1565
The white cross of the Order of St. John waved on the towers of Rhodes
for two hundred and fifty-five years. In 1552, after a desperate
resistance, the Turks, under their great Sultan, Solyman the
Magnificent, succeeded in driving the Knights Hospitaliers from their
beautiful home, and they were again cast upon the world.
They were resolved, however, to continue their old work of protecting
the Mediterranean travelers, and thankfully accepted, as a gift from the
Emperor Charles V., the little islet of Malta as their new station. It
was a great contrast to their former home, being little more than a mere
rock rising steeply out of the sea, white, glaring and with very shallow
earth, unfit to bear corn, though it produced plenty of oranges, figs,
and melons--with little water, and no wood,--the buildings wretched, and
for the most part uninhabited, and the few people a miserable mongrel
set, part Arab, part Greek, part Sicilian, and constantly kept down by
the descents of the Moorish pirates, who used to land in the unprotected
bays, and carry off all the wretched beings they could catch, to sell
for slaves. It was a miserable exchange from fertile Rhodes, which was
nearly five times larger than this barren rock; but the Knights only
wanted a hospital, a fortress, and a harbour; and this last they found
in the deeply indented northern shore, while they made the first two.
Only a few years had passed before the dreary Citta Notabile had become
in truth a notable city, full of fine castle-like houses,
infirmaries, and noble churches, and fenced in with mighty wall and
battlements--country houses were perched upon the rocks--the harbors
were fortified, and filled with vessels of war--and deep vaults were
hollowed out in the rock, in which corn was stored sufficient to supply
the inhabitants for many months.
Everywhere that there was need was seen the red flag with the eight-
pointed cross. If there was an earthquake on the shores of Italy or
Sicily, there were the ships of St. John, bringing succor to the crushed
and ruined townspeople. In every battle with Turk or Moor, the Knights
were among the foremost; and, as ever before, their galleys were the aid
of the peaceful merchant, and the terror of the corsair. Indeed, they
were nearer Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, the great nests of these
Moorish pirates, and were better able to threaten them, and thwart their
cruel descents, than when so much farther eastward; and the Mahometan
power found them quite as obnoxious in Malta as in Rhodes.
Solyman the Magnificent resolved, in his old age, to sweep these
obstinate Christians from the seas, and, only twelve years after the
siege of Rhodes, prepared an enormous armament, which he united with
those of the Barbary pirates, and placed under the command of Mustafa
and Piali, his two bravest pashas, and Dragut, a terrible Algerine
corsair, who had already made an attempt upon the island, but had been
repulsed by the good English knight, Sir Nicholas Upton. Without
the advice of this pirate the Sultan desired that nothing should be
undertaken.
The Grand Master who had to meet this tremendous danger was Jean Parisot
de la Valette, a brave and resolute man, as noted for his piety and
tenderness to the sick in the infirmaries as for his unflinching
courage. When he learnt the intentions of the Sultan, he began by
collecting a Chapter of his Order, and, after laying his tidings before
them, said: 'A formidable army and a cloud of barbarians are about to
burst on this isle. Brethren, they are the enemies of Jesus Christ. The
question is the defense of the Faith, and whether the Gospel shall yield
to the Koran. God demands from us the life that we have already devoted
to Him by our profession. Happy they who in so good a cause shall first
consummate their sacrifice. But, that we may be worthy, my brethren, let
us hasten to the altar, there to renew our vows; and may to each one
of us be imparted, by the very Blood of the Saviour of mankind, and
by faithful participation in His Sacraments, that generous contempt of
death that can alone render us invincible.'
With these words, he led the way to the church, and there was not an
individual knight who did not on that day confess and receive the
Holy Communion; after which they were as new men--all disputes, all
trivialities and follies were laid aside--and the whole community
awaited the siege like persons under a solemn dedication.
The chief harbour of Malta is a deep bay, turned towards the north, and
divided into two lesser bays by a large tongue of rock, on the point
of which stood a strong castle, called Fort St. Elmo. The gulf to the
westward has a little island in it, and both gulf and islet are called
Marza Muscat. The gulf to the east, called the Grand Port, was again
divided by three fingers of rock projecting from the mainland, at right
angles to the tongue that bore Fort St. Elmo. Each finger was armed with
a strong talon--the Castle of La Sangle to the east, the Castle of St.
