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Two years after the great victory at Lepanto, John of Austria led the Holy League fleet in conquering Tunis. However, the very next year, the Ottomans retook the city and subdued the presidio of La Goleta with an immense fleet. This was about the most a galley fleet in the 16th century Mediterranean was capable of in terms of force and distance. Meanwhile, Algiers remained a haven of Barbary corsairs who plagued Spain's possessions in the Western Mediterranean.

Could the fleet have taken Algiers instead of Tunis, and could the Spanish have held it long term? It's much closer to Spain's main naval base at Barcelona than Tunis was, and conversely much further from Constantinople. Spain's position in the endemic pirate wars of economic attrition in the Mediterranean would have been strengthened if they could hold it long term too.
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