The Shield and The Sword

by Ernle Bradford

  For a whole year La Valette had served as a galley slave, after the Order’s galley in which he was serving had been captured by a Turkish corsair (it was a myth that the Knights were always successful in their actions against the Turks). Enslavement was a fate that often befell men in the Mediterranean in those days—the wheel came full circle and victor became vanquished and vice versa within a matter of hours. Usually the only way in which a man could escape from the benches was by having his family or friends raise his ransom, although sometimes the ship in which he was imprisoned might later be taken by his own side or, as on occasions happened, there was a large-scale exchange of prisoners between Christians and Moslems. La Valette was sixty-three when he became Grand Master, a man of iron frame and resolution. Both of these he would have need of when the great test came, and when the Sultan Suleiman designed to rid the Mediterranean for ever of ‘Those sons of dogs whom I have already conquered and who were spared only by my clemency at Rhodes forty-three years ago!’ By that time both La Valette and the great Sultan would be men of seventy. But, whereas the Sultan would be sitting in the scented gardens of Constantinople, La Valette would be fighting in the breach.

  Dragut’s raid in 1551 had shown which way the wind was blowing. Although the enslavement of the people of Gozo had for him at least justified his failure to do anything of consequence in Malta, yet his reconnaissance in depth of Malta and its defences had probably been of more value to the Sultan. Dragut had seen and reported on the shape that Birgu now presented; the enlarged fortifications of St Angelo; the new fort of St Michael’s; and the unexpected star-fort that had sprung up on Mount Sciberras overlooking the entrance to the harbour.

  La Valette for his part was under no illusion that, just as at Rhodes when he had been young, the blow was not soon destined to fall upon this new and almost certainly last island—home of the Order of St John. The man of whom it was said that ‘He was capable of converting a Protestant or governing a kingdom’ was well suited to the task that lay ahead. Like d’Aubusson before him he had to ensure as far as possible within the limits of the Order’s resources that all the defences of the island were made good. Fort St Elmo, for instance, needed to be further strengthened, especially on the northern side towards the harbour of Marsamuscetto. A new ravelin (a detached work beyond the fort itself) needed to be thrown up. Because of the shortage of time, this had to be done not with stone but with earth and fascines, the latter being bundles of sticks bound together to strengthen an earthwork. Indicative of the paucity of earth and wood in Malta is the fact that both these materials had to be specially imported from Sicily. This ravelin was in fact scarcely completed by 1565 when the Turks made their great attack on Malta.

  What had finally provoked Suleiman to besiege the island was the capture by the Knights of a large merchant ship which belonged to the chief eunuch of the seraglio, Kustir-Aga. In the boudoir politics of Constantinople the chief eunuch was one of the most important figures in the court, and it happened that in the case of this vessel he had prevailed upon a number of ladies in the harem to invest in the project. (The Spanish soldier of fortune, Balbi, who served throughout the subsequent siege estimated that the merchandise aboard the vessel was worth 80,000 ducats alone.) Among other notables who were captured aboard it was the old nurse of Suleiman’s daughter, Mirmah, who was the child of his favourite wife, the Russian-born Roxellane. Among other distinguished captives was the Sanjak of Alexandria, and the Sultan was reminded that ‘the island of Malta is swollen with slaves, the true believers!’

  The Sultan was growing old and, like most men in their declining years, he valued some elements of peace and tranquillity in his fife. But now he found that he was beset on all sides with crying women and imploring courtiers, all insisting that he should never let these ‘Christian dogs’ continue to make mock of the greatest empire on earth and its greatest ruler, ‘The Peacock of the World’. Finally even the Imam of the Great Mosque added his voice (prompted no doubt by Kustir-Aga and others). He reminded the Sultan of the fate that was being suffered by his subjects, held in slave quarters in Malta or lashed to work on the benches of the Christian galleys. ‘It is only thy unconquerable sword,’ the Imam cried, ‘that can break the chains of these poor creatures, subjects of thine, whose cries rise to Heaven and afflict even the ears of the Prophet himself. The son cries for his father, the wife for her husband and children, and all of them wait upon thee—upon thy justice, and power, and thy vengeance upon their enemies—their implacable enemies who are thine also!’

