Settlement of the Order at Malta.--A Barren Waste.--A New
Era for the Natives.--Foundling Hospitals.--Grand Master La
Vallette.--Sailors and Soldiers.--Capture of Prisoners at
Mondon.--A Slave Story in Brief.--Christian Corsairs!--The
Ottomans attack the Knights in their New Home.--Defeat of
the Turks.--Terrible Slaughter of Human Beings.--Civil
War.--Summary Punishment.--Some Details of a Famous Siege.
When the Knights of St. John accepted the gift of Charles V., and
removed to their new island home in October, 1530, they came in small
numbers. Their fleet consisted only of three galleys, one galliot, and a
brigantine. Malta was then comparatively a barren waste; nothing could
appear less inviting. With the picture of verdant, sunny Rhodes still
fresh in their minds, these bare rocks must have seemed terribly
inhospitable and dreary to the new-comers. The very title of Rhodes is
of Greek origin, having its appropriate appellation, and refers to the
great number of wild roses which grow spontaneously upon that lovely
island. The Knights had lived long and prosperously upon what was and is
still known as the "Garden of the Levant," hence the contrast was
naturally disheartening. Here the rocky surface was treeless and white
with desolation. In Rhodes they had left whole forests of sycamores,
planes, and palms, together with groves of olive, almond, and orange
trees, while in Malta arboreal ornamentation was literally conspicuous
by its absence.
The thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude intersects both of these
famous islands, which are, however, separated by six degrees of
longitude, the climate being nearly identical. Rhodes was larger than
their new island home, its earlier history showing it to have been, like
Malta, at one time in the far past, a prosperous Phoenician colony.
There was no alternative for the Knights except to make the best of the
situation, and so without wasting time in useless regrets, or repining,
they set to work energetically to introduce improvements, and to adapt
the locality to their most urgent necessities. The present site of
Valletta was then sparsely occupied by a few poorly constructed cabins,
Citta Vecchia, situated two leagues inland, being the capital of the
island. The Knights first selected their headquarters at Borgo, on the
shore of the present Grand Harbor. After the decisive victory over the
Turks in 1565, Borgo was named Citta Vittoriosa, that is, the
"victorious city," in honor of the gallant defense it made on that
memorable occasion, and thus it is known to-day.
As to the Maltese peasantry, who were thus summarily transferred from
one mastership to another without being permitted any voice whatever in
the matter, they naturally received the new-comers at first with
considerable reservation, but were soon on friendly terms with them, and
erelong they cordially joined interests. At the first coming of the
Knights, it is true, the Maltese were not in a condition to dispute the
new authority placed over them, yet they had influence enough to exact
from the brotherhood certain satisfactory terms as the price of their
yielding ready submission. The Grand Master, in behalf of the order,
solemnly swore to "preserve inviolate, for the inhabitants of the group,
all of their present rights, customs, and privileges." Realizing the
importance of retaining the good-will of the people, the fraternity as a
body were careful to exercise towards them, in these early days of their
settlement here, great consideration and generosity. They did not bear
themselves as conquerors, but rather as friends, a community having a
common interest, and they demanded no service from the Maltese for which
they did not honestly pay. They encouraged them to till the ground by
introducing new seeds, and by giving the natives valuable and practical
information. They brought fruit and ornamental trees from the mainland,
and in many ways stimulated the islanders to adopt progressive and
profitable ideas for their own special benefit. The Maltese were a
coarse, uncultured race, scarcely amenable to argument, and difficult to
reason with. They followed in the footsteps of their forefathers, and
ignored all experiments, however promising. But tangible results were
convincing, and so steady improvement followed the efforts of the
Knights to enlighten the dull native brain.
