The Monks of War

by Desmond Seward

  The Religion was heartened by the advent of a new brotherhood. In 1561 Cosimo I of Tuscany founded the Knights of San Stefano, their rule 'Benedictine', their mission war on corsairs. There were four classes: knights with four proofs of nobility who took vows of poverty, charity and obedience, wearing a white cloak lined with rose, a gold-edged red Maltese cross on the left breast; chaplains in white soutane and cape, their cross edged with yellow; serving brethren in white serge with a plain red cross; and canonesses. The Grand Dukes were hereditary Masters, knights could marry, and conventual duties were part-time – bailiffs, comprising Constable, Admiral, Grand Prior, Chancellor, Treasurer, Conservator and Conventual Prior, being elected for three years.17 Cosimo endowed his brethren magnificently, engaging the painter-architect Giorgio Vasari to build an ornate church and convent at Pisa, the first hung with Turkish trophies, the latter adorned with frescoed ceilings commemorating Lepanto.18 However, these knights of the latterday Renaissance were not only ornamental; many bachelor brothers lived in the convent, and their galleys co-operated enthusiastically with Malta.

  In 1564 Romegas waylaid a great Turkish carrack on her way from Venice to Constantinople with a cargo valued at 80,000 Spanish ducats.19 As this ship belonged to the Kustir Aga, Chief of the Black Eunuchs, and the 'imperial odalisques' had shares in her cargo, there was great uproar in the seraglio. Meanwhile an aged Turkish 'lady of high rank', who had previously been captured, was sending piteous letters from Malta. Suleiman, old now, saddened by a son's rebellion and the death of his favourite wife, was easily angered; 'Allah's Bestower of Earthly Peace' could no longer tolerate pirate unbelievers in the Turkish Mare Nostrum. Torghut, the brethren's implacable foe, exaggerated their weakness, so the sultan sent his generals to attack Malta with fewer than 30,000 men. They were, however, the cream of the imperial army: headed by 6,000 hand-picked Janissaries carrying long damascened muskets, there followed 9,000 crack Spahis in vivid contrast, feudal levies, who probably resembled the regiments maintained by the Porte, clad in crimson, yellow or dark-blue brocade, horsemen using the horn bow, though they also had guns and knew how to fight on foot. There were 6,000 corsairs and sailors, less luxuriously armed, and 3,500 rapacious akinjis, volunteers who served for plunder. Grimmest of all were 4,000 dervish ghazis, berserk with hashish.20

  This force had two commanders: the aged Mustafa Pasha – a veteran of Rhodes – and the young Piyale, a Serbian foundling who had married an Osmanli princess and become Kapudan Pasha, admiral-in-chief of the Turkish navy. Their staff included Ali el-Uluji, the future hero of Lepanto, and many famous corsairs, but, despite such talents and the presence of Suleiman's personal standard – a great silver disc with its gold ball and crescent surmounted by all-conquering horsetails – the expedition was to be handicapped by this divided command. However, the cannon of 1565 were more effective than before and musketry had improved, for Janissaries had become skilled marksmen; their long-barrelled wheel-locks, made at Constantinople by German gunsmiths, could not be as quickly loaded as the shorter European arquebus but were more accurate. Spies reported that artillery would blast Malta's makeshift defences out of existence within a few days.

  The Religion's agents could not fail to notice the seething activity in Constantinople's dockyards and arsenals. Brethren were summoned from Europe and large supplies of food and powder stored in cellars dug in the rock beneath St Angelo. Malta was not a country off which besiegers could live; peasants stripped it of crops, poisoning the wells with hemp and rotting offal. Mdina, well fortified and garrisoned by militia, was left to fend for itself. Fra' Jean had 600 brethren – the resident community of 474 brother-knights and 67 serving brethren and, in addition, new arrivals – with 1,200 Italian and Spanish mercenaries and 3,000 Maltese militia. Other troops available, including galley-slaves and Greeks resident in the island, numbered 1,300. In all, his total strength was 6,000 men, of whom fewer than half were professionals.21 Furthermore, the Sicilian Viceroy had given Philip II's word that 25,000 men would relieve the convent.

  Militia and mercenaries fought as pikemen or arquebusiers, though all carried swords. The mercenaries, as professionals, were armoured with high-crested morion helmets, 'breast-and-back', and tassets (articulated thigh plates). Militia had only helmets and leather jerkins. Their knight officers carried sword and dagger, the former a broadsword or rapier, though some brethren preferred the great German two-hander. A few may have had the hand buckler, a small shield with a spike. On the walls many wielded hooked halberds or boarding pikes. 'Harness' was still an advantage in hand-to-hand combat; most brethren must have worn armatura de piede, half-armour for fighting on foot, while some wore a thickened 'bullet-proof breastplate, others the brigantine of metal-studded cloth. Over all was the scarlet sopravest, the battle habit, something like a herald's tabard, its great white cross square-ended instead of eight-pointed. The Grand Master's sopravest was of cloth-of-gold.

