CASUALTY RECORD // October 8, 1538
Battle of Preveza
Estimated casualties — killed, wounded, captured, and missing — by side, with confidence labels per surviving record.
Casualties by side
1 sides catalogued · combined 3,000 estimated
Holy League
3,000
Medium-confidence figure
Battle context
The Battle of Preveza was a decisive Ottoman naval victory over the combined Holy League fleet of Venice and the Habsburg powers in the Ionian Sea off northwest Greece. Despite the Holy League holding a substantial advantage in numbers and tonnage, Hayreddin Barbarossa's Ottoman fleet under Kapudan Pasha defeated the allied force commanded by Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, inflicting some 3,000 casualties on the League. The outcome formed part of the broader Ottoman–Habsburg conflict and the concurrent Ottoman–Venetian War of 1537–1547, reinforcing Ottoman maritime dominance in the eastern Mediterranean. By defeating a coalition that combined Venetian and Hispano-Imperial naval strength, the battle demonstrated that Ottoman sea power could overcome numerically and materially superior European fleets, with lasting consequences for the balance of naval power in the region during the mid-sixteenth century.
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