8 - To the Shores of Tripoli

Summary

By a private Letter from France it is laid, that as soon as his Catholic Majesty has accommodated the differences which have arisen between the French and British Courts, those two Powers are to act in conjunction against the Algerines with other Powers, who will be invited into that Alliance, in order to extirpate that nest of Pirates.

English-language newspaper report, June 1755

The continual success of the ghāzī sea warriors was in sharp contrast to the very limited success of the Ottoman navy during the same period. For this there are a number of underlying reasons, of which comparative seagoing experience and levels of motivation are prime. While the ghāzī sea warriors were frequently at sea in their endless war against Christianity, Ottoman warships spent years in harbour and only fully mustered a ship's crew when immediate necessity arose. Even then, time at sea was restricted, usually a few summer months in which an untested crew had little time to learn the skills of sailing and fighting such ships. As for motivation, the ghāzī sea warriors, through the influence of religion and the lure of prize money, were characterised by passion and enthusiasm. Again, this contrasted sharply with those who served in the Ottoman navy. Here prize money was rarely awarded, and religion certainly could not be used as a motivating factor, as those most skilled in sailing the warships of the Ottoman navy were likely to be Christian rather than Muslim.

That combination of prize money and religious fanaticism as a factor for incentivising those who manned warships during the age of fighting sail was one rarely found in other navies, other than that of the crusading orders of the Knights of St John and the Knights of St Stephen. In making such a statement it is important to recognise that a typical ghāzī crew would not be equally motivated by these factors, for not all would be born-Muslims, with varying proportions composed of born-Muslims indoctrinated with the tenets of Islam and Christian apostates likely to be less committed to Islam. While the former were frequently committed to the jihad or ‘Holy War’, the latter may well have had no such commitment. Perversely, and for very different reasons, both would still have been heavily motivated by religion, one group in a positive way and the other negatively.