The Knights of St. John

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

It was the 18th of May 1565, a little before sunrise when the guns of St. Angelo gave the signal of the enemy’s approach. As the sun rose over the western ocean it displayed the magnificent spectacle of the whole Turkish fleet, consisting of 181 vessels, besides a number of transports, bearing on towards the coast. They had 30,000 men on board, the flower of the Ottoman army; 4500 being Janizaries, under the command of Mustapha Pasha and the celebrated corsair[42] Admiral Piali:[43] Dragut and Ouloudjali were to follow speedily with the forces of Tripoli and Alexandria. Solyman is said to have spent five years in the equipment of this force; far less numerous than that formerly despatched against Rhodes, but furnished with such vast and formidable resources of all kinds, in stores, artillery, and machines of war, that it was thought its equal had never before been brought together.

The defenders of Malta had ample time to survey the force prepared for their attack; for, as though to display their strength, the Turkish vessels made the entire circuit of the island several times, being watched by the gallant Copier, marshal of the order, who, at the head of a small body of horse and about 600 foot, was charged with the duty of reconnoitring the enemy’s movements, and harassing them during their disembarkation. Late in the day the vessels dropped anchor opposite Citta Vecchia, the intention being to deceive the marshal, for in reality there was no thought of landing in that direction; and finally the whole army disembarked at Marsa Sirocco, a bay in the vicinity of the borgo, and proceeded to fortify their position so as to secure themselves from the sorties of the Christians.

The first few days were spent in spirited engagements between the skirmishing-parties on both sides, which La Valette allowed in order that his men might get accustomed to the appearance and method of fighting of the Turks; but the impetuosity of the knights was so great, that it required all the authority of the grand master to get the city-gates closed; and he saw the necessity of keeping his men within their enclosure if he did not wish to bring on a general engagement, which, with such unequal forces, would, he well knew, be madness. The 20th of May fell on a Sunday; many Masses had been said, and a solemn procession made in all the churches; the evening of the same day the Turkish artillery opened on the town, being principally directed against Fort St. Elmo, which was indeed the key of the Christian position. La Valette, regardless of the entreaties of his attendants not to expose his person, ascended the bastion of Provence, from whence he could command a view of the whole scene. It was indeed a splendid spectacle. Thirty thousand men drawn up in the form of a vast crescent, and seeming to cover the whole face of the country: the bright burning sun lit up their gilded armour and gay attire, their standards and many-coloured tents and flags, of which there was an infinite number of every hue; so that, to use the expression of an historian, “they looked like a multitude of flowers on a luxuriant meadow,” while from their ranks arose a soft and exquisite music from all kinds of martial instruments. Sometimes you might see a cloud of skirmishers separate from the dark mass of troops; for the marshal and Deguarras hovered on their flanks, and kept up a continual and harassing attack. Nevertheless both parties felt that this kind of desultory conflict was but waste of time, and La Valette knew as well as did the Turkish chiefs themselves that the attack would soon commence in real earnest on St. Elmo. Nor was he deceived; on the 24th the cannonade against that fort commenced both from sea and land; and once more those marble balls, which had done such terrible execution on the walls of Rhodes, were heard thundering against the bastions with terrible effect. La Valette well knew the importance of the post and its danger, and did what he could to relieve it by daily reinforcements sent in boats by night, which returned with the wounded. One day, as he stood watching the fire of the Turks from his usual post on the Provence bastion, La Cerda, a Spanish knight, appeared before him with a message from the garrison. “So please you,” exclaimed the envoy, “the bailiff of Negropont bids me say, that if the fort be not speedily succoured, it must fall; it cannot hold out another week under the fire of the eighty-pounders.” La Valette looked at him surprised. “What great loss has befallen you, sir,” he said, “that makes you cry thus for help?” “My lord,” replied La Cerda, “it is no time for delay: the castle is like a sick man, whose strength is exhausted, and can only be kept up by constant nourishment and care.” “I will be its physician,” said the grand master haughtily; “I will bring with me those who, if they cannot cure you of your fears may at least save the fortress by their valour.” And, in fact, he would have himself accompanied the reinforcements he despatched but for the interference of his council; for, as he was wont to say, he dreaded but one thing, and that was the possibility of a feeble defence. At length he consented that fifty of the order, with two companies of soldiers, should return with La Cerda to the post of danger. This reinforcement was placed under the command of the bold Medrano, and ere it departed to the fort was further increased by several knights from Sicily, who volunteered to share the fortunes of their brethren.