It was the beginning of a new era for this isolated people. The spirit
of neglect which had so long reigned supreme upon the group was now
superseded by another instinct with life and enterprise. Though the
natives had not sufficient intelligence to originate ideas, yet when
placed before their eyes they could appreciate and adopt them. The mass
of the people seemed neither to know nor to care about the government
under which they lived, provided they did not experience any personal
harm or undue restrictions at the hands of those in power. They appeared
to be content so long as they were permitted to join in the almost daily
church processions and festivals, always remembering and demanding the
utmost freedom at recurrence of the annual Carnival. They entertained no
spirit of loyalty except towards themselves and their hereditary forms
and ceremonies. This was nearly four hundred years ago, but almost
precisely the same spirit prevails among the Maltese to-day.
At the time when the Knights first came hither, Malta was hardly
fortified at all. True, Fort St. Angelo existed in name, and it mounted
a few small guns, but a score of Algerine pirates could have landed and
taken possession, so far as any protection was afforded by this apology
for a fort.
The thin layer of soil which covered the rocks of the island here and
there was hardly sufficient to till, and no extensive effort at
agriculture or gardening seems to have been made by the natives before
the Knights came to Malta, or at least not for centuries. In any other
hands save those of this thrifty and determined semi-military
organization, the island would have been but a sorry gift. It is
described by a popular writer of that period as being "nothing better
than a shelterless rock of soft sandstone called tufa." Subsistence for
the dwellers upon the group, with the exception of fish, which were
plenty enough, was brought almost entirely from Sicily, or the mainland.
Frequent invasions of Saracens and Turks, continued for so many years,
had devastated the islands, discouraging and impoverishing the natives,
large numbers of whom had been carried away by the invaders and sold
into slavery. This was the usual mode of disposing of prisoners of war
in those days among people of the East. According to the authority from
which we have just quoted, Malta was in 1530 "intensely dry and hot,
with not a forest tree, and hardly a green thing to rest the eye upon."
This barren waste, however, was destined in the course of a few years to
put on a very different aspect, and to become an attractive example of
fertility and fruitfulness; in fact, a depot of vast importance, by the
exercise of energy and engineering skill.
The material improvements thus introduced, together with the protection
from foreign enemies which the Maltese gained, was to be considered with
many qualifications. Magdalen asylums and foundling hospitals, to which
priests and Knights could recommend their favorites for shelter, became
most suspiciously numerous. The inference is only too plain. The native
population, as usual, emulated not the virtues, but the vices of the
new-comers. That the group must have flourished greatly under the
Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans, there are plenty of
monuments still extant to prove; but under the Arabs and Sicilians it
had gradually declined, until the period when it came into possession of
the Knights of St. John, who began promptly to restore its fallen
fortunes, though, as has been intimated, at the expense of the morals of
the people.
The galleys of the order did not lie idle after the fraternity had
become fairly settled at Malta. They were promptly put in fighting
condition, and constantly swept the neighboring seas, capturing prizes
in all directions, even seeking the Turkish craft at the very mouth of
the Dardanelles, and the Algerines on their own coast. The Knights
filled the fighting ranks of the crews in their ships with Maltese, who
were admirable sailors, and reliable for all sorts of sea-service. A
score of Knights were quite sufficient to man each galleon, aided by a
hundred or thereabouts of the trained seamen of the island. The slaves
at the oars were not depended upon to act as belligerents, nor were the
few hands who managed the sails and the running gear of the vessels. The
Maltese had long before signalized themselves for valor and skillful
seamanship under their own commanders, by capturing the entire Venetian
fleet, together with Andrea Dandolo, the admiral who commanded it. At
another time they destroyed the large flotilla of the Republic of Pisa,
and thus raised the siege and blockade of Syracuse. Though the
protection afforded the inhabitants of the group by the Order of St.
John was ample, and freed the people from all fear of predatory
invasions, still the influence of the Knights was less for peace than
for war, and, as has been shown, was not calculated to permanently
improve the material condition of the common people of Malta.
The renowned Dragut, daring and reckless pirate as he was, shunned a
meeting with the red galleys of the Knights. "Fate is with them," said
this dreaded corsair, referring to the armor-clad Knights, whom he had
so often met in battle. "Our swords will not wound, nor our spears
pierce them."
