The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1877-06-07
The Turkish Naval Force.

INDUCED in of its achievements in the
present war. 1t is true that by large eN
penditlTe the Turks have got together a
large steam and iron clad navy, which in
the hands of nation fitted for naval en-
tcrprise might be very efficient. This
force is commanded by an English officer
named Hobart, who has had the title of
Pasha tackled to his name. This Hobart
was well known on this coast during the
rebellion as a blockade runner, but never
as a fighting man.
Something more is required for success
in naval operations than a fleet OF ships
built abroad with foreign officer in
command. A navy should be homogene-
Gus, with men, from powder boy to ad
miral, not only entirely devoted to the
cause it represents, but thoroughly i'll
structed in duties by theory and practice,
peryaded 10y a discipline to move them as
one man, and a bull dog courage that
never cries quit. These qualities never
have been and never will be found in the
Turks. Originally Tartars from the in
terror of Asia, they have not that famil
iarity with the sea, that salt in the blood,
which the nations of western Europe have
derived from centuries of association with
the ocean. The Turk has rarely sailed
the seas except as a plunderer and pirate.
For many hundred years the Turkish
ports on the Mediterranean sent out
sWarms of corsairs to capture unarmed
ships, ravage unprotected coasts, and
make slaves of the inhabitants. And it
States government was the first to pur-
sue these pirates to their chief ports, and
compel them to respect its flag and the
rights of its citizens.
The fleets which the Sultan has from
time to time assembled in former years
have been but little better than aggrega
lions of corsairs, and have never achieved
successes. In the middle of the sixteenth
century, all Christendom was aroused by
an Ottoman fleet which had been pre-
pared for the subjugation of the western
nations. 1t was formidable demonstra
ton, and intended to be a final one. But
in the Gulf of Lepanto it was met by the
naval armament of the Christian nations,
led by Don John of Austria, and annihi-
lated. so threatening had been the move
ment of the Turks, and SO great the fear
excited, that the Pope, when he heard of
the victory exclaimed "There was a man
sent from God, and his name was John"
The history of the revolution by which
the Greeks achieved their independence,
commencing in 1921, abounds in the rec
ord of naval battles, in which the Turks
were invariably defeated, unless their
numbers were overwhelming. The Greeks
are born sailors, and were led and in
spired by their commander Canaris, to
victory after victory, in which the navy
of the Sultan lost many OF its finest YES
sells. Without means to procure ships
that could compete with those of the
Turks, the Greeks invented the terrible
brulot, or fire ship, by which a vessel
loaded with cOmbustibles was run into
the cnemy's ship, the train fired, and the
crew, escaping in a boat, left the brulot
to destroy the doomed vessel. This de-
vice, in the hands of the intelligent and
active Greeks, was a terrible scourge to
their enemies.
There is no incident in their history
which better exhibits the characteristics
of the Turk ahoat than the battle of Ma
varino, which decided the contest for lib
erty in favor of the Greeks. The Sultan
had fitted out an immense fleet to accom-
pany an army to the shores of doomed
Greece, there to repeat the scenes of the
massacre of Scio, and completely crush
out the revolution. This fleet, consisting
of seventy vessels of war and forty trans
ports, lay in the harbor of Navarino. On
the Goth of October, 1927, the combined
British, French and Russian fleets, con-
sisting of twenty-nine ships, entered the
harbor, for the purpose of observation,
and with no intention of molesting the
Turks. But the jealousy and folly of the
latter brought on a battle that resulted
in their complete destruction. We quote
from an account written at the time
On the entrance of the European fleet, the Turks
evidently supposed they had come to engage them,
and prepared for battle in their confused way:
without other order than the example of the Capt.
tana Bey the Egyptian Admiral Moharem Bey,
in fact declaring that he would not fight. But be-
fore all the European vessels had come to anchor,
a boat sent by one of them to a Turkish tireship,
requesting her to move, was fired upon, and some
of her men killed; this was answered by return
fire of musketry; al Egyptian corvette then i'm
prudently fired a cannon shot into the Dartmouth,
which of course brought on return fire. and the
Turks madly answering it from several vessels,
part of the line began an action.
Meantime Admiral Codrington in the Asia, de-
sirous of preventing general action, fired only
upon the ships Of the line of the Constantinople
Admiral who had fired first; the Egyptian Ad-
miral living upon his other bow was not molested,
ulllll scAuluS piIot Ia NTtch) 10 tue
Egyptian Admiral, to signify his intention of not
fighting if he could avoid it. the boat was fired
upon the pilot and some men were killed, and the
Egyptian fired upon the Asia. Then Codrington
opening his tremendous broadside upon the Egyp
tian on one side, and the Turks on the other,
poured forth such a terrible fire as in few mo-
1nents reduced them both to mere wrecks, and
they swung utterly destroyed to leeward; thus I'M
covering the second Turkish line of vessels which
lay behind them, and which opened their whole
fire upon Codrington
The action now became general; the vessels of
each nation striving to Guido the other, and Turks
firing with the blind fury of desperation. They
were more than double in number, and warmly
seconded by the whole line of land batteries,
poured forth such tremendous yolley of shot, as
well directed, must have utterly destroyed the
Europeans in a few minutes but the latter sent
back as rapidly, a smaller but much more dread
full fire: for every gun we'll pointed every
shot told, and i'll few minutes it was seen which
way the scale would turn.
Burning with generous emulation, each Euro
pean Commander strove to distinguish himself;
boats were sent out, and the men boarding the
Turkish brulots, cut them away set them on fire,
and let them drive in among their fleet In few