PREVIEW： Epochs #221 ｜ The Siege of Malta with David English
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Summary
In this episode of Epochs I am joined by David English to talk about the siege of Malta, or the Great Siege of Malta 1565, and how the Knights of St John and the Knights Hospitaller held out against the Ottomans.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to this episode of Epochs where I am joined by one Mr. David English how are you
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sir? I'm very good thank you how are you? Oh fine yeah thanks for coming in and today we're going
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to talk about the siege of Malta or the great siege of Malta 1565. So cool great the headline
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is then Christians versus Muslims yeah that's sort of the thing isn't it so the
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Knights Hospitaller yes largely but not not entirely versus Ottoman Turks
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Janissaries Ottoman pirates wasn't just any Ottoman Turks the president it was
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the newly conquering of in Constantinople Ottoman Turks who everybody in
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Europe thought were basically unstoppable all right they were at a high water
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Baltimore yeah you could say at that point and what we're talking about is
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essentially the equivalent of Tenerife beating the American military it's
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basically what it is so it was a huge symbolic victory because nobody thought
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Constantinople was the the everlasting city nobody thought its walls could be
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breached right until they turned up Suleiman turned up with these ginormous
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cannons and just pounded them till they broke and after that it was like it sent
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Europe into a bit of a panic and the Ottomans had been trying to kind of
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stranglehold all the way through the Med and you know to paraphrase where this is
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like to set this up where it's coming from in the year or so previously and
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although Rhodes eventually fell they Villiers did hand the Ottomans their
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backside at Rhodes with like ridiculous I think was something like 60,000 men and 200
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ships and they basically sent them home packing from Rhodes so it they'd been
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dense but eventually just the sheer force and scale that the Ottomans could supply
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was kind of devouring everything before them and Europe what makes it even more
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impressive is that because of the Protestantism so Protestantism led to like a
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nationalism within Europe where they began to draw away from the collective
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cause of the Holy Roman Empire began to focus on national issues so there was only a
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handful of nations involved you know the Germans weren't there the English weren't
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there because we chose to focus on issues close to home so there was only really a
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handful of nations who could supply men and as a result it was tiny it was a tiny
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amount at Malta in 1565 right yeah a couple things to say there and just one sorry but just a quick
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correction it was that it was Suleiman the Magnificent what we're talking about isn't
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it yeah but when Constantinople fell out was that was Mehmed the second but
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nonetheless nonetheless just a little with history fans if you say and I don't blame them if you say
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anything that's factually wrong they'll tip their fedora I don't blame them
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whatsoever so because Constantinople fell in 1453 and we're now like a good
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well a hundred years more hundred plus years later and yeah you could say some
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people have said that at this point in the mid second half of the 16th century is
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kind of one of the higher one of the high watermarks you could certainly say for the
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Ottoman Turk and so if you look at a map and I'll put maps up in post as I always do
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you can see where they've got Turkey obviously modern Turkey big chunks or most of
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the the Balkans and Greece the whole of the Fertile Crescent the Levant Egypt
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North Africa the whole lot when you see there those islands in the Eastern Med so
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like Rhodes Cyprus Malta they're gonna really want those if they're gonna push
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on take Sicily Italy and who knows what after that and so that Suleiman the
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Magnificent when he's younger man in like what the 1520s he takes Rhodes right and
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so at that point in 1520s Rhodes is the base of the Knights of St John or the
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Knights Hospitaller and they go back centuries before that though don't they
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yeah yeah so I mean this all kind of ties into the Shafalric Crusades what emerged and everything
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that emerged out of there with the Templars orders of St John and yeah they held out at
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Rhodes quite remarkably under odds but eventually succumbed just to the mass horde which is really
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the only way you can describe it it was like horde it was like a smaller version of Genghis Khan
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you know they just devoured everything that was in front of them what was it what one of
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one of them quoted in the battle it's either you either fight for destruction like the Muslims or
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you fight for glory and it was they just destroyed everything that was in front of them so it was
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quite it was impressive that actually number one that Rhodes held out for as long as it did but
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then a lot of the veterans that left Rhodes were present in Malta which I think is the reason why
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Malta held. So you've got so we've got the order of St John on the Knights Hospitaller set up in
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what would it be the 12th century I suppose but anyway hundreds of years before this
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and they'd been booted out of the Holy Land or Jerusalem they were originally an order from
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Jerusalem right they were booted out in the age of well the third crusade in the age of
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Saladin and moved to Rhodes and were there for a few centuries and then as we say they were beaten
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eventually put up a great defense a great fight on Rhodes but were eventually swept out of Rhodes but
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not killed to a man right so their remnant was allowed to go to Malta now I've never been to Malta have you ever been?
