Greatest Battles
MALTA, 1565
The Knights Hospitaller survive the Siege of Malta
Following an unsuccessful attack against Malta by the Ottoman corsair Dragut in 1551, the Order of Saint John constructed two new forts. The star fort Saint Elmo, on the north side of the Grand Harbour, covered the approaches to both the Grand Harbour and Marsamuscetto inlet, the island’s two best anchorages. On the south side of Grand Harbour, the towns of Birgu and Senglia were situated on parallel promontories that jutted into the harbour. To protect Senglia, the Order built Fort Saint Michael across the top of the peninsula. A high wall and ditch surrounded the Birgu peninsula, and Fort Saint Angelo crowned its point. In the island’s centre, a small mounted garrison defended the walled city of Mdina.
Suleiman picked Admiral Piali Pasha and General Mustafa Pasha to lead the expedition to Malta.
Mustafa was a veteran of long wars in Persia and Hungary, and had fought at Rhodes in 1522. As for Piali, he was younger but had won distinction commanding the Ottoman fleet at Djerba.
The commander of the Christian forces was 71-year-old Grand Master Jean de la Valette. He had fought the Ottomans at Rhodes in 1522. Almost two decades later, while serving as captain of a galley in 1541, the Ottomans captured his vessel and made him and his crew galley slaves. He was freed after one year in a prisoner exchange. He was inured to hardship as a result, and at the time of the Ottoman invasion of Malta he was still robust and fit.
The Ottoman armada arrived in three divisions off Malta on 18 May 1565. The Ottomans sailed the breadth of the island before deciding to land at Marasirocco Harbour on the southern tip of the island. The Ottomans then marched four miles inland, and on 20 May they encamped at Marsa on the west end of Grand Harbour.
La Valette promptly sent a message by boat to Don Garcia de Toledo, viceroy of Sicily, who was 48km away across the Malta Channel in Sicily, stating that the siege had begun and asking when reinforcements might be expected. He received a response that, if all went well, he could expect reinforcements as early as 22 June. At the time, Sicily and Naples belonged to Spanish King Philip II. Toledo, who commanded a squadron of Spanish ships at Sicily, assumed he would be able to get Philip’s permission to send a relief force, but Philip was initially reluctant to send a Spanish fleet and land force to relieve Malta, for fear that the far stronger Ottoman fleet might sink his ships.
Piali argued that it was necessary to move immediately to capture Saint Elmo so that he could anchor his fleet in Marsamuscetto inlet, where it would be protected from storms and gale force winds. From the fleet’s anchorage in the inlet, it could support the operations against Fort Saint Elmo. The Ottomans prepared to assault Saint Elmo by hauling guns into position on Mount Sciberras on Saint Elmo’s landward side.
The 40,000-strong Ottoman army was composed of sipahis, janissaries, Iayalars (religious fanatics) and corsairs. Labourers hauled the heaviest guns – one of which was a massive 160-pounder – onto the ridge, placing them about 455 metres from the outerworks of Fort Saint Elmo.
La Valette’s 5,700 Christian troops on Malta consisted of 700 knights from the Order of Saint
John, 1,000 Spanish infantrymen and 4,000 Maltese militiamen. At the outset of the attack on Saint Elmo, the garrison numbered about 80 men, including around 15 knights. Each night La Valette sent small boats from Fort Saint Angelo to reinforce and resupply the garrison. The odds were evened somewhat by the fact that the garrison was supported by 19 cannons and a half-culverin.
ATTACK ON FORT SAINT ELMO
The Ottoman guns began bombarding Saint Elmo on 25 May. The heavy cannonballs soon took their toll on the walls, producing cracks and crumbling the battlements. It was not long before sections of the wall collapsed. While the cannons blasted away, hundreds of janissaries armed with arquebuses pinned down the Christians on the ramparts.
On 2 June the 80-year-old Dragut, a celebrated Ottoman admiral and corsair, arrived from Tripoli with 24 galleys and 2,500 men. He immediately set to work improving the siege batteries. New batteries were established at Gallows Point on the south shore of Grand Harbour, as well as on the Tigne headland across the inlet from Fort Saint Elmo. This exposed the defenders of Saint Elmo to fire from three directions. Additionally, the guns on Gallows Point were well-placed to try to destroy the boats ferrying men and supplies to Saint Elmo across the harbour.
After Dragut had finished his improvements to the guns arrayed against Saint Elmo, they resumed their bombardment on 3 June. On the night of 6 June, Turkish janissaries in the siege trenches surrounding the west side of Saint Elmo noticed that the Christian guards were asleep. They sent word to Mustafa, who ordered them to place ladders as quietly as possible against the crumbling walls in the pre-dawn darkness. Other janissaries thrust the long barrels of their German-made arquebuses through the squares of the portcullis.
When Mustafa gave the signal to attack, arquebus fire crackled and the janissaries atop the ladders leapt onto the battlements. Men on both sides became involved in a vicious hand-to-hand fight on top of the ramparts. Turkish scimitars and hand axes clanged against the knights’ and militia’s heavy swords and halberds. To prevent the Ottomans from infiltrating the portcullis, the defenders hurled clay pots containing Greek fire. When the pots exploded, they created balls of flame that engulfed whole groups of attackers. The Christians beat the attackers back and waited for the next onslaught.
Mustafa ordered a large-scale assault the following day. White-robed janissaries streamed forth from their forward trenches. As they climbed their ladders, the defenders unleashed their full array of fire weapons, including Greek fire, fire hoops and primitive flame throwers to repulse the attackers. After losing 2,000 of his elite janissaries, Mustafa called off the attack. As for the defenders, they lost ten knights and 70 soldiers.
