June 10, Toulon harbor, on the southeastern coast of France.
This was France's finest naval harbor. Beneath a cloudless sky, the city stretched along the azure coastline. More than two hundred ships belonging to France and its many allies lay at anchor in the harbor.
The French navy had less seafaring experience than Venice or Portugal. Even so, Charles VII had appointed his own admiral, Prigent Cotivi, to command the entire fleet.
For now, fighting between the two sides was confined to cruisers.
Greek cruisers prowled the Western Mediterranean. In response, the allied fleet had also dispatched more than a dozen cruisers to the Eastern Mediterranean.
Overall, the French camp had suffered heavier losses.
The French camp had more than fifty thousand troops stationed in southern Italy and had to maintain a maritime supply route. Enemy cruisers lurked somewhere along it, waiting to ambush transport ships, and they could always find an opening.
The Eastern Roman Empire had fewer troops stationed on Malta than its enemies had in southern Italy, and consequently fewer transport ships. Its supply route suffered far fewer attacks than the French one.
Yesterday, Cotivi had organized a large-scale fleet exercise, which had gone well. Thanks to Venetian assistance, the fleet had mastered signal communications and several common formations, giving it the ability to fight a decisive battle.
Yet the Venetian advisers recommended that Cotivi avoid a decisive engagement at sea.
At the Battle of Antikythera, the Eastern Roman Empire had deployed twenty-six battleships.
Now the Eastern Roman Empire controlled the entire Eastern Mediterranean, and its fleet was stronger. It could certainly deploy no fewer than twenty-six battleships.
Cotivi had only twenty double-deck warships: ten Portuguese, five French, four Genoese, and one Neapolitan ship, the Anjou.
Of these, the Royal Charles was the only double-deck warship actually