6 ms·

How Important Was the Battle of Lepanto?

64 points by Vigier 5y ago

jgwil2 5y ago
For a good read on Lepanto and context, I recommend Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World: https://smile.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/dp/0812977645/ref=sr_1_4 https://smile.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/...
- nl 5y ago
  All Roger Crowley's books[1] are great. I really enjoyed "Constantinople: The Last Siege". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Crowley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Crowley
dragontamer 5y ago
I dunno much about the Middle Ages. But I'd argue that the most important Naval Battle for the 20th century was Battle of Tsushima. Yes, even more important than Battle of Midway. Midway was more climactic for sure, but "important" is a bit different. 1. The Battle of Tsushima proved that Japan was a world-power and no longer a backwards country of sword wielders. Sinking the Russian fleet (who was considered one of the great Naval powers of the world) was a big deal, and put Japan on the world stage. 2. The overwhelming victory became Japanese Naval doctrine: the Japanese "learned" that if you sink the enemy's fleet, the enemy will surrender. This doctrine, Kantai Kessen, led to the Japanese strategy of WW2 (aka: Sink the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Because American carriers luckily escaped the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese would pursue Midway to continue to try to decisively sink the remainder of the fleet, again). Indeed, the young "Yamamoto" (original name: Isoroku Takano) lost two fingers in the Battle of Tsushima. 3. The world watched the battle, and learned that bigger-guns were better. The Battle of Tsushima led to the development of Dreadnaught Battleships, which had fewer but bigger guns with longer range (much like the Battleship Mikasa, one of the most pivotal ships in the battle). All battleships built after Tsushima had this singular battle in mind as inspiration. This single battle inspired Germany's Bismark, USA's Iowa, and the Japanese Yamato. 4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up and attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory. 5. The Battle of Tsushima basically ended the Russo-Japanese war. As pivotal as Midway was for WW2, there would be a long, drawn-out conflict for years, regardless of who won Midway. If Japan hypothetically won the Midway Naval battle, it'd still be a grueling mission to actually take Midway from the garrisoned American forces. And, as we know from reality, even though USA won Midway decisively, it was a grueling "island hopping" mission (including Iwo Jima), followed by the Atomic Bomb, before the USA would win. ------------- Arguably, WW2 battles would demonstrate that battleships were obsolete and that the Carrier reigns supreme. The Battle of the Coral Sea, more so than Midway, demonstrated the new realities of Naval battle: Carriers attacking each other "beyond the horizon", far outside of the range of any gun and only accessible through fleets of aircraft. But unlike Tsushima, this fact was already known and recognized by the major navies. Strategically, the Battle of the Coral Sea and even Midway were conducted where both sides recognized the importance of carriers in the Naval mission. ---------- As we enter the modern age: there are no such naval battles any more. There is a bunch of theorycraft with how missile destroyers, nuclear subs, and carriers would interact with each other, but none of which has been tested (and ideally, none of this equipment is ever truly tested).
- gerdesj 5y ago
  There are several takaways from that battle and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima#Contributing_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima#Contributin... emphasises several. The Dreadnaughts eventually clashed at Jutland and whilst there were horrendous losses, it was inconclusive. Winnie's comment is pretty apt: > Churchill ... described British Admiral John Jellicoe as "the only man who on either side could lose the war in an afternoon."
  - panick21 5y ago
    It was not inconclusive. It was the opposite. Britain had had the strategic upper hand and had to do nothing. The battle happened and Germany was not able to change the strategic situation.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up and attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory." Technically, I believe that honor belongs to the Battle of Surigao Strait in 1944. (Darn you, Halsey!)
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Oh, when I say "line up", I literally mean, "line up". Here's the Russian view of the battle: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Tsushima_27_May_1905.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Tsushima... Here's the Japanese view of the battle: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Battle_of_Tsushima_%28Chart_1-3%29_J.PNG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Battle_o... And later: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Battle_of_Tsushima_%28Chart_7-9%29_J.PNG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Battle_o... It seems insane, but for hundreds of years, "lining up" all your ships into neat little columns and firing all together was one of the main strategies. It was largely assumed that enemies would also try to do this, so you end up with big ships just broad-siding each other up-and-down the "line of battle". I have to imagine that radio-communications obsoleted the practice. But pre-radio, it probably made more sense to send signals to each other up-and-down the line and coordinate the fleet. Tsushima was one of those awkward transition points from semaphore flags into radio communications.
dmurray 5y ago
Known now anachronistically to players of Diplomacy as the eponym of any opening where Italy and Austria combine to mount an amphibious assault against Turkey.
throwawayay02 5y ago
A real scale replica of the Spanish flagship galley can be seen in the Barcelona Maritime Museum.
thedudeabides5 5y ago
Every now and then an empire with a powerful land army decides to really try to build a navy. At some point they start pushing back against the existing commercial world order, which leads to conflict with the dominant naval/air power, who plays the role of protecting trade. Then they lose.
