La Valette had provided an entertainment for his illustrious guests, as good as his limited resources would allow; but it is said that the banquet was reinforced by a contribution from the viceroy's own stores.[1382] On the departure of the Spaniards, he showed his gratitude, while he indulged his munificent spirit, by bestowing handsome presents on the captains and a liberal largess of money on the soldiers.[1383]
On his way, the viceroy had discovered the Ottoman fleet formed in compact order, and standing under press of sail towards the east. He was too[{450}] far inferior in strength to care to intercept its course;[1384] and the squadron reached in safety the port of Constantinople. Solyman had already received despatches preparing him for the return of the fleet, and the failure of the expedition. It threw him into one of those paroxysms of ungovernable passion to which the old sultan seems to have been somewhat addicted in the latter years of his life. With impotent fury, he stamped on the letters, it is said, and, protesting that there were none of his officers whom he could trust, he swore to lead an expedition against Malta the coming year, and put every man in the island to the sword.[1385] He had the magnanimity, however, not to wreak his vengeance on the unfortunate commanders. The less to attract public notice, he caused the fleet bearing the shattered remains of the army to come into port in the night-time; thus affording a contrast sufficiently striking to the spectacle presented by the brilliant armament which a few months before had sailed from the Golden Horn amidst the joyous acclamations of the multitude.
The arms of Solyman the Second, during his long and glorious reign, met with no reverse so humiliating as his failure in the siege of Malta. To say nothing of the cost of the maritime preparations, the waste of life was prodigious, amounting to more than thirty thousand men, Moors included, and comprehending the very best troops in the empire. This was a loss of nearly three fourths of the original force of the besieging army,—an almost incredible amount, showing that pestilence had been as actively at work as the sword of the enemy.[1386]
Yet the loss in this siege fell most grievously on the Christians. Full two hundred knights, twenty-five hundred soldiers, and more than seven thousand inhabitants,—men, women, and children, are said to have perished.[1387] The defences of the island were razed to the ground. The towns were in ruins; the villages burnt; the green harvests cut down before they had time to ripen. The fiery track of war was over every part of Malta. Well might the simple inhabitants rue the hour when the Knights of St. John first set foot upon their shores. The military stores were exhausted, the granaries empty; the treasury was at the lowest ebb. The members of the order had now to begin the work of constructing their fortunes over again. But still they enjoyed the glory of victory. They had the proud consciousness of having baffled, with their own good swords, the whole strength of the Ottoman empire. The same invincible spirit still glowed in their bosoms, and they looked forward with unshaken confidence to the future.
REVIEW OF THE SIEGE.
Such were the results of this memorable siege,—one of the most memorable sieges, considering the scale of the preparations, the amount of the forces, and the spirit of the defence, which are recorded on the pages of history. It[{451}] would not be easy, even for a military man, after the lapse of three centuries, to criticize with any degree of confidence the course pursued by the combatants, so as to determine to what causes may be referred the failure of the besiegers. One obvious fault, and of the greatest moment, was that already noticed, of not immediately cutting off the communications with St. Elmo, by which supplies were constantly thrown into that fortress from the opposite side of the harbor. Another, similar in its nature, was, that, with so powerful a navy as the Turks had at their command, they should have allowed communications to be maintained by the besieged with Sicily, and reinforcements thus introduced into the island. We find Mustapha and Piali throwing the blame of this mutually on each other, especially in the case of Cardona, whose most seasonable succors might easily have been intercepted, either by land or sea, with proper vigilance on the part of the Turkish commanders. A serious impediment in the way of the besiegers was the impossibility of forcing a subsistence for the troops from a barren spot like Malta, and the extreme difficulty of obtaining supplies from other quarters, when so easily intercepted by the enemy's cruisers. Yet the Turkish galleys lying idle in the western port might have furnished a ready convoy, one might suppose, for transports bringing provisions from the Barbary coast. But we find no such thing attempted. To all these causes of failure must be added the epidemic, which, generated under the tropical heats of a Maltese summer, spread like a murrain through the camp of the besiegers, sweeping them off by thousands.