Angelo in the middle, and Fort Ricasoli to the west. Between St. Angelo
and La Sangle was the harbour where all the ships of war were shut up
at night by an immense chain; and behind was il Borgo, the chief
fortification in the island. Citta Notabile and Gozo were inland, and
their fate would depend upon that of the defenses of the harbor. To
defend all this, the Grand Master could only number 700 knights and
8,500 soldiers. He sent to summon home all those of the Order who were
dispersed in the different commanderies in France, Spain, and Germany,
and entreated aid from the Spanish king, Philip II., who wished to be
considered as the prime champion of Roman Catholic Christendom, and
who alone had the power of assisting him. The Duke of Alva, viceroy
for Philip in Sicily, made answer that he would endeavor to relieve the
Order, if they could hold out Fort St. Elmo till the fleet could be got
together; but that if this castle were once lost, it would be impossible
to bring them aid, and they must be left to their fate.
The Grand Master divided the various posts to the knights according to
their countries. The Spaniards under the Commander De Guerras, Bailiff
of Negropont, had the Castle of St. Elmo; the French had Port de la
Sangle; the Germans, and the few English knights whom the Reformation
had left, were charged with the defense of the Port of the Borgo, which
served as headquarters, and the Commander Copier, with a body of troops,
was to remain outside the town and watch and harass the enemy.
On the 18th of May, 1565, the Turkish fleet came in sight. It consisted
of 159 ships, rowed by Christian slaves between the decks, and carrying
30,000 Janissaries and Spahis, the terrible warriors to whom the Turks
owed most of their victories, and after them came, spreading for miles
over the blue waters, a multitude of ships of burthen bringing the
horses of the Spahis, and such heavy battering cannon as rendered
the dangers of a siege infinitely greater than in former days. These
Janissaries were a strange, distorted resemblance of the knights
themselves, for they were bound in a strict brotherhood of arms, and
were not married, so as to care for nothing but each other, the Sultan,
and the honor of their troop. They were not dull, apathetic Turks, but
chiefly natives of Circassia and Georgia, the land where the human race
is most beautiful and nobly formed. They were stolen from their homes,
or, too often, sold by their parents when too young to remember their
Christian baptism, and were bred up as Mahometans, with no home but
their corps, no kindred but their fellow soldiers. Their title, given by
the Sultan who first enrolled them, meant New Soldiers, their ensign was
a camp kettle, as that of their Pashas was one, two, or three horses'
tails, in honor of the old Kurdish chief, the founder of the Turkish
empire; but there was no homeliness in their appointments, their
weapons--scimitars, pistols, and carabines--were crusted with gold and
jewels; their head-dress, though made in imitation of a sleeve, was
gorgeous, and their garments were of the richest wool and silk, dyed
with the deep, exquisite colours of the East. Terrible warriors were
they, and almost equally dreaded were the Spahis, light horsemen from
Albania and the other Greek and Bulgarian provinces who had entered the
Turkish service, and were great plunderers, swift and cruel, glittering,
both man and horse, with the jewels they had gained in their forays.
These were chiefly troops for the land attack, and they were set on
shore at Port St. Thomas, where the commanders, Mustafa and Piali, held
a council, to decide where they should first attack. Piali wished to
wait for Dragut, who was daily expected, but Mustafa was afraid of
losing time, and of being caught by the Spanish fleet, and insisted on
at once laying siege to Fort St. Elmo, which was, he thought, so small
that it could not hold out more than five or six days.
Indeed, it could not hold above 300 men, but these were some of the
bravest of the knights, and as it was only attacked on the land side,
they were able to put off boats at night and communicate with the
Grand Master and their brethren in the Borgo. The Turks set up their
batteries, and fired their enormous cannon shot upon the fortifications.
One of their terrible pieces of ordnance carried stone balls of 160
lb., and no wonder that stone and mortar gave way before it, and that
a breach was opened in a few days' time. That night, when, as usual,
boatloads of wounded men were transported across to the Borgo, the
Bailiff of Negropont sent the knight La Cerda to the Grand Master to
give an account of the state of things and ask for help. La Cerda spoke
strongly, and, before a great number of knights, declared that there was
no chance of so weak a place holding out for more than a week.
'What has been lost,' said the Grand Master, 'since you cry out for
help?'
'Sir,' replied La Cerda, 'the castle may be regarded as a patient in
extremity and devoid of strength, who can only be sustained by continual
remedies and constant succor.'
'I will be doctor myself,' replied the Grand Master, 'and will bring
others with me who, if they cannot cure you of fear, will at least be
brave enough to prevent the infidels from seizing the fort.'
The fact was, as he well knew, that the little fort could not hold
out long, and he grieved over the fate of his knights; but time was
everything, and the fate of the whole isle depended upon the white cross
being still on that point of land when the tardy Sicilian fleet should
set sail. He was one who would ask no one to run into perils that he
would not share, and he was bent on throwing himself into St. Elmo, and
being rather buried under the ruins than to leave the Mussulmans free a
moment sooner than could be helped to attack the Borgo and Castle of St.
