The Knights of St. John

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

The loss sustained by the garrison in their sorties, though slight in comparison with that of their opponents, was judged by the grand master too great to make the continuance of this mode of conflict prudent or advisable. A hundred or a thousand men were little for the enemy to lose, whilst the fall of a single knight was felt as a disaster by the Christians. Keeping close, therefore, within their ramparts, they left the infidels at liberty to erect their batteries and make all their dispositions undisturbed, save by the artillery from the walls. The high steeple of St. John’s served as an observatory from whence every movement of the hostile forces could easily be discerned. From its summit the whole camp and city might be viewed, spread out as on a map; and the Turks were well aware of the use made of the building by the Christian engineers. Very early, therefore, it became the mark for their artillery, and almost the first cannonade directed against it brought it to the ground. The Turks had with them twelve monstrous guns, two of which discharged, as on the former occasion, balls eleven or twelve palms in diameter.[25] And now began the same furious and incessant firing which had been endured at the previous siege; day and night might be heard that long continuous roar, responded to by a fire as hot and destructive on the part of the garrison. Mines, too, underneath burrowed the ground in every direction; and it is said that Martinengo, the engineer of the order, broke into no less than fifty-five of these in the progress of his operations.

The walls of Rhodes were of prodigious height; “as high,” says the Arabian physician before named, “as sultan Mahmoud’s minarets, and broad as the streets of Constantinople.” To command these, therefore, the Turks undertook a truly wonderful work, being nothing less than the construction of two vast mounds or hills, artificially composed of earth and stones brought together with immense labour, which rose ten or twelve feet above the battlements, and gave extraordinary effect to the batteries which were planted on their summits. The laborious engineering works undertaken by both parties during the siege were indeed of an herculean character; and though such operations are for the most part of little interest to the general reader, yet they become invested with an almost romantic character from the scale on which we find them here conducted. In the attack on St. Nicholas, for instance, the pasha, remembering the failure of his predecessor at the former siege, dressed his batteries, and worked them by night only, every morning dismantling the guns and burying them in the sand. He flattered himself he had succeeded, when he saw the western rampart fall in ruins; but all the while his labour had been rivalled and surpassed by his indefatigable opponents, who had built and armed a new fortress within the old one; so that, as the outer ruin fell, like a certain drawn aside, it but displayed a new wall, which stood behind bristling with cannon, and rendering necessary the re-commencement of the whole attack.

We shall not, however, call on our readers to accompany us through the course of these operations; but passing over three months of weary battery and bloodshed, ask him to enter St. John’s church on an afternoon in the first week of September, where he will find a crowd of all ranks (but women mostly, for the men are at the walls,) praying silently, while the choir is just about to begin vespers. Kneeling in his wonted place is Villiers de L’Isle Adam; he is ever there when not engaged in active conflict; and just now there is a lull in the cannonading, as though the enemy were perplexed at the obstinate resistance, and were planning a fresh method of attack. His noble venerable countenance is sad, though not discouraged: how should it be otherwise? His little force is now reduced to scarcely 3000 men besides the knights; of them 300 alone are left. The powder is failing; rumours of treachery every where abroad, and no news of succour yet from Europe. A courier has been sent to Rome, and bears the news that the struggle is desperate; women fighting because there are not men enough to work the batteries, and no provisions left but bread and water. He wears his cuirass,—for indeed he never lays it aside, but even in church is always ready for a hasty summons; just now, however, there seems a little respite; that long and deafening roar is still, and you may hear the sweet voices of the choir as they intone the versicles: Deus, in adjutorium meum intende: Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina. But the rest is drowned in a sudden interruption. First a strange and hideous rumbling underground: the city trembles as from an earthquake; then a shock, and a loud explosion, shrieks of dying and wounded, and cries of combat; a wild disordered confusion of all noises, and the fall of stones and rocks upon the roofs, give notice of some great disaster. And so indeed it was; for the greater part of the English bastion had been blown into the air by an enormous mine; and the Turks, taking advantage of the confusion, were preparing for the assault. “I accept the omen,” cried the grand master, as he repeated the words which the choir had just sung; then turning to the knights who surrounded him, “Come, dear brothers,” he said, “we must exchange the sacrifice of praise for that of our lives;” and seizing a lance from an attendant, he hurried to the spot.

Not all the bastion was destroyed; but the part still standing was already in possession of the Turks, when the grand master and his intrepid followers appeared upon the scene. Not a dozen in number, they throw themselves on the enemy; every thing is swept before them; the heavy blows from the stalwart aims hew in pieces all that opposes them; the banners just planted on the walls are torn down and thrown into the ditch, and their defenders flung after them as easily as though they were no greater weight than their own turbans. In vain Mustapha heads his beaten soldiers sword in hand, and slays the foremost in retreat; in vain batteries play upon the smoking ruins, and column after column of fresh troops endeavour to regain the post occupied by such a handful of opponents,—nothing can resist the Christian knights; and soon from the walls and every quarter that overlooks the scene there pour down on the besiegers’ heads stones and fire-pots and other horrible war-missiles of the time—streams of flaming pitch and brimstone, that burn and blind them as they press forward to the breach, and deadly volleys of artillery which lay rank after rank upon the field. It was an hour’s combat; but at length the thick masses of the enemy were forced to retreat. Never had the besiegers received so terrible a repulse; and Solyman, as he walked over the ground viewing the myriads of his slain, was filled with a very passion of anguish when he marked amongst them the form of his favourite officer, the young chief of the Ottoman artillery.

