Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

Fig. 142.—Zizim, who had been kept a prisoner at Rhodes, to which he had fled after his defeat, and had afterwards been transferred to Rome, is handed over to Charles VIII., King of France.

“Description of the Siege of the Island of Rhodes,” by G. Caoursin (Ulm, 1496: Gothic folio).—Library of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.

In 1522, Sultan Soliman II., surnamed the Magnificent, discovered amidst his father’s archives an exact account of the island of Rhodes, and resolved to attack it. He put forward, as a pretext, a desire to punish the knights of the order for the losses they were daily inflicting on the Turkish navy, and the hope of paralyzing their efforts in favour of the Holy Land. The treachery of André Amaral, the chancellor of the order and the grand prior of Castile, who wished to revenge himself on his brother knights for having preferred to himself as their grand master, Philippe de Villiers de l’Ile-Adam, made Soliman aware of the scanty material resources of the island, and persuaded him to undertake the fatal siege, in which treachery and deceit were his most powerful allies. In vain did he collect a fleet of four hundred sail, an army of one hundred and forty thousand men and sixty thousand pioneers; in vain he swept the ramparts with the fire of his guns, in vain he dug ditch after ditch, mine upon mine, and endeavoured to wear out the besieged by his harassing and ceaseless attacks. His want of success would have certainly exhausted his patience, and he would probably have raised the siege had not the traitor Amaral revealed to him the weak condition of both the town and its garrison. At last, however, on the 30th of November, the Turks made what was supposed to be their final effort. They penetrated as far as the inner defences, and the struggle was a terrible one. Roused by the tocsin, the grand master, the knights, and the inhabitants poured on to the ramparts and threw themselves on the enemy, who had already deemed themselves successful, and forced them to retreat.

Grieved and discouraged by this final check, Soliman proposed a capitulation. He threw letters into the town exhorting the inhabitants to yield, and threatening them with the utmost severities if they persisted in a useless resistance. At first Villiers de l’Ile-Adam made answer that he only treated with infidels sword in hand; but he had to give way to the urgent remonstrances of the principal inhabitants, who showed a determination to take at all hazards measures to ensure the honour and the lives of their wives and their children. The sultan having hung out a white flag, the grand master did the same, and demanded a truce of three days to draw up the capitulation. But Soliman, fearing lest assistance might arrive in the interval, rejected this proposal, and ordered a fresh assault. The knights of Rhodes, reduced to a mere handful, and having only the barbican of the Spanish bastion left to protect them, obliged the enemy once more to retire. On the morrow, however, another attack of the Turks drove the defenders of the bastion back into the town, and the terror-stricken inhabitants implored the grand master to resume negotiations. Achmet, Soliman’s minister, who knew how impatiently his master desired the end of the war, obtained at last the surrender of Rhodes on terms so honourable and so advantageous to its defenders, that they spoke volumes for the esteem with which the conquered had inspired their conquerors. The knights, to the number of four thousand, abandoned the island under the guidance of their grand master, Villiers; after touching at Candia and Sicily, they finally settled at Malta, which was ceded to them by Charles V., and which became the definitive residence of the order. This was in 1530.

Fig. 143.—Barracks of the Knights of Rhodes. State of the Ruins in 1828.—From “Monuments of Rhodes.”

Thirty-five years later, at the end of Soliman II.’s reign, the Turks once more attacked the order under the pretext of avenging the capture of a galliot laden with costly merchandise, the property of the sultana; and Mustapha, Pasha of Buda, a brave officer, the general of the Ottoman army, landed on the island on the 18th of May, 1565. After a few skirmishes the Turks made a fierce attack on Fort St. Elmo, and captured it in spite of the brave defence of the Knights of Malta (the new title of the members of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem)—a defence which lasted twenty-four days, and cost the lives of four thousand of the assailants, amongst them that of the famous pirate Dragut, the vice-sultan of Tripoli. The fort of St. Michael, and the suburb of that name, were reduced to ashes by the fire of the enemy; and it was only the invincible courage of the grand master, Jean de la Valette, and of a small number of his knights, all to the last man prepared to die for their faith—even after more than two thousand of them had already perished—that still enabled Malta to hold out.

Fortunately, Don Garcias de Toledo, the viceroy of Sicily, came with sixty galleys to their assistance. During the four months of the siege the Turkish forces fired seventy-eight thousand rounds of artillery, and lost fifteen thousand soldiers and eight thousand sailors.

Fig. 144.—The French Priory at Rhodes (Fifteenth Century).—State of the Ruins in 1828.