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Galleons and Galleys
The turn of the 16th century saw the start of a revolution in sea warfare--one long in the making but, once begun, remarkably swift. The driving gunpowder. The principal galleys (long, low boats propelled principally by oars) and galleons (heavy, square rigged sailing ships). Suddenly, Europe, formerly on a technological par with India and China, dominated the waters. They crossed the Atlantic, reached America, and became world powers. A beautifully written account of the age conveys exactly how a country like Portugal could establish outposts from South America to the Pacific, how Christian fleets wrested control of the Mediterranean from the Ottoman Empire, and why the "invincible" Spanish armada met with disaster in its attempt to invade England. A vivid page-turner.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 31, 1975
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About the author
John F. Guilmartin Jr.
13 books1 followerA specialist in the history of early modern Europe, John Gullmartin was professor of history at the Ohio State University, where he taught from 1987 until his death. He earned his BS degree in aerospace engineering at the United States Air Force Academy and an MA (1969) and PhD (1971) in history at Princeton University. An officer in the United States Air Force, Gullmartin served on the faculty of the History Department at the Air Force Academy from 1970-74 and was later the editor of the Air University Review at the Air University in Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. After his retirement from the Air Force, he served on the faculties of the Naval War College and at Rice University where he also directed the space shuttle history project at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 12, 2015
I surprisingly enjoyed reading this book. On the surface, a largely technical work on 16th century Mediterranean galleys appeared rather dry. Guilmartin is impressive; his command of Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and other necessary languages allows him to access a variety of sources generally untapped by naval historians of this period. He organizes the volume into thematic and chronological chapters that alternatively explore the technical, logistical, and political aspects surrounding the 16th century galley and the notable naval battles that occurred between Jiddah in 1517 and Lepanto in 1571. Several appendices introduce specialists and interested readers to the physics of gunpowder, early cannon design, and galleys.
Guilmartin starts with a historical problem: why, after the introduction of gunpowder and broadside firing sailing ships in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean did the war galley persist throughout the 16th century? While other naval historians have viewed the English, Dutch, and Portuguese as progressive naval innovators and treated Mediterranean powers as luddites, Guilmartin demonstrates that war galley fit the climate, geography, and socio-political composition of the Mediterranean far better than the broadside until at least the Battle of Lepanto. When use of the galley declined in the seventeenth and eighteenth century it was due to economic and social factors, like the quality of oarsmen and captains or the rising cost of biscuit and cannon, and not necessarily the galley's technical limitations vis-a-vis the broadside sailing ship.
Guilmartin advances other sub-arguments. Most explicitly, he critiques naval historians who have projected Alfred Thayer Mahan's writings onto 16th century Mediterranean conflicts on the sea. He persuasively shows how Mahan's ideas of "control of the sea" and "naval warfare" are imprecise for describing the objectives and capabilities of galley fleets. First, the galley was not capable of sustaining the blockades that formed the heart of Mahan's "command of the sea" because their limited size and reliance on organic power required frequent victualing at shoreline fortresses and port cities like Barcelona, Venice, and Constantinople. Of the three major powers that included Spain, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire, only Venice's economic fortunes depended entirely on her trans-Mediterranean trade and therefore only Venice thought about "control of the sea" in any Mahanian sense of the term. Spain and the Ottomans used their galley fleets as tactical troop transports for amphibious assaults, strategic raiders in the "little wars" of economic attrition, and as relief forces for besieged fortresses such as those on Malta.
He also argues that:
1. The Mediterranean galley held its own against the broadside sailing ship until at least the 1580s when iron cannon became more prolific.
2. There was no direct correlation between a cannon's barrel length and its maximum effective range.
3. Naval expeditions in the Mediterranean during this century were primarily amphibious endeavors and a symbiotic relationship existed between defensive fortifications and galley fleets.