- ardit33 5y ago
  Yeah... nice thesis, just it is not right. The Romans won against Carthage, even though they had no navy (apart some Liburnian ships copied from the Illyrians), and had to build it by scratch. They actually won with no true experience. Carthage was a mercantile navy power, while Rome was a land power at the time. The exact scenario repeated in the battle of Lepanto, but this time the navy power won. (the Ottomans being the land super power of the time, and Venice a mercantile navy power).
  - thedudeabides5 5y ago
    I mean, that's true. But really only when the Carthaginians were arrogant enough to invade Rome and hang out for a couple years. Usually when the naval power stays off the home turf, it goes alright, but I take this is a great counter point.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    This ignores the multitude of navy destroying battles Rome had in the First Punic War before gaining enough shipbuilding experience to compete, though even then their naval skills were so much worse they competed by developing a way to turn it into a land battle. Lepanto was the opposite, the end of over a millennium of armies fighting at sea and the emergence of a new form of naval supremacy.
  - naim08 5y ago
    Wait, Romans won because a war of attrition was not in favor for Carthage. Carthage won more naval battles yet the loses from each battle weren't replenished like the Romans.
nostrademons 5y ago
Lepanto was important for the same reason that Hampton Roads, Tsushima, and Pearl Harbor are important. They're decisive turning points in naval technology, where a battle demonstrates that the old ways of warfare are obsolete and new dominant tactics need to be adopted. For Lepanto, it was the vulnerability of galleys and shipboard infantry to gunfire, as cannonfire from the 6 Venetian galleases caused mass confusion as the galleys and their shipboard infantry approached each other; afterwards, the galley was obsoleted by galleons and ships of the line. Hampton Roads demonstrated the invulnerability of ironclads to traditional cannons, numbering the days of wooden sailing ships. Tsushima showed the importance of being able to engage at range, ushering in the era of the dreadnought battleship. Pearl Harbor (and Midway) showed how useless fleets of battleships are against air power. The article says as much, but for some reason focuses on the effects of the battle on politics rather than on technology.
mcguire 5y ago
"Third, Lepanto showed the Christian universe, mired in internal political squabbles, that diversity was not detrimental to its potential world leadership." I'm not sure about that. The Christian coalition (Venice, Spain, and the Roman Catholic Church (Note: this is during the Reformation)) had a history of backstabbing and repeatedly fell apart, including the year before when they might have been in a position to prevent the fall of Cyprus. In fact, as I understand it, the reason the battle of Lepanto occurred so late in the year was because the Coalition couldn't get their fleets together any earlier---which meant that even if they wanted to follow up, they could not until the next year. "The economic damage of galley warfare had been considerable. Philip defaulted on his debts in 1575; the tax gradient in the Ottoman Empire rose. Lepanto revealed the first cracks in its system and signalled the start of a long, slow decline." Got a bit of a problem with that, too. The economic damage of galley warfare was a drop in the bucket (for Spain and the Ottoman Empire; the loss of Cyprus was another is a list of major costs to Venice). I can't really speak to the Ottomans, but Spain was pretty near broke to start with, even with the revenues from the New World; Philip II wasn't getting his cut of the revenues due to corruption and those very revenues had caused hideous inflation. On the other hand, the Battle of Lepanto, along with the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English, did kind of put an exclamation point on the end of the power of galleys and the beginning of the age of sail.
haihaibye 5y ago
I really dislike the academic language used in the article > A pervasive ontology of sameness, rooted in notions of essential humanity and nascent sensitivity to cultural relativism soon developed. The Ottoman enemy and its Christian opponents became, over time, integrated parts of a discernible, albeit internally contentious unity, revealed by that great equaliser, war. Why do people have to write like this?
- gerdesj 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that "pervasive ontology of sameness" should elicit a response of "bingo"! Your quotes are from one individual - Kiril Petkov. He starts off fine in my opinion but his final paragraph looks like he might have hit the sherry too early. I think he is saying: "It's six of one and half a dozen of the other".
- mistrial9 5y ago
  academics in soft-sciences sometimes use opaque wording to create a shield from low-brow or emotional opposition to the statements.. I think that after watching a trained academic give a talk on the theory behind a particular museum installation.. Since it is highly subjective what to focus on in something like a museum show that is publicized, it seemed to me that the academic was signalling to an "in crowd" of other trained academics, while giving the straight-arm to those who were not > A pervasive ontology of sameness, rooted in notions of essential humanity and nascent sensitivity to cultural relativism soon developed what I read in that is, the destruction was so obvious, that the participants on both sides had to retreat to some feelings of humanity, and found similarity that way
  - bryananderson 5y ago
    All of us in computing and natural sciences love to say this about the social sciences, but wouldn’t an outsider to our fields say the same after reading a paper? I don’t think it’s fair to expect academic work to use layperson’s terms. We wouldn’t expect, say, biologists to do this when writing for other biologists—we’d expect a biologist-communicator like Richard Dawkins to write a book summarizing the original work in a way that a smart layperson can understand without needing to learn the field’s jargon. Similarly there are great books by historian-communicators for a general audience, but that’s not the way they talk when writing for other academic historians.

