The Story of Malta

by Maturin M. Ballou

The Grand Master assembled the Knights to an extraordinary meeting. He bade them reconcile themselves with God and with each other, and then prepare to lay down their lives, if necessary, in defense of the faith which they had sworn to shield. All schisms were forgotten, as might naturally be expected. The order, in face of an enemy, was as one individual. After renewing their vows in the most solemn manner, they joined hands and hearts in the great purpose of defense, resolving to inflict dire destruction upon the common enemy. There was no more jealousy or rivalry between individuals of the order, except as to which should exhibit the greatest and most effective bravery upon the ramparts, or on the occasion of a sortie. This spirit of chivalrous emulation among the Knights cost the enemy daily many scores of lives.

Thus began one of the most sanguinary sieges ever recorded in history. It lasted for nearly four months, and was characterized by unrelenting desperation on both sides, reviving again the bloody scenes which were enacted at Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes. The thirty-five years which had transpired since the Knights took possession of Malta had been largely devoted to strengthening their means of defense, and in supplying their armory with the most effective death-dealing weapons. The present site of Valletta, it should be remembered, was then simply the bare promontory of Mount Sceberris.

The Grand Master knew every movement of the enemy, through the capable spies whom he maintained at Constantinople, and was promptly informed by them of the sailing of the expedition. The Christian forces, therefore, were in no wise taken by surprise, while the Turks were amazed at the ample preparation evinced in the manner their first onslaught was received, and the terrible slaughter of their forces, while the cheering battle-cry of the Knights of St. John rang ominously in their ears. They could not have hoped to take the Christians wholly unawares, but they had no idea that the Knights were so thoroughly prepared to receive them with stout arms, keen-edged weapons, and an abundance of death-dealing missiles. The invaders had brought siege artillery with them, and after the first assault, from which they had hoped to achieve so much, but in which they were tellingly repulsed, leaving hundreds of their best soldiers dead in the trenches and upon the open field, they resorted to their reserved means of offense. Some of their cannon were of such enormous calibre as to throw stones weighing three hundred pounds. Yet so clumsy was this primitive artillery, and so awkwardly was it served, that it often inflicted more destruction on the Turkish gunners themselves than on the Christians.

The struggle raged fiercely day by day, and the victims were reckoned by hundreds among the enemy every twenty-four hours. The carnage among the besiegers was awful. Their close ranks were mowed down by the Knights, as grass falls before the scythe of the husbandman.

When the Ottoman soldiers came in a body, bearing scaling-ladders wherewith to reach the top of the rampart of St. Elmo, and while they were in the most exposed situation, sharp-cornered stones, as heavy as two men could lift, were launched suddenly upon those ascending the ladders, forcing them to the ground, and killing them in large numbers. Boiling pitch was poured upon the upturned faces of the assailants, blinding and agonizing them. Iron hoops bound with cotton thoroughly saturated with gum and gunpowder were set on fire, and so thrown as to encircle the heads of three or four of the enemy, binding them together in a fiery circle which they could not extinguish, and which burned them fatally before they reached the ground below. Many other horribly destructive and fatal devices were adopted by the defenders, which spread death in all directions among the Turks. When one of the enemy succeeded in reaching the top of the ramparts, he was instantly met by a Knight, whose keen battle-axe severed his head from the body, both head and body tumbling back into the ditch among the assailants. Still, the indomitable Ottomans renewed their attacks from day to day, hoping to carry the fort at last by exhausting the physical endurance of the defenders, though it should cost ten Mussulmans' lives for one Christian. Each time they marched to the assault, the death-dealing rocks, the boiling pitch, and the fiery hoops did their terrible work, in connection with the ordinary weapons of war, in the use of which the Knights were so expert. It is said that in the hands of a powerful man familiar with it, no weapon is so destructive at close quarters as the broad-bladed, keen-edged battle-axe of those days. The Orientals depended almost solely upon their crude firearms,—the blunderbuss,—together with their light swords and spears.

Early in the siege of which we are speaking, the commander of the Mohammedan army resorted energetically to mining, in furtherance of their attack upon Fort St. Elmo, but the Knights were no novices at counter mining. On one occasion the Turkish engineers had sprung a device of this sort so near to the defensive bastions as to make a wide breach in the stout walls. This was not unexpected by the Knights, who had, in fact, been on the watch for just such an opportunity. Hardly had the shower of the débris ceased to fall, before the enemy rushed forward to enter the fort by the newly made breach. The turbaned throng, a thousand men and more, with waving banners and upraised swords, crowded together upon the spot, little heeding what was to follow. And yet there was a moment's pause, a moment of utter silence, as though those soldiers of the crescent instinctively waited for something to happen, they knew not what. It was like the awful stillness which precedes the hurricane at sea. The moment this pause occurred, the Knights sprung a well-prepared mine beneath the very feet of the densely crowded body of the enemy, blowing nearly two thirds of their immediate assailants to instant death! Seven hundred Turks are said to have lost their lives at that terribly fatal explosion, as though struck by lightning. The whole Ottoman force rapidly withdrew in utter confusion and amazement.

The moral effect of this frightful catastrophe to their army led to quiet in the Turkish camp for several days, though it did not fail to create among the invaders a spirit of revenge which amounted almost to madness.

Jean de La Vallette, Grand Master of the order, was well fitted for his position in this great emergency. He was seen everywhere, even in the thickest of the fight, praising the valor of the Knights and leading the most hardy. Though he was gray with age, being threescore years and ten, still his practiced arm was stout and able to wield the terrible battle-axe with dire effect. He had always been famous for his expertness with this weapon. He was the beau idéal of the soldier-monk, and the true embodiment of a spirit of chivalry which was fast passing away. At this special time his experience was of the greatest advantage, and his judgment was always sound. Having once been a captive among the Turks for a considerable period, he knew their mode of warfare, and spoke their language. Though stern and inflexible in character, and often charged with cruelty, he is represented to have been always just, and devoutly religious. To his skill, courage, and iron will, together with a spirit of tireless energy, more than aught else, the Ottomans owed their final defeat. His very name has become a synonym with the Maltese for genius, piety, and courage.

It is true that on the closing days of the siege, the Knights of St. John were joined by long-delayed reinforcements sent from Italy, but so far as we can discover, these fresh troops were not called upon to go into action with the enemy. The siege was virtually already at an end when they arrived upon the scene. The Turkish army had suffered beyond all precedent. Three quarters of their number had laid down their lives in this sanguinary and useless siege. The fort of St. Elmo had finally been captured by the enemy, but forts St. Angelo and St. Michael still remained intact. These forts were also stormed again and again, but the now weary and disheartened Ottomans were repulsed each time with awful slaughter. At last, when it became known that reinforcements sent to the Knights had actually landed upon another part of the island, Mustafa Pasha was compelled to order the galleys to prepare to sail for Constantinople with the small and shattered remnant of his army. Further prosecution of the siege was out of the question, and those of the Turkish army still left alive, struck by a panic, threw away their arms, and fled toward the galleys.

In this hasty and demoralized retreat of the enemy, the Knights saw their chance for an effective dash; so getting a few score of cavalry together, until now inoperative, they fell upon the rear of the fleeing Turks and slaughtered them in large numbers, while many were driven pellmell into the sea, where they were quickly drowned.