  In the autumn of 1564 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent presided over a Divan, or formal council, in his palace overlooking the Golden Horn. The subject for discussion was the forthcoming year, and what military or naval projects were envisaged for which the general staff and their subordinates must make provision during the dead months of winter. Malta was debated, but many were against it on the ground that it was an unimportant rock. ‘A great many more victories,’ it was pointed out, ‘have fallen to the Sultan’s scimitar than the capture of a handful of men on a small and scarcely fortified island.’ The Sultan took the opposite view. His armies were already on the threshold of western Europe and he was astute enough to see that Malta with its magnificent harbours provided the ideal springboard from which to attack Sicily and then Italy. From ‘that not unpleasant rock’ he could spring the trap and effect a pincer movement upon Italy, his armies sweeping down from the north while his fleet moved up from the south. His edict went forth: ‘Those sons of Satan shall, for their continual piracy and insolence, be forever crushed and destroyed!’

  Even without the excellent espionage system that the Order maintained in Constantinople La Valette and his Council could have hardly failed to learn from visiting merchantmen of the activity that was now taking place in the great dockyards of the city. Messages were accordingly sent off to the brethren in Europe, and all arrangements were made for the transport of additional grain from Sicily and munitions and armaments from wherever they could be secured. La Valette had one distinct advantage over his great predecessor L’Isle Adam. He knew that the Order could be defeated—because it had happened once in his lifetime—and he knew also that this time no monarch in Europe would be forthcoming with any further gift of territory. Malta was literally the last ditch, and it was here that the ultimate battle between Cross and Crescent—the Armageddon of the Crusades—must take place.

  Throughout the winter, while the North-East Gregale winds hurled themselves over the limestone island, and while in sudden but heavy thunderstorms the life-giving rain fell like a blanket causing the cisterns beneath private houses and fortresses to gurgle with its coming, the people of Malta, the Turkish slaves, the Knights and the men-at-arms toiled at their various tasks. So much was to be done in so short a time. They had been in Malta little over thirty years, whereas in Rhodes they had had 200 years to prepare for a major invasion and siege.

  One great advantage they had in their favour, and something that the Council no doubt (which had earlier regretted it) now regarded with approval, was the barrenness of the islands. At Rhodes, while the Turks had been able to victual themselves easily from Marmarice on the mainland, they had also had the fertile island itself on which to feed and water their troops.

  In Malta all would be different. There was little enough grain, and that would have been cut in the spring before any attack was likely to develop. Water was extremely scarce, and the nearest supply of any consequence was to be found in the Marsa, a low-lying area at the far end of Grand Harbour fed by the rain catchment on the limestone hills behind it. The Grand Master gave orders that, as soon as an attack was imminent, the Marsa waters were to be rendered foul and poisonous with ordure, dead animals and bitter herbs—anything that might induce sickness among the enemy.

  Quite apart from the nature of the terrain, so unsuitable for a large investing army, the very geographical position of Malta gave it an enormous advantage over Rhodes. Nearly 500 miles from the Greek Pelop
onnese, and as much again from the Sultan’s capital, the fleet would be extended across 1,000 miles of sea. True, some supplies and provisions could be brought up from North Africa and from now Moslem-dominated Tripoli, but the main lifeline stretched all the way across the Ionian Sea and then across the windy Aegean. The Turks would need to bring practically everything they needed with them, not only guns and gunpowder and men, but materials for mending sails and making tents, and even—as the Knights had found out—such elementary supplies as wood for cooking, and rods or saplings for building into any trenches they might throw up on that harsh and intractable soil. Malta, although it had not had the benefit of centuries of industrious toil upon its fortifications, was of its very nature a fortress in itself.

