French and Spanish Mediterranean galley warfare between 1648 and 1815?

[Båtsman]

I've been wondering what role galley warfare played in the Mediterranean among the western powers, especially Spain and France, but also the Italian minors, during the later part of the early modern period. During the 16th century, Habsburg Spain and Ottoman Turkey were the two empires battling over control of the Mediterranean, and Lepanto was the ultimate showdown between the two where the onslaught of the latter was finally halted.

But at Lister Dyb in 1644 and then later again and again during the Anglo-Dutch wars, it was proven that purpose-built gun-armed sailing warships always held the advantage over armed merchantmen, while at the same time gun-armed merchantmen held the advantage over galleys. And so during the later half of the 17th century English and Dutch ships would boldly sail the Mediterranean and blast any and all local opposition to coffee wood.

So how was galleys used after this? I use "galley" loosely here to include xebecs and other such ships as well, and I know that Spain had at least one such vessel during the Napoleonic wars. What I am unaware of is the wider strategic thinking for the utilisation of these vessels.

 

[kaoss]

As far as I know, Xebeqs and galley are quite different, Xebeqs are mainly sailing ships with the oars used mostly for "back up" or for maneuvering.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

Xebecs were generally used as traders but also militarily as commerce raiders and anti pirate vessels. They were lightly built but incredibly good at sailing in all wind directions which gave them an edge over square riggers. Typical naval xebecs were basically purpose built to hunt down pirates, especially the Berber nations, who themselves had some gigantic xebecs of 40-50 guns.

Galleys on the other hand were great for the Mediterranean environment. Their main use did somewhat change over the 17th century, although they still remained a fairly integral part of Mediterranean fleets. The advantage of galleys is they can move regardless of wind conditions and were typically used as support ships in the 17th and 18th century, they would attach lines to round ships and tow them into favorable wind conditions to bear down on opponent fleets but were somewhat knocked out of fleet battles by improvements of firepower and rigging in round ships. There are quite a few examples of 17th century galley battles mainly involving the ottomans and a christian power or two but they become increasingly rare as the Mediterranean fleets adopt more northern European styles of naval composition. By the 18th century they were firmly solidified as support ships, who's main role was in amphibious warfare, in which they were much more nimble than round ships, able to row straight up to a shoreline and drop their crew with much greater effect than a boat driven assault. Galleys also remained a very useful ship to conduct coastal patrols with, something that would eventually be taken over by improvements to sloops of war and post ships, a galley squadron during the 18th century was much better situated to navigate difficult coastlines with shallow reefs to project power than sailing ships.

Hope this helps

 

[Båtsman]

As far as I know, Xebeqs and galley are quite different, Xebeqs are mainly sailing ships with the oars used mostly for "back up" or for maneuvering.

True, but at the same time the Xebec was just the final evolution of the Mediterranean galley.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

As far as I know, Xebeqs and galley are quite different, Xebeqs are mainly sailing ships with the oars used mostly for "back up" or for maneuvering.

Its probably worth mentioning oars were fairly common on even medium sized ships until fairly late in the 18th century, when they were mainly replaced by doctrine and desire for storage space in which it became more typical to use the ships boats being used to drive and maneuver ships by oar.

The Sailing Frigate by Robert Gardiner even has an example on the front cover:

 

[Arilou]

The entire "galleys were obsolete" is a bit of a misnomer: Galleys remained in use in several places (including the carribean, the indonesian islands, the baltic and the mediterrenean) there were simply places that galleys could go much more effectively than large sailing ships. Svensksund was fought between galley fleets, for instance. The disadvantage in guns was made up for with the ability to move outside the wind. (though there were multiple attempts at using galleys, from the larger "archipelago frigates", to smaller oared vessels armed with a small number of big guns)

For that role galleys remained in use pretty much until they were replaced by steam-powered ships.

 

[Henry IX]

Tacking against the wind in a sailing ship is difficult to do in confined waters, particularly where the wind is pushing the ship towards a shore and their is insufficient space to get into open waters, forcing the ship to do numerous short tacks, which requires rapidly raising and lowering the sails for each change of direction. In confined waters such as the Mediterranean or Baltic the ability to move directly against the wind is a huge advantage, while the low beam and reduced seaworthiness is far less of issue.

That being said, even from the beginning of the 17th century galleys were clearly becoming obsolete as warships, and really only had an auxiliary role in situations where their manoeuvrability outweighed their massively inferior armament. To illustrate this have a look at the impact of the handful of cannon armed great cogs the Christian powers fielded at Lepanto - they dominated the areas they were in, in spite of their small numbers, something that the commentators at the time noted.

 

[Arilou]

That being said, even from the beginning of the 17th century galleys were clearly becoming obsolete as warships, and really only had an auxiliary role in situations where their manoeuvrability outweighed their massively inferior armament.

Again, unless you are using a very limited version of "Warship" that just isn't borne out: the high point of galley-warfare in the Baltic was the 18th century, for instance. It hardly makes sense for both the swedish and russian navies to build dozens, if not hundreds, of oared vessels if they were obsolete. The same is true of the venetians in the med, who along with their high seas fleet continued to build and deploy galleys.

Thinking in terms of "obsoleteness" misses the point: Galleys could not stand up on the open seas to a ship-of-the line, but they remained important military assets for use in archipelagos and other areas where manueverability was limited.

 

[Fluffy_Fishy]

Again, unless you are using a very limited version of "Warship" that just isn't borne out: the high point of galley-warfare in the Baltic was the 18th century, for instance. It hardly makes sense for both the swedish and russian navies to build dozens, if not hundreds, of oared vessels if they were obsolete. The same is true of the venetians in the med, who along with their high seas fleet continued to build and deploy galleys.

Venice had somewhere around 35 Galleys/Galleots in 1797, to put this in some perspective they had around 30 xebecs, 5 brigs, a sloop, 20 feluccas and 13 frigates. Galleys still were still a substantial part of the Venetian fleet at the end of the republic and were vital for patrolling the Adriatic coastline.

 

[Henry IX]

Again, unless you are using a very limited version of "Warship" that just isn't borne out: the high point of galley-warfare in the Baltic was the 18th century, for instance. It hardly makes sense for both the swedish and russian navies to build dozens, if not hundreds, of oared vessels if they were obsolete. The same is true of the venetians in the med, who along with their high seas fleet continued to build and deploy galleys.

Thinking in terms of "obsoleteness" misses the point: Galleys could not stand up on the open seas to a ship-of-the line, but they remained important military assets for use in archipelagos and other areas where manueverability was limited.

Ship-of-the-line is roughly the meaning I was going for, but it is somewhat anachronistic when discussing galleys (which generally fought line abreast rather than line astern), so I settled for the less precise term warship. A mistake in communication on my part.

The point I was making agrees with yours - they had an auxiliary role in enclosed waters, where their manoeuvrability and shallow draft were more valuable that firepower and survivability. An analogy could be drawn with the role of cavalry in the 19th century, they no longer had a major battlefield role, but they remained in use for scouting and raiding.