Sultan vs Sultan - The Ottoman-Portuguese Wars Of 1538-57
The second Ottoman-Portuguese War (1538--1557) was an armed military conflict between the
Portuguese Empire and
Ethiopian Empire against the
Ottoman Empire,
Ajuran Sultanate, and
Adal Sultanate, into the
Horn of Africa, the
Indian Ocean, the
Red Sea and in
East Africa.
This war took place upon the backdrop of the
Ethiopian-Adal War.
Ethiopia had been invaded in
1529 by the
Somali Imam Ahmed Gargn.
Portuguese help, which was first asked by
Emperor Lebna Dengel in 1520 to help defeat
Adal while it was weak, finally arrived in
Mitsiwa on
February 10, 1541, during the reign of Emperor
Galawdewos.
The force was led by
Cristóvão da Gama (second son of
Vasco da Gama) and included 400 musketeers and few Portuguese cavalry as well as a number of artisans and other non-combatants.
An Ottoman legion (musketeer's, and some guns) had already been fighting alongside the Somali army for some time, and with the arrival of the Portuguese, the
Ottomans sent reinforcements:
2000 Arabian musketeer, 900
Turkish pikemen,
1000 Turkish foot musketeers, some Shqiptar foot soldiers (with muskets) and Turkish horsemen.
Major hostilities between
Portugal and the Ottoman Empire began in 1538, where the Ottomans with 54 ships laid siege to Diu, which had been built by the Portuguese in 1535. The
Ottoman fleet was led by Sulejman I's emissary
Hussein Paşa, however the attack was not successful and the siege was lifted.
The Portuguese under
Estêvão da Gama (first son of Vasco da Gama) attacking the Ottoman fleet near
Suez Harbor, leaving Goa
December 31, 1540 and reaching
Aden January 27, 1541. The fleet reached
Massawa (
February 12), where
Gama left a number of ships and continued north.
Reaching Suez, he discovered that the
Ottomen long known of his raid, and foiled his attempt to burn the beached ships. Gama was forced to retrace his steps to Massawa, although pausing to attack the port of El-Tor (
Sinai Peninsula).
On February, 1542, in his first encounter with the Somali-Ottoman forces at the
Battle of Baçente, Cristóvão da Gama was able to soundly defeat an Ottoman and Somali contingent. The Portuguese were again victorious at the
Battle of Jarte. However, in the
Battle of Wofla, Somali and Ottoman forces were victorious and Gama was captured and killed upon his refusal to convert to
Islam.
Gelawdewos was eventually able to reorganize his forces and absorb the remaining Portuguese soldiers and defeated
Gragn (who was killed) at the
Battle of Wayna Daga, marking the end of the war (although warfare would resume not long after, at a much diminished scale).
Diu repeatedly became a focal
point of Portuguese and Ottoman naval combat and the
Portuguese navy several times defeated the Ottoman fleet near Diu (1541, 1546, 1549).
Elsewhere in the Indian Ocean naval combat was also intense. In 1547 the
Admiral Piri Reis command of the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet in the Indian Ocean and on
26 February 1548 recaptured Aden, in 1552
Bandar Abbas and
Masqat (
Muscat).
Turning further east, Piri failed to capture Hormuz, at the entrance of the
Persian Gulf. The Portuguese were also able to successfully defend
Bahrain, and in 1556 the Ottoman fleet was destroyed by a storm near
Gujarat.
In 1557, however, after the (nominal only) declaration of a province of
Habesh ("
Abyssinia", i.e. Ethiopia), Ottoman forces invaded Ethiopia and were able to capture the important port of Massawa, beginning the
Ethiopian-Ottoman War.