  Philip II was now the ruler of Spain and, since Malta was a Spanish gift and in effect a dependency of Spanish Sicily, it was he who was first informed of the imminence of the attack by La Valette through the medium of Don Garcia de Toledo, the Sicilian Viceroy. In April 1565 the latter sailed down to Malta with a fleet of twenty-seven galleys, but if the Order hoped that these were to provide substantial reinforcements they were to be sadly disappointed. The Viceroy brought promises but little else. He had, after all, his own and far more important island to worry about. Malta, like the advance defence post it was, must hold out as long as possible while Sicily—clearly the next target of the Sultan’s ambitions—had time to put itself into a state of readiness. Don Garcia’s actions, or lack of them, in the months that followed have nearly always been construed by historians of the Order as those of a weak or even evil man, eager to see the Order reduced to insignificance. The truth was that he was constrained by the very nature of his position to think of Sicily first. He had in fact already asked Philip II for 25,000 infantry. That those were never forthcoming was hardly Don Garcia’s fault.

  At the beginning of the siege the Order of St John had about 540 Knights and servants-at-arms distributed throughout the three main positions—Birgu and St Angelo, Senglea and St Michael’s, and Fort St Elmo. La Valette also had under his command about 1,000 Spanish foot soldiers and arquebusiers, as well as 3,000 to 4,000 Maltese militia and irregulars. The latter were to form the core of the resistance and, aided by the townsfolk and the peasants (who flocked within the walls as soon as the siege began), must deservedly claim a large part in the victory that was to make their island famous above all others in the Mediterranean. ‘Nothing,’ as Voltaire was later to write, ‘is better known than the siege of Malta.’ The fact that this was so was because Malta, so near to Europe, seemed—and was—of far more consequence to the European powers than distant Rhodes, which was not even ‘European’ in the first place. The Aegean was an area which had long ago been written off as belonging to the Byzantine Empire, then temporarily Latinised, and then lost to the Turk, But Malta, adjacent to Sicily and commanding the main trade routes of the Middle Sea, was another thing altogether. Western Europe, despite all its internal dissensions, was united in fear of the Ottoman Empire which was now at the zenith of its power. The Sultan’s kingdoms stretched from the Persian Gulf to Austria, and it was plain, even in the limited strategical concepts of the sixteenth century, that the loss of Malta might well entail the loss of Italy. And after that, what was to prevent a Turkish occupation of the whole of Europe? For these reasons, then, the siege that was to follow became famous in history, ballad, song and folk-lore long after other sieges were forgotten.

  The army which the ageing Sultan was prepared to throw against the remote island of Malta has been variously estimated as between 30,000 and 40,000 men, the bulk of whom were formed of Sipahis and Janissaries, A further formidable corps was composed of some 4,000 Iayalars, religious fanatics who sought death rather than life, and who were used as a spearhead in advance of the regulars. The whole was transported to Malta in an armada consisting of well over 200 ships, one hundred and thirty of them being galleys, thirty galleasses, eleven of the largest type of merchant ships, and a host of smaller sailing vessels, frigates, barques and the like. On the fringe of the armada, like jackals skirting a pride of lions, came innumerable small privately-equipped vessels, fitted out by pirates, renegades and merchants on the make. Not until the Spanish Armada sent against England in 1588 was anything comparable in numbers and power to be seen upon the high seas. The greatest force that the Ottoman Empire could raise—that empire which was ‘built upon an ever-extending conquest’—was moving in the calm April weather southward through the Aegean, destined for Malta.

  Mustapha Pasha (the same who had failed against the Knights at Rhodes) was in command of the army. He had redeemed his earlier failure by successes in the Hungarian and Persian wars, and it was no doubt thought fitting by the Sultan that he should now have the opportunity to take his vengeance on the Knights. Piali Pasha, famous for his capture of the North African island of Djerba from the Spaniards, and the son-in-law of the Sultan, was Admiral of the Fleet. Other outstanding commanders included the Governor of Alexandria, the Governor of Algiers, and a notorious pirate and renegade, Ali Fartax, a former Dominican brother who—until he had entered the Sultan’s service—had been the most ruthless corsair in the Aegean. Later to follow was Dragut, or Torghoud Rais, the greatest Moslem seaman of his time and one of whom a French admiral was later to write:

