Barbary Wars – a war of economics not religion

Obama’s reference to Jefferson’s relationship with the Muslim world was an odd note to sound. How about the Barbary Wars (1801 – 1805) against Tripoli? Kind of like saying that the kings of Europe had a close relationship with the Middle East because of the crusades.

But the Barbary War was not about religion. It was about money and free trade. Both the Americans and Tripolitans invoked their religions to fight the war – yes, Tripoli called it a jihad. And there was plenty of misunderstanding and hatred because of religion.

Here’s what happened. The Barbary states – Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco – were economies based on piracy, or really privateers since they were state-sponsored. These pirates, as they’d done for centuries since the early 16th century, scoured the Mediterranean capturing ships. The ships and goods were often sold, as were the the crews. Those crewmen who weren’t sold into slavery were ransomed.

Eventually, European powers decided a more stable approach would be to pay tribute to the various Barbary states in return for those states not attacking their ships. Any gangster can tell you what this is – a protection racket. It was a great deal and easy money for the Barbary states.

The U.S. benefited from Britian’s protection while it was a colony. But after winning its independence, the Americans were on their own. With no navy to speak off and an economy in shatters, the United States merchant ships were tempting targets. President Washington and Adams both thought it was simpler and ultimately cheaper to pay off the pirates rather than fight them. They signed treaties and paid tribute, a humiliating experience but at least it guaranteed peace.

But since America was such an economic basket case back then, their payments to the Barbary states were often late. In addition, the Quasi-War with the French (who seized about 300 American merchant ships, 15 times as many as all the Barbary States ever seized) hampered American shipping and cause even greater delays.

Yusuf Karamanli, the pasha of Tripoli, had great ambitions and he saw piracy was a way to boost his treasury and build his power. He aggressively set out to attack various states and ratchet up the tribute they all paid. America was particularly slow in making its payments. So Yusuf decided to make an example of the US and he declared war in 1801.

President Jefferson wanted the war. He believed that the Barbary states would continuously find pretexts to increase tribute payments and harass American shipping – war, in fact, would be cheaper in the end. And it was the honorable thing to do.

Religion had nothing to do with it.

Barbary Wars a good test for US Navy

The US Navy facing an unorthodox foe in the Somali pirates is actually a golden opportunity for the American forces to test out a way to fight a new kind of war.  The pirates are a nuisance rather than a threat, which makes them perfect as a test ground for the Navy to catch up to its Army brothers in new forms of combat that are likely to dominate the next generation.

The Barbary Wars had a similar role for America back in the early 1800s as well. A new nation with almost no navy to speak of, the U.S. saw the predations of Barbary pirates as an affront to its newfound independence and a threat to its commerce. But there were some – Secretary of Navy Robert Smith, for one – who saw this war with the Barbary pirates as a training ground for its infant navy.

Many Americans saw war with Great Britain as inevitable and knew that they needed to beef up their military skills on the seas. And that’s what happened. Showing the expected incompetence, inexperience,  and  plain ignorance of a young navy, the US performed poorly at the beginning of the war.

But Commodore Edward Preble whipped them into shape. A daring and aggressive commander, he molded a generation of sailors whose names would resound in future battles with the British during the War of 1812. Stephen Decatur, Isaac Hull, Charles Stewart, Thomas MacDonough, and David Porter were all blooded during the war with the Barbary pirates. The Constitution (Old Ironsides herself), the Constellation, the United States, the Enterprise all saw extensive duties in the Mediterranean during the war as well.

The Barbary War really marked the moment when the Navy as a service was born. Though it has performed well against the French during the Quasi-War, the Navy functioned as a cohesive force during the Barbary Wars. The Americans tested communications, tactics, coordinated assaults, logistics, discipline – all part of the naval legacy the British bequeathed to her former colonists.

When war with Britain eventually did come, the American army was inept. But the navy proved itself ready to fight – and win.

Eaton tortured by betrayal

There are some interesting parallels between Lawrence of Arabia and Eaton beyond the Arab garb and military exploits. Eaton was put in the position of letting Hamet know of two betrayals – the first is that he was sold out in favor of his brother during the treaty (June 10, 1805). The second is letting Hamet know he wouldn’t be getting his family back any time soon.

