Battle of Diu

Battle of Diu
Date: February 3, 1509
Place: Diu, India
Outcome: Victory for Portuguese
Combatants
Manuel I, King of Portugal	Sultan of Gujarat, Mamlûk Sultan of Cairo, Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II, Samoothiri Raja of Kozhikode, Venetian Republic, Ragusan Republic (Dubrovnik)
Commanders
Viceroy Dom Francisco de Almeida	Mir Hussein Pasha
Strength
18 ships, 12 major vessels	12 ships, 4 major vessels
Casualties
Unknown	Unknown

The naval Battle of Diu was a critical sea battle that took place on 3 February 1509 near Diu, India, between Portugal and a joint fleet of Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire, Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat, with technical maritime assistance from the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) .

Importance

This battle is critical from a strategic perspective since it marks the beginning of the dominance of the Europeans in the Asian naval theatre, and a defeat for the then dominant power - the Ottoman Empire. It also marks the spillover of the Christian-Islamic power struggle in Europe and the Middle East, into the Indian Ocean which was a dominant arena of international trade at that time.

The battle parallels Lepanto (1571), Abu Qir (1798), Trafalgar (1805) and Tsushima (1905) in terms of its impact, though not in scale. Had the Turks won India would've become a Muslim dominion, and by extension an arm of the expanding Ottoman Empire in the East. The Portuguese followed this battle by rapidly capturing key ports/coastal areas around the Indian Ocean like Mombasa, Socotora, Muscat, Ormuz, Goa, Ceylon and Malacca. This allowed them to circumvent the traditional land/sea spice route controlled by the Arabs and the Venetians, and by routing the trade down the Cape of Good Hope, they also simultaneously crippled the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Venetian Republic and the Sultanate of Gujarat (which was at its peak then). The Portuguese sea monopoly lasted until the advent of the British East India Company and the Battle of Swally in 1612.

For the Venetians, the loss at this battle combined with the League of Cambrai that was formed against them in 1508 meant a period of turmoil, and a fall from the prestigious position they held at that time.

The Samoothiri Raja, though a Hindu was incensed at the Portuguese because of their conduct since Vasco da Gama had landed in his kingdom in 1498, and hence had joined forces with the Sultan of Gujarat.

Sultan Of Gujarat

The Egyptian fleet, manned mostly by Turks, was sent by the Mamlûk Burji Sultan of Cairo, Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghauri, in 1507 to support, at his invitation, the then Muslim Sultan of Gujarat, Mahmud Begada who had his capital at Champaner, a town about 48km from the major city of Vadodara.

The Sultan, sensing a political vacumn in Western India, had persuaded the Turks and the Egyptians that the opportunity was right for a Muslim-dominated dominion in that part of India.

Principal Characters

The following were the important participants in this battle:

Dom Francisco de Almeida, first Portuguese viceroy in India
Mir Hussein Pasha, Turkish Commander of the Egyptian-Gujarat squadron
Malik Aiyaz, Governor of Diu for the Sultan of Gujarat

Precursor to the battle

Diu was a critical outpost in the overall spice trade from India. The Mamlûks along with the Venetians controlled the flow of spice from India to Europe in a symbiotic relationship. The Portuguese attempt to establish trade with India was to break this stronghold. The King of Portugal, Manuel I fresh from Vasco da Gama's exploits, sent out his first Viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida in 1505 with 21 ships to strengthen the fledgling Portuguese empire in East Africa and India.

Since Portuguese naval patrols regularly interdicted supplies of Malabar timber for the Mamlûk Red Sea fleet, the Ottoman Sultan, Beyazid II therefore supplied Egypt with Mediterranean-type war galleys manned by Greek sailors. These vessels, which Venetian shipwrights helped disassemble in Alexandria and reassemble on the Red Sea coast, however, had to brave the Indian Ocean. The galley warriors could mount light guns fore and aft, but not along the gunwales because these cannon would interfere with the rowers. The native ships dhows, with their sewn wood planks, could carry no heavy guns at all. Hence, most of the coalition's artillery was archers, whom the Portuguese could easily outshoot.

The new Mamlûk fleet set out for India in 1507, first fortifying Jeddah against a possible Portuguese attack. It then passed through Aden at the tip of the Red Sea, where it received support from the Tahirid sultan, and then, in 1508, crossed the Indian Ocean to the port of Diu.

In addition to enforcing Portuguese rule, the battle was undertaken to also avenge the defeat at the battle of Chaul in March 1508, where Dom Lourenço, son of the viceroy was killed. The Viceroy was so enraged at this death that he said "He who ate the chick has also to eat the rooster, or pay for it".

At that battle the recently arrived Egyptian fleet, along with the fleet from Gujarat, had surprised a smaller Portuguese fleet over three days of combat.

The Viceroy was forced to undertake this battle to avenge his son's death, because on 6 December 1508 his replacement, the next Viceroy, Alfonso d'Albuquerque, arrived with orders from the king of Portugal.

