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Updated: May 1, 2025
"Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali?
This was the city which Dragut took without a blow in the spring of 1550. Mahdīya was then in an anarchic state, ruled by a council of chiefs, each ready to betray the other, and none owing the smallest allegiance to any king, least of all the despised king of Tunis, Hamīd, who had deposed and blinded his father Hasan, Charles V.'s protégé.
Elmo on the promontory of Sceberras before attacking the main position, and accordingly landed his men at his convenience from the Marsa Muset, and laid out his earthworks on the land side of St. Elmo. He had not long begun when Ochiali arrived with six galleys from Alexandria, and on June 2nd came Dragut himself with a score or more galleys of Tripoli and Bona.
His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian Marmol, "truly the sea was his element." Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the "Modern Cæsar."
Twice during the siege the Ottomans received reinforcements: first, Dragut himself with 13 galleys and 1,600 men, and later, Hassan, Viceroy of Algiers and son of Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa, with 2,500 Corsairs. Altogether the Ottoman forces at the maximum, inclusive of sailors, must have exceeded 40,000 men.
Apart, however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had long been importuned by Dragut to take the course which was now being urged upon him with so much insistence. There was at this time no warrior in all his entourage for whose opinion the Sultan had the same respect as he had for that of the ruler of Tripoli.
The Duke was an incompetent commander; he was opposed to one of the greatest leaders of the age an expert in almost every branch of the science of war, in command of a large body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever feared the wrath of Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.
But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself.
The Spanish historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut.
Elmo on the other side of the Marsa Muscetto, which was henceforth known as Point Dragut. As soon as this was done the bombardment restarted with relentless fury.
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