Summary

The Luso-Mamluk naval war was a naval conflict between the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and the Portuguese Empire in the Indian Ocean, provoked by the Lusitanian expansion into India resulting from the establishment of the route to the Subcontinent via the Cape of Good Hope in 1498. The conflict took place during the initial two decades of the 16th century, from 1505 to 1517, and was interrupted not by a truce between the belligerents but by the fall of the Mamluks at the hands of the Ottomans.

The arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean.

Just two years after Vasco da Gama reached India by sea, the Portuguese realized that the prospect of developing a trade in the Subcontinent like the one they had been practicing in West Africa had become impossible, due to opposition from Muslim merchant elites in India's west coast (the Malabar) who incited attacks against Portuguese feitoria, ships and agents, sabotaging Portuguese diplomatic efforts and leading to the c. so-called "Calicut Massacre" in December 1500 following which the Portuguese Second Army of India (Cabral, 1500) bombarded Kozhikode (pt. Calicut), the main spice export port linking India to Egypt and then to Venice. In the five years immediately following, tensions between Calicut and Lisbon grew systematically, with successive Portuguese admirals in India engaged in acts of boycott from year to year

The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean became harassing for the entire Muslim range opposite, not limited to clashes between the Portuguese and Muslim potentates on the Indian coast. Arab ships were also directly attacked: in 1503, the first Egyptian ship was plundered and sunk by the Portuguese Fifth India Army (the following year, 17 Arab ships were destroyed by the Portuguese Sixth India Army (Albergaria, 1504) in the Indian port of Ponnani.

The object of contention was not simply economic but also ideological. Indeed, the Lusitanian sovereign promoter of the Indo-Christian expeditions, Manuel I (reigned 1495-1521), was not, as had been the case with his predecessor John II, interested in exploiting eastern exploration as a mere expedient for enriching the royal treasury. A traditionalist ruler, even "medieval" in his eagerness to spread the Catholic religion and promote "holy war," Manuel I intended to exploit the recently acquired Indian bases to build outposts to be exploited in a grand pincer maneuver against Islam that involved on the one hand rekindling overland hostilities in Morocco and on the other opening a new "eastern" front against the Holy Land and Mecca. Crusader ideology was strongly pregnant in the intentions of the Portuguese admirals themselves, who on several occasions were intransigent in their dealings with Muslims, whether Indian, Arab, Turkish or otherwise.

The Mamluk sultanate of Egypt

Taking over from the Ayyubids in the government of Egypt and Syria in the mid-13th century, the Mamluks did not bring revolutionary innovations to the Egyptian-Syrian economy. The system was based on agricultural production and taxation of international trade, which in the Middle Ages had Egypt and Syria as a key hub. In the 15th century, internal upheavals within the Mamluk sultanate powerfully undermined agricultural production, and the Mamluks reacted by intensifying their exploitation of the tertiary sector: they taxed the urban middle classes, increased the production and sale of cotton and sugar in Europe, and exploited their transit position in trade between the Far East and Europe. The latter proved to be the most profitable method and declined in the implementation of trade relations with the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa and Barcelona, and in increasing trade duties. Thus, in the fifteenth century, long-standing trade between Europe and the Islamic world began to constitute a significant part of the sultanate's revenue as the Mamluks imposed taxes on merchants operating or passing through their ports. Sultan Barquq (reigns 1382-89 and 1390-99) had also established a state monopoly on luxury goods, among which spices accounted for the lion's share: the state set their prices; collected a percentage of the profits, which ended up in the sultan's personal treasury (and governed (or attempted to govern) the flow by converging it on Cairo.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the expansion of the Portuguese empire into Africa and Asia began to significantly diminish the revenues of the Mamluk-Venetian monopoly on trans-Mediterranean trade.

