The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean

by John Julius Norwich

  On 23 May the attack on St Elmo began in earnest. Night and day the bombardment continued. A few days later there arrived the most celebrated Ottoman commander on land or sea, Dragut himself, seemingly unaffected by his eighty years. He took personal command of the siege, setting up new batteries to the north and south of the fort, which was now suffering a remorseless bombardment from three sides at once. By the end of the month its walls were showing signs of imminent collapse. Every night under cover of darkness small boats from Fort St Angelo slipped across the harbour mouth to bring the garrison fresh troops and provisions, returning with the wounded for the hospital in Birgu; it was only thanks to them that the fort held out as long as it did. One night, however, a returning boat brought something more: a deputation from the besieged to tell the Grand Master that they could no longer continue. La Valette looked at them coldly and replied that in that case he would replace them with others who could, and that these would be led by himself. Ashamed, they returned to their posts. St Elmo might be doomed, but there would be no surrender.

  Somehow, the fort survived for a total of thirty-one days. When at last on 23 June the Turks smashed their way in, only about sixty of the original 150-odd defenders remained alive. Of these, all but nine were instantly decapitated, their bodies nailed–in mockery of the crucifixion–to wooden crosses and floated across the harbour mouth to the waters below Fort St Angelo. When La Valette saw them he ordered the immediate execution of all Turkish prisoners. Their heads were then rammed into the breeches of the two cannon on the upper bastion and fired back into the ruins of St Elmo. There was no mistaking that message. From that time forward no quarter would be asked or given.

  The Turks had now achieved their first objective. They had done so, however, at a cost of nearly a month of their time and some 8,000 of their finest troops–almost a quarter of their entire army. They had also lost Dragut, killed by a cannonball in the last stages of the siege of St Elmo. He lived just long enough to hear of the fall of the fortress–at which, we are told, ‘he manifested his joy by several signs and, raising his eyes to heaven as if in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired’. Mustafa Pasha is said to have stood among the ruins, gazing through the summer heat across the harbour. ‘If so small a son has cost us so dear,’ he murmured, ‘what price must we pay for the father?’

  The father was, of course, Fort St Angelo itself. Behind it was the headland of Birgu, the Knights’ fortified city. Beyond the narrow inlet to the southwest lay the neighbouring headland of Senglea. It was on the defence of these two parallel peninsulas, by now completely surrounded by the Ottoman army, that the Order of St John depended for its survival. They were connected by a flimsy bridge across the creek (now known as Dockyard Creek) and by a chain stretched on pontoons across its mouth. At the landward end, a palisade of stakes had been driven into the muddy bottom. No longer, however, after the fall of St Elmo, could the entrance to Grand Harbour itself be blocked; the Turkish ships could sail down its entire length, with only the guns of St Angelo to hinder them.

  But there were consolations too. In order to move into their new positions south of Senglea and Birgu, the Turks would be obliged to drag all their heavy cannon, ammunition and supplies back along Mount Sciberras and then around the harbour, over a good four miles of roads that were little more than cart tracks and in the fierce heat of a Maltese summer. Moreover, on the very day that St Elmo fell, ships from Sicily carrying a relief force of perhaps 1,000 all told, including forty-two Knights, had managed to land and, a week later, to make their way by night to what is now Kalkara, beyond another creek to the northeast of Birgu. Not only the arrival of the force itself, but its almost miraculous success in avoiding the Turkish army, had an immense effect on the Knights’ morale.

  But the struggle continued. In mid-July a concerted attack on Senglea was made from the sea. It was foiled by the courage of the native Maltese, superb swimmers who tipped the Turks from their boats and fought them hand to hand in the water. A hidden gun emplacement completed the rout. On 7 August an Italian gunner with the Spanish army, Francesco Balbi di Correggio, who was later to write a fascinating eye-witness account of the siege, noted:

  August 7: A general assault–8,000 on St Michael’s, 4,000 on the port of Castile…But when they left their trenches we were already at our posts, the hoops alight, the pitch boiling…When they scaled the works they were received like men who were expected…The assault lasted nine hours, from daybreak till after noon, during which the Turks were relieved by fresh troops more than a dozen times, while we refreshed ourselves with drinks of well watered wine and some mouthfuls of bread…Victory was given to us again…though not one of us could stand on his feet for wounds or fatigue.

