‘Anyone who opens this book will quickly be drawn into an extraordinary world of military rivalry and power politics, a world in which, as Bicheno rightly emphasises, East and West shared many techniques, rules and values. Readers will learn a huge amount – both about why Lepanto changed so little, and about why it seemed to matter so much.’
Noel Malcolm, The Sunday Telegraph
‘Rare among masters of military hardware, Bicheno is interested in the battle’s symbolic and mythological significance . . . His chapter on the iconography of the battle and how depictions of this divinely providential victory reflected the changing political and aesthetic requirements of the battle is one of the best in the book.’
John Adamson, Literary Review
The working title was ‘Iconic Battle’, but the book grew to encompass the whole of Ottoman-Christian rivalry in the Mediterranean during the 16th century. The victory of the Holy League fleet over the Ottoman navy at Lepanto was seen as the high water mark of Ottoman expansion at the time and ever since – although in fact it continued well into the next century. That Lepanto was fought very late in the campaigning season, permitting a rapid Ottoman recovery, and was followed by a breakdown of the always fragile Christian alliance, meant that the strategic situation in the Mediterranean remained unchanged.
But that is not to say that a Christian defeat would not have had seriously negative repercussions for the Christian Adriatic powers, Venice in particular, which helps to explain why the battle became perhaps the most iconic military event in history, endlessly celebrated in art, poetry and folklore. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote and the most towering figure in the ‘Golden Century’ of Spanish art and letters, lost the use of his left hand after being severely wounded at Lepanto, but it was left to lesser pens to immortalize the event.
Combining Spanish, Italian and Ottoman accounts with an accurate reconstruction of the historic coastline (see ‘Maps’) I was able to put together a militarily coherent interpretation that resolves the contradictions perpetuated by repetition in all previous accounts.
N.B. Comments on Amazon by Marco Morin and ‘Doctor Syn’ should be taken with the following pinches of salt: Morin got another author to incorporate his patriotic views in a rival book on Lepanto, and the personally spiteful Doctor Syn should know that on-line aliases do not protect identity. |