Clash of interests between Mamluks, Venetians and Portuguese

In 1502, Venice, eager to eliminate the Lusitanian threat to its spice monopoly, began a tight diplomatic game to get its hands on extra-Lisbon problems. First, it formally severed diplomatic relations with Lisbon, recalling ambassador Pietro Pasqualigo to his homeland. Another ambassador, Francesco Teldi, was sent to the Mamluk court in Cairo to suggest the adoption of "rapid and secret remedies" against the Portuguese. The Venetians claimed that they could not intervene directly and therefore encouraged the Mamluk sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri (reigned 1501-1516) to make contact with the Indian princes of Kochi and Kannur (pt. Cannanore) to urge them not to trade with the Portuguese and with the rulers of Calicut and Cambay to spur them on to fight against them. A kind of alliance was thus concluded between Venetians and Mamluks against the Portuguese. The Serenissima, however, did not limit itself to these "indirect" measures. In 1503, two Italian military engineers who had come to India with Vasco da Gama along with the IV Armada indica, known only as João Maria (Gianmaria) and Pêro António (Pierantonio), took themselves to the camp of the Zamorin of Calicut, engaged in fighting the Portuguese at Kochi, and offered him their services. Portuguese chroniclers agree in identifying the two as secret Venetian agents, expert cannon forgers who had come to teach the Malabars how to produce European cannons to bridge the technological gap between Indian and Portuguese artillery. Despite Marcian secrecy, information about this alliance with the "infidels" leaked out in the immediately following War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1516), to the detriment of the Serenissima's public image.

In September

In 1505, Sultan al-Ghuri ordered the first expedition against the Portuguese. Egypt, however, was an agricultural society with few ties to the sea, and the Mamluk soldiers had little experience (not to say a genuine caste aversion) in naval warfare, so the sultan requested Venetian support in exchange for lowering the tariffs imposed on the Marcians to facilitate their competition with the Portuguese. Venice provided the Mamluks with Mediterranean-type caracas and war galleys manned by Greek sailors, which Venetian shipwrights helped disassemble in Alexandria and reassemble in Suez. The galleys could mount cannons in the bow and stern but not along the sides because the cannons would interfere with the rowers. The native ships (the dau), with their sewn wooden planks, could carry only very light cannons. The command of the expedition was given to a Kurdish Mamluk, former governor of Jeddah, Amir Hussain Al-Kurdi (pt. Mirocem). The expedition (which the Portuguese refer to by the generic term "Rūmi") included not only Egyptian Mamluks but also a large number of Turkish, Nubian and Ethiopian mercenaries, as well as Venetian artillerymen. Thus, most of the coalition's artillery was composed of archers that the Portuguese could easily overpower.

The fleet left Suez in November 1505, 1100 men strong. They were ordered to fortify Jeddah against a possible Portuguese attack and quell rebellions around Suakin and Mecca. They spent the monsoon season on Kamaran Island and landed in Aden, at the tip of the Red Sea, where they were involved in costly local politics with the emir of Tahirid, before finally crossing the Indian Ocean.

At the same time, King Manuel I organized and launched the Seventh Army of India (Almeida, 1505), which brought Dom Francisco de Almeida, India's first viceroy, to Kochi with express orders not only limited to safeguarding Portuguese feitoria but also to restrain hostile Muslim ships.

In 1506, a Portuguese squadron under Alfonso de Albuquerque, part of the Eighth Army of India (Cuhna, 1506), began raiding the coasts of Arabia and the Horn of Africa after defeating a Muslim fleet. In 1507, a fleet of about 20 Portuguese ships entered the Red Sea and raided Indian ships there, bringing the Indo-Mamluk trade almost to collapse. The Portuguese also attempted to establish a base in Socotra in 1507 to stop the Mamluk trade across the Red Sea, but the island proved too inhospitable and ineffective as an outpost, so much so that the Lusitanians left after a few months.

In August-September 1507, a Mamluk fleet of about 50 ships was stationed in Aden, ready to cross for India.