  But by this time it was becoming clear that the Turkish army too was weakening. The heat was merciless. Food was short and water shorter still, since the dead animals with which the Knights had deliberately fouled the wells of Marsa had now been supplemented by large numbers of Turkish corpses. By the end of August dysentery had spread through the Ottoman camp, its victims being carried in the blazing sun to the improvised sick tents where they died in their hundreds. The Turks knew, too, that it would soon be the time of the equinoctial gales, which would be quickly followed by the first winter storms. Mustafa Pasha was prepared to spend the winter on the island if necessary, in the hopes of starving out the besieged; Piale, on the other hand, would not hear of it. The navy, he argued, was more important than the army, and he could not risk wintering his ships without a proper anchorage and full maintenance facilities. He would be getting the fleet under way by the middle of September at the latest; if the army wanted to stay it was up to them, but they would be on their own.

  Had Süleyman’s forces remained, it is doubtful whether the Knights could possibly have held out. But then, on 7 September, came deliverance: the Gran Soccorso, as it was called, the Great Relief, sent by the Spanish viceroy in Sicily. Its 9,000 men were fewer than La Valette had expected, but they were enough. Mustafa hesitated no longer. Suddenly the guns were quiet; the clamour ceased; instead of smoke, there was only dust from the feet of what was left–little more than a quarter–of the once-proud army as it shambled back to the impatient ships. But the Christians too had sustained terrible losses. Two hundred and fifty Knights were dead, the survivors nearly all wounded or maimed. Only 600 men were now capable of bearing arms. And of the city of Birgu scarcely one stone was left on another; vulnerable to fire on every side, strategically it had proved a disaster. And so, when old La Valette limped forward to lay the first stone of his new capital, he did so not on the ruins of the old one but away on the heights of Mount Sciberras opposite, dominating Grand Harbour. As he richly deserved, the city was named after him: Valletta.149 Three years later, on 21 August 1568, he died. Sir Oliver Starkey, his secretary–and, incidentally, the only Englishman to have fought at his side throughout the siege–wrote a Latin epitaph, which can still be read in St John’s Cathedral. Translated, it reads:

  Here lies La Valette, worthy of eternal honour. He who was once the scourge of Africa and Asia, and the shield of Europe when he drove off the heathen by the might of his holy sword, is the first to be buried in this beloved city, whose founder he was.

  One of the first major buildings to rise up in the new city was of course the hospital. Like its predecessor on Birgu, it still stands, but it is conceived on an infinitely more ambitious scale: its Great Ward, 155 metres long, is the longest hall (with unsupported roof) in Europe. By 1700, when it could accommodate nearly 1,000 patients, its walls were hung in winter with woollen tapestries, in summer with canvases by Mattia Preti.150 It is full of light, space and fresh air, those virtues in which the Knights–virtually alone among the medical men of the sixteenth century–put their trust. Moreover, unlike other hospitals of the time, whose patients were normally fed from wooden platters crawling with bacteria of all kinds, the Order provided plates and cups of silver, thus drastically–if unconsciously–reduci
ng the risks of infection. Each item was carefully numbered and stamped on the side with the emblem of the Holy Ghost. Finally, the Knights knew the value of good nursing; every one of them, whatever his seniority, would do his tour of duty in the ward, the Grand Master himself taking his turn on Fridays. For ‘our lords the sick’, only the best was good enough.

