the dominant Indian Ocean
power in many respects - both Pate Marakkar’s fleet and Hamad Khan’s 1539 attempt to besiege
Portuguese Malacca had been defeated. But Ottoman influence remained strong in both
theatres - and as the Ottomans aimed mostly to protect independent Muslim merchants and
revitalize the long-blockaded Red Sea trade routes, they continued to find easy allies
against Portuguese dominance. Further complicating this period is that both
Sultan Suleiman and King John III of Portugal claimed a divine mandate to control the Indian
Ocean - Suleiman through his role as Caliph, and John through the Treaty of Tordesillas
and accompanying Papal Bull Inter Caetera. This religious aspect of the conflict made
compromise difficult, and even as the Portuguese position grew weaker, John remained unwilling
to make significant concessions in exchange for peace. Instead, after being on the defensive throughout
the past years, the Portuguese decided to put their fleet to the test in a major counterattack
targeting the Ottoman shipyards of Suez. In January of 1541, the Governor of Portuguese
India, Estevao da Gama - son of legendary explorer Vasco da Gama - sailed for the Red
Sea with a fleet of 40 ships and 2300 soldiers. The expedition was facing major problems before
it had even departed, however. Khadjar Safar, in Surat, had caught wind of
the attack and sent the Ottomans advance warning. The fleet would also find itself plagued with
massive supply issues, becoming apparent as they reached their first destination of Massawa. The intention had been to make only a short
stop in Massawa, from which Estevao’s younger brother Christovao and his 400 musketeers
could disembark while the fleet resupplied before continuing on to Suez. But with the Ethiopian-Adal war raging and
famine ravaging the Horn of Africa, the Ethiopians in Massawa were unable to provide nearly enough
food or supplies to last the large fleet to Suez. This meant that nearly half of the ships and
soldiers intended for the Suez assault were forced to stay behind in Massawa, living off
the meager charity the subjects of Galawdewos could provide. In addition, the Portuguese were largely unfamiliar
with the Red Sea, having previously simply blockaded it at the Strait of Aden, and the
poor winds caused the remainder of Estevao’s ships to make slow progress. The thirsty and dwindling fleet was forced
to divide twice into ever-smaller task forces, raiding Suakin and several villages along
the Arabian coast while heat and lack of water took a sharp toll. By the end of March, only 16 small oared ships
and 250 men remained with Estevao, the rest of the fleet having turned back to Massawa
- this paltry force arrived at Suez in late April to find it well-reinforced with a strong
battery of shore guns and 2,000 Sipahi cavalry. After a short exchange of fire, the hopelessness
of the Portuguese situation became clear, and the retreat was called. Another excruciating month would pass before
Estevao made it back to Massawa, where he found that mutiny had wracked the fleet as
it lay in port, with over one hundred soldiers deserting only to be set upon and killed by
tribesmen under Ahmed Gragn’s banner. More ships and men were lost to storms on
the return to Goa - a humiliating end to the largest-scale offensive the Portuguese had
ever attempted in the Indian Ocean. In the aftermath of this catastrophic defeat,
the Portuguese were forced to watch as Ottoman merchants ventured out ever further and Hadim
Suleiman won ever more allies, with Ottoman merchants regularly trading as far South as
the Swahili coast by 1544. The greatest threat to the now-dominant Ottoman
Empire in the coming years would not come from further Portuguese offensives, but from
factionalism. Despite his successes in the Indian Ocean,
Hadim Suleiman Pasha was removed from his position as Grand Vizier in 1544 after accusations
of embezzlement and died later the same year. In his place rose Rustem Pasha, the Sultan’s
son-in-law and a major rival of both Hadim Suleiman and his protege, Daud Pasha, who
had taken over as governor of Egypt. Rustem’s paranoia and distrust of Daud - who
had once spread a false rumour that Rustem suffered from syphilis while the two men had
been competing for the hand of the Sultan’s daughter - would lead to several heavy-handed
attempts to weaken his rivals in the Indian ocean provinces, with often disastrous results. The first example of Rustem’s distaste for
Indian Ocean matters would be in 1546 when Khadjar Safar, and Sultan Mahmud of Gujarat
launched a second attack on Diu. This assault had been years in the preparation
and had every possibility of success - but despite this, Rustem refused to send any direct
Ottoman support for the siege. The governor of Zebid, being a relative of
Khadjar Safar’s, did send a small detachment of Janissaries and artillery to support the
Gujarati effort - but compared to the huge expedition Hadim Suleiman had taken to Diu
in 1538, it was clear little support would be coming from Rustem Pasha or the Ottoman
