Chapter X (3)

The combat soon became too general for the different divisions of the two armaments to preserve their respective positions. Every portion of the hostile fleets was engaged; but the most desperate fight was that between the galleys of the rival generals, Ali Pasha and Don John of Austria. Both commanders fought in the thickest of the fray, regardless of their rank, and with the bold temerity of simple men-at-arms. By the side of the prince’s galley were those of Colonna and Sebastian Veniero; and in them, and in the other vessels that surrounded them, were assembled the very flower of the Christian host. Here for the most part were the noble French and Roman volunteers; hardly a great house of Italy but had its representative among the combatants: two of the Colonnas; Paul Orsini, the chief of his name, with his brothers, Horace and Virginius; Antonio Carrafa, Michel Bonelli, and Paul Ghislieri, nephews of the Pope; and Farnese, prince of Parma, who played a very hero’s part in the flag-ship of the Genoese republic. The battle in the centre, led on by such men, and met with equal valour and determination on the part of their adversaries, lasted more than two hours. Already had the Christians made two gallant attempts to board the vessel of the pasha, and each time they were driven back with loss so soon as they reached his decks. The burning midday-sun added to the heat of the engagement, and the thirst of the soldiers was almost intolerable. The decks were heaped with dead, and those still living were covered with wounds, and well-nigh exhausted from loss of blood, and still they maintained the conflict with unabated courage. At length the signal was given for a third charge. It was obeyed with an impetuosity nothing could resist; and whilst Ali Pasha vainly strove, as before, to drive back his desperate assailants, a shot from an arquebuse struck him in the forehead. Staggering from his wound, he fell, and his head was instantly cut off by a blow from one of the galley-slaves, and thrown into the sea. The event of the battle after this was no longer doubtful; Don John with his own hands pulled down the Turkish flag, and shouted, “Victory!” whilst Santa Cruz, profiting by the confusion, pushed forward with the reserve, and completed the discomfiture of the foe. At this critical moment the corsair Ouloudj Ali, seeing that the whole Turkish centre was broken, and the day irretrievably lost, hoisted all sail, and with forty galleys, the only vessels that escaped out of that bloody battle, passed safely through the midst of the Christian fleet.

The Turks struggled long and desperately before they finally gave way. It was four in the afternoon ere the fight was over; and the lowering sky betokened the gathering of a tempest. The remains of the Turkish fleet fled in all directions, pursued, though with difficulty, by the allies, whose wearied rowers could scarcely hold the oars; whilst their numbers were so thinned by the slaughter, that it was as much as the commanders could do to find crews for their vessels. Crippled as the Christians were, however, the infidels were seized with panic, and ran their vessels madly against the shore of Lepanto. In their terrified efforts to land, many were drowned; whilst the galleys were broken by the waves, or fell an easy prey to the conquerors. The whole sea for miles presented most terrible tokens of the battle; those clear waters, on which the morning sun had shone so brightly, were now dark and discoloured by human blood. Headless corpses and the fragments of many a wreck floated about in strange confusion; while the storm, which every moment raged in wilder fury, added to the horror of the scene, lit up as the night advanced by the flames from the burning galleys, many of which were found too much disabled to be of any use to their captors. Twelve[64] of those belonging to the allies were destroyed; but the extent of their victory may be estimated by the fact that eighty vessels belonging to the Turks were sunk, whilst 130 remained in the hands of the Christians. The pasha’s galley, which was among those taken, was a vessel of surpassing beauty. The deck, says Knolles, was of walnut-wood, dark as ebony, “checkered and wrought marvellously fine with divers lively colours and variety of histories;” and her cabin glittered with ornaments of gold, rich hangings, and precious gems.[65] The enemy’s slain amounted to 30,000 men; and 15,000 of the Christian slaves who had been compelled to work the Ottoman galleys were liberated. Yet the victory, complete as it was, was dearly bought; the loss of the allies was reckoned at about 8000 men; and their ships, riddled with balls, and many of them dismasted, presented a striking contrast to the gay and gallant trim in which but a few days previously they had left the harbour of Messina.