Battle plan

The Portuguese had 18 ships commanded by the viceroy, with about 1,500 Portuguese soldiers and 400 natives from Cochin. The Allied side had 100 ships, but only 12 were major vessels; the rest were small shallow-draught craft.

After detecting the Portuguese, who approached from Cochin to the south, and fearing their technical superiority, the Egyptians decided to take advantage of the port of Diu and its fort, which had its own artillery. It was therefore decided to stay anchored at this port and await an attack from the Portuguese. This may also have been due to the training of the Egyptians/Turks, who were used to the more sheltered bays in the Mediterranean. There they also relied upon land-based artillery reinforcements to defeat the enemy.

The Portuguese started the battle with a massive naval bombardment, followed by hand-to-hand combat in the harbour of Diu.

Portuguese Ships

Five large naus: Flor do Mar (Viceroy's flagship), Espírito Santo (captain Nuno Vaz Pereira), Belém (Jorge de Melo Pereira), Great King (Francisco de Távora), and Great Taforea (Fernão de Magalhães)
Four smaller naus: Small Taforea (Garcia de Sousa), Saint António (Martin Coelho), Small King (Manuel Teles Barreto) and Andorinho (D. António de Noronha)
Four caravelas redondas: (captains António do Campo, Pêro Cão, Filipe Rodrigues and Rui Soares)
Two caravelas Latinas: (captains Alvaro Paçanha and Luís Preto)
Two gales: (captains Paio Rodrigues de Sousa and Diogo Pires de Miranda)
One bergantim: (captain Simão Martins)

These Portuguese ships had guns of greater caliber, better artillery crews, were better manned and better built. The Portuguese naval infantry also had an advantage over the Egyptians/Turks, not only because they were heavily armed and equipped (armor, arquebuses and a type of grenade made of clay with gunpowder inside), but also because they were seasoned professional seamen, mostly warriors with superiority over the Turks in physical strength and combat skills.

The tough State-of-the art multi-rigged Portuguese carracks and the fast caravels were built to weather the storms of the Atlantic Ocean, had a stern rudder, compass, and were bristling with cannon to port and starboard as well as fore and aft. The Indian Ocean dhows and Mediterranean-type galleys launched by the coalition of the Samoothiri Raja, Gujarat and Egypt with naval supplies, and military advisers from Venice and the Ottoman Turkey, were simply no match. The Portuguese ships were able to shoot their cannons and thus disuade the smaller craft from coming near them. Even when they did come near, the smaller craft would have been low in the water, and so unable to board the Portuguese ships while being sprayed with small arms and cannon.

Mamluk Egyptian/Gujarat Fleet - Major vessels

Four naus (Gujarat)
Four naus (Mamluk Egyptian)
Two caravelas
Four galeotas
Two gales

Aftermath

The Viceroy extracted a payment of 300,000 gold xerafins, but rejected the offer of the city of Diu which he thought would be expensive to maintain, although he left a garrison there. The prisoners from the battle of Chaul were also rescued.

The treatment of the Egyptian/Turkish captives by the Portuguese was brutal. The Viceroy ordered most of them to be hanged, burnt alive or torn to pieces by tying them to the mouths of the cannons, in retaliation for his son's death.

Interestingly, after handing over the Viceroy's post to his successor, Alfonso d'Albuquerque, Francisco de Almeida left for Portugal in November, 1509, and in December, 1509 was himself killed by the Khoikhoi, near the Cape of Good Hope.

The spoils of the battle also included three royal flags of the Mamlûk Sultan of Cairo, that were sent to Portugal and are even today displayed in the Convento de Cristo, in the town of Tomar, spiritual home of the Knights Templar.

Second Battle of Diu

This battle did not end the rivalry between the Ottoman Empire and the Portuguese. It was followed by a second naval battle, again at Diu, in 1538 where the Turks laid siege to the fortress built by the Portuguese in 1535, but for some reason lifted the siege. The Ottomans were at that time led by Suleiman I, the Magnificent, who had sent his emissary Hussein Pasha to attack Diu.

This was followed by another siege of the fortress at Diu in 1547 which marked the end of Ottoman attempts to expand their influence in the Indian Ocean. From then until the advent of the English in the next century, the Portuguese enjoyed a complete monopoly on the spice trade from India, greatly increasing their nation's wealth.

Trivia

A little known fact is that one of the Portuguese wounded in this battle was the famous circumnavigator of the Earth, Fernão de Magalhães , also known as Ferdinand Magellan. He had volunteered to serve with the first Portuguese Viceroy and had left Portugal for India on March 25 1505.

References

Rogers, Clifford J. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, San Francisco:Westview Press, 1995, pp. 299-333 ^*
Monteiro, Cmdr. Saturnino ,Batalhas e Combates da Marinha Portuguesa, Vol. I, A.N.C., Library Sá da Costa Editor, Lisbon 2001
Kerr, Robert, General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, arranged in a systematic order, 1881, 14 vols.At Project Gutenberg, Columbia University

Additional Reading

Subrahmanyan, Sanjay. The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700, Longmans, 1993.

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