The concluding chapters on the Battle of Lepanto (1571) offer Guilmartin's assessment of why the galley eventually declined and became obsolete in the Mediterranean. The first reason deals with the limitations of organic power and the law of diminishing returns as galleys and galeasses became larger. Galleys relied on oarsmen for its motive power and for much of the 16th century the galley's "speed under oar" was the most important consideration in ship design. For every proportionate increase in the size of the galley it required a disproportionate increase in the size of its ciurmi (collective oarsmen) to maintain the same burst speed of 7 knots and sustained speed of 3-4 knots. If ships required more oarsmen (sometimes peaking at 200-220 during the 1560s) then fleets also required far more economic investment in biscuit to maintain large expeditions. Unfortunately, these increases in the size of galleys occurred alongside the "price revolution" that witnessed the price of grain, biscuit, and other victuals skyrocket. Over time, Mediterranean powers could no longer afford the severe economic outlay to maintain its galleys and gradually transitioned to the use of mechanical energy (i.e. sails) that both reduced the number employed sailors and the cost of sustained, long-term expeditions. In the case of the Ottomans, their utter annihilation at Lepanto saw the demise of several thousand men skilled at the composite recurve bow, most of her skilled oficiales (or commanders), and several thousand Janissaries. The oficiales and archers were irreplaceable in the short-term because both possessed skill sets that were habitually learned art forms from an early age and not easily trained specialities. In sum, the broadside sailing ship and gunpowder did not directly cause the disappearance of the Mediterranean galley because, in Guilmartin's estimation, broadsides lacked the efficient "ship-killing weapons" until the late-eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. Instead, the galley simply grew too big for its environment to continue sustaining it.
This is an important work of naval history that is also well-written and accessible to all interested readers.
Guilmartin starts with a historical problem: why, after the introduction of gunpowder and broadside firing sailing ships in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean did the war galley persist throughout the 16th century? While other naval historians have viewed the English, Dutch, and Portuguese as progressive naval innovators and treated Mediterranean powers as luddites, Guilmartin demonstrates that war galley fit the climate, geography, and socio-political composition of the Mediterranean far better than the broadside until at least the Battle of Lepanto. When use of the galley declined in the seventeenth and eighteenth century it was due to economic and social factors, like the quality of oarsmen and captains or the rising cost of biscuit and cannon, and not necessarily the galley's technical limitations vis-a-vis the broadside sailing ship.
Guilmartin advances other sub-arguments. Most explicitly, he critiques naval historians who have projected Alfred Thayer Mahan's writings onto 16th century Mediterranean conflicts on the sea. He persuasively shows how Mahan's ideas of "control of the sea" and "naval warfare" are imprecise for describing the objectives and capabilities of galley fleets. First, the galley was not capable of sustaining the blockades that formed the heart of Mahan's "command of the sea" because their limited size and reliance on organic power required frequent victualing at shoreline fortresses and port cities like Barcelona, Venice, and Constantinople. Of the three major powers that included Spain, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire, only Venice's economic fortunes depended entirely on her trans-Mediterranean trade and therefore only Venice thought about "control of the sea" in any Mahanian sense of the term. Spain and the Ottomans used their galley fleets as tactical troop transports for amphibious assaults, strategic raiders in the "little wars" of economic attrition, and as relief forces for besieged fortresses such as those on Malta.
He also argues that:
1. The Mediterranean galley held its own against the broadside sailing ship until at least the 1580s when iron cannon became more prolific.
2. There was no direct correlation between a cannon's barrel length and its maximum effective range.
3. Naval expeditions in the Mediterranean during this century were primarily amphibious endeavors and a symbiotic relationship existed between defensive fortifications and galley fleets.
The concluding chapters on the Battle of Lepanto (1571) offer Guilmartin's assessment of why the galley eventually declined and became obsolete in the Mediterranean. The first reason deals with the limitations of organic power and the law of diminishing returns as galleys and galeasses became larger. Galleys relied on oarsmen for its motive power and for much of the 16th century the galley's "speed under oar" was the most important consideration in ship design. For every proportionate increase in the size of the galley it required a disproportionate increase in the size of its ciurmi (collective oarsmen) to maintain the same burst speed of 7 knots and sustained speed of 3-4 knots. If ships required more oarsmen (sometimes peaking at 200-220 during the 1560s) then fleets also required far more economic investment in biscuit to maintain large expeditions. Unfortunately, these increases in the size of galleys occurred alongside the "price revolution" that witnessed the price of grain, biscuit, and other victuals skyrocket. Over time, Mediterranean powers could no longer afford the severe economic outlay to maintain its galleys and gradually transitioned to the use of mechanical energy (i.e. sails) that both reduced the number employed sailors and the cost of sustained, long-term expeditions. In the case of the Ottomans, their utter annihilation at Lepanto saw the demise of several thousand men skilled at the composite recurve bow, most of her skilled oficiales (or commanders), and several thousand Janissaries. The oficiales and archers were irreplaceable in the short-term because both possessed skill sets that were habitually learned art forms from an early age and not easily trained specialities. In sum, the broadside sailing ship and gunpowder did not directly cause the disappearance of the Mediterranean galley because, in Guilmartin's estimation, broadsides lacked the efficient "ship-killing weapons" until the late-eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. Instead, the galley simply grew too big for its environment to continue sustaining it.