  ‘With me alone do my armies triumph!’ Süleyman’s words when the news of the disaster was brought to him were all too true. Had he assumed sole command as he had in 1522, there would have been none of the destructive rivalry between Piale and Mustafa; his supreme authority, together with his inspired generalship, might have saved the day. His first reaction had been to swear personally to lead a new expedition to Malta the following spring, but he changed his mind, deciding instead to launch yet another campaign against Hungary and Austria. It was while he was encamped outside the Hungarian fortress of Szigetvar that he died of a sudden stroke–or possibly a heart attack–on 5 September 1566. The tenth of the Ottoman Sultans, he was also the greatest. He had not only greatly expanded his empire; he had set it on a firm institutional and legal basis and, largely through his own personal prestige, had raised it to the status of a world power. Had his successors possessed a fraction of his ability, the history of the Mediterranean might have been different indeed.

  In the Christian west, still elated by the heroic resistance of the Knights in Malta, the news of the Sultan’s death was greeted with jubilation. But the question remained: had the Turkish advance been stopped for good, or was this only a temporary halt on its onward path? Süleyman’s successor was his eldest son by his favourite wife, generally known to Europeans as Roxelana, the daughter of a Ukrainian priest. Selim II ‘the Sot’–a nickname he richly deserved–could hardly have been more of a contrast to his formidable father. Short, fat and incorrigibly dissolute, he cared nothing for affairs of state, preferring to leave the administration of the empire to his Grand Vizir–who was soon to become his son-in-law–Sokollu Mehmet Pasha. Sokollu was by origin a Bosnian Serb who, as the last of Süleyman’s Vizirs–he had actually closed the old Sultan’s eyes in death–was fully qualified to carry on his former master’s policies into the new reign. He had long cherished an ambition to build a canal across the isthmus of Suez, linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. This too, had he succeeded some three centuries before Ferdinand de Lesseps, would have changed the course of history; but now, for the first and last time in his life, Selim the Sot overruled him.

  For Selim had his eye on Cyprus. It was always said–and may well have been true–that his determination to seize the island was due to his penchant for its unusually potent wines. In fact, its strategic importance was every bit as obvious as the fertility of its soil; the wonder is that Süleyman had not acted years before to rid himself of an unwanted Christian presence less than fifty miles from his own southern shores. Cyprus was a colony of the Venetian Republic, and it was to Venice that, in February 1568, there came a number of disquieting reports. Turkish agents were said to be active on the island stirring up disaffection among the local population, many of whom had no particular love for their Venetian overlords. Turkish ships were taking soundings in Cypriot harbours. Most worrying of all, the Sultan had recently concluded an eight-year truce with the new Emperor Maximilian II, and was consequently free to devote all his attention to a new enterprise. It was true that he had on his accession also signed a peace treaty with Venice, but he was still very much an unknown quantity, and was moreover rumoured to be growing more and more mentally and emotionally unstable.

  All these rumours, and many others of the same kind, continued to spread throughout 1569, and towards the end of January 1570 news reached Venice which left no doubt of the Sultan’s intentions. The Venetian bailo in Istanbul had been summoned by Sokollu, who had informed him in so many words that the Sultan considered Cyprus to be historically part of the Ottoman Empire. A day or two later there followed mass arrests of Venetian merchants and seizures of Venetian ships in the harbour, and on 28 March an ambassador specially sent from the Ottoman court delivered an ultimatum to the Doge: either Venice must surrender Cyprus of her own free will or the island would be taken from her by force. The Venetian reply was short and to the point. Venice was astonished that the Sultan should already wish to break the treaty he had so recently concluded; she was, however, the mistress of Cyprus and would, by the grace of Jesus Christ, have the courage to defend it.

  Already the Republic had despatched appeals for help to all Christian states, but the response had been less than enthusiastic. The Emperor Maximilian had pointed out that his formal truce still had eight years to run. From France Catherine de’ Medici, now effectively regent, was quarrelling with Spain over Flanders and had pleaded her old alliance with the Sultan. The King of Portugal had claimed that he was fully engaged in the east, and that anyway his country was being ravaged by plague. The Knights of St John–who were, incidentally, the biggest landowners in Cyprus–had been more obliging and had offered five ships; alas, four of them had been captured by the Turks soon after leaving Malta. No appeal had been addressed to Queen Elizabeth of England, who was under sentence of excommunication.

