The Shield and The Sword

by Ernle Bradford

  Possibly Mustapha overestimated the amount of men that had managed to slip through his lines overnight, or possibly—after his losses at St Elmo—he disliked the prospect of investing these two major positions. At any rate, he now offered the Grand Master the same terms that L’Isle Adam had accepted at Rhodes—a safe passage for the Order and their followers, with all the honours of war, La Valette listened to the messenger and then had his eyes bandaged. The man was led out to a position between the bastions of Provence and Auvergne where his eyes were uncovered and he was asked to look up at the height of the defences above him and the depth of the great ditch below. ‘The Turks will never take this place!’ he cried. La Valette gave him his reply to take back to Mustapha Pasha: ‘Tell your master this is the only territory that I will give him. There lies the land which he may have for his own—provided always that he fills it with the bodies of his Janissaries.’

  Mustapha’s reaction to this arrogant dismissal of his generous offer was to redouble his efforts to make sure that the two peninsulas were entirely sealed off both by land and sea from any contact with the outside world. Already his troops were spread all round the Margherita Heights, the high ground that lay to the south, and he now set about ensuring that even the waters of Grand Harbour came under Turkish control. A small fleet of galleys was dragged from Marsamuscetto across the narrow neck of land that separated the two harbours and was launched into the sea at the Marsa end of Grand Harbour. It was an action that the Knights could not oppose, for their own vessels were laid up for security in the sea-moat between Fort St Angelo and Birgu. They would undoubtedly have been blown to pieces if they had ventured out under the Turkish guns that were mounted on Sciberras and Mount Corradino to the north of them.

  During the first week of July the combined batteries opened a heavy crossfire on both the main positions. Mustapha’s aim was to attack the landward end of Senglea as soon as it had been sufficiently reduced, at the same time making a seaborne attack from the Marsa on the tip of the peninsula. He was to some extent thwarted in this plan by the activity of the Maltese, nearly all of whom were excellent swimmers. Under the orders of their Militia officers, they now erected a palisade of stakes and underwater obstructions all along the side of the peninsula where it was shallow enough for boats to be run ashore. On July 15th a massive attack was launched by land and sea, and a great battle took place around the palisades, where the invading Turkish boats either plunged into the stakes or were caught up on chains that had been strung between them all along the shore. While the gunners and the arquebusiers opened up a withering fire as the boats approached, the trained Maltese swimmers waited for the moment when they reached the palisades. Then they swam out to encounter the Turks as they tried to cut down the defences, and a savage hand-to-hand battle developed in the sea. As the Spanish soldier Balbi wrote: ‘They attacked the Turks with such spirit that I do not say for Maltese, but for men of any nation, it would have been impossible to be more courageous.’

  Despite the fact that part of the wall was breached by the explosion of a powder magazine—which enabled some of the attackers to secure a foothold on the wall itself—the seaborne attack against Senglea proved a failure. For days afterwards the water was full of lolling bodies, which were stripped of their fine robes, their jewelled scimitars and turbans by the very men who had killed them. During the latter stages of this encounter a number of the Turks, who had been left behind as their boats withdrew, attempted to surrender. But the message of St Elmo had been well understood by the local people. ‘St Elmo’s pay!’ they cried as they slit their throats.

  While the battle had been raging at both ends of the peninsula an attempt had been made by Mustapha Pasha to create a diversion by sending ten large boats laden with Janissaries to attack the other side of Senglea and storm the low walls which it might well be expected would be undefended when all the troops were otherwise engaged. The Janissaries set off from the shore below Mount Sciberras, passing between the tips of the headlands of Senglea and Birgu. Now at the very foot of Fort St Angelo there was a concealed battery, sited right down on the water’s edge, and designed for just such an action—to prevent any enemy ships from entering the creek. The French commander of the battery, de Guiral, could hardly believe his luck when he saw that these boats, laden with their heron-plumed Janissaries, were drawing out from the shore opposite and heading straight beneath the muzzles of his guns. He waited until they were all in the mouth of the creek, a range of about 200 yards, and then gave the order to open fire. It was a massacre. Nine of the boats were sunk and at least 800 of the Sultan’s crack troops were hurled into the water. Only the tenth boat managed to struggle back to the safety of the farther shore. ‘This day,’ as Balbi wrote, ‘Commander de Guiral’s battery was undoubtedly the salvation of Senglea. There can be no doubt that if these boats had managed to put their troops ashore we would not have been able to hold out any longer.’

  After the failure of this first major assault on Senglea Mustapha decided to proceed with more caution. He realised that against these fortified positions, which were fortified also by the sea that surrounded them, the traditional ‘steamroller’ tactics could not be applied with any real prospect of success. While he himself undertook the conduct of the campaign against Senglea he put Piali in charge of that against neighbouring Birgu, the headquarters of the Order and the centre from which Grand Master La Valette conducted the whole campaign. At dawn on August 2nd all the encircling guns from Mount Salvatore above Birgu to the east, to the heights of Mount Margherita south of Senglea, opened up with a roar, a continuous roar that lasted until the sun was high in the sky. So great was the noise that it was reported that ‘In Syracuse and Catania, the one 70 and the other 100 miles from Malta, the inhabitants heard the sound, and likened it to the distant rumble of thunder.’

