Quelques faits intéressants à propos de la guerre de Course en Méditerranée au 16e siècle. C'est extrait du livre
Privateering: An Undeclared War
A few words about piracy and privateering may be needed here to give insight into the complex 16th century Mediterranean world, where corsair campaigns--prizes and cargoes--and tacit warfare ruled the seas.
According to F. Braudel, between 1574 and 1580 privateering functioned as a substitute for undeclared war, soon coming to dominate the now less spectacular history of the Mediterranean. The new capitals of warfare were no longer Constantinople, Madrid, and Messina, but Algiers, Valletta, Leghorn and Pisa. Distinguishing piracy and pirates from privateering and privateers, or corsairs, Braudel advances that “privateering is legitimate war, authorized either by a formal declaration of war or by letters of marque, passports, commissions, or instructions”.
In fact, the terms "pirate" and "piracy" did not exist before the 16th century. As opposed to the pirates, who launched operations on their own, robbing those who came into their view, the privateers were backed by letters or passports from a particular government or state, although they sailed at their own risk and gain. “The corsair is properly the individual that, as a private person (authorized with letters or passports from his government), commands an armed vessel, and runs the seas against the enemies of his country, in times of war, at his own risk and gain.” On the contrary, the pirates are “a group of outlaws with no other law than the appetites, united only to rob the seas, without a flag or with a false flag, without respect for peace or truce, without papers”. As Braudel has demonstrated, in the 16th century there was already a form of international law with its own protocols and regulations: the Islamic and Christian states exchanged ambassadors, signed treaties, and often complied with their clauses. Nevertheless, because the entire Mediterranean was an arena of continuous conflict between two bordering and warring civilizations, war was the only abiding reality, one that explained and justified piracy. Privateering--an ancient form of piracy common to the Mediterranean, with its own customs, agreements, and negotiations--was not the exclusive realm of any group or seaport: It was endemic. All--from the most wretched to the most powerful, rich and poor alike--were caught up in a web of operations cast over the whole sea, suggests Braudel. The notorious fortune of Algiers tends to blind Western historians to the rest of corsair activity in the Mare Nostrum. Godfrey Fisher’s classic book Barbary Legend illustrates the chauvinism of certain notions that ascribe the hunting of men, robberies, tortures, and atrocious cruelties to the Algerian corsairs only. Both Braudel and Fisher convincingly show that the misery and horror of these early modern practices were widespread throughout the Mediterranean.
In the Mediterranean, the ponentini--as Western corsairs were called in the waters of the Levant in early modern times--robbed Turks and Christians alike, seizing Venetian or French vessels or whatever came their way. French and Venetian corsairs not only attacked and looted Christian ships but also assaulted the coasts of Naples, Genoa, and Sicily, as well as other islands. In 1593, Prince Doria, the commander of Philip II’s navy, seized and captured a French ship, the Jehan Baptiste, carrying all the necessary certificates and passes issued by the Spanish representative in Nantes, only to sell her cargo and clap her crew in irons. And Sancho de Leiva, the renowned commander of many fleets under Philip II--the same captain of the flotilla that transported Cervantes when he was captured--proposed, in a letter dated November 20, 1563, to sail with a few Sicilian galleys to the Barbary coast to carry prisoners for the row-benches. A few years later the Marquis of Santa Cruz, commander of Philip II’s Armada, went on a “patrolling expedition” along the Tunisian coast, a mission that was nothing less than a pirate raid against the destitute Kerkennah Islands. In Braudel’s words, piracy was simply “another form of aggression, preying on men, ships, towns, villages, flocks.” It meant “eating the food of others in order to remain strong”.
16th century privateering was usually instigated by a city acting on its own authority. For instance, the celebrated centers of corsair activity Dieppe and La Rochelle, in the Atlantic, launched their ships even into the Mediterranean. The famous Knights of St. John of Jerusalem from the Order of Malta--established by Charles V on this island in 1530, after the fall of Rhodes to the Turks--cruised the Mediterranean in their powerful galleons, harassing Levantine shipping and the Maghribi ports and capturing an infinite number of slaves and riches that they sold at Valletta. Their objective was to board and capture Muslim ships and bring them back to sell as prizes: The captives were either held for ransom or sold as galley slaves to the Maltese or other European governments. Under the protection of the order’s navy, Maltese privateering came to form a kind of industry that was eventually organized along business lines and made to fit into a moral, social, and economic system. These corsair activities were represented as a heroic fight led against the enemies of the Christian faith. Christian privateers often operated in very small ships, brigantines, frigates, and sometimes even the tiniest fishing vessels, in meager operations that have not been fully recorded by historians. Among the stories recounted in his Diálogo de los mártires de Argel, Antonio de Sosa depicts the exploits of Valencian corsair Juan Cañete, master of a brigantine with fourteen oar-benches, based at Majorca. An assiduous hunter of the Barbary coast, Cañete was famous for entering the very gates of Algiers during the night and capturing people sleeping under the city walls. In the spring of 1550, venturing again into the port, Cañete attempted to set fire to the poorly guarded Algerian galleys. He was caught and, nine years later, executed in the baños. A similar account illustrates the way in which early modern European governments gave their backing to privateers. Another corsair from Valencia, Juan Gasco, put himself under the protection of the king of Spain and offered to launch corsair and warring expeditions against Algiers. In 1567, he revived Cañete’s plan, successfully setting fire to a few ships in the port of Algiers. Gasco was later captured on the high seas by algerian raïs Dalí Mamí, Cervantes’s future master, who found on him letters of marque signed by Philip II. The documents not only authorized Gasco to go on privateering expeditions but also requested the viceroys of Valencia and Majorca to assist the corsair in his excursions. Brought back to Algiers, Gasco was tortured and hung by the heel of the foot from a butcher’s hook with the letters of marque endorsed by Philip II. Although he was rescued by Dalí Mamí and other corsair captains who argued that, as a corsair, Gasco was subject to the laws of war, which excused his actions, he was finally impaled by certain Moriscos who asked the Algerian ruler for his head.
The boldest Christian corsairs in the middle of the 16th century were the Knights of St. John of the Order of Malta, led by Jean de la Valette between 1557 and 1568, and by the famous Chevalier Romegas, who would become the general of the order’s galleys in the 1570s. Second place went to the Florentines, who soon challenged the supremacy of the Knights of St. John. Besides Valletta, Leghorn, and Pisa, there were other famous privateering centers on the Christian side, such as Naples, Messina, Palermo and Trapani, Malta, Palma de Majorca, Almería, Valencia, and Fumel. Three cities, however, stood out among those dedicated to corsair activity: Valletta, founded by the Knights of Malta in 1566 ; Leghorn, refounded by Cosimo de Medici ; and finally, above all, the astonishing city of Algiers, which functioned as the apotheosis of privateering. This fascinating North African city would leave its indelible mark on Cervantes.
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