The conduct of Don John of Austria after the battle justifies us in ranking him among the true heroes of chivalry. He had been foremost in the day’s conflict, where he had been seen, sword in hand, wherever the danger was greatest and the blows hardest. He was now equally conspicuous for his care of the wounded, his generosity towards his prisoners, and his frank and noble recognition of the services of a rival. Sebastian Veniero, the disgraced leader of the Venetian forces, had distinguished himself in the fight by a valour that had made his gray hairs the centre round which the most gallant of the young volunteers of France and Italy had rallied during that eventful day. The prince sent for him as soon as the confusion of the victory had subsided, and (adds Rosell in his history of the battle), “to show him that he harboured no resentment for past offences, he advanced to meet him as far as the ladder of his galley, embraced him affectionately, and, calling him _his father_, extolled, as was just, his great valour, and could not finish what he would have said for the sobs and tears that choked his utterance. The poor old man, who did not expect such a reception, wept also, and so did all who witnessed the scene.” Whilst this interview was taking place, the two sons of Ali Pasha were brought prisoners into the prince’s presence. “It was a piteous sight,” says the same historian, “to see the tears they shed on finding themselves at once prisoners and orphans.” But they met with a friend and comforter in their generous captor; he embraced them, and expressed the tenderest sympathy for their misfortunes. The delicacy of his kindness showed itself in more than words; he treated them rather as his guests than as captives, lodging them in one of his own cabins, and even ordering Turkish clothes to be provided for them at his expense, that they might not be pained by being obliged to adopt the European costume. Neither was he less forward in returning thanks to God for the victory granted to his arms than he had been in commending to Him the event of the day’s conflict. Thus the night closed: the vessels cast anchor amid the wreck of battle, and the wearied combatants took a short and necessary repose. So soon as day again broke, the sails were hoisted, and, securing their prizes, they proceeded to the port of Petala, to repair their damages and provide for the necessities of the wounded.

Such was the celebrated battle of Lepanto, whose results were in one way insignificant, owing to the losses incurred by the Christian allies, and the limitation put on the power of Don John by the cautious policy of the Spanish king. Yet we should be wrong to estimate the worth of any victory by the amount of its territorial conquests, or its lists of killed and wounded. The moral effects of the day of Lepanto are beyond calculation: it was the turning point in the history of the Ottoman Turks; from it may be dated the decline of their dominion; for though indeed, during the following century, the terror of Europe was still constantly excited by their attacks on the frontier of the empire, yet their naval power was never again formidable, and the long prestige of continual success was broken.[66] Moreover, whilst it is impossible to deny that the advantages of the victory were never followed up, and that, in consequence of the desertion of the Venetians, the league itself was soon dissolved; yet it is also certain that the further progress of the Ottomans westward was checked from the hour of their defeat; whereas every campaign during preceding years had witnessed their gradual advance.

It only remains for us to speak of the manner in which the news of the success of the Christian arms was received by those who were so anxiously awaiting the result of the expedition at the courts of Rome and Madrid. Pius V., who may be considered as the originator of the whole enterprise, had, from the first departure of the fleet, ordered continual fasts and prayers for its success. On the memorable 7th of October on which the battle took place, and which fell that year on a Sunday, all the confraternities of the Rosary had assembled in the Dominican church of the Minerva to offer their devotions for victory under the intercession of Mary. All Rome was in prayer that day, and her prayer was the _Ave Maria_. The Pope himself had attended the procession; and on returning to the Vatican after the conclusion of the ceremony, he was walking to and fro through the long suites of rooms in the pontifical palace, in conversation with some of the cardinals and Baffotti, the treasurer, on various matters of business. Suddenly he stopped as if listening to a distant sound, then, leaving his companions, he approached one of the windows, and threw it open; whilst those who watched his movements observed that his eyes were raised to heaven with the expression of one in ecstasy. They themselves also listened, but were unable to catch the faintest sound that could account for his singular behaviour; and whilst they gazed at one another in astonishment, unable to comprehend the scene, Pius (says his biographer Maffei), “whose eyes had been fixed upwards for a good space, shutting the window again, and seemingly full of great things, turned graciously to the treasurer, and said, ‘This is no time for business; let us go and give God thanks, for our fleet has fought with the Turks, and in this very hour has conquered.’ He knelt down as he spoke, and gave thanks to God with great fervour; then taking a pen, he wrote down the day and the hour: it was the decisive moment at which the battle had turned in favour of the Christians.”