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no I haven't no I'd love to go I'd love to go it's very very southern isn't it it's one of the most southern
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islands again you'll see on a map and it's very small very small little island
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it's heavily fortified a rock in the sea isn't it much more than a rock in the sea and at that point it belonged to
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what the king of Spain um so Philip the Philip II and he says you can you can have Malta I'll let you
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I'll let you guys what's left of you uh have your headquarters on Malta but I've heard some people say
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what do you think about this that it's a bit of a a poison chalice it's not necessarily like a supremely
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kind gift because Malta was I've heard it described as like a barren defenceless rock
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and you're right in the middle even though there's the sea the Mediterranean sea you're right in the middle of
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Ottoman controlled a sphere of influence you're right in the heart of it is it well it's a bit of a poison chalice right
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yeah so I mean the way to think of things like the um hospitalers is that they're essentially imagine
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the SAS gets broken away from the British Army but becomes still retains the SAS with all of its
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functionality and training um highest trained special forces in the world but they suddenly are
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granted the ability to serve no nation so I I believe that the Pope granted them um sovereignty only to
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the Pope and that they they owed nothing to any king or any nation right so they could effectively act
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with impunity now they were pretty decent they were fairly moral um but you are talking about a crack
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squad of probably the highest trained knights in Europe at the time so as a you know yes if you want
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anybody there to defend that rock you want them there but you'd rather they were there than in your
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country right because they're going to be keeping an eye on you as well yeah because um they they fight
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for Christ and for Christ alone so yeah it was um a poisoned chalice really but if anybody was going
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to walk out of that um it was them and it is I think it is fair to say it's just a remnant at that point
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what are we talking six seven eight hundred knights 700 I believe is the agreed upon count
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so one thing to face 700 knights would be a terrifying experience but on the other end of the scale
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it's not much if someone turns up with 50 000 men it's it's not and I think people have to have like a
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an understanding of how highly trained they were so you have that issue with Richard had a thousand heavy
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armed knights took on 10 000 of Saladin's men and routed them this is how good and uh highly trained
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they were but still that was a that was a tent one what we had uh in terms of knights actual knights
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not peasants and farmers and hands actual knights against trained soldiers the odds at Malta were just
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it was insane there was no way they should have walked out of it right right yeah you would think it would
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be like an Alamo last stand yeah every man's gonna die like Stalingrad it's this is just this is a
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grave site nothing more the best you can do is make a good showing of it you can't win well as hopefully
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we should describe the story well enough where people will we'll see what happens um okay so this
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remnant of the Hospitallers are now on Malta and um in fact I think Philip II asked for one Maltese
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Falcon a year as payment for it so it's a bit like you know I think sometimes when a corporation fails and
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they sell the whole corporation for one dollar you know when you see that happen sometimes it's a bit like that
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so okay you mentioned uh Villiers it's it's Jean Villiers isn't it Jean de Villiers yeah Jean de Villiers
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so Jean de Valette the French just get close yeah so he's there he's their leader the Grand Master
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yes and he's he had an interesting life though didn't he because as a younger man he had had all
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sorts of adventures before this happened yes he had been he'd been captured he'd been um
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he'd been used as a galley slave by the Ottoman yeah so he he'd obviously he fought against the
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Ottomans a lot but he's also been enslaved and it's it was written that it basically just reinforced his
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christine zeal which is essentially one of the things that got them through I mean this guy was 70
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when this happened he was 70 years old yeah right and he was still there day in day out on the rampart
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so this is building up building up they know the Ottomans are coming they have short work to make long
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work of the defenses or short time to make long work of what they did have because it was it wasn't adequately
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prepared yeah so the island was very um easy to attack it and they they had to use a lot of things that
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they learned in and this is where um is it Valetta he ended up calling the city Valetta didn't he this is where
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Valetta used his knowledge together with the chief and Janius from the experience of fighting the
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Ottomans to try and fortify the city further with tunnels etc to kind and this is what was going on in
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the build-up they were trying to fortify the city because they knew it was coming it must it must have been
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like waiting for impending doom yeah like the I think of the uh the marine garrison on Wake Island
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knowing the Japanese Imperial Navy's coming yeah you know you're gonna die yeah like every single one of
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you could die or at the Alamo everyone's gonna die here basically and and I think this is how the
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Ottomans had succeeded as much as they did was because every single person in that squad in those ranks were
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prepared to die for their cause every single one was ready to die for that cause and we only had that really
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in these specialist night formations so it was yeah it was a tough call and they knew that it was
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you either stand your ground or you die and they they were prepared every day to die
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if Suleiman the magnificent society wants to really push this uh there's there's nothing you can do about it
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you can do about it well well uh no spoilers just yet but maybe people already getting the impression if
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they don't know how it ends that it's uh it's a glorious stand um so it's interesting then you say
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that um they knew it was coming so um where uh valet where jean de valet was sort of the grand master he