Angelo. But the whole Chapter of Knights entreated him to abstain, and
so many volunteered for this desperate service, that the only difficulty
was to choose among them. Indeed, La Cerda had done the garrison
injustice; no one's heart was failing but his own; and the next day
there was a respite, for a cannon shot from St. Angelo falling into the
enemy's camp, shattered a stone, a splinter of which struck down
the Piali Pasha. He was thought dead, and the camp and fleet were in
confusion, which enabled the Grand Master to send off his nephew, the
Chevalier de la Valette Cornusson, to Messina to entreat the Viceroy of
Sicily to hasten to their relief; to give him a chart of the entrance of
the harbour, and a list of signals, and to desire in especial that
two ships belonging to the Order, and filled with the knights who had
hurried from distant lands too late for the beginning of the siege,
might come to him at once. To this the Viceroy returned a promise
that at latest the fleet should sail on the 15th of June, adding an
exhortation to him at all sacrifices to maintain St. Elmo. This reply
the Grand Master transmitted to the garrison, and it nerved them to
fight even with more patience and self-sacrifice. A desperate sally was
led by the Chevalier de Medran, who fought his way into the trenches
where the Turkish cannon were planted, and at first drove all before
him; but the Janissaries rallied and forced back the Christians out of
the trenches. Unfortunately there was a high wind, which drove the smoke
of the artillery down on the counter-scarp (the slope of masonry facing
the rampart), and while it was thus hidden from the Christians, the
Turks succeeded in effecting a lodgment there, fortifying themselves
with trees and sacks of earth and wool. When the smoke cleared off, the
knights were dismayed to see the horse-tail ensigns of the Janissaries
so near them, and cannon already prepared to batter the ravelin, or
outwork protecting the gateway.
La Cerda proposed to blow this fortification up, and abandon it, but no
other knight would hear of deserting an inch of wall while it could yet
be held.
But again the sea was specked with white sails from the south-east. Six
galleys came from Egypt, bearing 900 troops--Mameluke horsemen, troops
recruited much like the Janissaries and quite as formidable. These ships
were commanded by Ulucciali, an Italian, who had denied his faith and
become a Mahometan, and was thus regarded with especial horror by the
chivalry of Malta. And the swarm thickened for a few days more; like
white-winged and beautiful but venomous insects hovering round their
prey, the graceful Moorish galleys and galliots came up from the south,
bearing 600 dark-visaged, white-turbaned, lithe-limbed Moors from
Tripoli, under Dragut himself. The thunders of all the guns roaring
forth their salute of honor told the garrison that the most formidable
enemy of all had arrived. And now their little white rock was closed in
on every side, with nothing but its own firmness to be its aid.
Dragut did not approve of having begun with attacking Fort St. Elmo; he
thought that the inland towns should have been first taken, and Mustafa
offered to discontinue the attack, but this the Corsair said could not
now be done with honor, and under him the attack went on more furiously
than ever. He planted a battery of four guns on the point guarding the
entrance of Marza Muscat, the other gulf, and the spot has ever since
been called Dragut's Point. Strange to say, the soldiers in the ravelin
fell asleep, and thus enabled the enemy to scramble up by climbing on
one another's shoulders and enter the place. As soon as the alarm was
given, the Bailiff of Negropont, with a number of knights, rushed into
the ravelin, and fought with the utmost desperation, but all in vain;
they never succeeded in dislodging the Turks, and had almost been
followed by them into the Fort itself. Only the utmost courage turned
back the enemy at last, and, it was believed, with a loss of 3,000. The
Order had twenty knights and a hundred soldiers killed, with many more
wounded. One knight named Abel de Bridiers, who was shot through the
body, refused to be assisted by his brethren, saying, 'Reckon me no more
among the living. You will be doing better by defending our brothers.'
He dragged himself away, and was found dead before the altar in the
Castle chapel. The other wounded were brought back to the Borgo in boats
at night, and La Cerda availed himself of a slight scratch to come with
them and remain, though the Bailiff of Negropont, a very old man, and
with a really severe wound, returned as soon as it had been dressed,
together with the reinforcements sent to supply the place of those
who had been slain. The Grand Master, on finding how small had been La
Cerda's hurt, put him in prison for several days; but he was afterwards
released, and met his death bravely on the ramparts of the Borgo.
The 15th of June was passed. Nothing would make the Sicilian Viceroy
move, nor even let the warships of the Order sail with their own
knights, and the little fort that had been supposed unable to hold out a
week, had for full a month resisted every attack of the enemy.
