page_title: Battle of Girolata
section_title: Battle
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Girolata / Battle
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: France, Corse-du-Sud (2A), Golfe de Girolata
context_page_description: The Battle of Girolata was a naval action fought between Genoese, Spanish, and Ottoman ships on 15 June 1540 in the Gulf of Girolata, on the west coast of the island of Corsica, amidst the war between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Suleiman the Magnificent. A Spanish squadron of 21 galleys led by the Genoese Gianettino Doria and the Spaniard Berenguer de Requesens surprised an Ottoman squadron of 11 galleys, anchored at Girolata, led by the Ottoman admiral Dragut, whom the commander of the Ottoman Navy, Hayreddin Barbarossa, had committed to raid the Italian coast after his victories in the Adriatic sea the year before. As the crews of the Ottoman warships were ashore, distributing the booty from recent raids, the Spanish-Genoese fleet easily overtook them, taking all 11 Ottoman galleys and making 1,200 prisoners, among them Dragut, who was carried to Genoa and put, together with his captains, to row in Andrea Doria's galleys.
context_section_description: The Ottoman squadron had set anchor at the Gulf of Girolata to distribute the booty from the recent raid. Dragut had chosen the place because it was deserted and far from the common sailing routes. As such, he left no ship to guard the entrance of the gulf. On arriving in the waters nearby, Gianettino Doria sent his relative Giorgio Doria into the gulf with 6 galleys and a small rowing frigate in order to identify the anchored galleys. Accounts of the battle's course differ. According to Cesáreo Fernández Duro and Edmond Jurien de La Gravière, the Ottoman seamen and soldiers were ashore, sleeping under the trees or having a meal, when the arrival of the Spanish galleys took them by surprise. According to De La Gravière, 600 Ottomans fled to the surrounding mountains before the battle actually started and Dragut barely had time to embark and fire a single volley before the Genoese and Spanish boarded his flagship and his other galleys. At the first shots, many of his men, whether Turks, Moors, or European renegades, jumped overboard to escape inland.
  Alberto Guglielmotti gives a more detailed account of the battle. He states that Dragut had time to embark his crews on seeing the 7 vessels sent ahead by Doria, and that, leaving behind 2 galleys to guard the booty, he sailed to engage Giorgio Doria's force with his 9 remaining galleys. Expecting to fight with superior numbers, Dragut sailed into the ambush laid by Doria and Requesens, whose remaining 15 galleys appeared from the west taking advantage of the windward. Dragut then tried to escape by turning around his ships, but as the Spanish galleys came under his stern, he decided to try to break through them. Then, however, a single shot from Gianettino's galley bow gun inflicted serious damage to his flagship that she nearly sank. Losing hope about the prospect of escaping, most of the Ottoman seamen and soldiers jumped overboard to gain the beach and save themselves inland.
caption: The Gulf of Girolata in 2007.
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