central government. The Gujarati force was powerful in its own
right though, and the second defence of Diu stretched the Portuguese almost to the breaking
point, as all available ships and soldiers were brought to reinforce the vital fortress. The officer in charge of the Gujarati center,
a Turk by the name of Safi Agha who had previously overseen the construction of Surat’s walls,
built a set of stone ramparts facing the fortress walls from which the Gujarati and Ottoman
cannons began firing in June 1546. The accurate return fire from the defenders
would neutralize much of the artillery, however, and Safi Agha was himself killed by falling
debris as Portuguese cannons battered the ramparts. In August another officer, Jahangir Khan,
would deal severe damage to the fort through the use of sappers and cause great casualties
to the Portuguese defenders within. But the overall commander of the Gujarati
army, Burhan ul-Mulk, failed to capitalize on the breach in the fort’s walls, later
being accused of cowardice by Arab chronicler Zafar ul Walih. An attempted night attack on the damaged fortifications
by another Turk, Jhujhar Khan, was discovered and repulsed by the Portuguese with Jhujhar
being struck in the temple by a bullet and falling from the walls to his death. By the time the Portuguese viceroy arrived
with further reinforcements to break the siege in November, both sides had taken severe casualties
in the long months of bombardment and assaults, yet the fort still held firm. Khadar Safar had been among the fallen, and
his community of Ottoman merchants and expatriates had borne the brunt of the fighting, suffering
the most severe casualties and largest expenses - largely ending their existence as a major
political power within Gujarat. Much like in the first siege of Diu, the defeat
of Ottoman allies at Diu was partially offset by opportunistic gains elsewhere - while the
full strength of Portuguese India was devoted to defending Diu’s walls, Ottoman governors
and allies in Arabia sacked Muscat, captured the Portuguese-allied port of Qishn, and ousted
a rebellious tribal governor in Basra to bring the crucial province under direct Ottoman
control. But Rustem Pasha’s abandonment of Hadim
Suleiman’s network of alliances had cost the Ottomans a unique opportunity to oust
the Portuguese from India, and his policies would create further disasters in the coming
years. The first of these would be the appointment
of Uveys Pasha as governor of Ottoman Yemen in 1547. Uveys was a young and inexperienced officer,
chosen for his personal loyalty to Rustem rather than talent. Within a year of his taking office, the whole
of Yemen had risen up in revolt against the Ottomans, with local leaders inviting the
Portuguese in to aid their rebellion and Uveys Pasha being assassinated. This one rebellion came very close to undoing
the Ottoman’s gains of the previous decades, and only quick action on the part of Daud
Pasha - circumventing the chain of command and bypassing Rustem - allowed the rebellion
to be crushed before the Portuguese could intervene. After this debacle, Rustem made no further
interventions in the Indian Ocean for several years, allowing relative peace to exist between
the Ottomans and Portuguese from 1547 until 1552. But in 1552, Rustem would be back to meddling
in full force, launching a massive but poorly-conceived offensive against the Portuguese island stronghold
of Hormuz. Before the expedition had even been launched,
several problems were obvious. For one, the five years of peace had been
very profitable for the Ottomans, as numerous Portuguese merchants had begun to trade illicitly
with the Ottomans in Basra rather than make the far longer journey around Africa. Despite the official ban on this trade, even
the captain of Portuguese Hormuz seems to have had commercial contacts in Basra, demonstrating
that relations were warming up between local Ottoman and Portuguese representatives even
as the two empires remained hostile. A direct attack on Hormuz would shatter a
status quo that had been very much in the Ottomans’ favour. Another problem was the command structure
of the great fleet Rustem Pasha was assembling in Basra - most of the captains and admirals
in charge were Rustem’s loyalists from the Mediterranean navy, with little or no experience
in the Indian Ocean. In overall command was Piri Reis, a legendary
admiral, and explorer in his own right, but now nearly 90 years old and reluctant to return
to service. The last problem was a heavily armed Portuguese
warship that had arrived in Hormuz, purely by chance, just ahead of the Ottoman fleet
in April 1552. Having lost a large portion of their munitions
in a shipwreck prior to making landfall, the Ottoman force pillaged the surrounding city
but found themselves unable to crack the fort’s defenses, bolstered as they were by the warship’s
crew and guns. At this failure, Piri Reis quickly lost his
nerve and brought the fleet back to Basra, then abandoned his command to flee back to
