Siege
1538 Portuguese victory against Gujarat in India
The siege of Diu occurred when an army of the Sultanate of Gujarat under Khadjar Safar, aided by forces of the Ottoman Empire, attempted to capture the city of Diu in 1538, then held by the Portuguese. The siege was part of the Ottoman-Portuguese war. The Portuguese successfully resisted the four-month long siege.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Siege of Diu”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The siege of Diu occurred when an army of the Sultanate of Gujarat under Khadjar Safar, aided by forces of the Ottoman Empire, attempted to capture the city of Diu in 1538, then held by the Portuguese. The siege was part of the Ottoman-Portuguese war. The Portuguese successfully resisted the four-month long siege.
In 1509, the major Battle of Diu (1509) took place between the Portuguese and a joint fleet of the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, with support of the Ottoman Empire. Since 1517, the Ottomans had attempted to combine forces with Gujarat in order to fight the Portuguese away from the Red Sea and in the area of India. Pro-Ottoman forces under Captain Hoca Sefer had been installed by Selman Reis in Diu.
Diu in Gujarat (now a state in western India), was with Surat, one of the main points of supply of spices to Ottoman Egypt at that time. However, Portuguese intervention thwarted that trade by controlling the traffic in the Red Sea. In 1530, the Venetians could not obtain any supply of spices through Egypt.
Under the command of Governor Nuno da Cunha, the Portuguese had attempted to capture Diu by force in February 1531, unsuccessfully. Thereafter, the Portuguese waged war on Gujarat, devastating its shores and several cities like Surat.
Soon after however, the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, who was under threat from the Mughal emperor Humayun, made an agreement with the Portuguese, granting them Diu in exchange for Portuguese assistance against the Mughals and protection should the realm fall. The Portuguese seized the stronghold of Gogala (Bender-i Türk) near the city, and built the Diu Fort. Once the threat from Humayun was removed, Bahadur tried to negotiate the withdrawal of the Portuguese, but on 13 February 1537 he died drowning during the negotiations on board a Portuguese ship in unclear circumstances, both sides blaming the other for the tragedy.
Bahadur Shah had also appealed to the Ottomans to expel the Portuguese, which led to the 1538 expedition.
Upon the arrival of Sultan Bahadur's envoy to Egypt with a large tribute in 1536, the Ottoman governor (pasha) of Egypt, 60-year-old eunuch Hadim Suleiman Pasha, was nominated by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to organize and personally lead an expedition to India. Sultan Suleiman instructed the pasha to wage a "holy war... and to capture and hold those Indian posts and to avenge the evil deeds of the Portuguese infidels". Pasha Suleiman forbade any shipping out of the Red Sea to avoid leaking information to the Portuguese in India. He also secured funds for the expedition by executing many wealthy individuals and seizing their property. There were delays however due to the siege of Coron in the Mediterranean, and the Ottoman–Safavid war of 1533–1535.
According to the Tarikh al-Shihri, Ottoman forces amounted to 80 vessels and 40,000 men. Others sources state 70 vessels. Gaspar Correia provided a more specific account, claiming that the Turks assembled at Suez an armada composed of 15 "bastard galleys" (it), 40 "royal galleys", 6 galliots, 5 galleons "with four masts each" that were "dangerous ships to sail, for they were shallow with no keel"; five smaller craft, six foists from Gujarat, and two brigs. It carried over 400 artillery pieces in total, over 10,000 sailors and rowers (of which 1,500 were Christian) and 6,000 soldiers, of which 1,500 were janissaries. The Pasha employed a Venetian renegade, Francisco, as captain of 10 galleys, plus 800 Christian mercenaries. Some sailors were forcibly conscripted from Venetian galleys then at Alexandria. 200 soldiers were executed for protesting being put to oars duty. On 20 July 1538 the armada set sail from Jeddah, stopping by Kamaran Island before proceeding to Aden.
At Aden, Pasha Suleiman captured the city after inviting its ruler, Sheikh Amir bin Dawaud, favourable towards the Portuguese, aboard his ships, then hanging him. Thus, Aden was occupied without a siege, and plundered.
The expedition left Aden on 19 August and then called at Socotra, thereafter making its way to the western coast of Gujarat, despite losing some ships that got separated from the fleet during the passage of the Indian Ocean. It was the largest Ottoman fleet ever sent into the Indian Ocean.
The captain of Diu at the time was the experienced António da Silveira, former captain of Bassein and Hormuz who had participated in the Portuguese-Gujarati War of 1531–34. The Portuguese fortress housed about 3,000 people, of which solely 600 were soldiers.
After the death of Bahadur, his successor assembled an army that numbered 10,000 footmen and 5,000 horsmen at Champaner. He was instigated by the lord of Surat Khadjar Safar – Coge Sofar in Portuguese, an Albanian renegade from Otranto and an influential lord in Gujarat. Upon receiving information of the impending siege, António da Silveira prepared for a long and difficult siege. He had the passage points onto the island guarded, though there was a lack of everything inside the fort.
Under the command of Khadjar Safar, the Gujarati forces began crossing the channel of Diu onto the western side of the island on 26 June 1538, being held back by the city's western walls just long enough for the Portuguese to fill their water reserves and burn their supply storages in the city before finally retreating to the fortress on the eastern end of the island. Coge Sofar was initially repulsed, but after the bulk of the Gujarati army arrived, Silveira realized he could not hold them back with so small a force as his and retreated. Coge Sofar and general Alu Cham then took control of the city.