The Ottomans then launched another night attack on 10 June, in which both sides hurled incendiary devices at each other. The Ottoman grenades, which the Christians called ‘sachetti’, contained a gummy substance that clung to a knight’s armour while it burned. The defenders kept large vats of water next to the walls so that when a knight was struck by one of these fire grenades, he could jump in the water to extinguish the flames. The night attack cost Mustafa another 1,500 janissaries and the defenders 60 more men.
DRAGUT’S DEATH
To conserve the dwindling number of his elite janissaries, Mustafa ordered his corps of Iayalars to make an attack against Saint Elmo on 16 June. High on hashish, these religious fanatics charged wild-eyed towards the fort. They wore animal skins and protected their heads with golden helmets. They scrambled over the rubble of the walls with menacing scimitars to grapple with the Christians. Cannon and arquebus fire from the fort cut many down, and 1,000 fell in the ferocious attack.
Two days later Christian cannoneers at Fort Saint Elmo fired on a group of senior Ottoman commanders who were inspecting the siege trenches on the west side of the fort. A cannonball shattered a stone wall behind them, sending a large splinter of rock flying through the air. The splinter tore open the side of Dragut’s head, and he died five days later. His aggressive leadership would be sorely missed in the weeks that followed.
That night La Valette sent 30 knights and 300 soldiers across the harbour under cover of darkness
to join the garrison at Saint Elmo. They were the last reinforcements. The following day the Ottomans completed a trench at the waterline along the north shore of Grand Harbour, which enabled them to fire on the boats attempting to make the night run from Saint Angelo to Saint Elmo.
On 23 June Mustafa sent the janissaries against Fort Saint Elmo. By that time the Ottoman trenches completely encircled the fort. The Ottomans breached the walls and wiped out the remaining 60 defenders. The siege had lasted 31 days.
From their position on the south side of the harbour, the remaining Christian troops knew the fort had fallen when Ottoman banners were raised over the ruins. The attack cost the Ottomans 8,000 men, or one-fifth of their entire force. In contrast, La Valette lost 1,500 knights and soldiers in the defence of Saint Elmo. If the Ottomans wanted to conquer Malta, they still had to take two major fortresses on the south side of the harbour, as well as the heavily defended landward walls protecting Birgu.
TIME CRUNCH
The second phase of the siege consisted of Mustafa’s attack on the twin promontories that housed Birgu and Senglia. The two commanders came to an agreement: Piali would oversee the attack against Birgu while Mustafa would orchestrate the assault on Senglia. In order to batter the landward walls protecting the peninsulas, labourers began hauling the siege guns from Mount Sciberras to new positions on the south side of Grand Harbour.
In late August dysentery, typhoid and malaria swept through the Ottoman ranks, substantially reducing the number of soldiers available for combat. Piali knew that the strong north winds would soon bring rains and churn up the seas
around Malta. Without a shipyard to repair and maintain his ships, Piali believed he would be risking the sultan’s fleet by wintering in Malta. For these reasons, he informed Mustafa that he planned to depart no later than mid-september for Istanbul with or without the land army on board his ships.
The Ottomans successfully detonated a mine under the land walls of Birgu on 19 August.
When part of the wall crashed to the ground, the Ottomans fought their way into the town. La Valette, whose headquarters were in the town’s square, led a group of Christian troops forward in a counterattack. The Ottomans resumed their attack at dusk but at dawn they withdrew, having failed to capture the town.
A SPANISH ARMY ARRIVES
King Philip II was reluctant to allow the relief force from Sicily to sail to Malta but Toledo finally succeeded in persuading the king. He received permission from Philip II on 20 August to transport the 10,000-man relief force to Malta. By that time, the Ottomans had begun withdrawing their army in stages. The pace of the withdrawal quickened when word came that a large relief force had arrived.
After dropping off the 10,000 Spanish troops at Mellieha Bay on 6 September, Toledo ordered the Spanish warships to depart immediately to avoid a naval engagement.
On 10 September the Ottoman army was ready to depart for Istanbul, but Mustafa had second thoughts. He had recently received a letter from Suleiman telling him he must return to Istanbul with news of a victory. For that reason, Mustafa wanted to try to crush the Spanish relief army before he departed.
As the Ottomans approached Naxxar, there was a race to see which side could seize the high ground. The Spanish won the race, and they immediately began pushing back the Ottomans. Arquebusiers on both sides poured fire into their foe’s ranks. When the Ottomans wavered, the Spanish pikemen crashed into their lines. A rout ensued, with the Ottomans having no choice but to conduct a fighting retreat north to Saint Paul’s Bay.
OTTOMAN MISTAKES
The Ottoman army lost 24,000 of its 40,000 men in the failed siege. A significant number of those succumbed to disease and the climate. Of the 5,700 Christian troops on Malta, only 600 survived.
The siege is remembered as one of the epic Christian-muslim clashes of the 16th century.
The Ottoman loss can be chalked up to divisive leadership, flawed strategy and lack of safe drinking water. The soldiers were blameless, having fought heroically. What’s more, the defeat derailed Ottoman plans to control the North African coast.
As for the Knights of Saint John, they had shown they were formidable on both land and sea. The Order’s victory was due to La Valette’s inspiring leadership, the high morale of the troops and the arrival of the Spanish army. Without any one of those factors, Malta might have fallen.