At last Dragut, though severely wounded while reconnoitring, set up a
battery on the hill of Calcara, so as to command the strait, and hinder
the succors from being sent across to the fort. The wounded were laid
down in the chapel and the vaults, and well it was for them that each
knight of the Order could be a surgeon and a nurse. One good swimmer
crossed under cover of darkness with their last messages, and La Valette
prepared five armed boats for their relief; but the enemy had fifteen
already in the bay, and communication was entirely cut off. It was the
night before the 23rd of June when these brave men knew their time was
come. All night they prayed, and prepared themselves to die by giving
one another the last rites of the Church, and at daylight each repaired
to his post, those who could not walk being carried in chairs, and sat
ghastly figures, sword in hand, on the brink of the breach, ready for
their last fight.
By the middle of the day every Christian knight in St. Elmo had died
upon his post, and the little heap of ruins was in the hands of the
enemy. Dragut was dying of his wound, but just lived to hear that the
place was won, when it had cost the Sultan 8,000 men! Well might Mustafa
say, 'If the son has cost us so much, what will the father do?'
It would be too long to tell the glorious story of the three months'
further siege of the Borgo. The patience and resolution of the knights
was unshaken, though daily there were tremendous battles, and week after
week passed by without the tardy relief from Spain. It is believed that
Philip II. thought that the Turks would exhaust themselves against the
Order, and forbade his Viceroy to hazard his fleet; but at last he
was shamed into permitting the armament to be fitted out. Two hundred
knights of St. John were waiting at Messina, in despair at being unable
to reach their brethren in their deadly strait, and constantly haunting
the Viceroy's palace, till he grew impatient, and declared they did not
treat him respectfully enough, nor call him 'Excellency'.
'Senor,' said one of them, 'if you will only bring us in time to save
the Order, I will call you anything you please, excellency, highness, or
majesty itself.'
At last, on the 1st of September, the fleet really set sail, but it
hovered cautiously about on the farther side of the island, and only
landed 6,000 men and then returned to Sicily. However, the tidings of
its approach had spread such a panic among the Turkish soldiers, who
were worn out and exhausted by their exertions, that they hastily raised
the siege, abandoned their heavy artillery, and, removing their garrison
from Fort St. Elmo, re-embarked in haste and confusion. No sooner,
however, was the Pasha in his ship than he became ashamed of his
precipitation, more especially when he learnt that the relief that had
put 16,000 men to flight consisted only of 6,000, and he resolved to
land and give battle; but his troops were angry and unwilling, and were
actually driven out of their ships by blows.
In the meantime, the Grand Master had again placed a garrison in St.
Elmo, which the Turks had repaired and restored, and once more the cross
of St. John waved on the end of its tongue of land, to greet the Spanish
allies. A battle was fought with the newly arrived troops, in which the
Turks were defeated; they again took to their ships, and the Viceroy of
Sicily, from Syracuse, beheld their fleet in full sail for the East.
Meantime, the gates of the Borgo were thrown open to receive the
brethren and friends who had been so long held back from coming to the
relief of the home of the Order. Four months' siege, by the heaviest
artillery in Europe, had shattered the walls and destroyed the streets,
till, to the eyes of the newcomers, the town looked like a place taken
by assault, and sacked by the enemy; and of the whole garrison, knights,
soldiers, and sailors altogether, only six hundred were left able to
bear arms, and they for the most part covered with wounds. The Grand
Master and his surviving knights could hardly be recognized, so pale and
altered were they by wounds and excessive fatigue; their hair, beards,
dress, and armor showing that for four full months they had hardly
undressed, or lain down unarmed. The newcomers could not restrain their
tears, but all together proceeded to the church to return thanks for the
conclusion of their perils and afflictions. Rejoicings extended all over
Europe, above all in Italy, Spain, and southern France, where the Order
of St. John was the sole protection against the descents of the Barbary
corsairs. The Pope sent La Valette a cardinal's hat, but he would not
accept it, as unsuited to his office; Philip II. presented him with a
jeweled sword and dagger. Some thousand unadorned swords a few months
sooner would have been a better testimony to his constancy, and that of
the brave men whose lives Spain had wasted by her cruel delays.
The Borgo was thenceforth called Citta Vittoriosa; but La Valette
decided on building the chief town of the isle on the Peninsula of Fort
St. Elmo, and in this work he spent his latter days, till he was killed
by a sunstroke, while superintending the new works of the city which is
deservedly known by his name, as Valetta.
The Order of St. John lost much of its character, and was finally swept
from Malta in the general confusion of the Revolutionary wars. The
British crosses now float in the harbour of Malta; but the steep white
rocks must ever bear the memory of the self-devoted endurance of the
beleaguered knights, and, foremost of all, of those who perished in St.
Elmo, in order that the signal banner might to the very last summon the
tardy Viceroy to their aid.