Battle of Diu

The naval Battle of Diu was a critical sea battle that took place on 3 February 1509 near Diu, India, between Portugal and a joint fleet of Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire, Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat, with technical maritime assistance from the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik)

Importance

This battle is critical from a strategic perspective since it marks the beginning of the dominance of the Europeans in the Asian naval theatre, and a defeat for the then dominant power - the Ottoman Empire. It also marks the spillover of the Christian-Islamic power struggle in Europe and the Middle East, into the Indian Ocean which was a dominant arena of international trade at that time.

The battle parallels Lepanto (1571), Abu Qir (1798), Trafalgar (1805) and Tsushima (1905) in terms of its impact, though not in scale. Had the Turks won India would’ve become a Muslim dominion, and by extension an arm of the expanding Ottoman Empire in the East.

The Portuguese followed this battle by rapidly capturing key ports/coastal areas around the Indian Ocean like Mombasa, Socotora, Muscat, Ormuz, Goa, Ceylon and Malacca. This allowed them to circumvent the traditional land/sea spice route controlled by the Arabs and the Venetians, and by routing the trade down the Cape of Good Hope, they also simultaneously crippled the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Venetian Republic and the Sultanate of Gujarat (which was at its peak then). The Portuguese sea monopoly lasted until the advent of the British East India Company and the Battle of Swally in 1612.

For the Venetians, the loss at this battle combined with the League of Cambrai that was formed against them in 1508 meant a period of turmoil, and a fall from the prestigious position they held at that time.

The Samoothiri Raja, though a Hindu was incensed at the Portuguese because of their conduct since Vasco da Gama had landed in his kingdom in 1498, and hence had joined forces with the Sultan of Gujarat.

Sultan Of Gujarat

The Egyptian fleet, manned mostly by Turks, was sent by the Mamlûk Burji Sultan of Cairo, Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghauri, in 1507 to support, at his invitation, the then Muslim Sultan of Gujarat, Mahmud Begada who had his capital at Champaner, a town about 48km from the major city of Vadodara.

The Sultan, sensing a political vacumn in Western India, had persuaded the Turks and the Egyptians that the opportunity was right for a Muslim-dominated dominion in that part of India.

Principal Characters

The following were the important participants in this battle:
Dom Francisco de Almeida, first Portuguese viceroy in India
Mir Hussein Pasha, Turkish Commander of the Egyptian-Gujarat squadron
Malik Aiyaz, Governor of Diu for the Sultan of Gujarat

Precursor to the battle

Diu was a critical outpost in the overall spice trade from India. The Mamlûks along with the Venetians controlled the flow of spice from India to Europe in a symbiotic relationship. The Portuguese attempt to establish trade with India was to break this stronghold. The King of Portugal, Manuel I fresh from Vasco da Gama’s exploits, sent out his first Viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida in 1505 with 21 ships to strengthen the fledgling Portuguese empire in East Africa and India.

Since Portuguese naval patrols regularly interdicted supplies of Malabar timber for the Mamlûk Red Sea fleet, the Ottoman Sultan, Beyazid II therefore supplied Egypt with Mediterranean-type war galleys manned by Greek sailors. These vessels, which Venetian shipwrights helped disassemble in Alexandria and reassemble on the Red Sea coast, however, had to brave the Indian Ocean.