  That left Pope Pius V and Philip II of Spain. The Pope had agreed to equip a dozen vessels if Venice would provide the hulls. Philip for his part had offered a fleet of fifty ships under the command of Gian Andrea Doria, great-nephew and heir of that Andrea whose hatred of Venice had twice led him to betray the Republic’s trust, at Corfu and Preveza, some thirty years before. Even this was a niggardly enough contribution; Venice herself had mustered 144 ships, including 126 war galleys. But Philip had always mistrusted the Venetians, whom he suspected (not without some cause) of always being ready to make terms with the Sultan if the opportunity offered; and as events were to show, he had given Doria–whose feelings against the Republic were no whit less hostile than those of his great-uncle–secret instructions to keep out of trouble, to let the Venetians do the fighting, and to bring the Spanish fleet safely home again as soon as possible.

  From the start, the expedition was ill-fated. The Venetian Captain-General, Girolamo Zane, who had understood that the Spanish and papal squadrons were to join him at Zara (Zadar) on the Dalmatian coast, waited there in vain for two months during which his fleet was ravaged by some unidentified epidemic, causing not only many deaths but a general demoralisation which led to hundreds of desertions. On 12 June 1570 he sailed to Corfu, where he picked up Sebastiano Venier, the erstwhile Proveditor-General of the island who had recently been appointed to the same position in Cyprus. Here he heard that the papal squadron under Marcantonio Colonna was awaiting the Spaniards at Otranto–but of Philip’s promised fleet there was still no sign. Not until July was it learned that Gian Andrea Doria had simply remained in Sicily, on the pretext that he had received no instructions to go further. After urgent protestations from the Pope, Philip finally sent his admiral sailing orders, which arrived on 8 August; even then it was another four days before the Spanish fleet left Messina, and a further eight before it reached Otranto–a journey which, in the perfect weather then prevailing, should have taken no more than two.

  Having at last joined his papal allies, Doria made no effort to call on Colonna or even to communicate with him; and, when Colonna decided to ignore this studied piece of discourtesy and to take the initiative himself, he was rewarded with a long speech implicitly recommending that the whole expedition should be called off. The season was late; the Spanish ships were not in fighting condition; and as Doria was at pains to point out, though his instructions were to sail under the papal flag, he was also under the orders of his sovereign to keep his fleet intact. Colonna somehow forbore to remind him who was to blame for the first two misfortunes, merely reiterating that both King and Pope expected their fleets to sail with the Venetians to Cyprus, so sail they must. Finally, with ill grace, Doria agreed.

  Girolamo Zane had by now moved on to Crete, where the papal and Spanish fleets joined him
on 1 September–almost exactly five months since his departure from Venice. A council was called, at which Doria at once began raising new difficulties. This time it was the Venetian galleys that were unfit for war; moreover, once the allied fleet left Crete there would be no harbours in which to take refuge. Now, too, the admiral revealed a fact that he had not, apparently, thought it necessary to mention before: he was instructed to return to the west by the end of the month at the latest.

  Colonna remained firm. The season, though advanced, was not yet prohibitively so; there were still two clear months before the onset of winter. Cyprus was rich in admirable harbours. The Venetian ships had admittedly been undermanned after the epidemic and the desertions, but their long wait had given them plenty of time to find replacements and their crews were once again up to strength. Altogether the combined fleet now comprised 205 sail; the Turkish was thought to number 150 at the most. Why, therefore, should they fear an armed encounter? To retire now, before even sighting the enemy, would be nothing short of ignominious. Doria still prevaricated, and Zane sent a furious letter back to Venice accusing him of disrupting the whole enterprise. Then, on 16 September, after further delaying tactics, there came a report that the Turks had landed in Cyprus. It was now or never. On the night of the 17th the fleet sailed for the beleaguered island.