La Vallette, who was at this time "General" of the galleys, proved
himself as successful at sea as he did afterwards upon the land, when,
as Grand Master, he conducted the famous and successful defense of
Malta. His career was a remarkable one. He became a Knight before he was
of age, and was conscientiously devoted to the order, body and soul, to
the very last of his life. A predatory warfare both on land and sea was
carried on incessantly by the Knights against the Turks, in which they
were almost always successful. The historians tell us that during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Valletta became a vast slave mart,
supplied with human merchandise by means of the invasions and
sea-captures of the order. On one occasion a thoroughly organized and
well-equipped force engaged in an expedition by which the Knights
surprised and captured the city of Mondon, in Morea, whence they brought
away a large amount of riches. We find enumerated in the list of their
booty, eight hundred Turkish women and girls, whom they enslaved! The
reader will please remember that we are writing of a fraternity,--a
so-called religious brotherhood,--whose solemn vows bound them to
charity, poverty, humility, and chastity. One feels not a little
inclined to moralize, in this connection, upon the contrast between
profession and practice, and on the weakness of human nature in general.
These Knights of the cross reveled in cruel warfare; it was recreation
to them. They displayed no want of valor, but they did exhibit "a
plentiful lack" of Christian charity.
Among the beautiful women who fell into the hands of the Knights at the
capture of Mondon was one possessed of marvelous loveliness both of form
and features. Soon after her capture she became the property of Viscomte
Cicala, who finally made her his wife. Being his slave, there could be
no choice on her part, whether she would consent to the arrangement or
not. The fruit of this marriage was a son, whom the father named Scipio,
and had baptized into the Roman Catholic faith. This boy, when he grew
up to man's estate, as the story runs, to fulfill a solemn vow made to
his mother hastened to Constantinople, where he enlisted in the Ottoman
army, and promptly embraced Mohammedanism. By his extraordinary valor
and intelligence as an officer in the Sultan's service, he rose rapidly
to the command of the Turkish army. In this position he proved himself
one of the most able and active enemies the Christians had to contend
with. He caused great destruction in their ranks, because of the
knowledge he possessed of their modes of warfare. When he was engaged in
battle with the Christians, his war-cry was, "Remember Mondon!"
In the lapse of years, aggravated by the numberless onslaughts of the
Knights upon their commerce, also envying the great improvement and
manifest prosperity evinced at Malta under the management of L'Isle Adam
and his successor, La Vallette, Turkish jealousy was aroused to the
highest point of endurance. The commerce of Egypt and Syria was in
danger of annihilation. The Knights of St. John were virtual masters of
the narrow seas,--they were the "Christian" corsairs of the Levant! In
the forty-three years which had transpired since the Knights were driven
from Rhodes, the Turks had many times seen cause to regret the clemency
which had been exercised toward the Christians in allowing them to
depart from the island in peace. The Sultan's royal liberality, it must
be confessed, had been ill-rewarded. The Order of St. John had proved to
be more of a thorn in the side of the Ottoman power than when its
stronghold was on the nearer island. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the Sultan resolved again to attack the Knights in their more
recent home, and thereby not only to avenge the great losses which his
people had sustained on sea and land, but also so effectually to
demolish the power of the Knights as to disperse and break up the order
altogether. Twice the Sultan brought large, well-organized forces to
Malta for this purpose, first in 1546 and again in 1551, on both of
which occasions the Ottomans were ignominiously defeated, and as usual
with great slaughter. Their admitted losses aggregated from ten to
twelve thousand men, killed outright, on each of these occasions. Their
perseverance under such discouraging circumstances was marvelous, yet
only characteristic of the race. The Turks always fought bravely, hand
to hand, spurred on by a religious frenzy which led them to disregard
all personal danger. They had no fear of death, which to the faithful
Mussulman only signified instant transportation to the Mohammedan
paradise, with them "a consummation devoutly to be wished."
The Ottomans stormed the fortifications of the Knights at great
disadvantage. Inspired by their fanaticism, they advanced over the dead
bodies of their comrades, which formed a bridge across the deep ditch,
while the defenders were sustained by a lofty and heroic resolve to
conquer or to die. The meeting of such opponents caused blood to flow
like water, while the sacrifice of human life must have been enormous.