The actual intelligence of the victory did not reach Rome until the 21st of October, owing to contrary winds which delayed the couriers of Colonna; so that the first news was brought by a messenger from the republic of Venice. It was night when he arrived; but when word was brought to the holy father of the happy realisation of his hopes and of the Divine assurance he had received, he sprang from his bed, and bursting into tears, exclaimed, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John;” then, hurrying to his private chapel, he summoned all his attendants and officers to meet him there, to offer their thanksgivings for the great event. A more solemn function was performed on the following morning in the Basilica of the Apostles, and none of those who had joined in the previous and reiterated prayers by which the patronage of Mary had been invoked on the Christian arms, failed to ascribe the success which had been granted, to the power of her intercession, especially as invoked in the holy devotion of the Rosary, under whose banner, as it were, the battle had been fought and won. The emotion displayed by St. Pius was in accordance with the simplicity and tenderness of his character. Not less characteristic, nor less religious, though possibly less calculated to engage the sympathy of our readers, was the calmness with which the same intelligence was received by Philip of Spain. He was at Vespers when the news was brought him, and heard it without the smallest manifestation of joy or surprise. When the office was concluded, he desired the _Te Deum_ to be sung; and on the following day proceeded to Madrid, to be present at a solemn Mass offered in thanksgiving for the victory. An entire and rigid self-command was at once the virtue and the cause of the unpopularity of this singular man. As a virtue, it was the effect of natural impulse subdued and annihilated; but along with this there doubtless mingled much of constitutional reserve and coldness. As to the Venetian republic, the charge of insensibility could not certainly be brought against either its senate or its people. The religious emotion of St. Pius, and the austere self-restraint of King Philip, were there exchanged for the tumultuous expressions of popular rejoicing. The great Piazza of St. Mark was like a fair, where doge and senator, nobles and citizens, all met to congratulate one another; whilst the shouts and _vivas_ of the crowd rang far over the waters of the Adriatic; and by an edict of the senate the prisons were thrown open, and none of those whose relations had fallen in the battle were allowed to wear mourning, or show any outward demonstrations of grief; for their loss was rather counted to them as glory.

We shall not dwell on the tokens of gratitude showered on the victorious chiefs,—on those revivals of the classic triumphs which filled the streets of Rome on the entry of Colonna,—nor on all the laurel-wreaths and orations, the poems and painted galleries, and other similar memorials of the great event, which the gratitude and the genius of the day presented to the conquerors of Lepanto. There was another kind of gratitude owing, and to a different victor; and the Church well knew how to pay her debt. The voice of Catholic Christendom agreed in attributing the victory to the intercession of Mary; and the invocation, “Help of Christians,” was introduced into the Litany of Loretto in memory of the fact. But St. Pius was scarcely content with so slender an acknowledgment as this. “In the revelation granted to him of the victory,” says Maffei, “it had been also made known to him that the prayers of the brethren of the Holy Rosary had greatly contributed to the same. Being therefore desirous of perpetuating the memory of this, he instituted a feast, appointed for the 7th of October, in honour of ‘Our Lady of Victories.’” But Gregory XIII., admiring the modesty of his predecessor, who, being a religious of the Order of Friars Preachers, had not chosen to make mention of the Rosary, for fear he should be thought rather to have sought the honour of his order than that of truth, desired that in future the feast of our Lady of Victories should be kept on the first Sunday in October in all Dominican churches, and wherever the Confraternity of the Rosary existed, under the new title of the “Festival of the Holy Rosary,” which was thenceforward no longer to be celebrated on the 25th of March, as in time past it had been. This was finally extended to the whole of the Church by Clement XII., who changed the wording of the Roman Martyrology to its present form: “The Commemoration of our Lady of Victories, which Pope Pius V. ordained to be observed every year, in memory of a famous victory gained at sea this day by the Christians over the Turks, through the help of the Mother of God; and Gregory XIII. likewise ordained the annual solemnity of the Rosary of the same most Blessed Virgin to be kept on the first Sunday of the month for the same cause.”

Baronius, in his notes on the Martyrology, has commented on these words, saying they are but the confirmation from the hand of Clement of that which had been already declared by Gregory XIII., namely, that by the common consent of the Catholic world the victory of Lepanto was due to the intercession of Mary, invoked and obtained by the prayers of the brethren of the Rosary, and of the Dominican Order; not only the prayers offered up before the battle, but those especially which were rising to Heaven at the very moment when the tide of victory turned in favour of the Christian league.

On one of the northern hills of Rome may be seen another monument of the Church’s gratitude to her mother and protector: it is the Church of our Lady of Victories. There, upon walls dazzling with the rich colours of their jaspers and marbles, hang the tattered and discoloured banners of the infidels. The church was raised to receive them, and to be a witness to all ages of the omnipotence of prayer.

Nor, considering how slight were the immediate and apparent results of the victory of Lepanto,—so slight, indeed, that historians have spoken of them as null,—will the pious mind fail to note and admire how, with prophetic eye reading futurity, the Church saw in that event the crisis in the fortunes, and the incipient decay, of that monstrous anti-Christian power, whose advances, so far from being arrested, seemed only to be accelerated by any check it might chance to encounter. The commemorations of the Church are not only preludes of victory, but triumphs already accomplished and secured.

THE RELIEF OF VIENNA.