Cross or Crescent! We of the present time can form no adequate idea of the import couched in those words in mediÆval time. Strange that rivers of blood should flow in the interests of the cause of the Prince of Peace! Would the Christ,—who, dying upon the Cross prayed for his murderers,—have it so? Perhaps over his friends even more pitifully than over his erring inimical world the sublime impetration unceasingly ascends Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

And Allah “the mild, the merciful, the compassionate”—where was he that tragic Sunday morning October 7, 1571, when one hundred thousand of his followers, singularly lacking in his characteristic qualities, stood red-hand in slaughter! Alas for the ideal when fitted to the real: it is shattered; its shimmering iridescence dies down gray and dead.

To Fight or Not to Fight.

The Ottoman empire, flushed by a long series of successes under Solyman the Magnificent, had grown insolently aggressive. The memory of Tours and of Belgrade no longer acted as a deterrent to the fierce victors of Constantinople; their eyes were ever turned longingly toward western Europe, and their dreams were of bloodshed and victory.

The island Cyprus belonged to Venice, but its situation made it highly desirable as an Ottoman possession; and upon the old principle that might makes right—a principle unfortunately ever retaliatively new—the Turkish forces besieged Cyprus. The town Nicosia, capital of Cyprus, fell an easy prey, and the atrocities committed on the defenceless inhabitants horror-thrilled the Christian world. Later the town Famagosta after a prolonged and obstinate resistance was captured but under circumstances of peculiar malignity. In the words of Prescott: “While lying off Cephalonia Don John received word that Famagosta, the second city of Cyprus, had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and this under circumstances of unparalleled perfidy and cruelty. The place, after a defence that had cost hecatombs of lives to the besiegers, was allowed to capitulate on honorable terms. Mustapha, the Moslem commander, the same fierce chief who had conducted the siege of Malta, requested an interview at his quarters with four of the principal Venetian captains. After a short and angry conference, he ordered them all to execution. Three were beheaded. The other, a noble named Bragadina, he caused to be flayed alive in the market place of the city. The skin of the wretched victim was then stuffed: and with this ghastly trophy dangling from the yard-arm of his galley, the brutal monster sailed back to Constantinople, to receive the reward of his services from Selim (son and successor of Solyman).”

Submit to that? Wait apathetically for the Turks to come to Venice, Rome, Madrid and do in like manner? Well, no; not in the real, whatever may be the ideal. What then? Why, Fight.

Non-resistance: and if thine enemy smite thee upon the cheek, turn to him the other also; and if he take thy coat give to him also thy cloak; love your enemies; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you: and as result, what? Crucifixion. A nation of Christs would be put to death as unjustly as was the Christ of Calvary.

Fortunately or unfortunately—we know not which it may prove to be—only the Tolstoyan few will carry to their logical conclusions the principles of non-resistance; and few, if any, even of the Tolstoyan few, will abide by these conclusions and stand calm, kind, compassionate, even under the fatal final Injustice. The great body of men, of today as of every other day of the long ages of time, defend their rights; and if that defence means that blood must flow,—then let it flow. And all the more freely will blood flow and all the more sternly indomitable will be the strife when men feel themselves justified as they strike the blow; when they feel themselves called upon to conquer or to die for a cause that they hold just; when they fight elated and fortified with the assurance that they stand as bulwarks warding off the concrete embodiment of all that they hold evil from all that they hold dear and good.

Some of the bravest and the tenderest of men have trodden knee deep in human blood. There have been wars just and inevitable; and what has been may again be. We hope not; we dream not; the Peace Palace of the Hague looms spectrally on the future horizon; we are looking that way: and at times this Peace Palace seems assertively real—ready to cope with armaments and with red-hot wrongs; but again it rises fancifully and floats evanescently away and fades on a gray sky. Is it Mirage?

The Christian Knight.

Next in moral excellence to the Christian martyr is undoubtedly the Christian knight.

Chivalry—fair flower of Feudalism, night blooming cereus wide opening in white splendor exuding fragrance in somber mediÆval midnight! King Arthur and his Table Round; knights errant done to death by Don Quixote and yet victors even over the smile; Chevalier Bayard, the knight without fear and without reproach; Richard Coeur de Lion, the Black Prince, Lohengren, Parsifal, Siegfried, Don John of Austria—are flowerets of that Flower caught wax-white in amber and fixed fadelessly.

In all the sweep of history from Egypt to the hour, there is nothing nobler than the ideal Christian knight. To stand in awe of the omnipotent God; to go about the world redressing human wrongs; to love with young-world love bashfully reverent, constrained to win the world and lay it humbly at her feet; to reverence truth and to scorn with scorn unutterable all the thousand and one manifestations of the lie; to be loyal to king and country and God; to be gentle, courteous, kind to all life from highest to lowest; to stand face-front to the oncoming forces of evil and in that fight grimly to conquer or die: there is nothing nobler.

And yet not for all the glory of Don John, ideal Christian knight and hero of Lepanto, would I have one little stain of human blood on my white hands.