For the following two months the Gujaratis were unable to threaten the besieged with more than a low-intensity bombardment, while the Portuguese conducted occasional raids on the Gujarati positions.
When António da Silveira received reports of the possible arrival of an Ottoman fleet, he dispatched a craft to Goa advising governor Nuno da Cunha to prepare a relief force. It left in August under one Miguel Vaz.
Lopo de Sousa Coutinho, who would later write his memoirs on the siege, distinguished himself on 14 August after leading 14 Portuguese in a sortie into the city to capture supplies, defeating 400 soldiers of Khadjar Safar.
On 4 September the Ottoman fleet arrived in Diu, catching the Portuguese garrison by surprise and thus blockading the fortress by sea. Captain da Silveira immediately sent a small craft to run the blockade with a distress call to Goa, while Pasha Suleiman promptly landed 600 to 700 janissaries, the following day on the 5th. The janissaries proceeded to plunder the city – causing Suleiman to fall out of favour with the lords of Gujarat except Khadjar Safar. The janissaries then attempted to scale the fortress' walls but were repelled with 50 dead. There was a respite on the 6th.
A strong storm fell upon Diu on 7 September, forcing the Ottomans to relocate their fleet to a sheltered harbour at Mahuwa, where they remained for twenty days, during which the Portuguese took the opportunity to strengthen their defenses, while a first relief fleet arrived. Four foists from Goa and Chaul arrived with reinforcements on 14 September. The storm damaged part of the Ottoman fleet (and helped the Portuguese restore their water supplies), after which the Turks began unloading their artillery and a further 1,000 men, and raising a number of defensive and siege works around the fort. It seems by then the Gujarati lords became distrustful of the Ottomans, possibly fearing that they might establish themselves in Diu after expelling the Portuguese, and the following day refused to provide any further supplies.
A distant eyewitness, the famous Portuguese traveler Fernão Mendes Pinto later recounted how, passing by the fortress, Turkish galleys came close to seizing the tradeship he traveled in:
Having decided to stop for news of what was going on there, we began our approach to land, and by nightfall we were able to distinguish a lot of fires all along the coast as well as the occasional burst of artillery. Not knowing what to make of it, we shortened sail and hove to for the rest of the night until daybreak, when we got a clear view of the fortress surrounded by an enormous number of lateen-rigged vessels. [...] While we were arguing back and forth and becoming gradually more alarmed by the possibilities confronting us, five ships moved out from the middle of the fleet. They were huge galleys, with their fore-and-aft sails in a checkerboard pattern of green and purple, the deck awnings literally covered in flags, and long banners streaming so far down from the mastheads that the ends brushed the surface of the water.
— Fernão Mendes Pinto, in Peregrinação
The Ottoman artillery opened fire on the fortress on the 28th, as their galleys bombarded it from the sea, with the Portuguese replying in suit – the Portuguese sank a galley but lost several men as two of their basilisks exploded.
Across the Diu channel on the mainland shore, the Portuguese kept a redoubt by a village dubbed Vila dos Rumes – "Village of the Rumes" (Turks) modern day Gogolá – commanded by Captain Francisco Pacheco and defended by 30–40 Portuguese, which came under attack by Gujarati forces. On 10 September the army of Khadjar Safar bombarded the fortlet with Turkish artillery pieces before attempting to assault it with the aid of janissaries, but were repelled.
Khadjar Safar then ordered a craft be filled with timber, sulphur, and tar, which he hoped to place by the redoubt and smoke the Portuguese out. Realizing his intentions, António da Silveira sent Francisco de Gouveia with a small crew on a craft to burn the device with fire bombs under cover of night, despite coming under enemy fire. Another assault on 28 September with 700 janissaries failed after a prolonged bombardment.
The Portuguese garrison resisted until its captain Pacheco agreed to surrender to the Pasha on 1 October, who had granted them safe passage to the fortress unharmed. When they surrendered however, Suleiman promptly had them imprisoned on his galleys.
Thus under the Pasha’s power, former captain Francisco Pacheco wrote a letter to captain António da Silveira, advising him to lay down arms; it was delivered by a Portuguese renegade António Faleyro, who had converted to Islam and dressed in the Turkish fashion, that he was at first unrecognizable by his former comrades. It read:
I have surrendered to the great captain Çoleymam baxá through an agreement sealed in gold under his name, in which he granted us our lives, liberties, belongings and slaves, old and young, except the weapons and artillery: and had us go greet him on his galley, and as we were led to the city, they divided us by the houses, in groups of two: me and Gonçalo D'Almeida my cousin, and António Faleyro were taken to Suleiman's bastard galley, who received us well and gave each of us fine clothes; after which I told him to spare me such procedure of his and release us (as had been promised) and he responded that we ought not to wear ourselves out, for he had fulfilled his part. But as he wanted to attack that fortress by land and sea, he'd entertain us as long as that took; and upon capturing it, he'd send us to India; otherwise he'd release us, so we might return to the fortress. Then he ordered two very sound basilisks unloaded, and he'll unload as many as he wishes, which he can very well do. And allow me to write to you to surrender without further delay, otherwise he'll have you all by the sword. Now see what you must and be well advised
Captain António da Silveira, who considered the Pasha's conduct to have been treasonous (and Pacheco’s advice outrageous), seized paper and ink and replied in the following manner:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Siege of Diu (1538)”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.