The siege of Malta is little known to most Americans. It’s a shame because the siege and the battle fought there was one of the most decisive in world history. The conflict involved the two superpowers of the 1500’s. On one side you had the Spanish Empire and on the other side the Ottoman Turks. Malta is strategically located in the Mediterranean. Its just south of Sicily, which back in 1565 was a Spanish possession, and Tunisia which was a Turkish vassal state.
The Island at the time was vassal of Spain ruled by the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem. They were led by Grand Master Jean de La Valette.
Grand Master Jean de La Valette
The Knights of St. John were relics of the crusades. Their original possession was the island of Rhodes, which the Turks seized in 1522. Lacking a home, the order was given the Island of Malta by the Spanish King Carlos I (Charles V). They swore allegiance to the Spanish King and guarded the path to Sicily from the Barbary pirates, who were vassals of the Ottoman Sultan. The Knights raided the North African coast and harassed Islamic shipping. In response, Ottoman corsairs began to raid Italy and Spain herself. King Felipe II (Philip II) sent a fleet to capture Tunis. The expedition ended in disaster with a Turkish victory at Djerba by a fleet led by Turkish admiral, Piyale Pasha and Barbary corsair, Turgut Reis.
The Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, decided to take the fight to the Spanish Empire. He had chosen Malta as the target for Ottoman conquest. The fall of this Island would expose Sicily to an Ottoman invasion thus possibly dealing a deadly blow to the Spanish. The Turks were given a pretext when Romegas, who was one of the Knight’s best corsairs, seized several large Turkish merchantmen owned by the Sultan’s chief Eunuch. They also captured the daughter of the Sultan and some of his concubines. This was a direct insult to the House of Osman. Sultan Suleiman began to organize the invasion force. Thanks to their network of spies at Constantinople the Knights of St. John were tipped of the invasion. The fleet set sail in March of 1565.
Ottoman Janissaries
The Turkish invasion fleet landed on May 18th 1565. The Turks landed 30,000 of their elite soldiers. Right off the bat, the Turks had made a blunder. The Sultan had split the command 3 ways, The leaders where converts to Islam; Vizier Lala Mustafa Pasha (Albanian), Piyale Pasha (Croatian) and Corsair Turgut Reis (Greek). Even the site of the landing was in dispute. Finally the Turks decided to land Marsaxlokk. Their first target was the fort of St. Elmo, which the Knights Grand Master Jean de La Valette had correctly guessed the Turks would go for first. He had placed his best troops and heavy guns. The Turks however had placed their heavy guns on the high grounds of Mt. Sciberras and concentrated on the fort. For 4 weeks they pounded St. Elmo without mercy. In June the elite of the Turkish troops, the Janissaries, assaulted the fort after several days of heavy fighting. The fort fell on June 23rd.
Fall of St. Elmo
The Spanish had promised a relief force for Malta. However, the Dutch aided by Turkish money were in revolt against Spain. Felipe’s best forces were in the Netherlands. It would take a few months to bring the troops down to Sicily. They were, however, able to send some troops to back the Island. The Spanish viceroy of Sicily, Don Garcia de Toledo, sent 600 elite Spanish troops. These soldiers were not the average Spanish soldiers. These were the best trained and skilled. They were called Aguilas, or Eagles, and were mostly recruited in the Galicia region. Trained in night fighting they would be the last thing a Turkish soldier saw before death.
Elite Spanish infantry
The soldiers snuck in at night to the fortress of Birgu. This lifted the moral of the Knight of St. John and showed Spain’s commitment to them. This also demoralized the Turks. Their soldiers would be found with throats slit and some of their cannons disabled. The Turks had no clue who these soldiers were. These elite Spanish soldiers were the Navy seals of the 1500’s and no soldier on Earth at the time could fight up to their levels.
The Turks now decided to go after the forts on Senglea peninsula.
On 15 July Mustafa ordered a double attack against the Senglea peninsula. He had transported 100 small vessels across Mt. Sciberras to the Grand Harbour, avoiding the strong cannons of Fort St. Angelo, in order to launch a sea attack against the promontory using about 1,000 Janissaries while the Corsairs attacked Fort St. Michael on the landward end. Luckily for the Maltese, a defector warned de Valette about the impending strategy and the Grand Master had time to construct a palisade along the Senglea promontory, which successfully helped to deflect the attack. Nevertheless, the assault probably would have succeeded had the Turkish boats not come into point-blank range (less than 200 yards) of a sea-level battery of five cannons that had been constructed by Commander Chevalier de Guiral at the base of Fort St. Angelo, with the sole purpose of stopping such an amphibious attack. Just two salvos sank all but one of the vessels, killing or drowning over 800 of the attackers. The land attack failed simultaneously when relief forces were able to cross to Ft. St. Michael across a floating bridge, with the result that Malta was saved for the day.
The Turks by now had ringed Birgu and Senglea with some 65 siege guns and subjected the town to what was probably the most sustained bombardment in history up to that time. (Balbi claims that 130,000 cannonballs were fired during the course of the siege.) Having largely destroyed one of the town’s crucial bastions, Mustafa ordered another massive double assault on 7 August, this time against Fort St. Michael and Birgu itself. On this occasion, the Turks breached the town walls and it seemed that the siege was over, but unexpectedly the invaders retreated. As it happened, the cavalry commander, Captain Vincenzo Anastagi, who was on his daily sortie from Medina, had attacked the unprotected Turkish field hospital, massacring the sick and wounded. The Turks, thinking the Christian relief had arrived from Sicily, broke off their assault.
This was a huge blow to the Turks and turned the tide in the siege. The Turks were becoming demoralized. Also reports were reaching them that the Spanish Imperial forces had arrived in Sicily from the Netherlands. Don Toledo was now retraining them for the fight on Malta. Their opponents would not be Dutch insurgents. It would the disciplined Turks.
Desperate, the Turks again attacked Forts of St. Michael and Birgu on August 7th. This was a desperate assault because the Turkish commander Mustafa did not want to face the Sultan after a defeat. The walls were breached and the Turks tried to enter, however the Knights of St. John and their Spanish allies beat back the assault in furious hand to hand combat. The morale of the Turks was broken. The attack was called off and the Turks pulled back to reorganize. It was now early September and Mustafa has decided to winter on the Island and resume the attacks in the spring. However, the situation had dramatically changed.
On the morning of September 8th, The Spanish Infantry (Tercios) had landed from Sicily. The troops were motivated and ready to take on the Turks. This was the dream of every Spanish soldier, a pitched battle against the Turks. The two best soldiers of the 1500’s would finally face off against each other.
(topic to be continued…)
