The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #221 ｜ The Siege of Malta with David English

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to this episode of Epochs where I am joined by one Mr. David English how are you

00:00:18.900 sir? I'm very good thank you how are you? Oh fine yeah thanks for coming in and today we're going

00:00:23.240 to talk about the siege of Malta or the great siege of Malta 1565. So cool great the headline

00:00:29.980 is then Christians versus Muslims yeah that's sort of the thing isn't it so the 0.74

00:00:35.620 Knights Hospitaller yes largely but not not entirely versus Ottoman Turks

00:00:41.740 Janissaries Ottoman pirates wasn't just any Ottoman Turks the president it was

00:00:47.980 the newly conquering of in Constantinople Ottoman Turks who everybody in 0.99

00:00:54.280 Europe thought were basically unstoppable all right they were at a high water

00:00:58.720 Baltimore yeah you could say at that point and what we're talking about is

00:01:02.800 essentially the equivalent of Tenerife beating the American military it's

00:01:08.200 basically what it is so it was a huge symbolic victory because nobody thought

00:01:12.940 Constantinople was the the everlasting city nobody thought its walls could be

00:01:17.380 breached right until they turned up Suleiman turned up with these ginormous

00:01:21.820 cannons and just pounded them till they broke and after that it was like it sent

00:01:27.000 Europe into a bit of a panic and the Ottomans had been trying to kind of

00:01:31.620 stranglehold all the way through the Med and you know to paraphrase where this is

00:01:37.140 like to set this up where it's coming from in the year or so previously and

00:01:42.960 although Rhodes eventually fell they Villiers did hand the Ottomans their 0.95

00:01:49.080 backside at Rhodes with like ridiculous I think was something like 60,000 men and 200

00:01:54.720 ships and they basically sent them home packing from Rhodes so it they'd been

00:02:00.060 dense but eventually just the sheer force and scale that the Ottomans could supply

00:02:04.920 was kind of devouring everything before them and Europe what makes it even more 0.60

00:02:10.800 impressive is that because of the Protestantism so Protestantism led to like a

00:02:14.460 nationalism within Europe where they began to draw away from the collective

00:02:17.940 cause of the Holy Roman Empire began to focus on national issues so there was only a

00:02:22.200 handful of nations involved you know the Germans weren't there the English weren't

00:02:26.540 there because we chose to focus on issues close to home so there was only really a

00:02:32.160 handful of nations who could supply men and as a result it was tiny it was a tiny

00:02:38.760 amount at Malta in 1565 right yeah a couple things to say there and just one sorry but just a quick

00:02:46.620 correction it was that it was Suleiman the Magnificent what we're talking about isn't

00:02:50.960 it yeah but when Constantinople fell out was that was Mehmed the second but

00:02:55.440 nonetheless nonetheless just a little with history fans if you say and I don't blame them if you say

00:03:01.800 anything that's factually wrong they'll tip their fedora I don't blame them

00:03:06.000 whatsoever so because Constantinople fell in 1453 and we're now like a good

00:03:13.380 well a hundred years more hundred plus years later and yeah you could say some

00:03:20.220 people have said that at this point in the mid second half of the 16th century is

00:03:26.380 kind of one of the higher one of the high watermarks you could certainly say for the

00:03:30.360 Ottoman Turk and so if you look at a map and I'll put maps up in post as I always do

00:03:35.280 you can see where they've got Turkey obviously modern Turkey big chunks or most of

00:03:42.180 the the Balkans and Greece the whole of the Fertile Crescent the Levant Egypt

00:03:48.180 North Africa the whole lot when you see there those islands in the Eastern Med so

00:03:53.340 like Rhodes Cyprus Malta they're gonna really want those if they're gonna push 0.85

00:04:00.300 on take Sicily Italy and who knows what after that and so that Suleiman the

00:04:06.360 Magnificent when he's younger man in like what the 1520s he takes Rhodes right and 1.00

00:04:12.360 so at that point in 1520s Rhodes is the base of the Knights of St John or the

00:04:19.300 Knights Hospitaller and they go back centuries before that though don't they 0.53

00:04:23.360 yeah yeah so I mean this all kind of ties into the Shafalric Crusades what emerged and everything 1.00

00:04:30.360 that emerged out of there with the Templars orders of St John and yeah they held out at

00:04:37.360 Rhodes quite remarkably under odds but eventually succumbed just to the mass horde which is really

00:04:44.360 the only way you can describe it it was like horde it was like a smaller version of Genghis Khan

00:04:50.360 you know they just devoured everything that was in front of them what was it what one of