This is an important work of naval history that is also well-written and accessible to all interested readers.
July 30, 2024
This is a detailed study of the final period in which oared warships were the dominant factor of naval power in the Mediterranean, the 16th century. Some form of galley been the warship of choice there since ancient times, and I find it interesting that the dimensions of the classic Venetian galley (about 40 m long with about 170 oarsmen) are close to those of the classic Greek trireme. This suggests a “sweet spot” in terms of rowing efficiency, construction, and performance that was conserved despite important differences in design. The 16th century galley was simpler in its rowing systems, somewhat inferior in speed, and no longer used the waterline ram as weapon. Instead, powerful artillery pieces firing forward from the bow complemented an array of personal firearms, crossbows, and bows, and combat was often decided by boarding.
Guilmartin argues at length that Mediterranean naval warfare should not be described in Mahanian terms. In Mahan's analysis, the decisive strategic unit was the fleet, which fought battles to control the sea. But in the Mediterranean system, the strategic unit was the combination of a fortified port and a fleet of galleys. The galleys lacked the robustness, habitability, or endurance to operate far away from their bases or to stay at sea for long. Instead they sallied over short distances from naval strongpoints to attack enemy coasts and trade. Campaigns took the form of yearly attempts to capture and recapture these key ports, and because the galley was excellently suited for in-shore work, it was above all a tool of amphibious warfare. Guilmartin describes a handful of major campaigns in detail to investigate how this strategic and tactical system worked, finishing with the battle of Lepanto.
He argues that the differences in design priority of the naval powers, which made Spanish galleys bigger but slower than Venetian galleys which in turn were heavier than the designs preferred by the Ottomans, reflected the different strategic priorities of these powers. I am not entirely convinced by this analysis. (For a given purpose there can be several optimal compromises of design characteristics, which work about equally well as long as they are consistently applied.) But it is very revealing of the factors that determined ship design and equipment. He also studies the different systems that were employed to provide crews for these ships, and how these reflected both technical factors (bigger galleys more often had unfree rowers) and socio-economic and cultural factors.
The age of the galley ended in the 1580s, when sailing ships with broadside cannon batteries established a growing superiority. Guilmartin argues that the superiority of one type of warship over the other was fluid, and less axiomatic than it is often assumed. In his analysis, galleys had the edge in calm waters as long as big guns were expensive, hard to manufacture, and in short supply. Galleys carried few heavy artillery pieces, typically one very large gun on the centreline and two or four smaller ones beside it, but could bring those to bear with precision. However, given a ready supply of relatively cheap cast-iron guns, the weight of broadside fire of the Atlantic galleon became overwhelming. Attempts to increase the firepower of the galley, or the develop the galleas as an oared warship with heavy firepower, were a dead end because there was a hard limit on the displacement that rowers could efficiently propel. Guilmartin characterises such developments as “degenerate”, a breakdown of the principles of galley architecture.
This is a detailed and very informative study. In places the language tends toward academic dryness, and it would have been easier to read if much of the content of the endnotes had simply been incorporated in the main text. But that aside, it brings across its thesis very well indeed.
Guilmartin argues at length that Mediterranean naval warfare should not be described in Mahanian terms. In Mahan's analysis, the decisive strategic unit was the fleet, which fought battles to control the sea. But in the Mediterranean system, the strategic unit was the combination of a fortified port and a fleet of galleys. The galleys lacked the robustness, habitability, or endurance to operate far away from their bases or to stay at sea for long. Instead they sallied over short distances from naval strongpoints to attack enemy coasts and trade. Campaigns took the form of yearly attempts to capture and recapture these key ports, and because the galley was excellently suited for in-shore work, it was above all a tool of amphibious warfare. Guilmartin describes a handful of major campaigns in detail to investigate how this strategic and tactical system worked, finishing with the battle of Lepanto.