The great battery of the Turks, finished on the last day of May, was a curious structure; built at Constantinople in separate pieces of timber, so as to be put together on the spot, and now erected before the devoted fortress, whose garrison consisted of no more than 400 men. It was of enormous size, and decorated with fourteen standards of different colours: removed at first only 180 yards from the castle-walls; afterwards another battery was added, which discharged thirty heavy pieces of artillery at the distance of but thirty yards. It was a very tempest of fire; and that the walls could stand at all under such an assault is matter of surprise. The outer ravelin was stormed on St. Elmo’s day, the 3d of June; and the scene was anxiously watched from the borgo. From the other quarters of the town every incident of the fight could be distinctly discerned; and the Christians were compelled to be spectators of their comrades’ danger, while they were powerless to succour them; for St. Elmo was surrounded on all sides by its besiegers, and its communication with the old city entirely cut off. Is all lost, then? The parapets are crowded with turbaned heads; the ravelin is not only in the possession of the infidels, but is levelled to the ground; its defenders retreat to the main body of the fortress. But the Turks press hard upon their ranks; and as both parties, mingling together in a hand to hand fight, enter the court between the outworks and the citadel, the confused sound of yells and cries of every description announces to the excited beholders that a combat of no ordinary kind is raging in that narrow space. What can it mean? Will they storm the citadel itself before the batteries have formed a breach? There it is again; you may almost catch the taunting words of the combatants, as they confront each other face to face. But the Turks have surely got the worst; for there, in that pent-up court, there comes down upon them from the ramparts overhead such a storm of stones and wildfire and boiling oil, such volleys of musketry and the annihilating fire of cannon, which at that short range play on their thick masses with horrible effect, that they are forced to fall back on the ravelin. It was but to prepare, however, for a fresh attack; for, mad as the design may seem, the Turks had resolved on storming St. Elmo that very day, without waiting for the aid of breach or mine. The cry of “Scaling-ladders for the walls!” may now be heard; and scarcely are they brought but you may see the wild tumultuous rush with which they throw themselves on the ramparts, only to be hurled headlong on the rocks below. But the madness of savages has seized their ranks; they care nothing for the risk of death,—nothing for the crushing stones and torrents of burning pitch poured upon their defenceless heads; they scream curses and blasphemies at their adversaries, and you may catch their cries of rage and defeated malice, while there rises from that narrow neck of land a thick offensive smoke, through which glare lurid flames as in the crater of a volcano; and the dense cloud hangs over the water, gradually concealing every thing from view, so that at length you can but guess what kind of work is going on at that beleaguered fortress by the sounds that issue from the spot.

What meanwhile has been the situation of the garrison? Almost a desperate one: and yet they are the victors of the day. A hundred men, and twenty knights besides, have fallen in their ranks: but the bodies of three thousand of their enemies are lying on the rocks beneath; and, spite of all their frantic efforts, they have been compelled to retire defeated from the walls. And how have those hundred and twenty died? Do we find in their defence the same savage brute ferocity as was exhibited in the onslaught of their assailants? Surely, if so, such butchery were scarcely worthy of a record from a Christian pen. But it was not so; they combated to death, yet died as became the champions of the cross they wore. “Save yourself, comrade,” cried the French knight Bridier de la Gordamp; “and count me as a dead man, for the ball is very near my heart.” “By the fair fame of Auvergne, I will not leave you till I bear you to a place of safety,” said his companion; and, lifting him in his arms, he carried him through the fire to a sheltered nook. “Now go, dear brother,” said the wounded knight, “I can but die; and down there yonder they are fighting for the faith.” The other left him, as he desired; but when the fight was over, he searched in vain for his comrade, alive or dead. “Where is Bridier?” he said to the knights around him, “he had not strength to make his way within; I surely thought he had spoken his last word by our side.” At length a track of blood upon the step that led to the chapel within the fortress attracted their attention; they entered and approached the altar, and found the dead man, with his hands clasped as if in prayer, lying at its foot; he had felt the hand of death, and, summoning all his strength, had crawled away to die in quiet, and in the presence of his Lord. “He had ever led,” says Goussancourt, “a most religious life.” Much of the same spirit is shown in other anecdotes, and a certain sweet and noble chivalry breathes through the conduct of the knights, which singularly contrasts with the mad barbarism of their assailants: it is as though, through the bursts of a wild and terrible hurricane, we caught the rich tones of some lofty martial strain.