64 points by Vigier 5y ago

For a good read on Lepanto and context, I recommend Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World: https://smile.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/dp/0812977645/ref=sr_1_4 https://smile.amazon.com/Empires-Sea-Battle-Lepanto-Contest/...

nl 5y ago
All Roger Crowley's books[1] are great. I really enjoyed "Constantinople: The Last Siege". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Crowley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Crowley

dragontamer 5y ago

I dunno much about the Middle Ages. But I'd argue that the most important Naval Battle for the 20th century was Battle of Tsushima. Yes, even more important than Battle of Midway. Midway was more climactic for sure, but "important" is a bit different. 1. The Battle of Tsushima proved that Japan was a world-power and no longer a backwards country of sword wielders. Sinking the Russian fleet (who was considered one of the great Naval powers of the world) was a big deal, and put Japan on the world stage. 2. The overwhelming victory became Japanese Naval doctrine: the Japanese "learned" that if you sink the enemy's fleet, the enemy will surrender. This doctrine, Kantai Kessen, led to the Japanese strategy of WW2 (aka: Sink the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Because American carriers luckily escaped the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese would pursue Midway to continue to try to decisively sink the remainder of the fleet, again). Indeed, the young "Yamamoto" (original name: Isoroku Takano) lost two fingers in the Battle of Tsushima. 3. The world watched the battle, and learned that bigger-guns were better. The Battle of Tsushima led to the development of Dreadnaught Battleships, which had fewer but bigger guns with longer range (much like the Battleship Mikasa, one of the most pivotal ships in the battle). All battleships built after Tsushima had this singular battle in mind as inspiration. This single battle inspired Germany's Bismark, USA's Iowa, and the Japanese Yamato. 4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up and attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory. 5. The Battle of Tsushima basically ended the Russo-Japanese war. As pivotal as Midway was for WW2, there would be a long, drawn-out conflict for years, regardless of who won Midway. If Japan hypothetically won the Midway Naval battle, it'd still be a grueling mission to actually take Midway from the garrisoned American forces. And, as we know from reality, even though USA won Midway decisively, it was a grueling "island hopping" mission (including Iwo Jima), followed by the Atomic Bomb, before the USA would win. ------------- Arguably, WW2 battles would demonstrate that battleships were obsolete and that the Carrier reigns supreme. The Battle of the Coral Sea, more so than Midway, demonstrated the new realities of Naval battle: Carriers attacking each other "beyond the horizon", far outside of the range of any gun and only accessible through fleets of aircraft. But unlike Tsushima, this fact was already known and recognized by the major navies. Strategically, the Battle of the Coral Sea and even Midway were conducted where both sides recognized the importance of carriers in the Naval mission. ---------- As we enter the modern age: there are no such naval battles any more. There is a bunch of theorycraft with how missile destroyers, nuclear subs, and carriers would interact with each other, but none of which has been tested (and ideally, none of this equipment is ever truly tested).

