A New Perspective on the 1574 Tunisian Campaign

The Ottoman State, having accomplished the campaign of Cyprus which it launched due to economic and strategic reasons against Venice on August 1, 1571, managed to be the only sovereign of the Eastern Mediterranean. But it soon lost temporarily its military superiority in the Mediterranean to Spain being completely defeated in Lepanto on October 7, 1571 against the crusader navy, formed under the leadership of the Kingdom of Spain with the support of Papal States and Venice. The Spanish Navy commanded by Don Juan of Austria who intended to crown its success against the Ottoman Navy with a more concrete victory and to disrupt the connection of the Ottomans with the Western Mediterranean, conquered Tunisia on October 11, 1573. It was indispensable for the Ottoman State to recapture Tunisia because of its critical importance, owing to its strategic location between East and West Mediterranean, since this region was situated at the other end of the strait of Sicily. With this move, the Ottoman State was both to regain the reputation which it lost in Lepanto and to maintain its dominance in the North Africa as a whole except the westernmost lands by floating its ships between East and West Mediterranean much more comfortably and in a safe manner. In this context, our study which is written on the conquest of Tunisia that came under Ottoman domination again after a bloody struggle on September 13, 1574, is an attempt to portray the anatomy of a battle in a comparative way according to both Spanish and Ottoman sources.