00:04:55.360 one of them quoted in the battle it's either you either fight for destruction like the Muslims or 1.00

00:05:02.360 you fight for glory and it was they just destroyed everything that was in front of them so it was

00:05:08.360 quite it was impressive that actually number one that Rhodes held out for as long as it did but

00:05:13.360 then a lot of the veterans that left Rhodes were present in Malta which I think is the reason why

00:05:19.360 Malta held. So you've got so we've got the order of St John on the Knights Hospitaller set up in

00:05:26.360 what would it be the 12th century I suppose but anyway hundreds of years before this

00:05:32.360 and they'd been booted out of the Holy Land or Jerusalem they were originally an order from 0.85

00:05:38.360 Jerusalem right they were booted out in the age of well the third crusade in the age of

00:05:43.360 Saladin and moved to Rhodes and were there for a few centuries and then as we say they were beaten 0.90

00:05:54.360 eventually put up a great defense a great fight on Rhodes but were eventually swept out of Rhodes but

00:06:01.360 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?

00:06:10.360 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

00:06:16.360 islands again you'll see on a map and it's very small very small little island

00:06:21.360 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

00:06:27.360 what the king of Spain um so Philip the Philip II and he says you can you can have Malta I'll let you

00:06:36.360 I'll let you guys what's left of you uh have your headquarters on Malta but I've heard some people say

00:06:42.360 what do you think about this that it's a bit of a a poison chalice it's not necessarily like a supremely

00:06:50.360 kind gift because Malta was I've heard it described as like a barren defenceless rock

00:06:56.360 and you're right in the middle even though there's the sea the Mediterranean sea you're right in the middle of

00:07:01.360 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 0.95

00:07:10.360 yeah so I mean the way to think of things like the um hospitalers is that they're essentially imagine 0.56

00:07:16.360 the SAS gets broken away from the British Army but becomes still retains the SAS with all of its 0.92

00:07:24.360 functionality and training um highest trained special forces in the world but they suddenly are

00:07:30.360 granted the ability to serve no nation so I I believe that the Pope granted them um sovereignty only to

00:07:37.360 the Pope and that they they owed nothing to any king or any nation right so they could effectively act

00:07:43.360 with impunity now they were pretty decent they were fairly moral um but you are talking about a crack

00:07:49.360 squad of probably the highest trained knights in Europe at the time so as a you know yes if you want

00:07:57.360 anybody there to defend that rock you want them there but you'd rather they were there than in your

00:08:01.360 country right because they're going to be keeping an eye on you as well yeah because um they they fight

00:08:07.360 for Christ and for Christ alone so yeah it was um a poisoned chalice really but if anybody was going

00:08:15.360 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

00:08:23.360 what are we talking six seven eight hundred knights 700 I believe is the agreed upon count

00:08:31.360 so one thing to face 700 knights would be a terrifying experience but on the other end of the scale

00:08:37.360 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

00:08:43.360 an understanding of how highly trained they were so you have that issue with Richard had a thousand heavy

00:08:49.360 armed knights took on 10 000 of Saladin's men and routed them this is how good and uh highly trained

00:08:57.360 they were but still that was a that was a tent one what we had uh in terms of knights actual knights

00:09:03.360 not peasants and farmers and hands actual knights against trained soldiers the odds at Malta were just

00:09:09.360 it was insane there was no way they should have walked out of it right right yeah you would think it would

00:09:14.360 be like an Alamo last stand yeah every man's gonna die like Stalingrad it's this is just this is a

00:09:20.360 grave site nothing more the best you can do is make a good showing of it you can't win well as hopefully

00:09:28.360 we should describe the story well enough where people will we'll see what happens um okay so this

00:09:34.360 remnant of the Hospitallers are now on Malta and um in fact I think Philip II asked for one Maltese 0.99

00:09:42.360 Falcon a year as payment for it so it's a bit like you know I think sometimes when a corporation fails and

00:09:48.360 they sell the whole corporation for one dollar you know when you see that happen sometimes it's a bit like that

00:09:54.360 so okay you mentioned uh Villiers it's it's Jean Villiers isn't it Jean de Villiers yeah Jean de Villiers

00:10:00.360 yeah Jean de Villiers de Villiette de Valette

00:10:04.360 so Jean de Valette the French just get close yeah so he's there he's their leader the Grand Master

00:10:10.360 yes and he's he had an interesting life though didn't he because as a younger man he had had all

00:10:16.360 sorts of adventures before this happened yes he had been he'd been captured he'd been um