Suez with his plunder. Upon his return, the storied admiral would
be executed for abandoning his post, while the fleet lay leaderless and trapped by a
Portuguese blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. A first attempt to break this blockade by
Murad Beg came close to succeeding, before being foiled by changing winds - a second
attempt by Seydi Ali Reis, another Mediterranean admiral without any Indian Ocean experience,
saw the Ottoman fleet ambushed near Muscat and destroyed almost entirely. The defeated Seydi Ali Reis managed to escape,
eventually taking refuge with the Ottoman merchants of Gujarat after being cut off from
returning to Suez, but few others were so lucky. This string of naval defeats was a far greater
disaster than any the Ottomans had yet faced in the Indian Ocean, and a major humiliation
for Rustem Pasha, who was removed from his position as Grand Vizier later the same year. In his place arose first Semiz Ali Pasha,
and then in 1565 the famous Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, who would oversee the last years of
the Ottoman-Portuguese War and serve as Grand Vizier for three Sultans. There would be no further confrontations on
the scale of Diu or Hormuz after Rustem Pasha’s reign - a smaller, failed attempt to capture
Bahrain was made in 1559, and support was given to an Acehnese assault on Malacca in
1568, but the Ottomans would not assemble another fleet of sufficient size to challenge
the Portuguese in an open naval confrontation. This is not to suggest the Ottomans had been
defeated or given up on their Indian Ocean ambitions, however. Having learned from the mistakes of Rustem
Pasha, Semiz Ali Pasha placed the Indian Ocean fleet under the command of Sefer Reis, an
incredibly successful corsair with years of experience raiding Portuguese shipping in
India. Under Sefer Reis, the war took on a very different
shape - large, expensive Portuguese expeditions aimed at capturing Sefer would fail year after
year, unable to corner the wily corsair. Smaller expeditions or poorly-defended merchant
ships would be set upon like lightning and captured, dragged back to Sefer’s home base
of Mocha. As the years dragged on, the costs of continuing
the war continued to mount for the beleaguered Portuguese, while more and more of the lucrative
Indian Ocean trade flowed into Ottoman ports - the Ottomans would see success by land as
well, landing a strong force in Massawa under Ozdemir Pasha in 1556 and conquering modern
Eritrea. Meanwhile, independent merchants and corsairs
from Arabia to Siam to Sumatra were joining the Ottoman cause, forcing the Portuguese
to fight a decentralized guerilla war across the extent of their vast naval empire. One of the most crucial fronts of this war
was northern Africa, where Morocco had served as the seat of several powerful empires over
the centuries, notably controlling much of modern-day Spain during the reigns of the
Almoravids and Almohads, stalling and at times pushing back the ongoing Reconquista. By the 16th century, these glory days were
past - the Christian monarchies of Iberia not only ending Moorish rule in Iberia but
taking control of several strategic ports in North Africa. But while the Saadi Sultanate of Morocco may
not have compared to the power of the Almohads, Morocco remained an important frontier, with
Portugal, Castile and the Ottomans each seeking to dominate Morocco through force or diplomacy. The turning point in this struggle would be
1557. Sultan Mohammed al-Sheik of Morocco had chosen
to align himself with Castile, and was in the process of negotiating an alliance against
the Ottomans - but before he could finalize such an alliance, he was assassinated on the
orders of the Beylerbey of Algeria, Hasan Pasha. His eldest son Abdallah al-Ghalib succeeded
as Sultan, while his three younger sons fled Morocco to start lives in exile, knowing their
brother would likely have them executed to protect his new throne should they remain
in their homeland. Their exile would be a long one, with none
of the three setting foot in Morocco again for a full 17 years. But this exile was not a wasted one, with
the three exile princes being well-received in Algeria, currying favour with the man who
had ordered their father’s murder and establishing strong ties with the Ottoman Empire. The eldest of the three, Abd al-Mu’min,
even rose to become governor of Tlemcen. He would be assassinated there in 1571, not
living to return to Morocco. But his surviving siblings Abd al-Malik and
Ahmad al-Mansur would continue to bide their time in Algeria, learning the techniques of
gunpowder warfare from Ottoman generals. When Abdallah al-Ghalib died in 1574, passing
the throne to his son Abu Abdallah Mohammed despite Abd al-Malik being the legitimate
heir under Saadi succession law, the two brothers marched into Morocco with an Ottoman force
10,000 strong. After a two-year struggle, Abd al-Malik deposed
his untested nephew, seizing the throne and sending Abu Abdallah into exile in Portugal. Now greatly indebted to his Ottoman benefactors,
