Battle of Diu (1509) - Background

Background

Since Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498, the Portuguese had been fighting Calicut while allying with its local rival Kingdom of Cochin, where they established their headquarters. The northern region of Gujarat, mainly Khambhat, was even more important: the Gujarat Sultanate was an essential intermediary in east–west trade, between the Red Sea, Egypt and Malacca: Gujarati were important middlemen bringing spices from the Moluccas as well as silk from China, and then selling them to the Egyptians and Arabs.

In 1505, the King of Portugal, Manuel I, sent his first viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida with twenty one vessels to strengthen the fledgling Portuguese empire in East Africa and India. When Portugal threatened his field, Sultan Mahmud Begada of Gujarat allied with the Kozhikkodu Samutiri (anglicised to Zamorin of Calicut). He then asked his trade partners, the Mamluk Sultanate, for help.

In 1507, Portuguese forces under command of Afonso de Albuquerque had conquered Socotra in the mouth of the Red Sea and, for a short time, Ormuz in the Persian Gulf. Portuguese intervention was seriously disrupting trade in the Indian Ocean, threatening Muslim as well as Venetian interests, as the Portuguese became able to undersell the Venetians in the spice trade in Europe. The Mamluks and their European trade partners, the Venetians, had become wealthy from monopolizing the flow of spices from India to Europe. Venice broke diplomatic relations with Portugal and started to look at ways to counter its intervention in the Indian Ocean, sending an ambassador to the Egyptian court. Venice negotiated for Egyptian tariffs to be lowered to facilitate competition with the Portuguese, and suggested that "rapid and secret remedies" be taken against the Portuguese. The sovereign of Calicut, the Zamorin, had also sent an ambassador asking for help against the Portuguese.

Egyptian Mamluks soldiers had little expertise in naval warfare, and Portuguese often attacked and stole supplies of Malabar timber from India, so Mamluk Sultan, Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri appealed to Ottoman support. The Ottoman Sultan, Beyazid II - whose navy had helped Spanish Moors and Sephardic Jews expelled by the Spanish Inquisition in 1492- supplied Egypt with Mediterranean-type war galleys manned by Greek sailors and Ottoman volunteers, mainly Turkish mercenaries and freebooters. These vessels, which Venetian shipwrights helped disassemble in Alexandria and reassemble on the Red Sea coast, had to brave the Indian Ocean. The galley warriors could mount light guns fore and aft, but not along the gunwales because these cannon would interfere with the rowers. The native ships (dhows), with their sewn wood planks, could carry no heavy guns at all. Hence, most of the coalition's artillery was archers, whom the Portuguese could easily outshoot.

The Egyptian-Ottoman fleet, whom the Portuguese called under the generic term the "rumes", was sent for India to support Gujarat in 1507. First they fortified Jeddah against a possible Portuguese attack, it then passed through Aden at the tip of the Red Sea, where they received support from the Tahirid Sultan, and then, in 1508, crossed the Indian Ocean to the port of Diu, a city of at the mouth of the Gulf of Khambhat.

In March 1508, commanded by Mamluk admiral Mirocem (Amir Husain Al-Kurdi) or Admiral (Husain Al-Kurdi), the Egyptian Mamluk fleets arrived at Chaul in India where they surprised a Portuguese fleet commanded by Lourenço de Almeida, son of the Portuguese viceroy. Joined by Gujarat admiral Malik Ayyaz, governor of Diu, they fought over three days and won the Battle of Chaul. The Egyptian fleet isolated Lourenço de Almeida's ship, but let the others escape, taking nine captives back to Diu. The Mirat Sikandari, a Persian account of the Kingdom of Gujarat details this battle as a minor skirmish. Having taken the prisoners they headed to Diu. Enraged at the death of his son, the Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida sought revenge.