Battle of Chaul (1508)

The fleet, also under Amir Husain Al-Kurdi, was sent to India in 1507. The Mamluks allied themselves with the Muslim Sultanate of Gujarat, the leading naval power in India at that time as well as already a declared enemy of the Porotgheans. The fleet was warmly welcomed in Diu, and Husayn Al-Kurdi joined Malik Ayyaz (pt. Meliqueaz), a former archer and slave of possible Georgian or Dalmatian origin in the service of Sultan Mahmud Begada of Gujarat as governor of Diu. Together, Husain and Ayyaz sailed to meet the Portuguese, meeting them at the Battle of Chaul in which they succeeded in defeating the Admiral General of India (pt. Capitão-mor do mar da Índia), Lourenço de Almeida, son of the now-installed Portuguese viceroy of India, D. Francisco de Almeida. It was, however, a Pyrrhic victory: although overwhelmingly outnumbered, the Muslims fortuitously managed to sink Almeida's flagship; Mirhocem risked his life in the melee; all Portuguese ships except the Flagship returned to Lusitanian headquarters in Kochi; and Meliqueaz proved far less interested than the Mamluks in the no-holds-barred struggle against the dangerous Portuguese adversary.

Battle of Diu (1509)

The news of his son's death was a terrible blow to Viceroy Almeida, who made it a personal matter and decided to take personal revenge on the Mamluks and took to amassing ships and men in Kochi. On December 6, however, Alfonso de Albuquerque arrived in Cannanore from the Persian Gulf with orders from the king of Portugal to replace Almeida as governor. Almeida, already resentful of Albuquerque's failure to prevent Mirochem's fleet from leaving the Red Sea, refused to remit the powers of his office and rebelled against the Crown, taking to the sea in command of the Armada da Índia on December 9.

Along the route to Diu, Almeida fought some Calicut ships and opened hostilities with the Sultanate of Bijapur, capturing and destroying its thriving port of Dabul (see Battle of Dabul), and resuming the sea on January 5, 1509. By this time, in the Muslim array, relations between Mirochem and Meliqueaz had soured. The two fleets clashed on February 3 in the Battle of Diu, which ended with the victory of the Portuguese and the Gujarat-Mamluk-Calicut coalition nearly wiped out. The Mamluks fought bravely to the end but were able to counter the Portuguese naval force: modern ships manned by experienced sailors, armored infantry armed with arquebuses and clay grenades, more cannons and more skilled gunners. This victory marked the beginning of European dominance over the Asian seas that would last until World War II.

The treatment of Mamluk prisoners by the Portuguese, however, was brutal. The viceroy ordered that most of them be hanged, burned alive or cut to pieces, tied to the mouths of cannon, in retaliation for the death of his son. Commenting in the aftermath of the battle, Almeida reported to King Manuel, "As long as you are powerful at sea, you will keep India as your own; and if you do not possess this power, little use will be made of a fortress on the shore."

On Nov. 4, 1509, Albuquerque succeeded Almeida as governor of Portuguese India when the Marshal of Portugal, Dom Fernando Coutinho, arrived in India in command of a 3,000-strong Armada sent by King Manuel to enforce Albuquerque's orderly succession to the post.

Albuquerque had mandated by the king to conquer the tips of the Muslim trade triangle in the Indian Ocean: Aden (Arabia), Hormuz (Persia) and Malacca (Malaysia). In January 1510, Albuquerque set sail for the Red Sea in command of 23 ships, 1,200 Portuguese soldiers, 400 Portuguese sailors, 220 auxiliaries from Kochi and 3,000 "slave-soldiers" (pt. escravos de peleja). Having discovered that the Mamluks were setting up a new fleet in Suez, the governor resolved not to target Hormuz but Suez and destroy the new Egyptian force before it was ready. Instead, he ended up targeting Goa when he discovered that the Sultan of Bijapur, Yusuf Adil Khan (pt. Hidalcão, reign 1490-1510), had collected the remnants of the Mamluk fleet destroyed at Diu there and reinforced them with new ships to send against the Portuguese, probably in retaliation for the destruction of Dabul the previous year. The city was poorly defended as Yusuf had recently died and his heir, Ismail Adil Shah (reigned 1510-1534), was young and inexperienced.

