September 27th, 1538 – The Battle of Preveza

Conflict: Ottoman-Habsburg Wars

Combatants: Holy League vs. Turks

Location: Greece

Outcome: Ottoman victory

After declaring war in 1537, the Ottoman Turks ordered Khair ed-Din (aka Barbarossa II) to reek havoc on Venetian territories. Ed-Din was driven off from Venice but captured all the outlying islands. In September of 1538, a Holy League fleet commanded by the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria was badly defeated by Ed-Din in the Ionian Sea near the Greek city of Preveza. The Venetians lost seven ships while the Turks suffered no losses.

Battle of Preveza (1538) by Osman Nuri Pasha and Hovhannes Umed Behzad

Points of Interest:

• The Holy League was comprised of the Holy Roman Empire of Charles V, the Papal States of Pope Paul III, and Venice. The three powers came together to resist the depravations of the Ottoman navy of Venetian trade.

• Two years after Preveza, the Venetians surrender their last trading post on the Peloponnesus.

Andrea Doria by Sebastiano del Piombo

Ariadeno il Barbarossa (Khair Ed-Din) by Agostino Veneziano

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Sources:

Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, & Bongard, David L. (1992). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: Castle Books (HarperCollins).

Dupuy, R. Ernest & Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: HarperCollins.

Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.