Abd al-Malik would bring Morocco into their sphere of influence in a number of ways during
the early years of his reign. Though he refused to become an Ottoman vassal,
or make Morocco a Regency in the manner of Algeria, he did recognize the new Sultan Murad
III as his Caliph and paid a sizable tribute to have the victorious Ottoman forces withdraw
after the war’s end. This caused great concern in Portugal, which
had been fighting for decades to resist Ottoman expansion in the Indian Ocean only to see
their influence spread to Portugal’s very doorstep. Thus, when Abu Abdallah appealed to King Sebastian
in reclaiming the throne from his uncle, promising to convert to Christianity and rule as an
ally of Portugal, Sebastian was quick to accept. With the full support of the merchants and
nobility of Portugal - who feared an Ottoman-aligned Morocco would threaten Portugal’s coasts
and its commerce with Brazil - Sebastian sent out a call to Crusade, assembling a great
army of mercenaries, volunteers, and soldiers of Portugal. Bolstered by Moors loyal to Abu Abdallah,
the crusaders invaded Morocco in 1568 with the aim of deposing Abd al-Malik. Abd al-Malik had not been idle in his short
years of rule, though, and had raised a powerful army trained in Ottoman style. When he received word of this new challenge
to his rule, he mobilized his forces, meeting Sebastian’s army south of where the el-Makhazine
river feeds into the Loukkos. With the Loukkos to their left and the foothills
of the Rif mountains to their right, the Moroccan army had chosen a location that would give
them a significant advantage over the approaching army of King Sebastian and Abu Abdallah. Once the Portuguese and the various mercenaries,
allies and volunteers that accompanied them crossed the river from the North, they found
themselves without any easy means of retreat, hemmed in by water and mountains on three
sides and by the Sultan’s army on the fourth. The Moroccans, in contrast, had a clear line
of retreat south-east to the nearby city Ksar el-Kebir should the Portuguese prove victorious. Abd al-Malik also had the advantage of numbers
on his side, with his well-trained core army bolstered by Berber mercenary cavalry, refugee
Moors driven from Iberia, and a contingent of allied troops from Ottoman Algeria swelling
his ranks to over 60,000. Arrayed in two main lines, with a reserve
force held behind the center and forces of cavalry on the flanks, Abd al-Malik’s army
arrayed in a broad formation across the wide plain in the hopes of enveloping and encircling
the smaller Portuguese force. Additional units of cavalry under his younger
brother Ahmad al-Mansur’s command were sequestered in the nearby mountains, hidden from view
of the approaching enemy. The Portuguese force was greatly outnumbered,
but the situation was not so bleak as it might have seemed, and Sebastian’s diverse army
held several advantages of its own. Numbering 23,000 in total, approximately half
of this force were Portuguese regulars, bolstered by over 5,000 well-experienced volunteers
and mercenaries from Germany, France and Castile as well as 6,000 Moroccans loyal to Abu Abdallah. Compared to this professional force under
Sebastian, many of the soldiers in Abd al-Malik’s army, whether called up from the local townspeople
or from among the exiled Moorish communities, were hastily-equipped civilians. The Crusader army was even better equipped
than Abd al-Malik’s regular army, with more cannons to bring to bear than the larger Moroccan-Algerian
force could muster. The mercenary captain Thomas Stukley, an exiled
English Catholic rebel and veteran of Lepanto, commanded the mercenaries in the center as
the Portuguese army drew up in a square formation bristling with pikes, cannons and muskets. On both sides, the high stakes were clear,
with the three monarchs on the field inspiring their loyal supporters to fight bravely and
zealously in the coming battle. The battle was opened with an exchange of
cannon fire as the Moroccans advanced, an exchange that played to the strengths of the
better-equipped Portuguese army. Unfortunately for the Portuguese, the relatively
small number of cannons on the battlefield - with a mere 40 in Portuguese hands against
34 Moroccan - made this cannon barrage more of a warmup than a decisive confrontation. Though the bombardment did sow some confusion
among the less-experienced units in Abd al-Malik’s army, neither army was significantly damaged
in the opening salvoes, and it would not be long before the two armies became embroiled
in a general melee. There are certain conflicting versions of
the battle itself. The Battle of Alcazar, an epic play by George
Peele published in England 16 years later, provides one fairly contemporary account and
has done much to shape the popular memory of the pivotal battle. However, the play raises the Englishman Thomas
Stukley to be the narrative’s central figure and greatly dramatizes certain aspects of
the battle, throwing some of its claims into doubt. Central to its account of the battle is a
