The Great Siege of Malta

352 pages

Prof Andrew Lambert

The Ottoman siege of Malta in 1565 is often cited a turning point in modern history, the high-water mark of Turkish expansion, and the beginning of a fight back by Catholic Europe led by Spain, the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. The Knights Hospitaller, lately removed from their insular base on Rhodes, from which they had raided critical Ottoman trade routes between Istanbul and Alexandria, were given control of Malta in 1530, enabling them to continue their ‘Holy War’ against Muslim shipping, trading vessels, pilgrim transports and corsairs. The Knights deployed a small fleet of powerful galleys from Grand Harbour. The Ottoman response was predictable, an attack in 1551, followed by a full-scale attempt to destroy the Order in 1565. The odds appeared promising: the Ottomans commanded the Islamic polities of the Mediterranean, while the Christian powers were divided. While many French knights fought in the siege, including the Grand Master of the Order, Jean de La Valette, France was allied to the Ottomans, and opposed the Habsburg powers. The English branch of the Order became insignificant after the Reformation.

In 1565 the upgraded defences of Grand Harbour remained weak. Although well equipped with artillery the Knights were short of manpower, not helped by poor relations with the Maltese islanders. In this impressive, deeply researched analysis Bull emphasises that the Maltese people had a far greater role in the Christian victory than older accounts, which were dominated by the accounts left by elite soldiers, and their friends. He also highlights the role of the fortified city of Mdina, which fed supplies and reinforcements into the defence of the Harbour throughout the campaign.

Even so Bull concludes the Ottomans should have won, given the balance of forces, and resources. Stoic, if not always intelligent, Christian resistance and heavy losses among the elite Ottoman troops seriously weakened the invaders. The Ottoman leaders, reduced to dressing up lowly recruits in the clothes of better men and costly frontal assaults had been preparing to leave the island before a small Spanish/Italian relief force landed.

Rather than pursue old religious agendas and messianic readings of the triumph Bull places the siege in a broad global economic and political context, linking Fernand Braudel’s great study The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II to global shifts in economic and strategic power, noting the Spanish Crown was more concerned to secure Florida, to protect bullion shipments from Mexico, than Malta, while Madrid’s deepening engagement in resisting the Dutch Revolt siphoned off resources. Meanwhile the Ottomans took control of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf trade routes, to maintain control of the valuable trade in Asian commodities. While the siege has always been represented as a Christian success it had little impact on Ottoman power. Just how close the Turkish attack came to success can be gauged from the immense fortification system the Knights erected after 1565, which endured on the front line of endemic warfare for another 130 years of predatory naval operations on the religious front line. In 1798 Napoleon abruptly ended their tenure of this strategic island, seizing the Knights treasury and shipping for his invasion of Egypt, which he soon lost to a British naval blockade. In 1869 the Suez Canal made Malta a critical link in Britain’s global maritime empire, and it endured a second, longer siege in 1940-43. Bull concludes with a striking link between the siege and the 2017 murder of campaigning journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017- who has been remembered at the 1565 monument…