For someone as sensitive to honor as Eaton was, this must have been very difficult. His wounded pride leads to his steady character decline, similar to T.E. Lawrence. Lawrence had led the Arabs in fighting the Ottomans during WWI with promises that they would be independent after the war. The Sykes-Picot treaty essentially carved up the Middle East between France and Britain. Lawrence was put in the position of bilking his allies, and his character suffered too afterwards.

Barron orders Eaton to quit post before peace

Lear gets a lot of the blame for the peace he signed with Pasha Yusuf that abandons Hamet and angers Eaton so much. The pusillanimity of Lear has some basis but the really shocking development had been the orders Commodore Barron has sent to Eaton ordering him to abandon Derne BEFORE the treaty had been signed (before the negotiations had even begun).

It’s a staggering order coming from an officer in wartime. Commodore was severely ill for much of his time on duty in the Mediterranean, but Barron’s conduct during this time has been largely overlooked in the history books because everyone seems so eager to “get Lear.”

Derna readied for defense

Eaton has no time to rest on his laurels. With the first elements of Pasha Yusuf’s relief troops arriving, Eaton busies his men repairing the damage his army had inflicted the day before. He fully expects the relief column – dispirited at arriving late and finding a hostile Derna – to evaporate as his own men had almost done so man times during his own march from Egypt. But Eaton doesn’t take any chances.

The harbor fort is repaired and it guns are turned to face the town. New breastworks are erected. Lt. Hull from the Argus sends sailors ashore to help. One of the first things Eaton does is fortify the fort on the heights to south of Derna that Hamet overran early in the battle the day before. The man call it “Fort Eaton” (it was later known as the American Fort though today is just a large cistern).

Eaton attacks, U.S. victorious

The harbor fort fires the first shot – the Battle of Derna has begun.

Eaton attacks Derna from three directions: a largely Christian contingent led by O’Bannon of about 100 men attacks Derna’s main defenses aligned on the east of town, three American warships – Argus, Nautilus, Hornet – pound the city from the harbor, and Hamet’s Arabs sweep around the southern flank to box in the enemy.

The battle goes well for Eaton and his ragtag army. The ships soon harbor fort. Hamet takes a ruined outpost that is a prime position over the town. But then things start to go wrong. After some good progress, Hamet is slowed down by mountainous terrain. When the defenders of the fort flee the American naval bombardment, they rush to main the lines facing O’Bannon and his men. The fire intensifies. O’Bannon and his men begin to fall back.

Eaton commits his reserves, leading them personally to support O’Bannon.  He faces a bleak choice – retreat and hope to fight another day, though he knows enemy reinforcements will arrive any day and he can expect his Arab allies to desert in large numbers. Or, he can attack. For Eaton, there really is no choice. All his life has led him to this moment, and he will not walk away unless as the victor.

Rallying his men, he vaults to the front in a desperate charge. His men are outnumbered 10 to 1 but the enemy is flabbergasted by the attack. They shoot wildly, but still Eaton and his men come on. A few of the defenders begin to abandon their positions, then it becomes a panicked retreat.

Eaton is wounded – a shot through his left wrist – but after wrapping his wound, he continues the fight. His troops break through the barricades. As they storm the city, Hamet’s troops  finally break through and attack the enemy from behind.

At 2:45 pm O’Bannon leads Marines and mercenaries against the main fortress. They find the guns loaded and primed, so O’Bannon orders them turned on the town and fired. The defenders crumple. At 4 pm, O’Bannon orders the U.S. flag raised – it’s the first time the American flag has been raised in victory on foreign shores.

Eaton has won a stunning victory. But the fight isn’t yet over.

Eaton moves in for the attack

Apr. 23

Finally rested and reprovisioned, Eaton’s army moves out to get his men into position around Derna. Army marches over mountainous land in the rain. Wind whipping off the sea drives temperatures down. The Nautilus and Argus shadow the army and move along the coast in support.

