Looks like a good day to be a Knight! |
On this week of September 1565, on the
tiny island nation of Malta, the massive Turkish army was at their wits
end. The goal had been to take the island
and create a staging point for invasion of the rest of Europe. With the entire might of the Ottoman Empire
behind the machine that was their army, they aimed at the island. It was believed the defenders would fail in a
matter of days, if not a few weeks. Some
48,000 Turkish soldiers landed on the island arrayed against the 8,000
defenders.
Although they’d met with some
early successes, the combined Knights Hospitaller and Maltese soldiers had
proved to be a nearly immovable obstacle to Turkish success. Morale on both sides was tenuous at best, but
at the end of August, the Turkish attempt to seize control of Fort St. Michael failed
due to the skill and courage of Maltese engineers.
Victory, for both sides, was
still far from certain. Vincenzo
Anastagi, one of the Knights Hospitaller, wrote:
Our men are in large part dead, the walls have fallen,
it is easy to see inside and we live in danger of being overwhelmed by
force. But it is not seemly to talk of
this. First the Grand Master, then all
the Order have determined not to listen to anything [negative] that is
whispered outside.
C'mon bro, let us crash on your couch! |
With the coming of September,
the weather turned. As a Mediterranean
island, Malta is subject to sudden and torrential downpours throughout its
winter. The Ottoman army had already
suffered heavily from disease during the campaign, and without proper shelter,
they would be devastated. There were also increasing rumors of a rescue fleet being mounted on the mainland, willing to stand
toe-to-toe with the Turks and defeat them utterly no matter the cost. The Turkish commanders, the pashas, turned their eyes toward the
ancient city of Mdina.
Mdina sits roughly in the
center of Malta on a rocky outcropping.
Its medieval fortifications had been reinforced and improved since the
last time the Ottomans had attempted to take it some 14 years earlier in
1551. With a larger, more determined and
now desperate force, the Turkish pashas saw
the city as the perfect refuge to winter and potentially win the rest of the
island. The alternative was to leave
Malta without the victory they’d been ordered to secure. Reports were that Mdina, while structurally
strong, was not well-defended. This was
true. Almost all of the men, cannon,
powder and shot had been removed from the city for use by the defenders in
other places.
Pasha Mustapha
ordered the march on Mdina. The city’s
defenders knew they were in
trouble, and only had powder for a few shots from
their cannons. Not enough against
Turks. But if the Mdina was taken, the
Ottomans would be able to weather the winter, regain their strength and strike out
across the island at will. As the Turks
approached the walls, the city punted and fired their cannons as if they were
fully armed and fully stocked for a full siege.
It was a complete bluff. They
were exhausting what meager supplies they had, but the effects of three and a
half months of bloody siege warfare and disease, coupled with the recent losses
and the looming winter months with no shelter had taken their toll. The pashas
believed Mdina had the capacity to withstand a sustained assault. New information made the rumored
reinforcements from mainland Europe a reality, and by the end of September 8, 1565,
the Ottomans loaded their cannons onto their ships and began the process of
retreating their army to leave the island.
Well there's your problem, right there! |
Good one.
ReplyDelete