THE CRUEL STRUGGLE FOR FAMAGUSTA: POLITICS, STRATEGY AND WARFARE
Ottoman Turkish rage after 80.000 men were killed: “A town not defended by men but by giants”
The Ottoman invasion of Cyprus (1570), which led to the end of Venetian rule on the island, will be the subject of an illustrated reading (part 2: Siege and Fall of Famagusta) at the next meeting of the “Medieval Cyprus Fellowship” (MCF).
The talk, to be given by MCF founder Hans Doeleman, will focus on events after Ottoman forces landed at Limassol and Larnaca followed by the conquest of Nicosia. The Ottoman supreme commander, Lala Mustafa Pasha, then headed for Famagusta and a ten months siege began.
Date: Thursday, 1 October 2009.
Start: 8 pm (doors open: 7.30 pm).
Venue: Chateau Lambousa, Lapta
Reservations (email): mcf.trnc@gmail.com or text a message to: 0533 841 5410 (with your name and number of seats required).
Admission to the reading costs 10 TL.
Excerpts from the richly illustrated (special maps, photographs, drawings and plans of the Venetian fortess Famagusta) reading:
(…) If this assault had been severe, that which followed on the 30th, the sixth attack, was even more terrible. It lasted from dawn to sunset, hand to hand fighting all the time. The general assault was resumed on the 31st. Three attacks were beaten back, and, after six hours’ fighting, at midday the enemy retired. They had fought with less than the usual ardour, and had lost some 300 killed, while of the Christians some hundred were killed or wounded. But the generals, inspecting the defences, concluded that they were at the end of their resources. An exhaustive search of all the magazines produced no more than seven barrels of powder, five of coarse powder for the guns, two of fine for the arquebuses. Victuals were finished. They decided to surrender.
The white flag was raised on the ramparts on the first of August, 1571. (…)
(…) On 8 August, Lala Mustafa Pasha made his triumphal entry into the conquered city. The Venetian commander Bragadino lingered in uncertainty of his fate until Friday the 17th, 1571, the Islamic feast-day, which his captor selected for the culmination of his torture. He was by this time seriously ill, but in the presence of Mustafa and his officers he was hustled round the walls, to all the breaches, forced to carry heavy sacks of earth and stones like a common sapper, and to kiss the ground every time he passed the jeering Pasha. More dead than alive he was taken, hardly able to walk for weakness, to the place of public execution in the chief square of Famagusta, stripped naked, tied to the column and flayed alive, while Mustafa looked on from the loggia of the palace. Bragadino is said to have born his tortures with unfailing fortitude for half an hour, until, as the knife of the executioner reached his waist, he expired. His head was then cut off and placed above the gallows. The body was quartered, and the quarters and the heart and entrails placed at the five breaches in the walls. The skin was cured and stuffed with straw and cotton, clad in his own garments, mounted on a cow, and led round to all the breaches and through the streets of the city. It was afterwards transferred to an Ottoman ship with the heads of Astorre Baglione, Louis Martinengo and Andrew Bragadino, taken to the Syrian coast, then to Lajazzo and Karamania, and triumphantly exhibited at every stopping place. The “show” returned to Famagusta on 21 September… (…)
North Cyprus Free Press 