It was the calm, unshrinking determination of the soldiers of the cross
that rendered them so invincible, both on sea and on land, and that
insured them victory, though they were always outnumbered in every
conflict. A few score of men inspired by such a strong will as actuated
the Knights of St. John, and so well versed in the use of deadly
weapons, became a host in themselves. It was in the siege of 1551 that
the order lost one of the most active and important of its members in
the person of the Cavalier Repton, Grand Prior of England, whose prowess
as a soldier of the cross was long remembered by his brethren in arms.
This frenzy, leading to the sacrifice of one's life in the hope of
gaining Paradise, as exhibited by the Turks, seems ridiculous, no doubt,
to the average reader, but it exists to-day in various forms among
Eastern nations. The devout Hindoo solemnly believes that the shortest
road to eternal life is to be submerged in the all-cleansing, sacred
Ganges. His body is in the ordinary course burned upon its banks, while
the ashes are carefully gathered and cast into the flowing tide. So
infatuated were the pilgrims at one time, who came to Benares to bathe
in the sacred river, that the English police were obliged to use force
to prevent them from drowning themselves and their infants in these
waters. It was so with the Turks, who believed themselves to be serving
Allah and dying in his service, when they fought the Christian soldiers.
"These infidels seem to welcome death," said Grand Master La Vallette,
while at his advanced age he was wielding the deadly battle-axe upon the
ramparts during the siege of Malta.
In the two attempts upon the island in 1546 and in 1551, the Mohammedans
outnumbered the Maltese garrison ten to one. Having so often tested the
prowess of the Christians in battle, the Turks would not attack the
Knights except with a force much superior in numbers. In their most
prosperous days in Malta, the Knights proper, that is, those holding
full membership in the order, never numbered more than six or seven
hundred, but there were various grades of men-at-arms, and of trained
native Maltese, attached to the service of the Knights, thus swelling
the fighting force to a fairly effective body. Many of the Knights were
distributed over Europe, the order having "chapters," or "commanderies,"
as they were called, in France, Germany, England, Spain, and Italy, from
which the headquarters at Malta drew pecuniary support to meet all
ordinary demands upon it. But the treasury of the order was amply
supplied in reality by preying upon the commerce of the Mediterranean
between Sicily and the Levant. Occasionally, when seriously weakened by
warfare, fresh members from these European depots joined the main body
on the island for more active duty. A requisition to that effect being
issued by the Grand Master, it was responded to with alacrity by the
home members. It was a period when chivalry flourished in Europe, as we
have already indicated, when warfare against the Mohammedans was deemed
among the Christians an absolute service to God.
There was undoubtedly an _esprit de corps_ among the Knights of St.
John, which was strong enough to hold them in the ordinary bonds of
brotherhood, and to keep up the forms of their religious vows and
purposes. Yet those who knew their history at this period do not credit
them with much consistency or pious devotion to the sacred obligations
which they had voluntarily assumed. They were often anything but
harmonious among themselves, requiring the intervention of stern rules
exercised by an unquestionable authority.
