Hayreddin Barbarossa

Hayreddin, known in Europe as Barbarossa, was the most famous admiral in the long history of the Ottoman navy. A corsair of Greek origin from the island of Midilli, he built an empire in the central Mediterranean, brought Algiers into the Ottoman fold, and served as Kapudan Pasha, the admiral of the imperial fleet, from 1533 until his death in 1546. His career, and that of his elder brother Oruç, is one of the most striking in the history of the Mediterranean, and it is treated here in its own right; the broader story of the Ottoman military and warfare and of the Janissary corps’ contemporary institution provides the wider context.

Origins

Hayreddin and Oruç, the sons of a Turkish potter named Yakup Ağa and his Greek Orthodox wife Katerina, were born on the island of Midilli (Lesbos) in the late fifteenth century. The family was part of the small Turkish community of the island, and the brothers grew up in a maritime environment, with access to the corsair ships that sailed from the Aegean and the central Mediterranean. Oruç, the elder, began a career as a corsair in the first years of the sixteenth century; Hayreddin, the younger, joined his brother in 1512.

The brothers’ early career was marked by a series of daring attacks on the shipping of the Christian powers and on the wealthy merchants of the North African coast. They based themselves in the small port of Djerba, in modern Tunisia, and from there they preyed on the Genoese, Sicilian, and Spanish shipping. The brothers were soon known to the Christian chroniclers of the Mediterranean as the “Barbarossa” brothers, from the reddish beard of Oruç.

The capture of Algiers

In 1516, Oruç and Hayreddin made the decisive move of their early career: the capture of Algiers. The Spanish had taken Algiers in 1510 and had built a small fortress, the Peñón de Argel, in the harbour. The brothers, supported by the local population, captured the city and began to extend their control over the surrounding territory. Oruç declared himself sultan of Algiers, and the brothers began a campaign against the Spanish possessions in the Maghreb.

The campaign of 1518 was a disaster. Oruç was killed at the battle of Tlemcen, and the brothers lost much of their territorial gain. Hayreddin, who had been captured in 1512 and had served for a time as a galley-slave of the Knights of St John, returned to Algiers and began a long process of rebuilding the family’s position. He was soon approached by the Ottoman sultan Selim I, who offered him the title of beylerbey (governor) of Algiers and the protection of the Ottoman state. Hayreddin accepted, and Algiers became an Ottoman regency in 1520.

Kapudan Pasha

Hayreddin’s career as Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman fleet began in 1533, when Suleiman the Magnificent appointed him to the office. Hayreddin was a striking choice: he was not a product of the devshirme system, and he was not a member of the established Ottoman elite. He was, however, an experienced naval commander, and he had the political support of the grand vizier Ibrahim Pasha. Suleiman gave Hayreddin the resources of the imperial arsenal at the Golden Horn, and Hayreddin began the long task of building an Ottoman fleet that could match the Spanish and Italian navies of the western Mediterranean.

Hayreddin’s tenure as Kapudan Pasha was marked by a series of major operations. In 1538, he won a decisive victory at Preveza, off the coast of Greece, over a combined fleet of Spain, Venice, the Papal States, and several Italian powers. The victory gave the Ottomans control of the eastern Mediterranean and made Hayreddin the master of the sea. In 1540-41, he led a major operation against the Spanish and Italian ports of the western Mediterranean, capturing Tunis and a series of smaller ports. In 1543, he joined forces with the French king Francis I in the siege of Nice.

Hayreddin’s death and legacy

Hayreddin died in Istanbul in 1546, after a long illness. He was buried in the large mausoleum he had built for himself on the Bosphorus, in the district of Beşiktaş. The mausoleum is still standing, and it remains a site of popular memory in Istanbul. Hayreddin’s son Hasan Pasha succeeded him as Kapudan Pasha, and the Pasha family of Algiers remained a major force in the central Mediterranean for several generations.

Hayreddin’s legacy is a long one. The corsair state of Algiers, which he and his brother had founded, lasted until 1830. The tradition of the corsair-admiral, recruited from the devshirme graduates of the palace school, became a feature of Ottoman naval history. The Great Siege of Malta in 1565, in which Hayreddin’s successor Turgut Reis led the Ottoman land forces, is one of the most striking episodes of the tradition he had founded. The most famous literary treatment of Hayreddin is the play Barbaros by Namık Kemal, the nineteenth-century Ottoman writer and reformer, which made Hayreddin a national hero of the modern Turkish Republic.

Related articles

• Ottoman military and warfare — A general account of the Ottoman military, in which Hayreddin was a major figure.
• The Ottoman navy — The fleet that Hayreddin commanded as Kapudan Pasha from 1533 to 1546.
• Ottoman gunpowder siege warfare — The siege warfare tradition of the Ottoman army, of which the fleet was a major support.
• The Janissary corps — The infantry that was transported on the fleet on amphibious operations, and whose political weight Hayreddin had to manage.
• The Great Siege of Malta — The 1565 siege in which Hayreddin’s successors, his son-in-law Turgut Reis and the Kapudan Pasha Piyale Pasha, played major roles.