00:10:22.360 he'd been used as a galley slave by the Ottoman yeah so he he'd obviously he fought against the

00:10:28.360 Ottomans a lot but he's also been enslaved and it's it was written that it basically just reinforced his

00:10:34.360 christine zeal which is essentially one of the things that got them through I mean this guy was 70

00:10:42.360 when this happened he was 70 years old yeah right and he was still there day in day out on the rampart

00:10:50.360 so this is building up building up they know the Ottomans are coming they have short work to make long 0.94

00:10:56.360 work of the defenses or short time to make long work of what they did have because it was it wasn't adequately

00:11:02.360 prepared yeah so the island was very um easy to attack it and they they had to use a lot of things that

00:11:14.360 they learned in and this is where um is it Valetta he ended up calling the city Valetta didn't he this is where

00:11:22.360 Valetta used his knowledge together with the chief and Janius from the experience of fighting the

00:11:28.360 Ottomans to try and fortify the city further with tunnels etc to kind and this is what was going on in

00:11:34.360 the build-up they were trying to fortify the city because they knew it was coming it must it must have been

00:11:38.360 like waiting for impending doom yeah like the I think of the uh the marine garrison on Wake Island

00:11:46.360 knowing the Japanese Imperial Navy's coming yeah you know you're gonna die yeah like every single one of 0.94

00:11:52.360 you could die or at the Alamo everyone's gonna die here basically and and I think this is how the

00:11:59.360 Ottomans had succeeded as much as they did was because every single person in that squad in those ranks were

00:12:08.360 prepared to die for their cause every single one was ready to die for that cause and we only had that really

00:12:15.360 in these specialist night formations so it was yeah it was a tough call and they knew that it was

00:12:25.360 you either stand your ground or you die and they they were prepared every day to die

00:12:29.360 if Suleiman the magnificent society wants to really push this uh there's there's nothing you can do about it

00:12:39.360 you can do about it well well uh no spoilers just yet but maybe people already getting the impression if

00:12:47.360 they don't know how it ends that it's uh it's a glorious stand um so it's interesting then you say

00:12:53.360 that um they knew it was coming so um where uh valet where jean de valet was sort of the grand master he

00:13:05.360 actually had as i understand it um what today we would call a spy network and he had known a few months

00:13:15.360 months in advance that suleiman is going to make a big effort i mean a big effort to take malta so like a

00:13:25.360 massive ottoman navy tens of thousands of guys more than one of his senior commanders gonna call in some

00:13:33.360 of the uh some of the muslim pirates from the mediterranean just a big a big effort to storm and take 1.00

00:13:41.360 more to once and for all because where he pushed them out of roads as a young man

00:13:47.760 you can only imagine or we know that in suleiman's mind one of the things he wanted to do was to

00:13:55.120 entirely annihilate the hospitalers for good forever and that history will chalk that up to him as being

00:14:02.560 responsible for it so so there's not really a giant secret or rather the hospitalers intelligence

00:14:11.360 network got wind that this was coming and so they've got a bit of time like not that long a few

00:14:16.880 months grace to do what they can to fortify the island and so that's what they do right yeah and

00:14:25.440 in a few months i mean you might think it's a long time but you're talking about an age where there

00:14:28.800 wasn't really um the technology that we have now there's only a few thousand men to build a castle or a

00:14:36.160 fault from scratch it's yeah you need more than three months internal networks under the ground

00:14:41.120 yeah like this is this was like from the very beginning it was all like an absolute triumph of

00:14:46.400 human spirit because they must have broke themselves to get this ready and then they had to fight

00:14:52.800 you know it wasn't like they could just prepare for three months and train take it easy and

00:14:56.560 get ready they were literally grafting day and night and then they had to fight

00:15:00.640 so quick word then on the numbers like most things that are sort of pre-modern there's the

00:15:08.400 there'll be a little bit of discrepancy between accounts exactly who how how many there are but

00:15:12.960 so on the christian side six seven hundred odd hospital and nights so you know crack troops

00:15:20.320 something like modern day special forces something like that or divinely inspired special forces

00:15:25.520 uh but then they also had a few thousand basically civil multi civilians those numbers vary right

00:15:35.120 sometimes i've seen five six thousand sometimes i've seen a bit more nine thousand i've seen between

00:15:39.840 three and four right nobody's exactly 100 but that's the sort of ballpark of numbers we're dealing

00:15:46.080 with okay and suleman sends what 40 50 60 000 it's between 40 and 60 again depending on who's writing

00:15:54.960 the accounts doesn't it so so they're massively outnumbered all right but but put it into