  The Religion was not an ordinary army but a monastery at war which followed its reverendissimus magister, his leadership resting on spiritual foundations – brethren who disobeyed him disobeyed Jesus Christ; they were still convinced that by dying in battle against the infidel they gave their lives for the Saviour as He had for them. La Valette understood his children perfectly. In the spring they were assembled in chapter to hear him preach a noble sermon: 'Today our Faith is at stake – whether the Gospel must yield to the Koran. God is asking for the lives which we pledged to Him at our profession. Happy are those who may sacrifice their lives.'22 Then he and his habited brethren went in solemn procession to the conventual church, where all renewing their vows confessed, attended High Mass and took Communion; this was the corporate Communion of a religious community rededicating itself to God as its members must soon fulfil their vocation – to die for Christ in defence of Christians.

  The convent was largely protected by water. Ramparts were inadequate but earthworks – moats, trenches, ramps – excellent, covered by well-sited artillery. St Angelo, at the tip of the northern peninsula, was garrisoned by 500 troops with fifty brethren under La Valette himself who made it his command point, and had two tiers of batteries. The rest of the peninsula was guarded by the walls of Birgu and several small bastions linked by trenches, though the landward side was weak, dependent on earthworks manned by the French langues, the German taking the shores, while the Castilian held the vulnerable angle to the south. Between this bastion of Castile and the Hospital was 'the Post of England' – knights from several nations under Oliver Starkey. Senglea, the southern peninsula, even better served by the sea, had four bastions in Italian charge, while the Aragonese manned Fort St Michel on the landward approach. Fort St Elmo, at the foot of Monte Sceberras, shaped like a four-pointed star, was built of poor-quality stone but strengthened by a raised gun-emplacement (or 'cavalier') on the seaward side and an outwork of trenches, a 'ravelin' facing the Marsa. Normally manned by only eighty men, its garrison was raised to 300, Fra Luigi Broglia, the old bailiff in command, being joined by a brother scarcely less aged, Fra' Juan de Eguaras, Bailiff of Negropont.

  On 18 May 1565, the infidel armada was sighted: 180 warships besides cargo vessels and transports, with nearly 30,000 eager troops, and a floating arsenal of cannon.23 It anchored in the exposed bay of Marsaxlokk. Mustafa was in favour of storming Mdina but Piyale feared for his ships and insisted that St Elmo, which commanded the entrance to Marsamxett, a perfect haven, must first be taken. The little fort was invested and on 25 May batteries opened fire; their guns included ten 80-pounders and a basilisk hurling balls of 160 lb. Jean rushed in 64 brethren and 200 mercenaries under Fra' Pierre de Massuez Vercoyran – 'Colonel le Mas'. Old Broglia, suffering heavy casualties, soon asked La Valette for more reinforcements; his messenger, Fra' Juan de la Cerda, told the Sacred Council that St Elmo would quickly fall.24 The angry Master announced his intention of taking command himself, but eventually sent Fra' Gonzalez de Medran with 200 troops and 50 knights. By 29 May the Turks had captured the
outermost trench. Then, on 2 June, Torghut, eighty years old, arrived with 1,500 corsairs and more cannon. He deplored Piyale's plan of concentrating on St Elmo, yet he knew that to abandon it would have a disastrous effect on morale. His guns were mounted on Gallows Point, subjecting the tiny stronghold to an even fiercer pounding.

  On the night of 3 June Turkish sappers found the ravelin unguarded and knifed the sentries; Janissaries nearly succeeded in storming St Elmo itself before the portcullis could be lowered and were only halted by two small cannon. The Turks continued to attack until noon next day. Fire-throwers and boiling oil supplemented the fort's cannon while there was a large supply of fiery cercles and grenades: the former were huge hoops, bound with inflammable wadding, set alight and hurled with tongs – a lucky throw could ring three infidels to turn them into flaming torches. Hand-bombs were earthenware pots packed with combustibles, four fuses projecting from the spout to make sure it exploded. Morale was epitomized by Fra' Abel de Bridiers de la Gardampe who fell, shot in the chest; a brother bent over him but he muttered, 'Go away – don't think I'm alive – your time's better spent helping the others,' and then crawled away to the fort's chapel to die at the foot of the altar.25 Five hundred Turks were dead as against 20 brethren and 60 mercenaries, but without the ravelin the fort's besiegers could now build a ramp and fire down on the defenders. A sortie failed to retake it. By 7 June the barrage was rocking the fort 'like a ship in a storm', and Gonzalez de Medran brought Fra' Jean the message that the considered opinion of Broglia and Eguaras was that the bastion was doomed; he himself believed that further defence of this outpost would waste good troops.

  La Valette disagreed, certain that relief must come if only he could hold on long enough, for the Sicilian viceroy, García de Toledo – a frey-caballero of Santiago – considered Malta the key to Sicily. Further, the viceroy's son, 'a promising youth who took the Habit', was in the convent.26 St Elmo would buy time. He was therefore thunderstruck when on the night of 8 June, after a major assault, Fra' Vitellino Vittelleschi appeared with a round robin signed by fifty-three of his beleaguered brethren – though not by Broglia or Eguaras – which stipulated that, unless evacuated at once, they would sally out to die a holy death. Three brothers were immediately sent to investigate. One, Fra' Constantino de Castriota, reported that St Elmo could resist for many days and offered to lead a relief force. Only fifteen brethren with 100 militia, all volunteers – including, to the general wonderment, two Jews – were allowed to go, but a shrewdly phrased letter told the garrison they were welcome to return to a safer place; all stayed. Meanwhile the bombardment continued; it was not a question of demolishing ramparts but of clearing debris. The Turks assaulted relentlessly, by night as well as by day. On 18 June Torghut and Mustafa ordered a general assault. 'So great was the noise, the shouting, the beating of drums and the clamour of innumerable Turkish musical instruments, that it seemed like the end of the world.'27 Their troops too were equipped with grenades, limpet wildfire bombs which clung to armour. Four thousand arquebusiers blasted every gap in the rubble with a storm of lead while culverins from Monte Sceberras and Gallows Point hurled cannonballs – iron, bronze or stone. Then the dervishes went in, mad with prayer and hashish, frothing at the mouth, followed by Spahis and finally by Janissaries. This was the chosen élite of an army accustomed to victory from Persia to Poland.

  The Grand Master, however, had ferried over quantities of ammunition and barrels of reinvigorating wine; and so, when the enemy came yelling through what was left of the walls, cannon tore into them; as for limpet bombs, the knights had great vats of sea water into which to jump.28 After six hours this assault was called off. One thousand Turkish bodies littered the blood-soaked ground, while 150 defenders had died, including Medran, cut down as he seized a horsetail banner. The wounded were ferried back to the Hospital, where the period's best medical skill soon restored them. Torghut began to build new batteries on Monte Sceberras just before he was mortally wounded by stone shrapnel – and soon it became impossible to reinforce or to evacuate St Elmo. On 22 June the faithful launched the fiercest assault yet. The walls, reduced to their foundations, were heaped with rocks, earth, palliasses, baggage, corpses, anything that would serve as a barricade. In six hours the attackers lost 2,000 men and then withdrew in amazement. But they had killed 500 Unbelievers. A swimmer got through to St Angelo and Fra' Jean tried unsuccessfully to send one last detachment of volunteers – but it could not pass the enemy's hail-storm of shot.

  At midnight on the morning of 23 June – the Eve of St John – Mass was said in the tiny chapel, the only surviving building. Two chaplain brethren heard each man's confession, then everyone received the Body of the Lord he was soon to meet. Finally the chaplains buried their chalices and burned the chapel's furnishings; all night long these two priests tolled its bell – as a Passing Bell. Just before first light the soldiers of Christ took up their positions; there were only sixty left. The senior officers, Eguaras, 'Colonel Mas', and a Captain Miranda were too badly wounded to stand, so they sat, Eguaras weak from loss of blood and Miranda horribly scorched by wildfire, in chairs at the main breach, Mas, whose leg was smashed by bullet wounds, sitting on a log.29 At six a.m. the entire Turkish army attacked; even galleys sailed in to bombard the stinking mound of rubble and rotting corpses, regardless of fire from St Angelo. Yet for four hours the defenders answered them with guns and grenades, until at last they stormed in. Juan de Eguaras, hurled from his chair, jumped up with a boarding pike before a scimitar took his head off, while Mas, sitting on his log, slew several Turks with his great two-handed sword. An Italian lit a beacon to tell his Master it was over. Only nine brethren – probably mortally wounded – were taken alive, though a handful of Maltese swam o safety. It had cost an army, acknowledged as the best of its time, nearly five weeks, 18,000 rounds of cannon-shot and 8,000 men to gain this little fort.30

  'Allah,' said Mustafa, looking across at St Angelo, 'if this small son cost so much, what do we pay for his father?'31 Each brother's corpse was decapitated, a crucifix hacked in its chest, nailed to a wooden cross and pushed out to sea. Next morning, on the feast of the Religion's patron, the tide brought in four mutilated bodies. Fra' Jean burst into tears. At once he ordered all prisoners to be beheaded; suddenly Pasha's troops heard gunfire, then their comrades' bleeding heads were bouncing all over the camp.32 Meanwhile the Grand Master reminded his brethren of their vocation as they renewed their vows on that Baptist's Day: 'What could be more fitting for a member of the Order of St John than to lay down his life in defence of the Faith,' he preached; the dead of St Elmo 'have earned a martyr's crown and will reap a martyr's reward'. Nor did he forget the militia and the mercenaries: 'We are all soldiers of Jesus Christ like you, my comrades,' he told them.33 A reinforcement reached the convent on 3 July, a 'little relief or piccolo soccorso consisting of 700 soldiers led by 42 brethren and 'gentlemen volunteers' under Frey Melchior de Robles of the Order of Santiago.34 Two of them were English, John Evan Smith and Edward Stanley, and no doubt they received a warm welcome from Fra' Oliver Starkey at the 'Post of England'. Meanwhile dysentery and malaria had broken out among the Turks, whose water came from poisoned wells. The Pasha offered terms, to receive a contemptuous refusal.

  Mustafa then had eighty galleys hauled by slaves from Marsamxett over the narrowest stretch of Monte Sceberras into Grand Harbour; the Senglea promontory could be attacked by the army from the landward side, by the navy from the seaward. Hastily Fra' Jean constructed a coastal boom – iron chains fastened on stakes set in the sea bed – while he built a pontoon bridge between Birgu and Senglea. On 5 July seventy Turkish cannon opened fire on Senglea, killing women and children in the streets. Sappers swam in with axes to destroy the boom but were driven off by Maltese knifemen who grappled with them in the water. Hassem, the young Dey of Algiers, now arrived with 2,500 veteran corsairs who sneered at the Turks' performance at St Elmo; Mustafa allowed them to lead a general assault on 15 July. Of the enemy troop
s, Turkish, Algerian and Corsair, Balbi, an eyewitness, wrote: 'Even the rank and file wore scarlet robes and there were many in cloth-of-gold and of silver and of crimson damask. Armed with fine muskets of Fez, scimitars of Alexandria and Damascus, they all wore splendid turbans.'35 Hassem, with half his force, tried to rush Fort St Michel where Robles tore them to shreds with grapeshot; his other troops waded ashore on the seaward side, but La Valette sent reinforcements over the pontoon. Mustafa then dispatched ten boatloads of Janissaries to land on an unguarded stretch of Senglea. He did not know of a hidden battery under St Angelo. As the boats approached, its commander trained five culverins – loaded with stones, chains and spiked iron balls – at a range of 150 yards and blew them out of the water with a single salvo. The few survivors drowned. This repulse saved the day. Meanwhile, after five hours' fearful carnage Hassem began to withdraw, whereupon St Michel's garrison sallied out in pursuit; 'Remember St Elmo,' shouted brethren and Maltese. The infidels left 4,000 dead, including those who drowned.36 The Grand Master laid up six captured Turkish standards in a church and ordered the singing of a 'Te Deum'.

  The Turks would not give up – they knew that the defenders were desperate. The garrison had been decimated, supplies almost exhausted. Relentlessly the enemy hammered away. The heaviest cannonade of the siege began on 2 August – it could be heard in Sicily. Then came another general assault on Senglea; the Faithful charged Fort St Michel five times in six hours – Maltese women helped drive them off with tubs of boiling water. On 7 August came another general assault; Piyale attacked Birgu with 3,000 men, rushing into a breach in the bastion of Castile to be decimated by crossfire. Mustafa attacked Senglea simultaneously, cheering on his troops as they finally stormed St Michel. This time the bastion of Castile had been well mined and besiegers poured into the yawning breach. Amid the smoke and confusion many believed it was the end. Snatching a helmet and a half-pike, Fra' Jean ran to the breach. A grenade exploded, wounding him in the leg, but he refused to leave: 'I am seventy-one – how can it be possible for a man of my age to die more gloriously than among my brethren and my friends in the service of God, in defence of our holy Religion?'37 The storming party was thrown out, but Senglea and Birgu were collapsing. Every casualty at the Hospital who could walk had to man the walls. Suddenly, the retreat was sounded; the Pasha thought that his enemy's relief had come. In fact a few cavalry had ridden out from Mdina to massacre the Turkish wounded. For ten days their enraged comrades attacked daily before launching yet another general assault on 18 August. On 20 August, 8,000 Turks were again thrown back from Fort St Michel. Three days later the entire Sacred Council was in favour of withdrawing to Fort St Angelo. But Fra' Jean would not abandon 'his loyal Maltese, their wives and their families', while Turkish batteries in Birgu would soon demolish St Angelo – 'here we die together or drive out our enemies'.38 Then he blew up the bridge between Birgu and St Angelo.