Nevertheless he who would sympathetically and justly depict the past should be capable of entering into and all round estimating that ancient good now grown uncouth. And whatever the best men of any given age or time or clime unanimously hold as best must, in the deep heart of things, be best for that age or time or clime. The knight, the hero, the Crusader, the victor over the Saracens seemed best to the best men of the Middle Age.

Pope Pius V. earnestly advocated the cause of Venice. He appealed to the Christian monarchs of Europe to join with the Holy See in a League having for its object the total overthrow of the Ottoman empire. He urged the aggressive policy of the Turks under Solyman the Magnificent and his unworthy son and successor Selim II.; he vividly portrayed the atrocities of Turkish conquest and the blight upon civilization that ever unerringly followed in the wake of the Crescent; and he endeavored by all means in his power to arouse in the hearts of the children of the Church the spirit that had made possible the First Crusade.

All Europe at this time mourned its Christian captives who were languishing in Turkish dungeons or wasting away as galley slaves. Twelve thousand of these Christian captives were chained to the oars as galley slaves on the Moslem ships while the fight Lepanto was raging; their liberation and restoration to freedom formed the purest joy-pearl in the gem casket of that joyous victory.

Cyprus had just fallen into the hands of the Turks amid scenes of unparalleled barbarity: and against the Turk as the destroyer of civilization and the menace of Christendom all eyes were directed, all hearts beat with desire to avenge, slay, destroy: and all these feelings found outlet, and culmination and gratification in the battle of Lepanto, under Don John of Austria, the Christian knight.

Ocean Encounters.

Ocean instability, ocean vastness, ocean majestic indifference to the pigmy life and death struggles of men throw a magnetic glow over sea fights.

When the bay of Salamis changed gradually from greenish gray to red; when the Ionian sea slowly purpled off Actium, crimsoning the frightened barge of Cleopatra and of love maddened Anthony; when the waters at the entrance of the gulf Lepanto grew blood-red fed by trickling streams from five hundred galleys: did ocean care? The Titanic sinks and the billows dash high in foam play, they descend sportively with her into her grave hole, they arise and roll on: the Volturno blazes on a background of black sky, a foreground of flame-lit angry rolling waves: and does ocean care?

Don John arranged his battle line in a semi-circular stretch of about one mile embracing the entrance to the gulf of Lepanto (now Gulf Corinth). The Turkish fleet lay concealed somewhere on the water of the gulf and must come out at the entrance and fight openly or remain bottled up in the gulf until forced out by starvation. Don John knew his adversary, Ali Pasha, too well to dream that the latter alternative would be accepted by the sturdy Moslem.

Early Sunday morning (Oct. 7, 1571) Don John sighted a line of ships far in the gulf but making steadily for the opening. Battle was at hand. Don John, in his flagship, the Real, passed from vessel to vessel encouraging and animating his soldiers. “You have come,” he said, “to fight the battle of the Cross; to conquer or to die. But whether you are to die or conquer, do your duty this day and you will secure a glorious immortality.” He then returned to his position in the center of the semi-circle, and in that conspicuous position seen by all, he knelt in prayer under the far floating banner of the League. His example was followed by all, and the priests of whom there was at least one if not more on each galley, went around giving the last absolution to the men as they knelt in prayer.

The Ottoman shouts now filled the air as the long line of three hundred galleys arranged as a crescent, paused for a moment at the opening of the gulf. The center of the Christian fleet following Don John advanced to the Ottoman center commanded by Ali Pasha; the left wing under Barbarigo, the Venetian admiral, sought as adversary the opposing wing under Mahomet Sirocco; the right wing under Andrew Doria grappled with the opposing Mohammedan left under Ulrich Ali, dey of Algiers. For four hours the battle raged. So dense was the canopy of smoke enveloping the combatants that neither side knew for a certainty which was winning until the drawing down of the Ottoman banner and the hasty hauling up of the Banner of the League on board the flagship of Ali Pasha made known the result decisively. Shouts then rent the air and groans.

The Moslem left wing under the brave sea captain Ulrich Ali was engaged in a fierce grappling fight with Doria, and the advantage seemed to be with the Moslems. Don John seeing this, hastened to Doria’s aid. Ulrich Ali, seeing that all was lost, ordered his men at the oars to make all possible speed for escape round the promontory. The Christian vessels gave chase, but the Moslem galleys sped with the speed of the wind and were soon lost to sight. About forty vessels were thus saved out of the three hundred that had taken part in the engagement. Of these one hundred and thirty were seized as prizes by the Christian forces, the rest having been sunk or burned in the fight.

The Ottoman loss is estimated between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand; that of the Christians at eight thousand. The superior marksmanship of the allies and their use exclusively of firearms, while the Turks used in part bows and arrows; the better make and equipment of the Christian galleys—are among the causes to which human reason may attribute the incredible disparity between the Turkish loss and that of the Christians in this engagement. But there are many circumstances peculiar to this battle for which human reason can assign no cause.