The attack lasted from daybreak till noon; and at nightfall La Valette succeeded in bringing off the wounded, and throwing a small reinforcement into the place, in spite of the fire of the janizary musketry. The bailiff and the commander Broglio, both badly wounded, would not accept the permission granted them to retire, but, together with many others of the garrison, preferred to remain and die at their posts. They might be seen, regardless of their sufferings, in the thickest of the fire, carrying earth to strengthen the ramparts, or administering help to the wounded; and, when unable to render more active service, you might see them drag themselves beside the artillerymen, and help them in the working of the guns.

Meanwhile La Valette had made frequent representations to the viceroy Toledo that his promised succours were badly needed; but they still delayed: only a small galley arrived from Sicily, bringing the gallant knight Miranda, who instantly volunteered to join the garrison at St. Elmo. His presence in the fortress had an astonishing effect,—for he was a man equally renowned for piety, courage, and military skill,—and his presence gave new life to the defence. Nevertheless it became every day more desperate: the ramparts were in ruins, the garrison worn out with constant fatigue; for, after days spent in conflict, their nights were employed in burying their dead and the torn and mangled limbs of those dismembered by the cannonade. Scarcely could you tell them to be men, so disfigured were they by the smoke and the wildfire that blazed around them; their faces bruised and burnt, and not one unwounded man among them. It was now the 6th of June; and while the guns of those terrible batteries still stormed against the ruins of St. Elmo, the Turks, after many fruitless efforts, succeeded at length in almost cutting off all communication between the fortress and the town. A wall was erected on the ravelin, which seemed to enclose the castle and entirely to shut it in from the mainland; and in this extremity it was determined to despatch a messenger to La Valette to inform him that St. Elmo was no longer tenable. Medrano, who was charged with the delivery of the intelligence, succeeded in making his way to the borgo. A majority of the council were for abandoning a position which it was impossible to hold; but La Valette, although he felt bitterly the hard necessity of refusing to recall the devoted troops, maintained that every day St. Elmo held out was worth a week to the safety oi the island, for the borgo could not be attacked till the castle fell; and the council came round to his opinion. “It is a sacrifice,” wrote the grand master; “but to such sacrifice of our life for Christendom our vows and profession bind us. The succour from Sicily is daily expected; and till it come, the decision of the council is, that St. Elmo must not be abandoned, but that its defenders must abide in it until death.”

It was a hard sentence; for the castle was rocking to its foundations, and the noise of the miners underneath could be distinctly heard; nevertheless Miranda and the elder knights, with the heroic old bailiff, received it with a shout of enthusiasm. But the younger brethren, to the number of fifty, protested that, rather than wait tamely to be butchered like sheep in a pen, they would sally out upon the foe, and perish to a man in one desperate encounter. This resolution they signified in a letter to the grand master. His reply was stern and peremptory. He bade them remember they were bound by their vows to fight and die, not in such manner as they willed, but as he their commander directed. That he might not appear, however, to slight their protestation, he sent three commissioners to report on the state of the defences. Two out of the number sided with the remonstrants; the third, an Italian knight named Castriot, not only declared the place still tenable, but boldly offered himself to undertake its defence; and this he repeated to the grand master on his return. Volunteers presented themselves on all sides, and in such crowds that La Valette’s only embarrassment was what selection to make. The complainants were told that their prayer was granted; they should be relieved that very evening, and within the walls of their convent might feel themselves, at least for the present, in safety. Stung to the quick by this sarcastic reply, the young knights humbly sued for forgiveness and for permission still to die at their posts. La Valette was at first inflexible, but yielded at length to the entreaties of the penitent brethren, and the new levies were dismissed. The hired troops also had betrayed their discontent. However, they too were at length shamed into resolution; for when they found that their departure was not opposed, and that hundreds in the ranks of their comrades on shore were eager to take their places, they declared that they would not be the first to retire, but would stay and die with their commanders. With extreme difficulty a fresh reinforcement of fifteen knights was now thrown into the fortress, who were received with such cheers and demonstrations of rejoicing, that the Turks, led to believe some powerful succour had arrived, were only driven to renew their fire more heavily than before. Dragut had arrived (June 2d) with thirteen galleys, containing each 100 men, and ten galliots, having on board 810 soldiers. With the guns of his ships he constructed a battery on the point of land which still hears his name, and firing across Port Musiette, swept the western flank of St. Elmo with terrible effect; and then from land and sea, both day and night, the enemy’s artillery continued to bombard the defences of the fort, as well as of the castle of St. Angelo. At length a yawning chasm in the walls showed that a practicable breach was effected; and Dragut fixed the 16th of June for the assault-general on St. Elmo.