He argues that the differences in design priority of the naval powers, which made Spanish galleys bigger but slower than Venetian galleys which in turn were heavier than the designs preferred by the Ottomans, reflected the different strategic priorities of these powers. I am not entirely convinced by this analysis. (For a given purpose there can be several optimal compromises of design characteristics, which work about equally well as long as they are consistently applied.) But it is very revealing of the factors that determined ship design and equipment. He also studies the different systems that were employed to provide crews for these ships, and how these reflected both technical factors (bigger galleys more often had unfree rowers) and socio-economic and cultural factors.
The age of the galley ended in the 1580s, when sailing ships with broadside cannon batteries established a growing superiority. Guilmartin argues that the superiority of one type of warship over the other was fluid, and less axiomatic than it is often assumed. In his analysis, galleys had the edge in calm waters as long as big guns were expensive, hard to manufacture, and in short supply. Galleys carried few heavy artillery pieces, typically one very large gun on the centreline and two or four smaller ones beside it, but could bring those to bear with precision. However, given a ready supply of relatively cheap cast-iron guns, the weight of broadside fire of the Atlantic galleon became overwhelming. Attempts to increase the firepower of the galley, or the develop the galleas as an oared warship with heavy firepower, were a dead end because there was a hard limit on the displacement that rowers could efficiently propel. Guilmartin characterises such developments as “degenerate”, a breakdown of the principles of galley architecture.
This is a detailed and very informative study. In places the language tends toward academic dryness, and it would have been easier to read if much of the content of the endnotes had simply been incorporated in the main text. But that aside, it brings across its thesis very well indeed.
March 26, 2010
Guilmartin's Gunpowder and Galleys is one of the great works of naval history, and not only that, it is a great work of history, period. With his ability to read Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, and other languages usually beyond the ken of Western historians, Guilmartin has mined records throughout the Mediterranean to bring together information ranging from technology to economics to naval tactics as he elucidates why the Mediterranean galley was a highly successful warship.
In Guilmartin's view, the galley was not an archaic holdover clung to by a recalcitrant tradition, but a viable and effective amphibious predator that filled a niche more effectively than competing types up until the late 18th century. He focusses principally on the 1500s and seeks to understand why the Battle of Lepanto was seen as such an important battle both at the time and in the centuries after, even though it did not achieve any sort of goal conventionally understood to be the purpose of naval warfare in the Mahanian sense.
The Ottoman navy of the 16th century was the most powerful navy of its century, and fact generally unknown to Westerners. This work does not cover the Ottoman navy as an institution and remains tightly focussed on the galley and its relatives, but it carries significant implications to anyone who wants to understand the history of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Gunpowder and Galleys is an immensely absorbing work of history, culture and technology. It is very readable in spite of the complexities.
In Guilmartin's view, the galley was not an archaic holdover clung to by a recalcitrant tradition, but a viable and effective amphibious predator that filled a niche more effectively than competing types up until the late 18th century. He focusses principally on the 1500s and seeks to understand why the Battle of Lepanto was seen as such an important battle both at the time and in the centuries after, even though it did not achieve any sort of goal conventionally understood to be the purpose of naval warfare in the Mahanian sense.
The Ottoman navy of the 16th century was the most powerful navy of its century, and fact generally unknown to Westerners. This work does not cover the Ottoman navy as an institution and remains tightly focussed on the galley and its relatives, but it carries significant implications to anyone who wants to understand the history of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Gunpowder and Galleys is an immensely absorbing work of history, culture and technology. It is very readable in spite of the complexities.
April 26, 2015
Excellent historical work that remains the favorite non-fiction book in my collection. Guilmartin does an great job weaving a narrative history of the 16th Century Mediterranean into his general framework that discusses the characteristics and evolution of naval warfare during the period. Highly recommended for those with an interest in Early Modern or Naval history.
July 5, 2008
Want to know why Lepanto was such a significant victory? This is the first book I have read that advances a convincing argument. Lots of technical details on galley construction, finance, manning, battle etc. I will have to get the revised edition at some point.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews