Empires of the Sea

by Crowley, Roger

  Mustapha was not the only commander growing anxious to discern, and fulfill, his sovereign’s wishes. Malta was a struggle for the Mediterranean fought by proxy—peering over the shoulder of the combatants were the looming figures of Suleiman and Philip II, like dominant figures at either end of a chessboard. In Sicily, Don Garcia waited anxiously for permission from Madrid to mount a rescue bid. By early August he had collected eleven thousand men and eighty ships on Sicily; the men were largely hardened Spanish troops, pikemen and arquebusiers, together with a small band of Knights of Saint John and some gentleman adventurers—freelancers come to fight for the glory of Christendom. Among those who failed to make it in time was Don Juan of Austria, Philip’s illegitimate half brother. The military force was to be led by Don Alvare Sande, the commander at Djerba, ransomed back from Istanbul, and a famous condottiere, the one-eyed Ascanio della Corgna, who had been released by the pope from prison, where he was being held for murder, rape, and extortion. Apparently one could be lenient in the cause of Christendom. They were ready to depart, and Don Garcia was being assailed by furious requests to sail. Daily the reports became more desperate. “Four hundred men still alive…. Don’t lose an hour,” wrote the governor of Mdina on August 22. Yet Philip dawdled in an agony of indecision, and when permission finally reached Don Garcia on about August 20 it was hedged about with caveats. A rescue attempt could be mounted “providing it could be done without any real danger of losing the galleys.” There must be no clash with the Ottoman fleet. It was an almost impossible injunction. After lengthy deliberations, the decision was taken to pack their force into the sixty best galleys, make a dash for the Malta coast, drop the men, and then retire. To increase their chances of evading detection, they would make an approach from the west, feinting an attack on Tripoli.

  The rescue force set sail from Syracuse on the east coast of Sicily on August 25 and immediately found themselves sailing into the teeth of the gales that were striking Malta. August 28 saw the fragile galleys snouting into a breaking sea, dipping and plunging, the rain falling in sheets, so that the men were drenched “from the water both from the sky and the sea” the fighting spurs were ripped off the ships, oars snapped, masts shattered. With the boats in danger of foundering, the landlubber soldiers, cold and terrified, turned to prayers and the promise of votive offerings. The spectacle of Saint Elmo’s fire flaring in blue and white jets from the masts added to their alarm, along with the date: it was the day of the decapitation of John the Baptist, a particularly ill-omened marker in the church calendar. Somehow the whole convoy survived the night and was blown far off course to Trapani on the west coast of Sicily. It was to be the start of a nightmarish week of missed rendezvous and contrary winds that carried the expedition right around Malta, where they were sighted by the Ottoman fleet, and back to Sicily again. The soldiers, green and seasick from the whole experience, would have deserted to a man if Don Garcia had not forcibly prevented them. Finally on September 6 the fleet set out again to make a direct dash across the straits to try to catch the Ottoman fleet off guard. The ships departed in silence to cross the thirty miles of open water. Strict orders had been issued: the cockerels on the boats were to be killed, all instructions were to be given to the crews by voice rather than the usual whistles, and the oarsmen were forbidden to raise their feet—the rattling of chains carried far over a calm sea.

  But the element of surprise had already been lost on September 3, when they were sighted by the corsair Uluch Ali, scouting off the west coast of Malta. The Christian relief force was now the subject of intense discussion in the pasha’s tent.

  IN THE EARLY DAYS OF SEPTEMBER it became apparent to the defenders that although the attacks continued, their tenor was changing. “They continued to bombard Saint Michael’s and the Post of Castile with equal fury,” wrote Balbi on September 5, “but with all their brave bombardment we saw them daily embarking their goods and withdrawing their guns. This afforded us great satisfaction.” The Ottomans were dragging their precious cannon away against the threat of a landing on the island. This was a long and laborious process that caused much trouble. Two giant bombards caused particular difficulty; one had come off its wheels and had to be abandoned. The other fell into the sea. Increasingly encouraging news leaked out to the defenders. They learned that some of the corsairs had taken their ships and sailed away; a boom had been placed over the mouth of the harbor to prevent further defections. At the same time a Maltese captive escaped back to Birgu. In the main square he publicly proclaimed that the Turks were so weakened they were leaving. Later, two more Maltese arrived with news that the enemy would give one more major attack then depart. On the night of September 6, hearing nothing from the enemy lines, a number of men crept into the Ottoman trenches. The trenches were completely deserted; they found just some shovels and a few cloaks. The whole force had been temporarily withdrawn to man the galleys against the possibility of attack.

  Yet Mustapha had still not given up hope that victory might be snatched from impending failure. The untrustworthy Christian sources are the only record that we have of the final agonized debates in the pasha’s tent on the night of Thursday, September 6. Mustapha apparently reread a letter from Suleiman brought by a eunuch of the palace, of which we have no trace, stating that the fleet must not return from Malta without victory. What followed was an intense discussion about the sultan’s likely reaction. Mustapha was of the opinion that the nature of his master was so terrible that their end would be “miserable and horrible” if they returned from Malta without victory. Perhaps he recalled the execution of the cartographer, Piri Reis, killed on the sultan’s orders ten years earlier for a failed campaign in the Red Sea, at the age of ninety. Piyale, supported by one of the army commanders, demurred: Suleiman was the wisest and most reasonable of sultans; they had made superhuman efforts to capture the island; the weather had broken; it was most important to save the fleet; risking it now would hasten the destruction of the whole force. Mustapha declared himself ready to die in one more assault the following morning. If this failed, they would withdraw.

  Mustapha had already given a specific order that suggested he was preparing himself for the inevitable. The chief eunuch’s huge galleon, taken by Romegas before the start of the siege, had been an ostensible cause of the whole campaign. It had rocked gently at anchor in the inner harbor the whole summer; Mustapha had sworn at the outset that it would be sailed back in triumph to Istanbul as proof of victory. Now on September 6 he ordered it to be sunk by gunfire. As the first shots came whistling across the water, La Valette had the galleon strapped to the quay with hawsers. It was holed but remained afloat.

  Dawn on Friday, September 7, brought a fine day. Like every other point in the year, the date was a marker in the Christian calendar; it was the eve of the feast of the Virgin Mary. The weather had reverted to intensely stifling equatorial heat. The nights became so unbearable that no one could sleep. The Ottoman troops were again in the trenches waiting for the order to attack. In order to add weight to the attempt, the galley squadron of Uluch Ali had just been ordered down from its lookout station at Saint Paul’s Bay. It was Mustapha’s final piece of bad luck. Two hours later, Don Garcia’s rescue force swept into the adjacent bay at Mellieha, disembarked ten thousand men on the sandy beach in an hour and a half, and put to sea again. They had landed unopposed. It was a complete fluke.

  Ten miles away, the defenders on Birgu and Senglea, already sweltering in their plate armor, crouched in the dust of their ruined defenses and braced themselves for another day of fury. As they waited, an unfamiliar noise reached them from the Ottoman trenches: a murmuring of discordant voices like the buzzing of angry bees. It transpired that the janissaries and sipahis were arguing among themselves, each wanting the other to be the first into the breach. From the walls the defenders watched in openmouthed astonishment as the enemy spontaneously abandoned their trenches and withdrew. While they wondered what this might mean, they heard gunfire from Saint Elmo—a
n evident signal to the Ottoman camp. Around the point came a small boat, rowing hard for the shore. A turbaned figure hurried ashore, “who by his clothing and bearing was evidently a man of authority,” jumped onto a waiting horse, and galloped toward Mustapha’s tent. So great was his haste that the horse stumbled and fell; in fury the man drew his scimitar and cut off the horse’s legs. “And having done that, he continued at a run toward Piyale Pasha’s tent. And toward Corradino and the front line at Saint Margaret could be seen three or four other Turks on horseback, with scimitars in hand; who, hurrying there, set the whole camp into uproar and commotion. And as a result, they ordered the army to hurry and embark with all the provisions of the fleet.” Word of Don Garcia’s landing had stirred the Ottomans into a fury of activity. They regrouped on Mount Sciberras and started to re-embark their provisions and equipment with miraculous speed and efficiency; but Mustapha left behind an ambush of arquebusiers to massacre the defenders should they venture forth.