  Fifty major pieces of artillery alone directed their fire against the two main positions, and these included 60-pound culverins, ten 80-pounders, and one or two immense ‘basilisks’ which fired solid shot weighing 60 pounds. Under the brilliant sky of high midsummer the island shook with heat-haze, and now to this was added the trembling of the ground itself, and the lazily spiralling clouds of limestone dust that rose above the embattled walls. Even before the guns had silenced to a trumpet call, the Turkish soldiers were swarming down the slopes, tearing up and against the walls that stood like storm-lashed rocks above the white tide of attackers. For six hours the battle raged around the walls of Senglea and Birgu and, although on several occasions the Turks had even managed to establish themselves in a breach of the walls, their force was finally spent. Tearing his beard with mortification, Mustapha Pasha finally called off his troops. He had underestimated the strength of the walls and the obstinate endurance of the defenders.

  The ensuing bombardment, designed to soften up the defences finally and forever, went on for five days. Then, on August 7th, the assault was once again renewed. The main blow fell this time upon Birgu and was directed against the Post of Castile, that Post which had mocked Mustapha’s men in their first trial of the fortifications many weeks ago. Behind the main walls the defenders had built inner defensive walls (as had been done at Rhodes), so that even if the enemy breached the main wall they found themselves with a second one, usually designed so that they could be met with a steady fire from more than one angle at a time. This was exactly what happened at Birgu. The advancing troops, victorious as they thought when they poured through the breach, found themselves under a murderous crossfire. They broke and ran, back to the safety of their trenches. Mustapha Pasha was being more successful at Senglea, and his men had actually established themselves inside the defences and had gained a footing in the citadel itself. For the besieged this was by far the most dangerous moment in the whole siege. Although La Valette had had a bridge of boats laid across the creek between Birgu and Senglea so that help could swiftly be transferred from one quarter to another, at this moment, hard pressed as he was himself, he had no reinforcem
ents to send to his threatened brethren. For the Turks victory seemed to hang suspended in the air, a golden dream of the fields of Paradise for those who died, and a vision of loot, rapine and plunder for those who survived.

  At that very moment, when all seemed lost in Senglea, a trumpet call rang out—to be repeated throughout the long lines of the army. It was the Retreat! Almost unbelievably, it seemed, when the citadel itself was within their grasp, the advance troops found themselves being ordered back by their officers and under-officers. To the amazement of the defenders, who felt quite sure that their last hour had come, the whole of the Turkish army was soon seen in full-scale retreat, headed back for their base camp at the Marsa. For a moment the defenders must have thought that the long-promised relief force had at last reached the island. This was exactly what Mustapha himself had been told. A messenger had brought him word that troops of Christian horsemen were harrying and burning the camp and slaying all the inhabitants. (These were mainly the sick and wounded who had been left with their attendants and a few guards while the army was engaged on the major assault.)

  When Mustapha Pasha heard what had really happened—and realised that he had called off the attack when victory was within his grasp, his rage knew no bounds. The so-called ‘relief force’ was no more than a detachment of the cavalry stationed at Mdina, who, hearing the noise from Senglea and Birgu, had realised that a major assault was in process and had decided to create a diversion by cutting to pieces the Turkish base camp while the army was otherwise engaged. They succeeded admirably in their project, killing most of the inhabitants of the camp, firing tents and supplies of stores, hamstringing or leading off the horses, and disappearing back to Mdina before the army could catch up with them. If they had only made a havoc of the Turkish base their raid would have been worthy of praise, but the fact that they had caused the Turks to withdraw at a moment when victory was almost within Mustapha’s grasp was the salvation of the Knights of the Order of St John. Like de Guiral’s concealed battery, which had decimated the Janissary attack, they had struck where no blow had been expected. And their blow had been devastating.

  As August drew on and the Turks redoubled their artillery attacks, and their sapping and mining beneath the outward-spilling walls of Senglea and the Post of Castile in Birgu, it seemed to many of the Knights as well as to members of the Council that it could only be a short matter of time before one or other, or indeed both, positions must fall. The suggestion was put to the Grand Master at a Council meeting that the township of Birgu should be abandoned, and that all the able-bodied Knights, brethren-at-arms and soldiery should withdraw into the fortress of St Angelo. There, they said, they could surely hold out until either relief arrived, or the rains and storms of winter forced the Turk to withdraw and call off his attack. La Valette was adamant—on no account would there be any such withdrawal. He knew perfectly well that it would be difficult if not impossible for the Turk to winter in Malta, with their supplies and sea-communications spread out across the Ionian and Aegean seas (notoriously one of the stormiest areas in the Mediterranean). But he was of the opinion that they could hold out perfectly well where they were—better indeed than being cooped up in one fortress which, however strong, must inevitably come under an overwhelming fire from every point of the compass. Besides, as he pointed out, he had absolutely no intention of abandoning the brave Maltese people, the men, women and children, who had daily suffered with the garrison and who had taken as able a part in the defence as any of the trained soldiery, or militia.

