Turgut Reis

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Turgut Reis (1514-1565) Ottoman, Turkish corsair and admiral, as well as Bey of Tunis. Known in different languages with such names as Dragut or Darghouth, the original name in Turkey is Turgut Reis or Torgut Reis (reis = admiral).

Born near Bodrum on the Aegean coast of Turkey, Turgut was one of the Ottoman Empire's most famous corsairs. He was a protege of Khair-ad-Din Barbarossa and fought the Christians in numerous battles in the Mediterranean, spreading fear among the enemy with his ferocity. To defeat Turgut, Emperor Charles V sent the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria against him. Turgut was captured by Doria's nephew Gianetti Doria in 1540 and forced to work as a galley slave for four years before he was ransomed by Khair-ad-Din for 3000 ducats in 1544.

After Khair-ad-Din Barbarossa's death in 1546, Turgut, then 32 years old, assembled a fleet 24 brigantines, threatened Naples, conquered the coast of Calabria, and in 1550 captured Mahdia and most of Tunisia. After prolonged and fierce battles, with heavy losses on both sides, Andrea Doria and Bailiff Claude de la Sengle forced Turgut from there in September 1550. Turgut managed to escape with 20 ships to the island of Djerba, where Doria's ships trapped him in an inlet, but he had all his ships dragged overland on a heavily greased boardway to the other side of island and sailed to Constantinople.

There Turgut mobilized a fleet of 112 galleys and two galeasses with 12,000 Janissaries, and in 1551 attempted to capture Malta. Although the effort did not succeed, Turgut ravaged the neighboring towns and, in July 1551, the neighboring island of Gozo, laying it to waste and capturing thousands of slaves. In August 1551, he attacked and captured Tripoli (Libya). As reward for his bravery, the Ottoman Sultan gave him Tripoli and the surrounding territory along with the title of Sanjak Bey.

In 1552 Sultan Suleyman made him, now titled Turgut Reis, commander-in-chief of the huge Ottoman navy which he dispatched to Italy (on the basis of a treaty between Sultan Suleyman and King Henry II of France. Turgut ravaged Calabria in 1553, launched a raid against Elba, and invested Bonifacio on the island of Corsica. When Bonifacio surrendered instead to French, Turgut Reis tried to capture Piombino and Portoferraio on the island of Elba, but eventually gave up and returned to Constantinople. In 1554 he appeared once more on the Calabrian coast, but soon retreated to Durazzo. In 1559 he repelled a Spanish attack on Algiers.

In the meantime, he had made enemies of most of the nominally Ottoman, but practically independent rulers of North Africa, and several of them concluded an alliance in 1560 with Viceroy Cerda of Sicily, who had orders from King Philip II of Spain to capture Tripolis. This campaign ended in failure when the Ottoman navy defeated the Sicilian and Maltese fleet.

When Sultan Suleyman attacked Malta in 1565, Turgut joined him with 16,000 men and 15 ships. He was killed, however, at the age of 41, on 23 June 1565 on the ramparts of Fort Saint Elmo. A Turkish cannon shot struck the ground nearby, and debris from the impact mortally injured him. He lived just long enough to hear the news of the capture of Fort St. Elmo. His body was buried in Tripoli.

Several warships of the Turkish Navy were named after Turgut Reis.

Turgut Reis continues to enjoy great fame and respect in modern Turkey, where the city of his birth is named Turgutreis after him.

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