charge by the Duke of Aveiro, George of Lencastre, with a retinue of men at arms against the
Moroccan center that nearly succeeds in routing the vast army of Abd al-Malik. This is a rather unlikely scenario, given
the far greater Moroccan numbers and the strength of Abd al-Malik’s center, made up of professional
soldiers and strengthened by units of reserves directly behind. But while certain elements in Peele’s account
such as the duke’s charge are clearly exaggerated, the heavy casualties suffered by both armies
demonstrate that the battle was fiercely contested one, and the tenacious defence Peele attributes
to the Crusader army was no mere fabrication. Both George of Lecastre and King Sebastian
led ferocious charges against their numerically superior foes, while on the Moroccan side,
despite suffering from a severe fever following years of illness and having been carried to
the battle in a litter, the ailing Sultan Abd al-Malik rode on horseback to keep up
the morale of his forces. Unfortunately for Sebastian and Abu Abdallah,
the decision to meet Abd al-Malik in open battle rather than taking defensive positions
in the river’s confluence allowed the Moroccans to take full advantage of their greater numbers,
enveloping the Portuguese square formation with their broad lines of advancing infantry. Ahmad al-Mansur’s cavalry completed the
encirclement and harried those in the Crusader army that attempted to escape the trap, whether
to take up better positions or simply to flee from what was becoming a slaughter. Surrounded and outnumbered, the mercenaries
and Abu Abdallah’s Moors were the first to break ranks and flee, only to find themselves
trapped by the surging rivers and run down by Berber cavalry. Behind them, the Portuguese square wavered
and finally crumbled, weakened by the desertions and overrun by the enemy numbers. Each of the three monarchs in the battle would
perish in different ways, along with 8,000 in the Crusader army and 7,000 of Abd al-Malik’s
Moroccans, leading the battle to be referred to as the Battle of Three Kings - King Sebastian
perished leading a doomed charge, Abu Abdallah drowned attempting to cross the swollen Loukkos
river to escape, and the sickly Abd al-Malik succumbed to the exertion of a day’s riding. His death was kept a secret by Ahmad al-Mansur
until the battle had ended in victory, with the vast majority of the surviving Crusaders
being captured and sold either for ransom or into slavery. The battle was nothing short of a national
crisis for Portugal, with the king and most of the nation’s nobility slaughtered in
a single day. In the succession conflict that followed,
a Castilian army would invade the nation, ousting claimants from Sebastian’s House
of Aviz to bring Portugal into a dynastic union under the House of Habsburg. Yet while the Moroccan victory had been decisive
and total, the Battle of Alcacer Quibir was also something of a defeat for the Ottoman
Empire. Abd al-Malik had been a loyal Ottoman ally,
but Ahmad al-Mansur, who succeeded him, would prove fiercely independent, resisting all
attempts to force Morocco into subservience - whether by Portugal, Castile or his former
patrons the Ottomans. In the coming years, he would oversee a brief
golden age for Morocco, building great works across the nation and marching an army across
the Sahara to conquer the great Songhai Empire of West Africa. It is difficult to summarize the Ottoman-Portuguese
conflict, especially in the light of the latter being annexed by Habsburg Spain. Given the massive discrepancy in size and
resources between the two powers, Portugal’s dogged defense is quite remarkable - facing
down one of the world’s greatest empires, surrounded by its allies and tributaries,
the small Iberian kingdom had waged decades of unceasing warfare and scored decisive victories
in many of the war’s largest confrontations. But the accomplishments of the Ottomans were
remarkable in their own right. When they had taken over from the Mamluks,
the Portuguese had ruled unopposed in the Indian Ocean, with the Red Sea blockaded and
the Egyptian spice trade all but strangled. Just a few decades later, the Ottomans controlled
the dominant share of the Indian trade, while the Caliphate - a title that had been all
but meaningless since the Mongol sack of Baghdad - was again seen as a source of prestige and
authority for the Ottomans by Muslims across much of the Indian Ocean world. Though the Dutch and English would become
dominant in the Indian Ocean in later centuries, at the expense of Portuguese and Ottomans
alike, the legacy and prestige of these victories would be remarkably long-lasting - more than
three hundred years later, English officers serving with Indian soldiers in the First
World War would report fears of mutiny, writing of the great respect their Muslim soldiers
held for the Ottoman Sultan. More videos on the colonial conflicts are
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volta d. sebastiao
Já vi o video é muito bom