While L'Isle Adam was alive, bending under the accumulated weight of
many years, and still suffering much pain from the wounds he had
received in various battles with the Turks, he was nearly disheartened
and broken down with sorrow at the growth of domestic quarrels and
jealousies among the fraternity over which he presided. In vain were all
his earnest admonitions and pacific attempts at reconciliation. The time
had come for exemplary action. He was severely just in administering the
duties of his responsible office, and was both respected and feared by
all backsliders. One cause, and perhaps the principal one, which induced
quarrels among the Knights was that of the difference of language. There
was a certain national rivalry which was ever coming to the surface, and
which proved a chronic source of trouble. This spirit finally broke
forth in open warfare, civil war, and was conducted with deadly
hostility between the several factions. Duels and personal conflicts
were of daily occurrence. It was a crisis in the history of the order,
but L'Isle Adam, notwithstanding his physical infirmities, was fully
equal to the trying occasion. He had faced the furious enemy in too many
a hard fought battle to know anything like hesitancy at a critical
moment. A brief court-martial was promptly held; the trial of the
accused Knights was short and decisive. The reckless and guilty culprits
found that they had been playing with fire. Twelve of the accused were
ordered to be stripped of their official garments and insignia, and were
ignominiously expelled from the order and the island, while an equal
number were condemned to immediate death. These last were inclosed in
canvas bags, after they had been securely bound with ropes, and, similar
to the Turkish fashion of treating unfaithful women, they were thrown
into the sea to drown! It was the iron hand of discipline, Oriental and
heathenish in the character of the punishment, but it was effective in
its results. Any halting in purpose on the part of L'Isle Adam at that
critical moment would have proved to be the death of the order. We may
be sure that there were no more attempts at civil war among the Knights.
Order was firmly reestablished. The vows of the members bound them to
the most implicit obedience. They were rebellious; they disregarded the
Grand Master's commands, and consequently they suffered condign
punishment.
A terrible example having thus been made, the members realized
thereafter both the certainty and the severity of the punishment which
awaited those who indulged a like rebellious spirit. Four years after
the settlement of the order in the island of Malta, L'Isle Adam died.
This was in 1534.
It was in 1565 that the Porte made its greatest and final effort to
capture Malta from the Knights of St. John. The Sultan determined to
crush out the life of a fraternity which for centuries had been so
persistently arrayed against his race. The immediate circumstance which
at last awakened the fury of Solyman, and brought matters to a climax,
was the capture by the Knights of a Turkish galleon, on the Ottoman
coast, richly laden, and belonging to the chief black eunuch of his
royal establishment. Enraged at this, the Sultan vowed to bring about
the destruction of his old enemies, if it cost the lives of half his
subjects. In pursuance of this resolve, after a full year occupied in
elaborate preparations, one hundred and thirty vessels, carrying about
forty thousand men, sailed from Constantinople, under command of Mustafa
Pasha, who had grown old in the wars of his country, and having been
joined by an Algerine flotilla manned by piratical crews, and led by the
notorious corsair Dragut, appeared in due form, May 18, 1565, upon the
Maltese coast. The force thus organized on the part of the Turks was one
of the most complete, in its warlike character, which had ever floated
in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. Its success seemed to be
a foregone conclusion with all except the gallant Knights themselves.
In the mean time, while this grand expedition was being organized, La
Vallette, then Grand Master of the Knights, was kept well informed of
every movement at Constantinople, and he was by no means idle. Every
exertion was made to place the island in a good condition of defense. A
general summons was issued, recalling all Knights who were absent in
Europe. A large body of infantry was raised in Sicily, two thousand men
and more, who were gradually transferred to the island. Ample quantities
of provisions, arms, and ammunition were accumulated. The native militia
enthusiastically joined the service of the Knights, and were carefully
trained to the handling of weapons preparatory to the arrival of the
enemy. Thus, when the Turks made their appearance, the Grand Master had
at his command a force of about nine thousand men, well prepared to meet
them. Nearly six hundred of this number were Knights proper, full
members of the Order of St. John. These latter had been trained from
boyhood to the use of warlike weapons, and each man was equal to a score
of ordinary soldiers, as organized in those days. Still, it must have
been an anxious occasion among the Christians and their allies, the
Maltese, especially so to those who remembered the siege of Rhodes. The
Ottomans were much more formidable now than they were then. They
conquered in 1522. Who could say what would be the result in 1565? The
Mohammedans, as usual, vastly outnumbered their opponents; indeed, it is
reported that Solyman declared: "I will send soldiers enough to walk
over the bodies of these proud Knights without unsheathing their swords
to fight." The Sultan was so confident of victory that all his
arrangements were made for the future occupancy and governorship of the
Maltese group.