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actually had as i understand it um what today we would call a spy network and he had known a few months
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months in advance that suleiman is going to make a big effort i mean a big effort to take malta so like a
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massive ottoman navy tens of thousands of guys more than one of his senior commanders gonna call in some
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of the uh some of the muslim pirates from the mediterranean just a big a big effort to storm and take
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more to once and for all because where he pushed them out of roads as a young man
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you can only imagine or we know that in suleiman's mind one of the things he wanted to do was to
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entirely annihilate the hospitalers for good forever and that history will chalk that up to him as being
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responsible for it so so there's not really a giant secret or rather the hospitalers intelligence
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network got wind that this was coming and so they've got a bit of time like not that long a few
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months grace to do what they can to fortify the island and so that's what they do right yeah and
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in a few months i mean you might think it's a long time but you're talking about an age where there
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wasn't really um the technology that we have now there's only a few thousand men to build a castle or a
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fault from scratch it's yeah you need more than three months internal networks under the ground
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yeah like this is this was like from the very beginning it was all like an absolute triumph of
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human spirit because they must have broke themselves to get this ready and then they had to fight
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you know it wasn't like they could just prepare for three months and train take it easy and
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get ready they were literally grafting day and night and then they had to fight
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so quick word then on the numbers like most things that are sort of pre-modern there's the
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there'll be a little bit of discrepancy between accounts exactly who how how many there are but
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so on the christian side six seven hundred odd hospital and nights so you know crack troops
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something like modern day special forces something like that or divinely inspired special forces
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uh but then they also had a few thousand basically civil multi civilians those numbers vary right
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sometimes i've seen five six thousand sometimes i've seen a bit more nine thousand i've seen between
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three and four right nobody's exactly 100 but that's the sort of ballpark of numbers we're dealing
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with okay and suleman sends what 40 50 60 000 it's between 40 and 60 again depending on who's writing
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the accounts doesn't it so so they're massively outnumbered all right but but put it into
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perspective for people we've only got 75 000 you know ready troops yeah in our in our military so
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you're talking something that's almost the size of the entire british army um all at once turning
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up that's how big that army was and 180 ships give or take so this is huge sumram wasn't mucking about
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he he put you know he really he really tried it wasn't a half measure it was no half measure yeah
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because there was no feeling in in his mind or in the mind of his generals there was no feeling
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it was only success so in his mind he's not going into this thinking it's not going to succeed
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he's going into this thinking well i am the magnificent i will send everything that i have
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um to squish these and this should be enough to completely destroy them with fun and glee
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um and they got a short sharp shot really so one of the things uh the hospitalers do
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is uh a bit build some faults sort of amazingly quickly or in some instances uh refurbish
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or or add to existing defensive positions um so there's there's folks and angela for saint
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angelo for saint michael and uh for uh saint elmer as well as other other positions as well and once
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again i'll put a map up so people can see where the waterways where the harbors natural harbors
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natural spits of land and all this sort of thing but he also ordered uh on malta that a lot of a little
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bit of a scorched earth policy right so that when the ottomans do turn up there won't just be fields
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of food and like the wells will be poisoned or a rotting carcass will have put down will have been
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put down that well weeks or months ago so so it's like a sort of total war from the hospital point of
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view it's all or nothing on this thing again no half measures both sides no quarter given or expected
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well it's like was it the thing with cortez when he destroyed the ships all right it's the same
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mentality it's like you either do or die basically and that's where they were you've got to have your
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back against the wall that time there's got to be no escape for you to actually come out of that
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the other end yeah have a chance often things like that are done um yeah cortez is burning his own ships so
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his men can't won't dream of running away or escaping there is no escape quite often there's
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uh i think uh maybe was it was it warwick the kingmaker in the wars of the roses killed his own horse
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when he turned up to the battle to show his men look i'm going nowhere um i think yeah i think uh
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that's been done a fair few times in various different ways which is it's fine and again put it into the
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context is fine if you're a soldier but they were relying on ordinary men women and children as well
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so it must have been terrifying for them it was a case of everyone cast their lot in together
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knew that this was the last ditch because the ottomans wouldn't have spared them either way no
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so they had to be this was it and everybody you know imagine being a nine-year-old boy
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and this is coming to you and you've got a little sister and your mom and you're like
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right okay yeah yeah terrifying yeah the absolute best you could dream to hope for
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is to be sold into slavery at the end of it yeah you probably won't get that you'll probably be killed
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yes yeah so it was it was like an absolutely terrifying thing and again the myth around the
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ottomans since constantium was built up that it was this devouring unstoppable machine
