Turgut Reis

Timeline

1. 1517–1537Alexandria and the eastern Mediterranean · MediterraneanEntered Egypt with the Ottoman army in 1517 as a noted gunner; subsequently joined maritime forces at Alexandria, transferring to Hayreddin's command around 1520 and gradually gaining command of several galleots. Around 1526 he seized Cape Passero in Sicily and other places, specifically intercepting shipping between Spain and Italy.
2. 1538–1540Preveza · Ionian SeaIn September 1538 at the Battle of Preveza he commanded the center-rear wing with about twenty galleys and ten galleots, capturing a Papal States galley. Afterwards he participated in recapturing Castelnuovo and elsewhere, and succeeded Sinan Pasha as governor of Djerba when the latter was transferred to the Red Sea, becoming the outpost commander of Ottoman corsair activity in the western Mediterranean.
3. 1540–1544Girolata · CorsicaIn 1540, while repairing ships at Girolata on Corsica's west coast, he was surprised and captured by a Genoese fleet under Giannettino Doria, nephew of Andrea Doria, and forced to row as a galley slave aboard enemy galleys before being imprisoned in Genoa. Hayreddin ransomed him and re-granted him a flagship and several vessels; he immediately struck back at Bonifacio and other places in Corsica.
4. 1546–1550Djerba and Mahdia · TunisiaAfter Hayreddin's death Turgut became the most active Ottoman naval commander in the western Mediterranean, holding Mahdia, Sfax, Sousse and other places by 1546, and appointed beylerbey of Algiers in 1548. In 1550 he briefly recovered several Tunisian ports, but that summer and autumn Habsburg and Knights of St. John forces took Mahdia and blockaded Djerba; he dragged his fleet overland across the lagoon and retreated to Istanbul, turning against Tripoli only the following year.