CALAFAT HASSAN – THE TALE OF A CORSAIR REIS: PART 2

(This post is a continuation of Calafat Hassan – the Tale of a Corsair Reis: Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)

The summer of 1626 was a spectacularly successful one for Calafat Hassan Reis and his fleet of corsair ships. Everything seemed to be going their way; they took ship after ship, captive after captive, until their vessels were stuffed with booty and human cargo.

Calafat Hassan Reis guided the fleet using the Koran as a divinatory tool, performing careful rituals, using the prophetic results to make his decisions. It all worked extremely well, so well that it seemed nothing could possibly interfere with their success.

Except…

Calafat Hassan Reis’s summer of spectacularly effective raiding provoked several European powers into doing something they rarely did: cooperate.

Pope Urban VIII, King Philip IV of Spain, and Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, organized a joint expedition to hunt down and destroy Calafat Hassan Reis and his fleet and to liberate the captives and booty he had taken. The Pope contributed three galleys, the Spanish King eight, the Tuscan Duke three.

After casting about for some time and following rumors, they eventually heard a report that Calafat Hassan Reis and his fleet were anchored near the island of San Pietro, off the southwest tip of Sardinia. They headed there with all the speed they could muster.

Calafat Hassan Reis was caught by surprise by the unexpected arrival of this formidable galley fleet.

His response was to consult the divinatory advice of the Koran. He did this by putting an arrow into the hand of one of his crew who represented the Europeans and another into the hand of a crewmember who represented the corsairs. Then he performed the divinatory ritual and observed how the arrows behaved in the hands of the two men holding them.

The results of this augury were positive: he would not be killed, and his ship would not be taken. Reassured, Calafat Hassan Reis prepared his fleet to resist the attacking galleys.

Calafat Hassan Reis’s ship was the largest square-rigged vessel in his fleet, 150 feet long, armed with no less than 46 large and 6 medium-sized cannons, with a crew of 300. One of the Tuscan galleys headed straight for this ship, followed by eight others. The rest of the galleys spread out to attack other ships in the fleet, firing their bow canons, loaded with grapeshot and chain-shot, to clear their adversaries’ decks and rip through the rigging, and then jointly assailing individual corsair ships.

At first, the corsairs more than held their own, but then the wind dropped, leaving their square-rigged ships unable to maneuver. The attacking galleys had no such problem and used their advantage to the fullest, nimbly avoiding the corsair ships’ broadsides, and then swarming the ships. There were not nearly enough corsair galleys to beat them back, and after two hours of vicious battle, the European galleys had taken two of the square-rigged corsair ships and were closing in on the others. Several of the corsair galleys fled, abandoning their companions.

Seeing all this, Calafat Hassan Reis, whose ship still held out, decided it was time to stage a strategic retreat.

There remained the matter of the wind, though.

He resorted to ritual sacrifice for salvation.

A ram was brought out—all corsair ships had aboard them a group of rams for this very purpose—and the animal was cut into four quarters. Crying out the ritual words, Calafat Hassan Reis then threw each of these quarters into the sea, in the four directions, in hopes of calling up a favorable wind. This sort of ceremonial sacrifice was standard Barbary corsair practice. They employed it whenever they needed a wind (like when they were passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, where a good following wind meant they could escape pursuit by the Spanish warships that patrolled there), or when they needed to calm the wind (if they were caught in a sudden storm).

The sacrifice didn’t work. No wind came.

The attacking galleys closed in for the kill.

Calafat Hassan Reis was a resourceful man, though. He still saw a way he could make the prophecy—that he would not be killed and that his ship would not be taken—come true. He took the treasure he had so far acquired and cast it into the sea so that his attackers could not take it, hastily dumping the mass of flashing silver and gold coins into the waves. Then he set fire to his ship, so they could not take it either. Blinded by rage at this unlooked-for and ignominious end to a summer that had otherwise been so successful, he threw into the flames a young European girl—a girl of rare beauty whom he had previously taken captive and forced to be his paramour—and dove over the ship’s gunwale into the sea.

Men from the galleys scrambled aboard Calafat Hassan Reis’s burning ship, killing the last of the corsairs they found aboard, hoping to douse the flames and save the ship. The fire had advanced too far, though. The ship was doomed. The men who had come aboard began to abandon the vessel. But then, from belowdecks, they heard the cries of the European captives still chained up in the hold.

A few sprinted down into the burning, smoke-filled hold and freed as many as they could, hacking through their chains and hauling them up the gangways. They couldn’t save them all, though. Many died screaming and choking as the flames engulfed the ship. All who could—men from the galleys and newly freed captives alike—leaped overboard into the sea.

Among the captives saved were the three Capuchin friars whom Calafat Hassan Reis had captured at the beginning of the summer.

Calafat Hassan Reis himself was fished out of the sea, singed by the flames, half drowned, but very much alive.

The prophecy had, in a way, been fulfilled: he had not been killed, and his ship had not been taken.

The three Capuchin friars were given passage to Rome, where they had an audience with the Pope. After that, they continued their voyage to the Holy land and back—without incident.

Calafat Hassan Reis was taken to Naples and thrown into a dungeon.

The story does not end there, though.

For the conclusion, see Calafat Hassan – the Tale of a Corsair Reis: Part 3 here in this blog.