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hmm so yeah i i can only imagine a few instances in history where the odds were stacked so greatly
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against thermopoly is one you know yeah yeah they're outnumbered i mean it's sort of fairly easily
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10 to 1 i think a lot of i've seen a lot of people say it's 10 to 1 you know some will say it's not
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that bad some will say it's worse than that it's not shy off is it yeah um so on the ottomans
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side they've got a few different uh commanders in the field right um they've got mustafa pasha
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uh hassan pasha um who are sort of um some of suleiman's top men but he does also bring in that that
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draggot the figure of draggot right he's a pirate essentially well there's another another way of
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describing him than simply a pirate who had been all around the mediterranean up and down the italian
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coast raiding and um he was if anything right even more vicious and cutthroat and uh ruthless than
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uh than an average ottoman commander he really will yeah he really is like a butcher type
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um so he's there as well which is saying something because the ottomans were brutal and ruthless full
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stop like they were horrible horrible so if you've got someone who's kind of out brutalizing
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the brutus then yeah it's pretty bad isn't it so between them between the two big pashas and
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draggot they all three of these guys think that they're really the preeminent or should be the
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sort of preeminent top dogs figure top geez yeah for on the on the ottomans side so that's not ideal
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from for them right but can you imagine the sense of confidence that they must have had though
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and also the sense of like we we want to stick it to them because you didn't only have the historical
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roads which really damaged them when they when they did get their ass handed to them the first
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time it rolls oh yeah that really hurt the ottoman pride but then you've also got the fact that the
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um hospitalers were literally were also committing acts of piracy against the ottomans and they just
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couldn't get them they couldn't stop them so there was like a crow in their throat really they wanted
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to destroy the hospitalers like completely it wasn't this wasn't just an ordinary military conquest
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this was personal it's very very personal i get that feeling yeah uh from suleiman himself
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yeah he it's stuck in his throat that he hadn't wiped them out the first time on roads and that it
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was his job he would be extremely proud if he could have wiped them out entirely he would have been very
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proud of that and from just a grand strategic point of view he doesn't he wants he wants malta right he
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doesn't want this thing sort of behind him so to speak behind his lines sticking out as you know like
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this this sore thumb of of christian an outpost of christian indomitable knights deep within his territory
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he just doesn't yeah have that that's the other backdrop is is the idea the spiritual ideological
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battle that was going on christianity was a thorn in their side and they'd essentially
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wiped out two-thirds of christian lands already i think people don't realize that the middle east
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was christian it was almost entirely christian of course um and they completely wiped it out so
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they were just on this march of uh we have been sent by uh allah to kind of to kill the infidels um
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and here there was this continuous thing that was proving resistance to stopping them getting that
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dominance over christian europe which was all that was left yeah no absolutely i mean when you look at
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sort of the chronology if you in the pre-mohammed centuries that's the all of it is the eastern
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roman empire all the way up to the tigris and euphrates sometimes that border ebbs and flows but
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nonetheless so all of that is roman and therefore christian certainly after the age of constantine
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anyway all constantine's successors so yeah the the muslim conquests is just taking giant chunks out
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of the christian world and of course after constantinople falls in 1453 um a lot of christendom even sort of
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western full western europe not just the pope but like places like britain or france or spain
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they it's an understatement but they sort of kick themselves that they didn't do more
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to prevent that from happening as you said right near the beginning some people thought
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the walls of theodosius will hold up forever against anything that you just can't take the city
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of constantinople well obviously that it eventually proved to be wrong um but so when malta or when roads
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sorry when roads is first taken again they sort of don't do enough that this grand co you would hope
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some sort of grand coalition or some sort of uh first or second crusade style relief could be put
00:25:15.440
together and it just wasn't but then on malta we're getting a bit of ahead of ourselves so we'll
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go back in time in a minute but eventually something is put together isn't it from the christian world
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yeah around sicily the pope and the king of spain and the sicilians are able to get together a type of
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uh a relieving a relief force yeah yeah okay so uh so straight into the action itself then
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so cinnamon sends down his tens of thousands of men expecting hoping you would have thought that it'll be
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a bit of a pushover well i've heard reports thinking they expected it to fall within days
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all right basically right um and they weren't expecting the spirit of the fight that was brought
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to them they were shocked at how tough that every man fought every day with blood and steel and they
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just didn't think that we had that in us um as sort of christian men they just literally knocked back
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on their feet initially and frustrated highly frustrated but then they were all so incredibly hot headed
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so they weren't always patient um and would just run in um you know ill prepared or with the timing not
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perhaps being quite right so they didn't help themselves that they were just full of zeal and
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didn't really think things through against the wise head of um davila who'd obviously seen a lot of action
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um himself so he was he was like a ridiculously experienced man um so yeah they weren't they weren't
00:26:56.560
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