Free Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler

Sicily astride a narrow strait linking the eastern and western Mediterranean basins. Suleiman, who ruled the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the eastern Mediterranean, had established a presence in the western basin when Barbarossa conquered Algiers in 1529. Now, with the crescent flag flying over Tunis, he held dominion over the entire Mediterranean. No longer could Charles’s ships venture safely beyond home waters; instead the Mediterranean had become an alien sea dominated by Muslim corsairs and Jewish merchants.
    Charles’s first reaction showed that his religious fealty took a backseat to realpolitik. Not without some holy guilt, he dispatched an agent to Tunis to offer Barbarossa “the lordship of North Africa” to come over to his side. Failing that, he instructed that the agent was to poison or cut the pirate’s throat in the evening, when he was known to be in his cups. But evening never came. Punctuating his rejection of Charles’s offer with a swing of his curved scimitar, Barbarossa decapitated the agent.
    Charles saw the mission’s failure as divinely ordained. Over the next year, obsessed with the idea of a crusade to reconquer Tunis, he secretly assembled an armada of four hundred ships and an army of thirty thousand from all parts of his empire. *2 He himself would lead the hosts of Christendom to strike a decisive blow against the infidel. Tunis would be his holy crusade to show the world he was its righteous ruler. 18

    On June 10, 1535, as the imperial fleet was about to embark, Charles addressed the assembled nobles. Unfurling a banner of the crucified Christ, he pointed to the savior, exclaiming: “He is your captain-general! I am but his standard-bearer.” 19 Five days later, the fleet anchored at the entrance to the captured port.
    Having known of Charles’s intentions, Barbarossa likewise preached a holy war, and recruited several thousand mujahideen (Muslim warriors) to battle the crusaders. With spies keeping him current, Barbarossa fortified the fort at the entrance to the port, named La Goletta (the throat) because “it held Tunis by the throat.” Barbarossa had assigned its defense to Sinan and five thousand of his best men.
    On June 15, 1535, the cannons of seventy ships bombarded the fort’s twin towers. For twenty-four days, Sinan and the defenders held out. Three times Sinan sallied forth to engage the attackers, but the odds were overwhelming and his sorties were repulsed. Finally, the fortress walls were breached by the relentless pounding of forty-pound iron balls fired from the Knights of Malta’s eight-decked galleon, the largest fighting vessel then in existence. Spanish, German, and Italian forces poured into the fort. Sinan, forced to evacuate, crossed the bay to the city with the remnant of his men. With the fort’s capture, Charles had seized control of the bay and with it Barbarossa’s eighty-seven galleys.
    Barbarossa knew he was beaten, but was still determined to give the Christians a blow they would not soon forget. The next day, as Charles gathered his army for a final assault, an enraged Barbarossa told Sinan he had decided to slaughter the twenty thousand Christian slaves packed in the city’s underground dungeons. Sinan dissuaded him: “To stain ourselves with so awful a massacre,” he told his commander, “would place us outside the pale of humanity forever.” 20 Human compassion aside, it made no sense to destroy one’s property before the battle was joined. Besides, he added, slaughtering so many prisoners would take too much time. His logic was persuasive, but as things turned out, sparing their lives proved the defenders’ undoing. Defecting Moors, looking to curry favor if the Spanish assault succeeded, freed the prisoners. Once released, the slaves raided the city arsenal, overpowered the guards, and threw open the gates.
    Charles’s forces stormed in. For a day the battle raged. Charles, on a gallop around the city, had his horse shot from under