9 - Egypt – a Periodic Maritime Interest

Summary

In the course of twelve years I find Mehemet [Mohammad] Ali master of two fleets, consisting of sixty vessels of war, with marine of 40,000 men, and an arsenal in which the greater number of his own ships have been built, and occupying a site which twelve years ago, was a sandy beach.

Richard Robert Madden, 1841

Egypt, an independent Islamic sultanate, had been ruled from 1250 CE up until the time of the Ottoman conquest of 1517 by the Mamluks, a military caste that had arisen from the ranks of central Asian slave soldiers. Despite possession of a coastline bounding two sides of the eastern Mediterranean and stretching approximately 900 miles, the Mamluks had seen little value in the creation of a permanent navy. Instead, they had relied upon the assembly of naval fleets on an ad hoc basis, these designed to meet a need of the moment, galleys constructed for an invasion of Cyprus in the 1420s and a further fleet for a series of plundering raids in the 1440s. The adoption of sail or, perhaps, more correctly, a heavier reliance on sail over oar, came about during the opening years of the sixteenth century when, once again, a fleet was created to meet the demand of the moment, that of attempting to counter a Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean.

It was towards the end of May 1498 that Vasco da Gama hove to off Calicut (Kozhikode), having confirmed that a sea route existed between Europe and the Indian sub-continent. It was a voyage made possible through the use of square-rigged carracks of approximately 90 tons and a smaller lateen-rigged caravel, vessels which, at that time, were in the forefront of a technology unwitnessed in the Islamic world. These vessels were ideal for the carriage of ordnance, the carracks having a high stern and forecastle that could serve as platforms for six small guns, with eight larger cannons positioned on the lower quarterdeck. Financed by King Manuel I of Portugal (1495–1521), the aim of the expedition was to gain entry into the profitable spice trade, this previously monopolised by Venetian merchants using the land route between the Mediterranean and Red Sea.