gerdesj 5y ago
There are several takaways from that battle and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima#Contributing_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima#Contributin... emphasises several. The Dreadnaughts eventually clashed at Jutland and whilst there were horrendous losses, it was inconclusive. Winnie's comment is pretty apt: > Churchill ... described British Admiral John Jellicoe as "the only man who on either side could lose the war in an afternoon."
- panick21 5y ago
  It was not inconclusive. It was the opposite. Britain had had the strategic upper hand and had to do nothing. The battle happened and Germany was not able to change the strategic situation.
mcguire 5y ago
"4. The Battle of Tsushima was the last time ships lined up and attacked each other with their guns in a blaze of glory." Technically, I believe that honor belongs to the Battle of Surigao Strait in 1944. (Darn you, Halsey!)
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Oh, when I say "line up", I literally mean, "line up". Here's the Russian view of the battle: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Tsushima_27_May_1905.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Tsushima... Here's the Japanese view of the battle: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Battle_of_Tsushima_%28Chart_1-3%29_J.PNG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Battle_o... And later: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Battle_of_Tsushima_%28Chart_7-9%29_J.PNG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Battle_o... It seems insane, but for hundreds of years, "lining up" all your ships into neat little columns and firing all together was one of the main strategies. It was largely assumed that enemies would also try to do this, so you end up with big ships just broad-siding each other up-and-down the "line of battle". I have to imagine that radio-communications obsoleted the practice. But pre-radio, it probably made more sense to send signals to each other up-and-down the line and coordinate the fleet. Tsushima was one of those awkward transition points from semaphore flags into radio communications.

dmurray 5y ago

Known now anachronistically to players of Diplomacy as the eponym of any opening where Italy and Austria combine to mount an amphibious assault against Turkey.

throwawayay02 5y ago

A real scale replica of the Spanish flagship galley can be seen in the Barcelona Maritime Museum.

thedudeabides5 5y ago

Every now and then an empire with a powerful land army decides to really try to build a navy. At some point they start pushing back against the existing commercial world order, which leads to conflict with the dominant naval/air power, who plays the role of protecting trade. Then they lose.

ardit33 5y ago
Yeah... nice thesis, just it is not right. The Romans won against Carthage, even though they had no navy (apart some Liburnian ships copied from the Illyrians), and had to build it by scratch. They actually won with no true experience. Carthage was a mercantile navy power, while Rome was a land power at the time. The exact scenario repeated in the battle of Lepanto, but this time the navy power won. (the Ottomans being the land super power of the time, and Venice a mercantile navy power).
- thedudeabides5 5y ago
  I mean, that's true. But really only when the Carthaginians were arrogant enough to invade Rome and hang out for a couple years. Usually when the naval power stays off the home turf, it goes alright, but I take this is a great counter point.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  This ignores the multitude of navy destroying battles Rome had in the First Punic War before gaining enough shipbuilding experience to compete, though even then their naval skills were so much worse they competed by developing a way to turn it into a land battle. Lepanto was the opposite, the end of over a millennium of armies fighting at sea and the emergence of a new form of naval supremacy.
- naim08 5y ago
  Wait, Romans won because a war of attrition was not in favor for Carthage. Carthage won more naval battles yet the loses from each battle weren't replenished like the Romans.

