Siege of Diu (1546)

20°N 71°E

Third siege of Diu
Part of Ottoman–Portuguese conflicts (1538–1560) and Gujarati–Portuguese conflicts

A battle between the Portuguese Armada and Turkish soldiers on horseback in Goa, western India
Date20 April – 10 November 1546
(6 months and 3 weeks)
Location
Diu, Portuguese India
20.71°N 70.98°E / 20.71; 70.98
Result Portuguese victory
Belligerents
 Portuguese Empire  Gujarat Sultanate
Commanders and leaders
João de Mascarenhas
João de Castro		 Khadjar Safar †
Strength

18 May 440 men[1]

19 July reinforcements consisting of 20 Fustas and 6 caturs with men arrived[1]

On 7 November Governor Castro arrived with 35 Fustas, caturs, 3 galeons, naus and gales, with 3,000 Portuguese and 300 Indian men[2]		 10,000 men[3]
Casualties and losses
More than 200[4] 3,000 killed
600 prisoners[5]
Siege of Diu (1546) is located in India
Siege of Diu (1546)
Location of Diu in present-day India

The third siege of Diu was a siege of the Portuguese Indian city of Diu by the Gujarat Sultanate in 1546. It ended with a major Portuguese victory.

Background

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Muslim Sultanate of Gujarat was the principal seapower in India. Gujarat fought the Portuguese fleets in collaboration with the Mamluks. The Portuguese were defeated by a combined Mamluk-Gujarati fleet in 1508, which was in turn destroyed by a Portuguese fleet in the Battle of Diu (1509). By 1536, the Portuguese had gained complete control of Diu, while Gujarat was under attack from the Mughals.

In 1538, the Ottomans, who had taken over Egypt (1517) and Aden (1538), joined hands with the Gujarat Sultanate to launch an anti-Portuguese offensive. They besieged Diu in 1538, but had to retreat.

The siege

After the failed siege of 1538, the Gujarati General Khadjar Safar besieged Diu again in an attempt to recapture the island. The siege lasted seven months from 20 April 1546 to 10 November 1546, during which João de Mascarenhas defended Diu.[6]

The siege ended when a Portuguese fleet under Governor João de Castro arrived and routed the attackers.[6]

Khadjar Safar and his son Muharram Rumi Khan (who were probably of Albanian origin) were both killed during the siege.[7]

See also

References
  1. History of the Portuguese navigation in India, 1497–1600, K. M. Mathew, p. 218, 1988
  2. History of the Portuguese navigation in India, 1497–1600, K. M. Mathew, p. 219, 1988
  3. The Cambridge history of the British Empire, John Holland Rose, Ernest Alfred Benians, Arthur Percival Newton, p. 16, 1960
  4. History of the Portuguese navigation in India, 1497–1600, K. M. Mathew, pp. 218/219, 1988
  5. The Cambridge history of the British Empire, John Holland Rose, Ernest Alfred Benians, Arthur Percival Newton, p. 17, 1960
  6. Tony Jaques, ed. (2007). Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity Through the Twenty-first Century. Vol. 1 (A-E). Greenwood. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-313-33537-2.
  7. Kenneth Warren Chase (2003). Firearms: a global history to 1700 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-521-82274-9.
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