The Grand Master assembled the Knights to an extraordinary meeting. He
bade them reconcile themselves with God and with each other, and then
prepare to lay down their lives, if necessary, in defense of the faith
which they had sworn to shield. All schisms were forgotten, as might
naturally be expected. The order, in face of an enemy, was as one
individual. After renewing their vows in the most solemn manner, they
joined hands and hearts in the great purpose of defense, resolving to
inflict dire destruction upon the common enemy. There was no more
jealousy or rivalry between individuals of the order, except as to which
should exhibit the greatest and most effective bravery upon the
ramparts, or on the occasion of a sortie. This spirit of chivalrous
emulation among the Knights cost the enemy daily many scores of lives.
Thus began one of the most sanguinary sieges ever recorded in history.
It lasted for nearly four months, and was characterized by unrelenting
desperation on both sides, reviving again the bloody scenes which were
enacted at Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes. The thirty-five years which had
transpired since the Knights took possession of Malta had been largely
devoted to strengthening their means of defense, and in supplying their
armory with the most effective death-dealing weapons. The present site
of Valletta, it should be remembered, was then simply the bare
promontory of Mount Sceberris.
The Grand Master knew every movement of the enemy, through the capable
spies whom he maintained at Constantinople, and was promptly informed by
them of the sailing of the expedition. The Christian forces, therefore,
were in no wise taken by surprise, while the Turks were amazed at the
ample preparation evinced in the manner their first onslaught was
received, and the terrible slaughter of their forces, while the cheering
battle-cry of the Knights of St. John rang ominously in their ears. They
could not have hoped to take the Christians wholly unawares, but they
had no idea that the Knights were so thoroughly prepared to receive them
with stout arms, keen-edged weapons, and an abundance of death-dealing
missiles. The invaders had brought siege artillery with them, and after
the first assault, from which they had hoped to achieve so much, but in
which they were tellingly repulsed, leaving hundreds of their best
soldiers dead in the trenches and upon the open field, they resorted to
their reserved means of offense. Some of their cannon were of such
enormous calibre as to throw stones weighing three hundred pounds. Yet
so clumsy was this primitive artillery, and so awkwardly was it served,
that it often inflicted more destruction on the Turkish gunners
themselves than on the Christians.
The struggle raged fiercely day by day, and the victims were reckoned by
hundreds among the enemy every twenty-four hours. The carnage among the
besiegers was awful. Their close ranks were mowed down by the Knights,
as grass falls before the scythe of the husbandman.
When the Ottoman soldiers came in a body, bearing scaling-ladders
wherewith to reach the top of the rampart of St. Elmo, and while they
were in the most exposed situation, sharp-cornered stones, as heavy as
two men could lift, were launched suddenly upon those ascending the
ladders, forcing them to the ground, and killing them in large numbers.
Boiling pitch was poured upon the upturned faces of the assailants,
blinding and agonizing them. Iron hoops bound with cotton thoroughly
saturated with gum and gunpowder were set on fire, and so thrown as to
encircle the heads of three or four of the enemy, binding them together
in a fiery circle which they could not extinguish, and which burned them
fatally before they reached the ground below. Many other horribly
destructive and fatal devices were adopted by the defenders, which
spread death in all directions among the Turks. When one of the enemy
succeeded in reaching the top of the ramparts, he was instantly met by a
Knight, whose keen battle-axe severed his head from the body, both head
and body tumbling back into the ditch among the assailants. Still, the
indomitable Ottomans renewed their attacks from day to day, hoping to
carry the fort at last by exhausting the physical endurance of the
defenders, though it should cost ten Mussulmans' lives for one
Christian. Each time they marched to the assault, the death-dealing
rocks, the boiling pitch, and the fiery hoops did their terrible work,
in connection with the ordinary weapons of war, in the use of which the
Knights were so expert. It is said that in the hands of a powerful man
familiar with it, no weapon is so destructive at close quarters as the
broad-bladed, keen-edged battle-axe of those days. The Orientals
depended almost solely upon their crude firearms,--the
blunderbuss,--together with their light swords and spears.