It is related on good authority that as the Christian soldiers arose from prayer the wind which had hitherto been blowing steadily from the gulf, suddenly veered around and blew right into the faces of the enemy. In the course of the engagement the sun, too, reached the point where its rays shot into the eyes of the Turkish marksmen and caused them to err in their aim. Pope Pius V. who, while the battle was in progress, was closeted in consultation with a number of cardinals, in the Vatican, suddenly arose from his seat and approaching the window and casting up his eyes to the heavens exclaimed as tears of joy rolled down his cheeks, “A truce to business; our great task at present is to thank God for the victory He has just given the Christians.”

Death of Ali Pasha.

The struggle between The Real, Don John’s flagship, and the galley bearing Ali Pasha was of course pivotal. Each commander felt that upon him and his ship depended the issue of the combat. Both were brave men, both must conquer or die: Don John conquered, Ali Pasha died.

The ships had grappled and a hand to hand conflict was raging upon the decks. Blood slowly trickled down the sides of the galleys and the waters were incarnadined.

In the heat of the engagement a musket ball struck the head of the Moslem commander. He fell prone and lay for some time unconscious upon a heap of the dying and the dead. But suddenly regaining consciousness he attempted to rise and was at once recognized by the surrounding Spanish soldiers. They were about to despatch him with their swords when the wily Moslem appealing to their natural cupidity made known to them the secret hiding place of his ship’s treasure. The lure of gold led the soldiers to hasten below leaving their victim to chance life or death on the deck. But just as dear life seemed secured from the ruthless thrust of death, the wounded commander was confronted by a strangely savage figure with uplifted sword. It was one of the Christian galley slaves long chained on Ali’s vessel and but that hour given freedom from the hated oar. In vain did Ali Pasha appeal to this soldier’s cupidity; nothing seemed quite so desirable to him as the death of the man who had so long chained him a galley slave. The threatening sword fell unerringly upon the wounded Moslem chief and buried itself in his heart. With this retributive blow the tide of victory turned decisively in favor of the Christians.

Don John of Austria.

There are few characters upon the historic page more full in promise and yet futile in attainment than Don John of Austria. The idol of all Europe, the knight sans peur et sans reproche, the hero of Lepanto—at the age of twenty-four; he died seven years later in comparative obscurity; a rude hut hastily erected to receive the dying commander served as his last resting place upon earth.

As Don John lay in the agony of death, a terrific storm suddenly broke over the camp; and as in the case of Napoleon under somewhat similar circumstances, Don John partly arose, muttered incoherently of battle and victory, then sank back and died. Did the rattle of the storm suggest the din of battle? Or did vague visions of another storm arise associatively in memory? History relates that tho’ that battle Sunday, Oct. 7, 1571, was a day of ideal autumn brightness, yet when the strife was fairly over and the battered galleys with their dead and wounded and sorely wearied men were heavily entering port, a storm suddenly arose: the skies darkened ominously, lightning flashed from the lowering clouds, thunder reverberated, and torrential rains poured down. For twenty-four hours the storm continued. Was nature indignantly weeping over the errors and sufferings of her children? Was she striving to wash out from old ocean—the rugged, primal, favorite work of her hands—those awful stains of blood?

As Don John had hastened to port under the gathering storm he gave orders that the Moslem galleys rendered worthless by the battle should be stripped of everything of value and then set on fire. And so it was that when safe in port the Christian conquerors looking out thro’ the storm saw the burning ships. They luridly lit up the darkness and blazed wildly down to the waves—mutely eloquent witnesses of the horror and desolation of war.

Did the dulling senses of the hero of Lepanto see that scene, hear that storm—as the winds raged round his temporary shelter and death in blasting splendor closed over all? Or did the fair “castles in Spain” rise again spectrally with light upon them from beyond the grave as the dreamer of royal dreams sank down to the real? That wonderful African empire so near, so far: that beauteous bride, Mary Queen of Scots, liberated, released, restored by his own good sword; wooed and won and with her the throne of that imperious usurper Elizabeth Tudor: that smile of pontiffs, that commendation of Catholic Europe, that proud praise from the lips of his father’s son, Philip II. of Spain—as he, the hero of Lepanto, the champion of Christendom, returned fresh-laureled from new combats and victories, a king, a crowned lover, an Emperor—Dreams!

Don John is buried in the Escorial. His name and fame are inseparably associated with the decisive victory of the Cross over the Crescent off the entrance to the gulf Lepanto.

An admirable painting of this battle The Victory of the League by Titian still adorns the walls of the Museo, Madrid.

The petition Mary, Help of Christians inserted on this occasion in the litany of Loretto bears evidence even today of the gratitude felt by Pius V. and with him all Christendom for deliverance from the unspeakable Turk.

The historian Ranke speaking of the effects of this battle says: “The Turks lost all their old confidence after the battle of Lepanto. They had no equal to oppose to Don John of Austria. The day of Lepanto broke down the Ottoman supremacy.”