00:15:59.440 perspective for people we've only got 75 000 you know ready troops yeah in our in our military so

00:16:06.640 you're talking something that's almost the size of the entire british army um all at once turning

00:16:12.080 up that's how big that army was and 180 ships give or take so this is huge sumram wasn't mucking about

00:16:19.360 he he put you know he really he really tried it wasn't a half measure it was no half measure yeah

00:16:26.480 because there was no feeling in in his mind or in the mind of his generals there was no feeling

00:16:30.800 it was only success so in his mind he's not going into this thinking it's not going to succeed

00:16:35.760 he's going into this thinking well i am the magnificent i will send everything that i have

00:16:40.880 um to squish these and this should be enough to completely destroy them with fun and glee

00:16:47.840 um and they got a short sharp shot really so one of the things uh the hospitalers do

00:16:55.520 is uh a bit build some faults sort of amazingly quickly or in some instances uh refurbish

00:17:03.600 or or add to existing defensive positions um so there's there's folks and angela for saint 0.98

00:17:11.360 angelo for saint michael and uh for uh saint elmer as well as other other positions as well and once

00:17:18.400 again i'll put a map up so people can see where the waterways where the harbors natural harbors

00:17:23.760 natural spits of land and all this sort of thing but he also ordered uh on malta that a lot of a little

00:17:31.840 bit of a scorched earth policy right so that when the ottomans do turn up there won't just be fields

00:17:38.960 of food and like the wells will be poisoned or a rotting carcass will have put down will have been

00:17:46.960 put down that well weeks or months ago so so it's like a sort of total war from the hospital point of

00:17:54.640 view it's all or nothing on this thing again no half measures both sides no quarter given or expected

00:18:02.480 well it's like was it the thing with cortez when he destroyed the ships all right it's the same

00:18:07.200 mentality it's like you either do or die basically and that's where they were you've got to have your

00:18:11.600 back against the wall that time there's got to be no escape for you to actually come out of that

00:18:16.160 the other end yeah have a chance often things like that are done um yeah cortez is burning his own ships so

00:18:24.880 his men can't won't dream of running away or escaping there is no escape quite often there's

00:18:31.920 uh i think uh maybe was it was it warwick the kingmaker in the wars of the roses killed his own horse

00:18:37.360 when he turned up to the battle to show his men look i'm going nowhere um i think yeah i think uh

00:18:43.840 that's been done a fair few times in various different ways which is it's fine and again put it into the

00:18:48.800 context is fine if you're a soldier but they were relying on ordinary men women and children as well

00:18:54.960 so it must have been terrifying for them it was a case of everyone cast their lot in together

00:18:59.360 knew that this was the last ditch because the ottomans wouldn't have spared them either way no 0.98

00:19:03.600 so they had to be this was it and everybody you know imagine being a nine-year-old boy

00:19:09.760 and this is coming to you and you've got a little sister and your mom and you're like

00:19:13.440 right okay yeah yeah terrifying yeah the absolute best you could dream to hope for 0.61

00:19:21.040 is to be sold into slavery at the end of it yeah you probably won't get that you'll probably be killed

00:19:26.320 yes yeah so it was it was like an absolutely terrifying thing and again the myth around the

00:19:32.160 ottomans since constantium was built up that it was this devouring unstoppable machine

00:19:37.280 hmm so yeah i i can only imagine a few instances in history where the odds were stacked so greatly

00:19:44.320 against thermopoly is one you know yeah yeah they're outnumbered i mean it's sort of fairly easily

00:19:55.680 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

00:20:01.840 that bad some will say it's worse than that it's not shy off is it yeah um so on the ottomans

00:20:07.200 side they've got a few different uh commanders in the field right um they've got mustafa pasha

00:20:16.160 uh hassan pasha um who are sort of um some of suleiman's top men but he does also bring in that that

00:20:28.080 draggot the figure of draggot right he's a pirate essentially well there's another another way of

00:20:35.520 describing him than simply a pirate who had been all around the mediterranean up and down the italian 0.51

00:20:40.480 coast raiding and um he was if anything right even more vicious and cutthroat and uh ruthless than 0.56

00:20:51.120 uh than an average ottoman commander he really will yeah he really is like a butcher type 0.99

00:20:58.160 um so he's there as well which is saying something because the ottomans were brutal and ruthless full

00:21:05.440 stop like they were horrible horrible so if you've got someone who's kind of out brutalizing

00:21:13.040 the brutus then yeah it's pretty bad isn't it so between them between the two big pashas and 0.93

