Alternatively, if he intended to make sure of his new territory, he should have retained the Sultan’s ships and janissaries. But this may not have been possible, for Suleiman was engaged in his war with Persia (one of the few strategic mistakes in his reign), and could not afford to leave so many valuable men in North Africa. Barbarossa, also, had most probably calculated that in view of the divided state of Europe, even Charles V would find it difficult to mount a large-scale expedition against Tunis. In this he was to be proved wrong. Charles V could not ignore the threat that Barbarossa’s occupation of Tunis posed to his Sicilian possessions. If he allowed the Turks to establish themselves in Tunisia he would soon find that Sicily was untenable. It was less than one hundred miles from the Cape Bon peninsula to the ports of Trapani and Marsala, an easy striking distance for galleys. They could be across the strait of Sicily in twenty-four hours, raid and devastate the coastline, and be back in Tunis before the news had even reached Palermo.
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