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Turkish Navy Helped Francis Drake Defeat the Spanish Armada
From Khilafah, crediting The Guardian... Jerry Brotton, a lecturer at Royal Holloway College, London, told the Guardian that a hitherto unnoticed letter from Elizabethâs security chief and spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, to her ambassador in Istanbul showed that it was Turkish naval manoeuvres rather than Drakeâs swashbuckling which delivered the fatal blow to the Spanish invasion plans. The letter, which ordered the ambassador, William Harborne, to incite the Turks to harry the Spanish navy, was written in the mid-1580s and has been buried in archives ever since because it did not apparently relate to any major historical event. But Mr Brotton told the festival: "Walsinghamâs plan was ultimately successful. Ottoman fleet movements in the eastern Mediterranean fatally split Philip IIâs armada ... So alongside all the stories weâre told at school about why the Spanish Armada failed to conquer Britain and destroy Protestantism, we should add another reason: the Anglo-Ottoman alliance brokered by Elizabeth, Walsingham [and others]." .... Walsingham hoped that Islamic forces might keep the Spanish forces "thoroughly occupied" by "some incursions from the coast of Africa", or by attacking his Italian territories from the sea. The Spanish fleet was eventually defeated on July 30 1588 as it awaited the rest of the invasion force off Calais. At the battle of Gravelines, the English navy used fireships before closing in on the confused Spanish. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-06-03 |
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