Five days passed without any fresh attack. The Janizaries were murmuring at the prolonged struggle, which they deemed but a hopeless sacrifice of their blood, when Peri Pasha resolved on leading a new assault in person, directed this time against the Italian bastion. Extraordinary preparations were made on the part of the Turks; their troops, divided into seven bodies, were led on by chosen chiefs, and over each waved a standard solemnly committed to the charge of men chosen from the bravest and most ferocious or the veteran soldiers. Every thing was done to impress the troops with a sense of the importance of their enterprise, and to inspire them with a confidence of victory. They approached the walls in profound silence, unperceived by their adversaries, and then raising a loud yell dashed up the breach, and made their way to the inner fortification. The guards were few in number, and were soon cut to pieces; the night too was dark, and favoured the design of the assailants; and the garrison, wearied out with constant watching, were scarcely able to rouse themselves for the defence. Every thing seemed gained; and Peri Pasha, followed by his seven standard-bearers, was in the act of directing all his strength upon the remnant of the besieged, who, though wounded and grievously thinned in numbers, still held their ground with an obstinate resolution,—when the Turkish line wavered as by some sudden panic; their arms, raised high to strike, fell powerless to their sides; and hesitating and scared, they shrank back upon those behind, as a gigantic and powerful form stepped between the ranks of the combatants, and seemed to clear the ground before him by the very majesty of his presence. The flash of the fire-arms and the gleaming torch-light fell upon his face, and a shout of triumph rose from the Christian soldiers as they recognised the person of their grand master, who, with a few of his chosen knights, seemed to multiply himself, says the French historian, so as to be at every post of danger. Fontanus, an eye-witness, declares that at his very appearance, without the striking of a blow, the Turks drew back in fear while turning to his followers, he exclaimed: “Come, comrades, drive back these fellows from the breach; we must not fear men who are beaten every day.” His words were received with a cheer of victory, as they dashed upon the Turks with an impetuous shock: then you might have seen the grand master drive back the enemy with his single arm,[26] and as they threw themselves pell-mell from breach and rampart, the handful of defenders were left masters of the field.

This was the 13th of September. Another four days passed without the assault being renewed; when Mustapha, whose former failures had earned him a disgrace, gave orders for a fresh attack on the ruined bastion of England, determining to carry it at all costs, or die in the intrenchments, rather than again appear before Solyman after a new defeat. Achmet Pasha at the same time was to storm the quarters of Spain and Auvergne; and the besieged, thus divided in their strength, would, it was hoped, be unable to resist. The battalions of the Turks, five in number, were met on the summit of the ruined ramparts by the English knights, with the Turcopolier, Sir John Buck, at their head. He was the first to fall; but in spite of their leader’s death, the English gained the day, and held their shattered ruin by main courage and strength of arm for yet another month. After this repulse, the infidels began to think of abandoning the enterprise as hopeless; for they were wont to say one to another, that the knights could never be beaten in the presence of their chief; and as for “the cursed L’Isle Adam, he was every where at once.” Whilst they were hesitating and taking counsel, and whilst Solyman was endeavouring to infuse new spirit into their failing hearts, the treason of the Jewish physician was discovered, and met with its merited reward; and rightly interpreting the various movements in the enemy’s camp to betoken the approach of some new and prodigious effort, the Christians spent the interval in preparations for meeting an assault-general, which was indeed the plan on which Solyman had determined. For, as he said, “whilst we attack these giaours at one place only at a time, we make war for their amusement; rather must they be assailed on all sides at once,—overwhelmed, inundated by our countless numbers, and, if not exterminated from the earth under our sabres, compelled to sue for mercy at our hands.”

The 24th of September was the day indicated for this great attack, which was to be made at once on all four quarters of the city. From noon till midnight of the day before, heralds continued traversing the infidel camp crying, “To-morrow is the assault; the stones and the land are the sultan’s; the lives and the goods of the citizens are the prize of the conquerors.” The grand master, after making the best disposal in his power of his little company, addressed them and the inhabitants in a few simple words. But there was little time for exhortation or farewell; for at break of day the wild trumpets from the Janizaries’ band gave the signal for the advance; and those who stood at their posts on the walls could plainly see the sultan’s throne erected on an adjacent hill which commanded a view of the whole field, so that his troops well knew that they fought under their sovereign’s eye.