Apr. 24

The army marches 15 miles over mountainous terrain populated with red cedars. They camp in a valley through which a rivulet flows. Information arrives that the governor of Derna has fortified city and is ready to defend it. The news confirms earlier rumors and is a bitter disappointment to both Eaton and Hamet. Derna is supposed to be a base of support for Hamet, the former pasha of Tripoli. The expectation was that Derna would welcome Hamet with open arms rather than military arms. There is one piece of good news though.

Apr. 25

Eaton’s order to march refused by Arabs, some of whom begin a retrograde march. After much back and forth, Eaton promises them $2000 and they agree to march. The army finally arrives at Derna and camps on bluffs overlooking the city. Eaton finds out that Yusuf’s relief column led by General Hassan is still a day or two away.

Eaton is rescued and prepares for the attack

Apr. 16

As camp breaks up, a scout spots a sail on the horizon. Eaton and his troops are overjoyed. They march about 5 miles to a water source and wait for the ship to arrive.

Apr. 17

USS Hornet arrives with provisions and dispatches for Eaton from Commodore James Barron. Though ailing,  Barron is  responsible for the  American squadron in the Mediterranean.  He congratulates  Eaton but  distances  himself  from a convention Eaton had signed with Hamet, the former pasha of Tripoli who is allied with the Americans.  Among the articles of the convention is a promise that the United States will return Hamet to his throne. Barron argues that this promise is not something the Americans can keep nor was it the end goal of the expedition.

Nevertheless, Barron promises to send Eaton more materiel and support. That day, the Nautilus sails for Bomba with a field piece that Eaton had requested.

Apr. 18 – 22

Eaton’s men reprovision and rest.

Eaton’s army arrives at the Bay of Bomba – and finds nothing

Apr. 15

The final day of the march is hell. With no food, Eaton’s army scatters to dig up herbs – fennel and sorrel – to eat. Discipline breaks down. The army is strung out for miles in every direction. But somehow, Eaton keeps them moving forward. Earlier reports have confirmed that there is an American ship with supplies waiting for them at the Bay of Bomba, a natural re-supply point some 60 miles from their destination of Derna.

Climbing over that final ridge at about 4:00 in the afternoon, Eaton and his men desperately scan the horizon. Nothing. No ship. No supplies. No rescue. The Arabs think they’ve been tricked into marching this far for nothing. They call Eaton an imposter. They are mutinous but they are too exhausted to take any action. Instead they collapse on the ground and tell Eaton that they will begin the march back towards Egypt first thing next morning.

Eaton tries to assure everyone that the ship must have gone out to sea during the recent bad weather to avoid the dangers of being blown onto the coast. But no one believes him and Eaton is worried that the Arabs – who number about 1000 men and greatly outnumber his more loyal band of 50 Christians – won’t kill them all in their sleep.

As he fades into sleep, Eaton knows that his mission – one that has become the culmination of his life’s mission – depends completely on whether the American resupply ship shows up the next day. Without it, he’s done and so are his dreams of glory and conquest.

William Eaton’s march on Derne

Exactly 204 years ago, America was locked in a war against Tripoli.  Most of the engagements were naval – U.S. bombardments of Tripoli, attacks on the harbor, or ship-on-ship engagements in the open water.

One of the most dramatic chapters of that war, however, was William Eaton’s overland 550-mile march from Egypt through the deserts of Libya. His goal was Derne, the second most powerful city in the kingdom, which Eaton hoped to take and then use as a base from which to launch a final assault on Tripoli.

Eaton was at the head of a motley mercenary army of almost 1000 Christians and Arabs, nine Marines to stiffen them up, and Hamet Qaramanli – the former pasha who had agreed to help the Americans in return for regaining his throne.

I’m going to post daily to track what happened on the exact same day 204 years earlier. We join Eaton and his ragged army towards the end of their march.

April 14

Eaton’s army, on the 37th day of its desert march, has run out of food. The final rations – there was only rice left at that point – were handed out on Apr. 12. Delays and robbery during the long march have whittled supplies down to nothing. A precious camel had been slaughtered the day before for food. The army stumbles into camp having made 14 miles. Luckily they find clean water, which they’d also been running low on. The army is still some 10 miles away from from the Bay of Bomba, where an American ship was supposed to be waiting with supplies. That was the plan at least.