Mamluk resistance prevented the Portuguese from completely blocking the Red Sea trade. However, the supply disruption was enough to drive prices in Egypt to astronomical levels.

Battle of Goa (1510)

Having defeated a garrison of Turkish mercenaries stationed at Panaji Fort on Feb. 16, Albuquerque occupied Goa without a shot on Feb. 17, well received by the Hindu population that resented the Bijapur Muslims. Despite the measures prepared to defend the city (including the launching of ships the sultan was having built to the detriment of the Lusitanians), however, Albuquerque was forced into a bleeding siege by Ismail Adil Shah, who showed up among Goa's marshes and estuaries with an army of 40,000 Turkish and Persian mercenaries. The governor neatly withdrew what was left of his troops to ships and anchored in the Mandovi Delta, where he withstood a siege-ship until Ferragosto while waiting for the monsoon to allow him to put out to sea.

Albuquerque returned to the assault on Goa on Nov. 24, wresting it after a bloody infantry assault the next day from General Pulad Khan of Bijapur. He massively reorganized the city's defenses (e.g., building a stone fort) and organized a river patrol of six ships. Confident of his hold on Goa, Albuquerque left the city and headed to Malacca to conquer it.

For the duration of the following year, while Albuquerque conquered Malacca, Goa would be besieged by the reorganized forces of Pulad Khan who once again overwhelmed the Portuguese through numerical superiority, built a bridge and fortress at Benastarim and occupied the island of Goa but failed to take the city. Pulad Khan, suspected of embezzlement, was replaced by Adil Shah with Rassul Khan who likewise failed to recapture the city.

Battle of Goa (1512)

In October 1512, Albuquerque returned from Malacca at the head of 20 ships and 2,500 men. He isolated the Bijapur forces in the fort at Benastrim, where they were entrenched, after which he defeated them in the open field and crushed any possibility of resistance with a heavy eight-day naval bombardment that convinced Rassul Khan to surrender and leave Goa in Portuguese hands for good.

Venetian diplomacy

The Mamluks again tried to secure the help of the Venetians against the Portuguese and intervened by pleading their case to the pope. The Venetians, for their part, sought for the Mamluks new allies. The Republic of St. Mark had been at peace with the Ottoman Empire, a traditional enemy of the Mamluks, since Doge Leonardo Loredan (in office 1501-1521) had signed the treaty that ended the last Turkish-Venetian War (1499-1503). Before renewing peace with Istambul in 1511, Doge Loredan mediated to secure Ottoman support for the Mamluks against the Portuguese. The rapprochement was such that Venice authorized Ottoman supply in its Mediterranean ports (e.g., Cyprus) nor did it scruple, in vain, to seek Turkish support in the War of the League of Cambrai.

A Mamluk-Venetian trade treaty was signed by the ambassador to Cairo, Domenico Trevisan, in 1513. After that point, however, following the overthrows of the Mamluks and Safavids of Persia against the Ottomans (see Battle of Cialdiran), Venice increasingly favored a rapprochement with the Ottoman Empire.

Portuguese diplomacy

On the other hand, the Portuguese, who feared a new expedition by the Mamluks, organized a rapprochement with Persia and endeavored to establish an alliance that could give bases to the Portuguese on the northern shores of the Indian Ocean, thus creating an eastern threat to the Ottomans and Mamluks. Governor Albuquerque received an ambassador from Shah Isma'il I (1501-1524) in Goa and returned the embassy in the person of Rui Gomes.

In his letter to the Shah, Albuquerque proposed a joint attack against the Mamluks and the Ottomans:

After the victory at the Battle of Diu and the elimination of rival Muslim fleets in the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese endeavored to systematically destroy Muslim trading ships.

In 1513, Albuquerque led a Red Sea campaign to completely stop Mamluk trade with India and crush Mamluk intentions to send a fleet to India. On February 7, 1513, he left Goa with 1,700 Portuguese and 1,000 Indians in 24 ships. Albuquerque landed in Aden on March 26, 1513, at the entrance to the Red Sea and attempted to take the city but was repulsed. Sailing into the Red Sea, he destroyed the port of Kamaran (June and July 1513). He failed to sail for Jeddah because of adverse winds and retreated to India after bombarding Aden again.