Early in the siege of which we are speaking, the commander of the
Mohammedan army resorted energetically to mining, in furtherance of
their attack upon Fort St. Elmo, but the Knights were no novices at
counter mining. On one occasion the Turkish engineers had sprung a
device of this sort so near to the defensive bastions as to make a wide
breach in the stout walls. This was not unexpected by the Knights, who
had, in fact, been on the watch for just such an opportunity. Hardly had
the shower of the debris ceased to fall, before the enemy rushed forward
to enter the fort by the newly made breach. The turbaned throng, a
thousand men and more, with waving banners and upraised swords, crowded
together upon the spot, little heeding what was to follow. And yet there
was a moment's pause, a moment of utter silence, as though those
soldiers of the crescent instinctively waited for something to happen,
they knew not what. It was like the awful stillness which precedes the
hurricane at sea. The moment this pause occurred, the Knights sprung a
well-prepared mine beneath the very feet of the densely crowded body of
the enemy, blowing nearly two thirds of their immediate assailants to
instant death! Seven hundred Turks are said to have lost their lives at
that terribly fatal explosion, as though struck by lightning. The whole
Ottoman force rapidly withdrew in utter confusion and amazement.
The moral effect of this frightful catastrophe to their army led to
quiet in the Turkish camp for several days, though it did not fail to
create among the invaders a spirit of revenge which amounted almost to
madness.
Jean de La Vallette, Grand Master of the order, was well fitted for his
position in this great emergency. He was seen everywhere, even in the
thickest of the fight, praising the valor of the Knights and leading the
most hardy. Though he was gray with age, being threescore years and ten,
still his practiced arm was stout and able to wield the terrible
battle-axe with dire effect. He had always been famous for his
expertness with this weapon. He was the _beau ideal_ of the
soldier-monk, and the true embodiment of a spirit of chivalry which was
fast passing away. At this special time his experience was of the
greatest advantage, and his judgment was always sound. Having once been
a captive among the Turks for a considerable period, he knew their mode
of warfare, and spoke their language. Though stern and inflexible in
character, and often charged with cruelty, he is represented to have
been always just, and devoutly religious. To his skill, courage, and
iron will, together with a spirit of tireless energy, more than aught
else, the Ottomans owed their final defeat. His very name has become a
synonym with the Maltese for genius, piety, and courage.
It is true that on the closing days of the siege, the Knights of St.
John were joined by long-delayed reinforcements sent from Italy, but so
far as we can discover, these fresh troops were not called upon to go
into action with the enemy. The siege was virtually already at an end
when they arrived upon the scene. The Turkish army had suffered beyond
all precedent. Three quarters of their number had laid down their lives
in this sanguinary and useless siege. The fort of St. Elmo had finally
been captured by the enemy, but forts St. Angelo and St. Michael still
remained intact. These forts were also stormed again and again, but the
now weary and disheartened Ottomans were repulsed each time with awful
slaughter. At last, when it became known that reinforcements sent to the
Knights had actually landed upon another part of the island, Mustafa
Pasha was compelled to order the galleys to prepare to sail for
Constantinople with the small and shattered remnant of his army. Further
prosecution of the siege was out of the question, and those of the
Turkish army still left alive, struck by a panic, threw away their
arms, and fled toward the galleys.
In this hasty and demoralized retreat of the enemy, the Knights saw
their chance for an effective dash; so getting a few score of cavalry
together, until now inoperative, they fell upon the rear of the fleeing
Turks and slaughtered them in large numbers, while many were driven
pellmell into the sea, where they were quickly drowned.
While the siege was in active progress, all Europe was anxiously
watching the struggle, and when it closed with such decided results, and
with the utter discomfiture of the Ottoman power, Europe rejoiced. In
Rome (as well as in many other capitals), the ancient city was
illumined, and salutes were fired from the fortress of St. Angelo, on
the banks of the Tiber, while a thanksgiving mass was celebrated in all
the churches. Pope Pius IV., as a special mark of his favor, offered La
Vallette a cardinal's hat; but the hero of Malta considered his position
far more elevated than that of a cardinal, and graciously declined the
honor.