Content area
Full Text
Lepanto: el dia esp. By David Garcia Hernan and Enrique Garcia Hernan. Madrid: Actas Editorial, 1999. Pp. 191.
La Batalla de Lepanto, segun cartas indditas de Felipe II, Don Juan de Austria y Juan Andrea Doria informes de embajadores y espias. By Rafael Vargas-Hidalgo. Santiago: Ediciones Chile-America CESOC, 1998. Pp. 328.
On 7 October 1571, Don John of Austria led 208 galleys, 6 galeasses, and 22 sailing ships to victory over a slightly larger Turkish fleet at Lepanto. The Ottomans lost perhaps 200 galleys-130 of them captured by the Christiana-together with their artillery and stores. The allies freed some 15,000 galley slaves (mostly Christians) and captured some 3,500 Turkish officers and marines (soon murdered in cold blood.) News of victory sparked uprisings in Greece and Albania which briefly seemed to herald the collapse of Ottoman rule in the Balkans.
David and Enrique Garcia HernAn discuss only some of these developments. Although they have worked extensively in Spanish and Roman archives, they largely neglect Venice and-like almost all Western historians-they almost totally ignore the Turks. They use their asymmetrical sources to examine how the victors, especially Spain, sought to exploit their victory. They describe practical arrangements in the aftermath of victory,...