Let our readers, therefore, transport themselves to the heights above the city, and watch the scene beneath. The whole Moslem fleet gathered like a forest round the mouth of the harbour,—for the attack is to be by sea as well as by land; the trenches filled with Turkish troops,—all, however, preserving a profound and singular silence; and 8000 horsemen before the bridge which faces the great front of the castle, where Mustapha Pasha commands in person, his presence being indicated by the great standard given into his hands before leaving Constantinople by the sultan himself. As to the garrison, they are well prepared for the attack; and, thanks to La Valette’s constant succours, their numbers are again complete; yet they are but 400 men. A knight stands to every three soldiers around the walls; heaps of stones are arranged at regular distances, with instruments of war not known in our day, and of the most terrible description; large hoops, which, dipped in certain combustible preparations and set on fire, are cast among the masses of the enemy, and surround some two or three with a circle of certain death; pots of wildfire, which break when hurled on the heads of the storming party, and scatter their burning contents far and wide; and other inventions of a similar kind, then in common use, which gave a peculiar horror to the sieges of the time. The wounded have their duties assigned to them, namely, to bring food and wine to those on the walls, and to drag away the dead or dying from beneath the feet of their comrades. In short, Christians and Moslems are ready and impatient, and only wait the signal of attack.

It was given by the planting of the sultan’s standard on the bridge; and the yell that burst from the Turkish line warned the garrison that their assailants were at hand. Thirty of their chosen men, bound by fearful oaths to enter the fortress together or die in the attempt, stormed the weakest bulwark, and would have infallibly succeeded but for the quick eye of La Valette, who watched all from the castle of St. Angelo, and directed two guns to bear upon the spot, which swept twenty of them away, and the remainder were compelled to retire. Still the attack on the other quarters was unabated in its fury. Mad with drink and with a wild religious fanaticism, the half-savage bodies of the Moslem troops threw themselves on the ladders, but never reached the top. Down came the fiery hoops and the stones and hissing wildfire, and swept them away by twenties at a time. All up and down the walls there seemed to flare and blaze those streams of liquid fire; and in the dense ranks of the assailants, those on whom it fell were unable to escape. Even when fresh stormers struggled to the parapets they met a wall of pikes they could not pierce; hand to hand the foemen grappled amid the showers of arrows and volleys of musketry that poured in from the trenches: but the strong arms of the Christian knights thrust off their enemies, and again the ladders were emptied and the walls left free. Then Dragut and Mustapha advanced, and choosing two of the most ferocious of their men, committed to each a splendid standard, and bade them plant them on the walls. In a moment the gilded banners are glittering on the ramparts; but in another they are torn away, and their bearers are hurled lifeless into the ditch. After a terrific conflict of six hours the infidels abandoned the attempt, leaving more than 2000 of their companions dead under the walls. It was now that Dragut met his doom. As he stood outside the trenches, making dispositions with Mustapha for screening off the fire of St. Angelo, a ball from that fort splintered a rock close beside him, and a fragment of the stone struck him on the head. He fell on the instant speechless and bathed in his own blood; and the pasha, to hide the catastrophe from the soldiers, threw his cloak over him, and had him carried to his tent, where he lived only long enough to learn the ultimate fate of St. Elmo.