On they come under cover of a shower of arrows and the fire of their side batteries; they reach the walls, and are received by hissing streams of boiling oil, and fire-balls that fill the air with a thick and noisome smoke; the bastions of England, Provence, Spain, and Italy are the quarters of attack, but the bloodiest fight is on that of England, and thither the grand master hastens, his presence in itself being like a very host of succour. The scaling-ladders are thrown down, and the ditch below is choked with the prostrate Turks; the cannon are pointed on their dense masses, which they rend and tear with a terrible carnage; charge after charge is made by the maddened infidels, but the English will not yield; priests, monks, even children join in the defence, and tiny hands may be seen hurling stones and sticks upon the advancing stormers with an audacity which nothing will appal. All about the town the women may be seen running from bastion to bastion, carrying water to the wounded, whom they even bear off upon their shoulders. At one time forty Turkish standards are waving on the ramparts; but in a moment they are torn down, and the Cross is planted in their room. The assault is repulsed from England, and the cry is now, “Spain! Spain!” Glancing in the direction of the Spanish bastion, L’Isle Adam sees the green flag and the crescent of the infidels on the topmost summit of the walls. In a moment he is on the spot: “Auvergne to the rescue!” rings from the ranks of the French, as the grand master stands among his countrymen, and with his own hands points the cannon of that bastion down upon the breach of Spain. The Turks dare not advance to secure their victory; and in another moment the commander De Bourbon, at the head of the French chivalry, is on the platform, and his knights are seen tearing down the colours, and clearing the ground at the point of their swords. But the aga of the Janizaries who leads on that spot is not to be so easily repulsed; he rallies his men, and charges through the thick of the fire with mad impetuosity, when he is met by L’Isle Adam and his guards, and a conflict ensues, so long and desperate that far out to sea the blue waters are dyed with streams of blood, and the breach of Spain becomes a heap of dead and dying. Six hours it lasted; and then a reinforcement from St. Nicholas decided the day in favour of the Cross. Solyman himself was compelled to give the signal for retreat; and the masses of his troops fell back broken and disordered, leaving 20,000 corpses on those unconquerable walls. The grand master, without laying aside his armour, or taking rest or food, directed his steps to the church to give thanks to God for a victory so costly and yet so surpassing in its glory; and Rhodes, after that day of carnage, had another week of rest. So immense had been the slaughter during this conflict, that we are told the cessation of hostilities arose from both parties being compelled to withdraw from the walls, where the stench of the bodies was unendurable.

Solyman, enraged at his repeated discomfitures, condemned both his unfortunate generals to death; and it was only at the earnest entreaties of the other pashas, who threw themselves in tears at his feet, that he was induced to spare their lives. Mustapha was sent as governor into Egypt, and Achmet Pasha was placed at the head of the army.[27] But for assurances of his spies and the traitors within the walls that Rhodes was at its last gasp, it seems certain that he would have abandoned the enterprise altogether. But a council of war being held, it was determined to renew the assault on the eighth day. Accordingly the whole line of walls was stormed for three days successively; the English bastion, still the post of danger and of glory, though now a mere charred and ruined fragment, being this time held by a picked body of French, for every English knight was dead. In one of these battles Martinengo fell desperately wounded,—a great loss to the Christians, whose movements had been mainly directed by his skill; but the grand master thenceforth took his place, and for thirty-four days, we are assured, he never left the bastion of Spain, where the chief struggle was maintained, taking no rest save on a mattress they laid for him at the foot of a battery; “acting sometimes as a soldier, and sometimes as an engineer, but always as a general,” and exposing his life with a fearlessness that made his preservation something like a perpetual miracle. It was at this period of the siege that the treachery of Damaral being suspected, he was tried and condemned. Some have doubted his guilt, and represented that his misconduct consisted in nothing worse than a coldness and slackness in his duties, proceeding from jealousy of the grand master; however that might be, it is certain that he met with a traitor’s death.

We shall not ask our reader to accompany us through the history of the last month of uninterrupted fighting. During that extraordinary struggle, Rhodes presented the spectacle of a city entirely unwalled, with neither gates nor ramparts left, garrisoned by about 2000 wounded and exhausted men, yet keeping at bay the entire Turkish force at the point of their swords. In vain did Solyman in his addresses to his soldiers assure them that there was nothing to keep them out of the city; it lay open on all sides, and thirty men might ride abreast into its breaches: the artillery no longer played on the ramparts, but on the houses themselves. Yet still, whilst the remnant of the Christian garrison stood before their ruins, every effort of the infidels was in vain; and as often as they advanced within hearing, they were received with jests and defiances, taunted for their cowardice, and incited with bitter mockery to come up into the city, and take it if they could. Hardly were there left men enough to make the line of defence complete; the women stood sometimes by their sides, praying and encouraging their sons and husbands to fight on to the last for liberty and faith. And thus things continued until the beginning of the month of December.