Battle of Djerba

The Battle of Djerba, (near the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia) was a naval battle that took place in 1560 and in which the Ottomans under Piyale Pasha's command overwhelmed a huge joint European fleet, chiefly Spanish forces, sinking half its ships.

The battle of Djerba was the culmination of the Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean, in ascendance since the 1538 Battle of Preveza, and it proved a major setback particularly for the Spanish armada, where they took very severe losses in skilled manpower that took a long time to replace. As a result of this battle, the Ottomans were to become even bolder, assaulting the new base for the Knights of St. John in Malta. It was not until the Ottoman Navy was destroyed by a combined Spanish-Venetian-Papal fleet at the Battle of Lepanto, in 1571, that the myth of Turkish invincibility in the seas finally ended. The Turks were able to get a whole new fleet into action the following year, and even fared better gains in the perspective of the parallel and definite acquisition of Cyprus, but the loss in skilled manpower suffered in İnebahtı (Lepanto) was to have lasting effects.