Battle of Diu (1509) - Aftermath

Aftermath

The battle ended in victory for the Portuguese, with terrible losses on the Gujarat-Mamluk-Khozikode side, who fought bravely but were at a loss as to how to counter a naval force, the like of which they had never seen before. After the battle, Malik Ayyaz handed over the prisoners of Chaul, dressed and well fed. To his surprise, Francisco de Almeida, who was ending his term as viceroy, refused his offer to allow a Portuguese fortress be established in Diu, an offer that the Portuguese soon sought ardently, and which he manage to stall for as long as he was governor of Diu.

The spoils of the battle included three royal flags of the Mamlûk Sultan of Cairo that were sent to Portugal and are even today displayed in the Convento de Cristo, in the town of Tomar, spiritual home of the Knights Templar. The Viceroy extracted a payment of 300,000 gold xerafins, but rejected the offer of the city of Diu which he thought would be expensive to maintain, although he left a garrison there. The Portuguese prisoners from the Battle of Chaul were also rescued. The treatment of the Egyptian captives by the Portuguese was brutal. The Viceroy ordered most of them to be hanged, burned alive or torn to pieces by tying them to the mouths of the cannons, in retaliation for his son's death. Commenting on the battle after winning it, de Almeida said: "As long as you may be powerful at sea, you will hold India as yours; and if you do not possess this power, little will avail you a fortress on the shore." Interestingly, after handing over the Viceroy's post to his successor, Dom Afonso de Albuquerque, de Almeida left for Portugal in November, 1509, and in December, 1509 was himself killed by the Khoikhoi tribe, near the Cape of Good Hope, Africa.

This battle did not end the Portuguese-Ottoman rivalry. A second naval battle occurred 30 years later in the Siege of Diu in 1538 when the Turks laid siege with 54 ships to the fortress which was built by the Portuguese in 1535, but then after suffering terrible defeats they lifted the siege. Suleiman I the Magnificent sent his admiral Hussein Pasha for another siege of the fortress at Diu in 1547 which, upon failing, marked the end of Ottoman attempts to expand their influence in the Indian Ocean.