  The Grand Master next received a further despatch from Don Garcia in Sicily, saying that before the end of August he would be bringing a relief force down to Malta of at least 16,000 men. The Grand Master did not put his ‘trust in princes’. As he said to his good friend Sir John Starkey, his Latin secretary and the head of the Langue of England, ‘we can rely no further upon his promises. When the Council meets next they must be told that they must in no way expect a relief force. Only we ourselves can save ourselves.’ As an earnest of his decision that there should be no more retreat, he had the bridge between St Angelo and Birgu blown up. The garrison in St Angelo were on their own, and so were the garrisons of Senglea and Birgu. By thus forcing the enemy to continue diversifying his fire the Grand Master undoubtedly made the right decision—the decision that saved both Malta and the Order of St John.

  ‘…And all day and all night the enemy’s guns did not cease.’ Such entries are common enough in Balbi’s diary for this period. Mustapha and his staff, aware that within a few weeks the autumn would be upon them, redoubled their efforts to shatter the walls and the morale of the defenders before the summer was over. As at Rhodes, where sapping and mining had contributed so largely to the success of the Sultan’s arms, specially trained teams of Egyptian miners were now busy beneath the outspill of the crumbling walls and underneath the hot basic limestone rock itself, driving their tunnels forward to blow wide the main points of the defences. Siege engines which could overtop the walls were also brought into play, but these on more than one occasion proved of more trouble than they were worth. A sudden determined sally by the defenders—of ten through secret passageways cut through their own walls—would leave these grim monsters an easy target for fire and the axe.

  On August 18th a mine was exploded at the head of a tunnel which had been slowly probing forward beneath the all-important Post of Castile. With a rumbling crash a vast section of the main bastion came tumbling down, leaving for the moment an undefended gap towards which the white-robed hordes of the enemy were already pouring in a flood. The defenders hesitated, there was danger of panic spreading, and then the Grand Master himself was seen leading a countercharge into the breach itself. Seventy years old, ‘this intrepid old man, placing only a light helmet on his head, and without even waiting to put on his cuirass, rushed boldly to meet the infidels’. His example heartened the Knights, men-at-arms, and townsfolk, and soon they had taken the breached wall at a run and were at hand-to-hand grips with the enemy. A grenade burst alongside La Valette and he was wounded in the leg, but he knew too well the value of his presence in the hour of need. Urged to withdraw by a member of his staff, who pointed out that the position was secured and the Turks on the run, La Valette obstinately refused. He pointed with his sword to some Turkish standards which had been planted in the breach. ‘Never will I withdraw,’ he said, ‘so long as those banners wave in the wind.’

  There was a further attack that night, reinforced for the first time by fire from some of the Turkish galleys which had already begun to occupy the waters of Grand Harbour, as if confident that the siege was at an end. The third week of August was the most crucial of the whole siege. There was not a single bed unoccupied in the great Hospital, ammunition although not running short had to be carefully husbanded, and it was said that ‘no one in those days was considered wounded if he could even walk’. Burnt by wildfire, torn by rock splinters, wounded by bullets, arrows and the iron quarrels of cross-bows, the defenders dragged themselves about the ruins of their fortified townships like horrifying visions risen from the depths of Dante’s Inferno. The condition of the Turks was better only in so far as they could retire at night out of range of their enemy to the comparative peace of camp or trench. But even they were suffering badly from their exposure to the blistering heat of midsummer Malta, from inadequate food and, far more important, from the inevitable dysentery and disease that haunted large armies in the field in those days when the principles of hygiene were unknown. In their desperation to achieve a major breakthrough the Turks redoubled their efforts against the garrisons. Mines and petards, towers laden with arquebusiers, infernal machines that were pushed down the slopes to roll against the quaking walls and there explode (sometimes blowing up their inventors in the process), all and every device known to the military science of the time was tried out in the final phases of the siege of Malta.

  Dissensions meanwhile increased between the two Turkish commanders, Piali keeping an anx
ious eye seaward for the advent of bad weather, and Mustapha calculating whether he could manage to secure enough victuals from Tripoli, Greece, or Constantinople to keep the army in the field throughout the winter. He was confident that if only he could maintain the siege and the blockade into the winter he would triumph just as Suleiman himself had done at Rhodes. But neither he nor his staff could inject sufficient enthusiasm into an army whose morale was already flagging. The fact is that the Knights and their soldiers and the Maltese people had already defeated the besiegers before relief finally did reach them.