  Dragut was superior to Barbarossa. A living chart of the Mediterranean, he combined science with audacity. There was not a creek unknown to him, not a channel that he had not sailed. Ingenious in devising ways and means, when all around him despaired, he excelled above all in escaping by unexpected methods from situations of great peril. An incomparable pilot…he had known the hardship of captivity and he showed himself humane to his captives. Under every aspect he was a character, and no one was more worthy than he to bear the name of ‘King’.

  Sultan Suleiman had summoned out of the length and breadth of his vast empire the finest ships and seamen, and the finest troops and commanders that he could muster. All these were to be sent against an island eighteen miles long by nine miles wide, which was almost as inadequately garrisoned as it was hastily fortified.

  Chapter 20

  ATTACK

  On Friday, May 18th, 1565, the fleet of the Grande Turke was sighted by the watchmen in Fort St Elmo and St Angelo moving in a forest of spars, bound for the south of the island. La Valette sent out the Chevalier de Romégas, the Admiral of the Galleys, with four ships to reconnoitre. There could be no question of the Order’s vessels attempting to engage the immense fleet that was now passing down the coast of the island—even though Romégas, one of the greatest sailors the Order ever possessed, would undoubtedly have liked to try to cut out a few stragglers. At first it was naturally assumed that the Turks intended to come to anchor in the excellent harbour in the south of the island, Marsasirocco, ‘South Wind Harbour’. They carried on, however, passed up the west coast, and anchored in a small bay beneath the village of Mgarr at the north-western end of Malta. This may have been no more than a ruse, or—more probably—the Turks were anxious to establish whether there were any other suitable harbours that they did not know about on the iron-bound coast to the west. The Grand Master immediately sent a small boat up to Sicily with the message: ‘The Siege has begun. The Turkish fleet numbers about 200 vessels. We await your help.’ It would be many months before he received it.

  Within twelve hours it was clear that the Turks had come to the conclusion that the Southern harbour would best suit their purpose, for squadron after squadron began to move back again, passing the rocky offshore islet of Filfla and turning to the east until they came within the great sheltering arms of Marsasirocco—following, though little they knew it, the practice of the Phoenician mariners who, 2,000 years before them, had made this their principal base on their voyages north to Sicily. The harbour, as its name suggested, was open to the south and—since the south wind or sirocco was rare in summer—would have proved perfectly adequate as the main base for the Turkish fleet throughout the whole of the c
ampaign that was to follow. But it was upon the desirability of a harbour that seemed to be sheltered from almost every direction that the Turkish High Command was to become divided.

  Within a matter of days the main body of the army was ashore, and the first clashes had occurred between mounted scouting parties of the Knights and the advance, foraging parties of the Sultan’s army. Just as in the two sieges of Rhodes no attempt was made to hold the invaders at the beach-head and prevent them coming ashore. Some later historians have wondered at this, but the simple fact of the matter was that with the limited numbers at their disposal the Knights and their cavalry and men-at-arms could never possibly have managed to do so. They would always have found themselves outflanked. Their small disciplined force was designed to fight within the fortifications, causing the enemy to expend themselves in their thousands in their efforts to breach the walls. This was, and had always been, the whole reason for castle building, and the theory of the defence of fortified places against infinitely superior numbers.

  Unlike Rhodes, which had only presented one fortified city as a target for attack, Malta caused the Turks to diversify their efforts. Not only was there Fort St Elmo on the point of Mount Sciberras, but there were also the peninsulas of Birgu and Senglea and, some miles away to the north, rising in ancient splendour on its crested hillock, the old capital of Mdina. Not one of these objectives presented in any way the same strength of fortification that had been built over centuries into the city of Rhodes. At the same time there was an unlooked for strength in the very fact that they were situated in different parts of the island—only Birgu and Senglea being adjacent to each other within the space of half a mile.