Undismayed by the failure of his first attempt, Pope Pius had
immediately gone to work to reorganize his Holy League. He had
to overcome the mutual hatred and mistrust that lay between Spain
and Venice, aggravated by the recent conduct of Doria, but neither
the Pope nor Venice could do without the help of Spain. There was
much bickering between the envoys in the Papal chambers, and it
was not till February, 1571, that the terms of the new enterprise
were agreed upon. By this contract no one of the powers represented
was to make a separate peace with the Porte. The costs were divided
into six parts, of which Spain undertook three, Venice, two, and
the Pope, one. Don Juan, the illegitimate brother of Philip II, was
to be commander in chief. Although only twenty-four, this prince
had won a military reputation in suppressing the Moorish rebellion
in Spain, and, having been recognized by Philip as a half brother,
he had a princely rank that would subordinate the claims of all the
rival admirals. Finally, the rendezvous was appointed at Messina.
The aged Venetian admiral, Veniero, had been compelled by the situation
in the east to divide his force into two parts, one at Crete, and
the other under himself at Corfu. By the time he received orders
to proceed to the rendezvous, he learned that Ali, the corsair
king of Algiers, known better by his nickname of "Uluch" Ali, was
operating at the mouth of the Adriatic with a large force. To reach
Messina with his divided fleet, Veniero ran the risk of being caught
by Ali and destroyed in detail, but the situation was so critical
that he took the risk and succeeded in slipping past the corsair
undiscovered. In permitting this escape, and in fact in allowing
all the other units of the Christian fleet to assemble at Messina,
Ali missed a golden opportunity to destroy the whole force before
it ever collected. Instead, he continued his ravages on the coasts
of the Adriatic, bent only on plunder. He carried his raids almost
to the lagoons of Venice itself, and indeed might have attacked
the city had he not been hampered by a shortage of men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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