  The relief force marches to Mdina

  In the event, they did not. La Valette remained wary to the bitter end, refusing to permit anyone to leave the fortifications. Within Birgu there were celebrations in the streets. All the church bells were rung to celebrate the eve of the feast of the Virgin; trumpets, drums, and flags provided a welcome gaiety in the forlorn streets of the ruined city. There were extraordinary displays of mass emotion. People fell to their knees and raised their hands to heaven, thanking God. Others leaped and cried “Relief, relief! Victory! Victory!” running about wildly. And Vespasiano Malaspina, a knight “of the most holy reputation,” climbed up onto the ramparts with a palm leaf in his hands and sang the Te Deum. He had just got to the end of the first verse when Ottoman snipers shot him dead. It must have been a grimly satisfying Parthian shot.

  Night fell on Birgu and Senglea with an extraordinary, amplified silence after months of continuous bombardment; only the distant rumble of wheels grinding on the stony ground disturbed the hot night air, as the Ottomans dragged their guns back to the ships.

  All day, while the Ottomans had been withdrawing to their ships, the relief force had been slogging across country the seven miles from the landing spot to Mdina. The men were wearing steel helmets and breastplates, carrying weapons and heavy loads of food. The day was oppressively hot and they were exhausted by their weeklong ordeal in the boats. Strung out across the parched landscape, the force was highly vulnerable. Some started to drop their supplies to make the march more bearable, and had to be sent back to collect them. As they struggled uphill to Mdina, Ascanio della Corgna and Anastagi rode down to meet them, and the local population brought pack animals to carry away the supplies. Ascanio, fearful of ambush, urged the men mercilessly on; by the end of the day all ten thousand had been safely garrisoned in and around Mdina.

  As the Ottoman expedition anticipated ignominious departure, there came a sudden twist of fate. On Sunday, September 9, a soldier from the relief force defected to the Ottoman camp. He was a Morisco, a Spanish Muslim converted under duress to Christianity, prompted by the Islamic banners still fluttering on the shoreline to return to the faith of his fathers. He put a new slant on the arrival of the relief force: there were not ten thousand men, the true number was nearer six thousand; they were exhausted from the traumatic maritime maneuvers and were so short of food they could scarcely stand on their feet; moreover, their different leaders were jostling for authority. This was one fact that was almost certainly correct: The Spaniard Alvare and the Italian Ascanio did not get on; it was a split command structure replicated in the Ottoman camp.

  To Mustapha, still unable to confront the possibility of defeat, this information offered a chance to salvage something from the wreckage. He decided on one last throw of the dice. Before daybreak on Tuesday, September 11, he disembarked ten thousand men from the galleys in the dark, so that his intentions could not be detected, and started to march north in battle formation with the aim of defeating the relief force before it could recover from the voyage. At the same time Piyale’s fleet put out from the harbor and sailed north, to stand off Saint Paul’s Bay. From Birgu and Senglea the defenders watched the Turks go, then climbed Mount Sciberras and planted the red-and-white flag of the Knights of Saint John on the battered ruins of Saint Elmo. The Ottomans could now be seen on the march, setting fire to the countryside as they went.

  In fact, Mustapha’s plan had been very quickly leaked back to the Christians by a Sardinian renegade who had switched sides, and Maltese scouts were monitoring the Ottomans’ movements closely. La Valette had sent urgent messages up to Mdina to prepare the troops. In the early morning, the ten thousand men of the relief force were drawn up on the high ground beyond Mdina. They had had two days of rest and something more than ship’s biscuit to eat: each company had been given a cow or an ox. Many of the men were Spanish veterans from Philip’s Italian possessions, pikemen and arquebusiers, accustomed to open field warfare and experienced in fighting in organized formations. The troops were drawn up for battle. The Spanish banners were unfurled, and the kettledrums beat a battering tattoo. The bristling squares of steel-helmeted men waited for the Ottoman charge.

