Other military engagements are meanwhile underway in…
July 1543 CE
Other military engagements are meanwhile underway in the Mediterranean, where active naval collaboration takes place between France and the Ottoman Empire to fight against Spanish forces, following a request by Francis I, conveyed by Antoine Escalin des Aimars.
The French forces, led by François de Bourbon, and the Ottoman forces, led by Hayreddin Barbarossa, first join at Marseilles in August 1543. Although the Duchy of Savoy, of which Nice is a part, had been a French protectorate for a century, Francis I chooses to attack the city of Nice with the allied force, mainly because Charles III, Duke of Savoy, had angered him by marrying Beatrice of Portugal, thus becoming an ally of the Habsburgs.
The commander of the French fleet, Francis Count of Enghien, had already attempted to make a surprise attack on Nice once, but had been repulsed by Andrea Doria.
The Sultan had in April 1543 placed Hayreddin Barbarossa's fleet at the disposal of the French king.
A fleet of one hundred and ten galley had left the Dardanelles in mid-May 1543. He had then raided the coasts of Sicily and southern Italy through the month of June, anchoring in front of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber on June 29.
Barbarossa arrives with his fleet on July 5 at Île Saint-Honorat, thence on July 10 to the harbor of Toulon, and on July 21 finally received by Enghien with honors at the harbor of Marseilles.