nostrademons 5y ago

Lepanto was important for the same reason that Hampton Roads, Tsushima, and Pearl Harbor are important. They're decisive turning points in naval technology, where a battle demonstrates that the old ways of warfare are obsolete and new dominant tactics need to be adopted. For Lepanto, it was the vulnerability of galleys and shipboard infantry to gunfire, as cannonfire from the 6 Venetian galleases caused mass confusion as the galleys and their shipboard infantry approached each other; afterwards, the galley was obsoleted by galleons and ships of the line. Hampton Roads demonstrated the invulnerability of ironclads to traditional cannons, numbering the days of wooden sailing ships. Tsushima showed the importance of being able to engage at range, ushering in the era of the dreadnought battleship. Pearl Harbor (and Midway) showed how useless fleets of battleships are against air power. The article says as much, but for some reason focuses on the effects of the battle on politics rather than on technology.

mcguire 5y ago

"Third, Lepanto showed the Christian universe, mired in internal political squabbles, that diversity was not detrimental to its potential world leadership." I'm not sure about that. The Christian coalition (Venice, Spain, and the Roman Catholic Church (Note: this is during the Reformation)) had a history of backstabbing and repeatedly fell apart, including the year before when they might have been in a position to prevent the fall of Cyprus. In fact, as I understand it, the reason the battle of Lepanto occurred so late in the year was because the Coalition couldn't get their fleets together any earlier---which meant that even if they wanted to follow up, they could not until the next year. "The economic damage of galley warfare had been considerable. Philip defaulted on his debts in 1575; the tax gradient in the Ottoman Empire rose. Lepanto revealed the first cracks in its system and signalled the start of a long, slow decline." Got a bit of a problem with that, too. The economic damage of galley warfare was a drop in the bucket (for Spain and the Ottoman Empire; the loss of Cyprus was another is a list of major costs to Venice). I can't really speak to the Ottomans, but Spain was pretty near broke to start with, even with the revenues from the New World; Philip II wasn't getting his cut of the revenues due to corruption and those very revenues had caused hideous inflation. On the other hand, the Battle of Lepanto, along with the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English, did kind of put an exclamation point on the end of the power of galleys and the beginning of the age of sail.

haihaibye 5y ago

I really dislike the academic language used in the article > A pervasive ontology of sameness, rooted in notions of essential humanity and nascent sensitivity to cultural relativism soon developed. The Ottoman enemy and its Christian opponents became, over time, integrated parts of a discernible, albeit internally contentious unity, revealed by that great equaliser, war. Why do people have to write like this?

gerdesj 5y ago
I'm pretty sure that "pervasive ontology of sameness" should elicit a response of "bingo"! Your quotes are from one individual - Kiril Petkov. He starts off fine in my opinion but his final paragraph looks like he might have hit the sherry too early. I think he is saying: "It's six of one and half a dozen of the other".
mistrial9 5y ago
academics in soft-sciences sometimes use opaque wording to create a shield from low-brow or emotional opposition to the statements.. I think that after watching a trained academic give a talk on the theory behind a particular museum installation.. Since it is highly subjective what to focus on in something like a museum show that is publicized, it seemed to me that the academic was signalling to an "in crowd" of other trained academics, while giving the straight-arm to those who were not > A pervasive ontology of sameness, rooted in notions of essential humanity and nascent sensitivity to cultural relativism soon developed what I read in that is, the destruction was so obvious, that the participants on both sides had to retreat to some feelings of humanity, and found similarity that way
- bryananderson 5y ago
  All of us in computing and natural sciences love to say this about the social sciences, but wouldn’t an outsider to our fields say the same after reading a paper? I don’t think it’s fair to expect academic work to use layperson’s terms. We wouldn’t expect, say, biologists to do this when writing for other biologists—we’d expect a biologist-communicator like Richard Dawkins to write a book summarizing the original work in a way that a smart layperson can understand without needing to learn the field’s jargon. Similarly there are great books by historian-communicators for a general audience, but that’s not the way they talk when writing for other academic historians.