00:21:20.720 draggot they all three of these guys think that they're really the preeminent or should be the

00:21:27.600 sort of preeminent top dogs figure top geez yeah for on the on the ottomans side so that's not ideal

00:21:36.400 from for them right but can you imagine the sense of confidence that they must have had though

00:21:42.640 and also the sense of like we we want to stick it to them because you didn't only have the historical 0.83

00:21:47.520 roads which really damaged them when they when they did get their ass handed to them the first 0.54

00:21:52.560 time it rolls oh yeah that really hurt the ottoman pride but then you've also got the fact that the 0.66

00:21:58.480 um hospitalers were literally were also committing acts of piracy against the ottomans and they just

00:22:05.120 couldn't get them they couldn't stop them so there was like a crow in their throat really they wanted

00:22:10.240 to destroy the hospitalers like completely it wasn't this wasn't just an ordinary military conquest

00:22:17.200 this was personal it's very very personal i get that feeling yeah uh from suleiman himself

00:22:24.480 i do really get that feeling that he

00:22:28.640 yeah he it's stuck in his throat that he hadn't wiped them out the first time on roads and that it

00:22:35.200 was his job he would be extremely proud if he could have wiped them out entirely he would have been very

00:22:41.440 proud of that and from just a grand strategic point of view he doesn't he wants he wants malta right he

00:22:48.720 doesn't want this thing sort of behind him so to speak behind his lines sticking out as you know like

00:22:55.440 this this sore thumb of of christian an outpost of christian indomitable knights deep within his territory

00:23:04.960 he just doesn't yeah have that that's the other backdrop is is the idea the spiritual ideological

00:23:09.920 battle that was going on christianity was a thorn in their side and they'd essentially

00:23:16.640 wiped out two-thirds of christian lands already i think people don't realize that the middle east

00:23:20.880 was christian it was almost entirely christian of course um and they completely wiped it out so

00:23:25.760 they were just on this march of uh we have been sent by uh allah to kind of to kill the infidels um 1.00

00:23:34.400 and here there was this continuous thing that was proving resistance to stopping them getting that

00:23:41.200 dominance over christian europe which was all that was left yeah no absolutely i mean when you look at

00:23:48.320 sort of the chronology if you in the pre-mohammed centuries that's the all of it is the eastern 0.99

00:23:55.840 roman empire all the way up to the tigris and euphrates sometimes that border ebbs and flows but

00:24:03.120 nonetheless so all of that is roman and therefore christian certainly after the age of constantine

00:24:10.880 anyway all constantine's successors so yeah the the muslim conquests is just taking giant chunks out 0.99

00:24:20.400 of the christian world and of course after constantinople falls in 1453 um a lot of christendom even sort of

00:24:31.120 western full western europe not just the pope but like places like britain or france or spain

00:24:37.360 they it's an understatement but they sort of kick themselves that they didn't do more

00:24:44.080 to prevent that from happening as you said right near the beginning some people thought

00:24:48.000 the walls of theodosius will hold up forever against anything that you just can't take the city

00:24:53.920 of constantinople well obviously that it eventually proved to be wrong um but so when malta or when roads

00:25:01.920 sorry when roads is first taken again they sort of don't do enough that this grand co you would hope

00:25:08.560 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

00:25:21.200 go back in time in a minute but eventually something is put together isn't it from the christian world

00:25:27.680 yeah around sicily the pope and the king of spain and the sicilians are able to get together a type of

00:25:35.600 uh a relieving a relief force yeah yeah okay so uh so straight into the action itself then

00:25:43.760 so cinnamon sends down his tens of thousands of men expecting hoping you would have thought that it'll be

00:25:50.400 a bit of a pushover well i've heard reports thinking they expected it to fall within days

00:25:55.680 all right basically right um and they weren't expecting the spirit of the fight that was brought

00:26:02.800 to them they were shocked at how tough that every man fought every day with blood and steel and they

00:26:09.920 just didn't think that we had that in us um as sort of christian men they just literally knocked back 0.99

00:26:16.720 on their feet initially and frustrated highly frustrated but then they were all so incredibly hot headed

00:26:25.680 so they weren't always patient um and would just run in um you know ill prepared or with the timing not

00:26:34.720 perhaps being quite right so they didn't help themselves that they were just full of zeal and

00:26:39.760 didn't really think things through against the wise head of um davila who'd obviously seen a lot of action

00:26:48.240 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 expecting that whatsoever if you enjoyed that preview please consider heading over to lotusseaters.com

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 27, 2025

PREVIEW： Epochs #221 ｜ The Siege of Malta with David English

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