Dragut, known in Ottoman tradition as Turgut Reis, was born around 1485 to a farming family in a coastal village of Asia Minor now named Turgutreis after him. At about 12 an Ottoman commander noticed his skill with spears and arrows, and around 1517 he was trained in Egypt as a cannoneer and siege artilleryman. He turned galleys into gun platforms, bought into a ship, raided Venetian shipping and in 1520 joined Hayreddin Barbarossa, becoming his chief lieutenant. At Preveza in 1538 he commanded the center rear of about 112 Ottoman ships against a Holy League of more than 300 under Andrea Doria and captured a papal galley in a decisive Ottoman win. In 1540 Doria’s nephew caught him repairing ships on Corsica, and he spent nearly four years as a Genoese galley slave.
Barbarossa laid siege to Genoa in 1544 and Dragut was ransomed for 3,500 gold pieces. In 1550 Doria trapped his fleet in a lagoon at Djerba, and Dragut’s men dug a channel, greased log rollers and hauled the galleys overland to escape, capturing ships on the way out. In 1551 he took Tripoli from the Knights of Saint John, became its pasha and fortified it with a rebuilt port, citadel and gunpowder bastion. At the siege of Malta in 1565 the land commander ignored his advice to take the inland citadels first, and while bombarding Fort St. Elmo he was struck in the head by a rock fragment on June 18. He died as the fort fell and was buried in his Tripoli mosque, and the Ottoman siege failed.
- Barbarossa’s offer of ransom during Dragut’s captivity was refused.
- As a galley slave he learned Genoese rowing cadences, patrol routes and coastal defenses.
- At Djerba a few ships kept firing at the blockade to cover the sound of the digging.
- Accounts disagree on whether the fragment that killed him came from enemy fire or a Turkish battery.
- Dragut Point on Malta marks where his batteries stood.
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