  As the Turks approached, the Spanish and Italian commanders found their men increasingly difficult to control: “Not even at the point of the sword could they restrain their men, so great was the desire of all to come to blows with the Turks.” Both sides realized the advantage of the high ground and rushed to command a hillock beyond Mdina surmounted by a tower. The Spanish won the race, raised their banners, and started to force the enemy down the hill. The Ottomans tried to stand and fight but were driven back; the fighting was fierce—men were shot down by arquebuses or by arrows—and the sun, now at its zenith, was intensely hot, “so great that I maintain I never knew it so hot in all the siege as on that day,” wrote Balbi. “Christians and Turks alike could hardly stand from exhaustion, heat and thirst, and many died.” Mustapha’s decision to attack was now shown to be a terrible error of judgment. The Christian force was larger than the Morisco had claimed—and they were far fresher than the Muslims, who had been in the field for four months. The Ottomans started to waver. Mustapha’s arquebusiers held the line for a short while, but the onward momentum of the Christians proved unstoppable. The impact of the Spanish pikemen led to a rout. Mustapha, brave to the last, tried to halt his men’s flight. He killed his horse to demonstrate there would be no retreat and ran forward to place himself in the front line. It was to no avail; his men were fleeing in disorder down to the sea before the rapidly advancing enemy, flags flying, drums beating, the knights in their red-and-white tunics, the Spanish levies stabbing and jabbing with their pikes. Ascanio was wounded; Don Alvare had his horse shot from under him, but the forward momentum of the Christians was now irresistible. The Ottoman officers were unable to control the men at all; they turned in disorderly flight. Mustapha dispatched an urgent order to the fleet to bring their ships in close to the shore, prows forward with their guns ready to cover the retreat. The arid plains leading down to the sea became a scene of slaughter. It was so hot that men from both sides collapsed under the weight of their armor and died; but the Spanish relief force was stronger and fresher. Shouting “Kill them!” they swept forward with the force of vengeance. With the memory of Saint Elmo still vivid, the order was given to take none alive. Some of the Turks fell to the ground and could not, or would not, get up. They were killed where they lay.

  The final ghastly moments of the battle for Malta were played out on the shores of Saint Paul’s Bay, the site of the legendary shipwreck of Saint Paul and a place of intense Christian significance to the Maltese. For the retreating Muslims it was now just a matter of personal survival. While the scores of galleys stood off from the shore, a throng of smaller rowing boats surged into the bay to take the men away. The retreating soldiers were driven onto the beach and the sandstone ledges that surrounded the bay, then into the sea. The young Maltese and the Spanish troops splashed into the lagoon, slash
ing and hacking at the floundering Turks. Men tried to scrabble into the boats and overturned them. Bodies floated in the blue water, trailing ribbons of blood. Eventually the last survivors scrambled onto the ships. The galleys then turned their guns on the shore, and Don Alvaro and Ascanio ordered the men to withdraw. They stood in the hot sun, exhausted and drained, watching the fleet go. The beach and the water were littered with turbans, scimitars, shields, and an unknown number of dead. “We could not estimate exactly the number of their dead at that time, but two or three days afterwards the bodies of the drowned floated to the surface,” wrote Balbi. “So great was the stench in the bay, that no man could go near it.”

  After dark, the galleys returned to the shore, took on water, and sailed away—the Barbary corsairs back to North Africa, the imperial fleet to make the long voyage home to face the sultan’s displeasure, leaving perhaps half its army, some ten thousand men, dead in the barren landscape. Behind them a shattered island, “arid, ransacked, and ruined” in the words of Giacomo Bosio; of the eight thousand defenders, only six hundred were still fit to carry arms, and two hundred fifty of the five hundred knights were dead. Malta stank of death. The Christian survivors rang their bells and gave thanks to God; there were bonfires in the streets of Rome and prayers of thanksgiving all the way to London. For the first time in forty years, Suleiman had received a major check in the White Sea. In the face of all previous experience, the ravelin of Europe had held, shielding the Christian shore from certain depredation. Malta had survived through a combination of religious zeal, irreducible willpower—and luck. In the process La Valette had fired up all Europe.

  THE INEVITABLE NEWS found its way back to Suleiman in Istanbul. Mustapha and Piyale took the precaution of sending word ahead of them, then slipping the fleet into the Golden Horn at night. When word got about the city, there was collective grief. Christians “could not walk in the streets for fear of the stones which were hurled at them by the Turks, who were universally in mourning, one for a brother, another for a son, husband or friend.” Yet Suleiman’s response was unusually muted. Both commanders kept their heads, though Mustapha lost his post. Piyale would be at sea again the following year raiding the Italian coast, and Suleiman was generous to the janissaries who had survived a tough fight. He ordered that those “who fought during the Siege of Malta should be rewarded by being promoted in rank and should be given some money as a reward.” The failure at Malta was swiftly airbrushed from the imperial record; “Malta yok” ran the Turkish saying—Malta doesn’t exist. Like Vienna, it was considered a negligible check in the onrush of Ottoman victories.