Daring raid on pirates 200 years ago

America’s problems with pirates really began when the protection of the British flag disappeared after the Revolution. Sure, America was independent but it was weak and deep in debt. With an eye for opportunity, Barbary pirates saw American merchant ships as ripe for the plucking.

Pirate predations and half-hearted attempts to buy them off culminated in the Tripolitan War, 1801 – 1805. American actions at the beginning were characterized mainly by bumbling ineptitude punctuated with flashes of fighting spirit. But its biggest black eye occurred in 1804 when disaster struck. The lesson today is in how America responded then.

Giving chase to a Tripolitan corsair, the 44-gun American frigate USS Philadelphia – one of the largest ships in the nascent U.S. Navy – ran aground not far from the port of Tripoli on Oct. 31. After some frantic efforts to dislodge his ship, Captain William Bainbridge decided to surrender to the enemy ships that had come out to harass the Americans. Some 300 sailors and officers surrendered, the worst catastrophe by far in the American navy’s young history.

Though Bainbridge had tried to scuttle the ship as he surrendered, the Tripolitans managed to rescue the Philadelphia and float her the next day. I can only imagine what Bainbridge was thinking when he saw the gleeful Tripolitans towing his ship into their harbor. It’s one thing to give up your ship without a fight; it’s another to essentially hand over a potent weapon to the enemy. In one fell swoop, Pasha Yusuf Qaramanli of Tripoli had a ship many more times powerful than anything in his own navy. He must have thought that Allah was really on his side that day.

Commodore Edward Preble at the head of the U.S. squadron in the Mediterranean was mortified when he heard the news – delivered with a healthy dollop of “schadenfreude” by a British ship. But he quickly implemented a plan to recover a little honor from an embarrassment that had made the U.S. the laughing stock of Europe.

It was Bainbridge himself who suggested the plan (courtesies of war back then allowed for officers to send and receive mail. No beheadings for the cameras then). Using lime juice as invisible ink – I’ve tried it; it works – he told Preble that only a few of the city’s guns in the fort pointed into the harbor, where the Philadelphia was moored. He recommended a night time raid to sneak in and destroy the ship.

Lt. Stephen Decatur – a young go-getter who loved a good fight – volunteered for the mission. On the night of Feb. 16, he glided into Tripoli’s port in the moonlight on a ship disguised to look like a Tripolitan cruiser (in fact, it was a Tripolitan ship the Americans had recently captured, refitted, and named the Intrepid) with 76 men who were hiding belowdecks.

A local Neopolitan captain who knew the harbor and spoke the lingua franca of the day was part of the raid and, after explaining how he’d lost his anchor in a recent storm, asked Tripolitan soldiers guarding the Philadelphia if he could tie up alongside. They agreed. At the last minute, the Tripolitan guards sounded the alarm – “Amerikanos!” – but it was too late. Decatur’s men were swarming the deck.

Most of the Tripolitans were killed or jumped ship. In about 10 minutes, Decatur had possession of the ship. His men executed the next part of the plan, setting fires throughout the ship with various combustibles they’d brought with them. Flames ripped through the ship. In less than 25 minutes, the fire was climbing the rigging and Decatur was satisfied the Philadelphia could not be saved. Assured that his men were safe – not one of them was killed or wounded in the assault – Decatur was the last man to jump from the pyre to the safety of the Intrepid.

When he heard about the raid, Admiral Nelson – no stranger to acts of daring on the high seas – called it “the most daring act of the age.” Decatur became a hero. And America was on its way to winning its first war after the Revolution.

Though a superpower today, America is confronted anew with an old enemy. The weapons on different, the locations have changed. But the game is still the same. If history is any guide, the United States will have to rely on daring raids and small scale assaults rather than overwhelming force to vanquish piracy this time.

Added a timeline

Just added a timeline feature.  It’s pretty comprehensive, covering the years that William Eaton and Tobias Lear lived. This provides some great context for what was happening in the U.S. as well as Barbary and Europe (oh, yeah, that guy Napoleon) as Eaton and Lear made forged their careers in a new America.

William Eaton and Tobias Lear

I’m going to start a blog/site about the Barbary Wars, especially the roles of William Eaton and Tobias Lear.