It operated well for the besieged, that the great advance made in the science of fortification was such, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, as in a great degree to counterbalance the advantages secured to the besiegers by the use of artillery,—especially such clumsy artillery, and so awkwardly served, as that of the Turks. But these advantages would have proved of little worth, had it not been for the character of the men who were to profit by them. It was the character of the defenders that constituted the real strength of the defence. This was the true bulwark that resisted every effort of the Ottoman arms, when all outward defences were swept away. Every knight was animated by a sentiment of devotion to his order, and that hatred to the infidel in which he had been nursed from his cradle, and which had become a part of his existence. These sentiments he had happily succeeded in communicating to his followers, and even to the people of the island. Thus impelled by an unswerving principle of conduct, the whole body exhibited that unity and promptness of action which belongs to an individual. From the first hour of the siege to the last, all idea of listening to terms from the enemy was rejected. Every man was prepared to die rather than surrender. One exception only occurred,—that of a private soldier in La Sangle, who, denying the possibility of holding out against the Turks, insisted on the necessity of accepting the terms offered to the garrison. The example of his cowardice might have proved contagious; and the wretched man expiated his offence on the gallows.[1388]
Above all, the strength of the besieged lay in the character of their chief. La Valette was one of those rare men whom Providence seems to raise up for special occasions, so wonderfully are their peculiar qualities suited to the emergency. To that attachment to his order which he had in common with his brethren, he united a strong religious sentiment, sincere and self-sacrificing, which shone through every act of his life. This gave him an absolute[{452}] ascendancy over his followers, which he had the capacity to turn to full account. He possessed many of the requisites for success in action; great experience, a quick eye, a cool judgment. To these was united a fixedness of purpose not to be shaken by menace or entreaty; and which was only to be redeemed from the imputation of obstinacy by the extraordinary character of the circumstances in which he was placed. The reader will recall a memorable example, when La Valette insisted on defending St. Elmo to the last, in defiance not only of the remonstrance, but the resistance, of its garrison. Another equally pertinent is his refusal, though in opposition to his council, to abandon the town and retire to St. Angelo. One can hardly doubt that on his decision, in both these cases, rested the fate of Malta.
La Valette was of a serious turn, and, as it would seem, with a tendency to sadness in his temperament. In the portraits that remain of him, his noble features are touched with a shade of melancholy, which, taken in connection with his history, greatly heightens the interest of their expression. His was not the buoyant temper, the flow of animal spirits, which carries a man over every obstacle in his way. Yet he could comfort the sick, and cheer the desponding; not by making light of danger, but by encouraging them like brave men fearlessly to face it. He did not delude his followers by the promises—after he had himself found them to be delusive—of foreign succor. He taught them, instead, to rely on the succor of the Almighty, who would never desert those who were fighting in his cause. He infused into them the spirit of martyrs,—that brave spirit which, arming the soul with contempt of death, makes the weak man stronger than the strongest.
There is one mysterious circumstance in the history of this siege which has never been satisfactorily explained,—the conduct of the viceroy of Sicily. Most writers account for it by supposing that he only acted in obedience to the secret instructions of his master, unwilling to hazard the safety of his fleet by interfering in behalf of the knights, unless such interference became absolutely necessary. But even on such a supposition the viceroy does not stand excused; for it was little less than a miracle that the knights were not exterminated before he came to their relief; and we can hardly suppose that an astute, far-sighted prince, like Philip, who had been so eager to make conquests from the Moslems in Africa, would have consented that the stronghold of the Mediterranean should pass into the hands of the Turks. It seems more probable that Don Garcia, aware of the greater strength of the Turkish armament, and oppressed by the responsibility of his situation as viceroy of Sicily, should have shrunk from the danger to which that island would be exposed by the destruction of his fleet. On any view of the case, it is difficult to explain a course so irreconcilable with the plan of operations concerted with the grand-master, and the promises of support given to him by Don Garcia at the beginning of the siege.