Albuquerque thus failed to stop the spice trade across the Red Sea and establish a commercial monopoly for the spice trade between Europe and India. This campaign, however, was a serious threat to the Mamluk port of Suez and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which put the Mamluk sultan under tremendous pressure. Qansuh was then forced to seek Ottoman assistance, his traditional rivals (see Turkish-Mamluk War (1485-1491)), against the Portuguese.

In 1514-16, the Ottomans collaborated with the Mamluks against the Portuguese. They provided an admiral in the person of Selman Reis, as well as weapons and artillery. Selman Reis entered the service of the Mamluks and led a group of 2,000 armed Levantines, perhaps against the wishes of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, before Sultan Qansuh in Suez in April 1514. Artillery defenses were also established in Jeddah and Alexandria. However, this concentration on the Portuguese front had the ultimate effect of weakening the Mamluk forces that could be turned against the Ottomans in the Levant. The investment was enormous: the fleet cost the Mamluk sultan about 400,000 dinars.

Following the interruption of the spice trade between India and Mamluk Egypt by the Portuguese, Selman Reis led a fleet of 19 ships and 3,000 men (1,300 of whom were Turkish soldiers) in the Indian Ocean. He left Suez at the head of the fleet on September 30, 1515. They built a fortress at Kamaran but failed to conquer Yemen and Aden on September 17, 1516. The combined fleet was able to defend Jeddah from the Portuguese in 1517 but by that time the war between the Ottomans and Mamluks was already in progress.

The Portuguese were thus able to establish trading posts in the Indian subcontinent and take over the spice trade to Europe, which had been a major source of income for the Mamluk state. Mamluk Egypt was financially crippled and eventually defeated by Ottoman Sultan Selim I in the Turkish-Mamluk War (1516-1517): Cairo was conquered by the Ottomans on January 26, 1517.

With the acquisition of Egypt, the Ottomans gained an outlet to the Indian Ocean, which they would further develop during the 16th century. The Grand Turk took on the task of fighting the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, mainly through Admiral Selman Reis, who in 1525 occupied Aden and Yemen with a fleet of 18 ships and 299 guns, forcing the Portuguese to retreat. However, the Ottomans failed in the siege of Diu (1538).

Egypt, on the other hand, lost its status as a great power and, deprived of the resources of the Indian Ocean trade, went essentially into the background for the next three centuries.

Sources

1. Portuguese–Mamluk naval war
2. Guerra navale luso-mamelucca
3. ^ Il fatto più eclatante, ascrivibile alla Quarta Armata d'India (Gama, 1502), fu il massacro dei pellegrini musulmani a bordo della nave Miri intenzionalmente perpetrato da Vasco da Gama il 3 ottobre 1502.
4. ^ a b c Venice, a maritime republic by Frederic Chapin Lane p.290
5. ^ a b c E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913–1936 by M. Th. Houtsma p.720ff
6. ^ a b c d e f Mecca: a literary history of the Muslim Holy Land by Francis E. Peters p.176ff
7. ^ a b c d e f Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy in the age of discovery by Palmira Johnson Brummett p.34ff
8. a b c Venice, a maritime republic de Frederic Chapin Lane p.290
9. a b c E.J. Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913–1936 de M. Th. Houtsma pag.720ff
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11. 1 2 3 M. Th. Houtsma. E.J. Brill’s first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913—1936 Архивная копия от 18 августа 2020 на Wayback Machine. — P. 720ff.
12. 1 2 3 4 5 Francis E. Peters. Mecca: a literary history of the Muslim Holy Land Архивная копия от 19 августа 2020 на Wayback Machine. — P. 176ff.
13. 1 2 3 4 Palmira Johnson Brummett. Ottoman seapower and Levantine diplomacy in the age of discovery Архивная копия от 16 декабря 2019 на Wayback Machine. — P. 34ff.