The Great Siege of Malta: 450 Knights vs 40,000 Invaders | (Part 1)

This is Sulleman’s last  crusade. This is the great siege of Malta. Let’s go back to where this all began. Because Malta wasn’t random. This wasn’t just another Ottoman conquest. This was personal. In 1520, Sullean becomes Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. At age 26, he inherits the  most powerful Islamic empire the world has seen since the caliphates. But he wants more.

 He wants to be remembered as the greatest Sultan in history. The one who finally drove Christianity out of the Mediterranean. The one who conquers Rome itself. And standing in his way are the knights hospitaler, the knights of St. John, also called the hospitalers. They weren’t [music] just soldiers.

 They were monks. Men who had taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to God. But they had also taken another vow. To fight and if necessary, die defending Christianity and the faithful. They were the last of the true crusaders, the final remnants of an age when Christian warriors marched to Jerusalem, singing hymns and wielding swords in the name of Christ.

 And in 1522, they held the island of Roads [music] Wright at the doorstep of the Ottoman Empire. For Sullean, roads was intolerable. A Christian fortress in what should be an Islamic sea, a base from which these warrior monks launched raids on Muslim shipping, freed Christian slaves, and humiliated the Sultan’s navy.

 So in the summer of 1522, Sullean came for them. 100,000 Ottoman soldiers, 400 ships against 7,000 knights and defenders. The siege lasted 6 months. The knights fought like men possessed. Every breach in the walls became a killing ground. Every assault was met with such ferocity that the Ottomans bled  themselves white trying to break in.

 Women fought on the walls. Old men carried ammunition. Children brought water to the defenders. The entire Christian population of roads became  a single organism of resistance. But numbers don’t lie. By December 1522,  the walls had been pounded to rubble. Disease and starvation had ravaged the defenders.  Half the knights were dead.

 The civilian population was dying. The grandmaster of the order, a man named Philip Villier Deil Adam, negotiated a surrender with  Sullean. And here’s something remarkable. Sullean gave them terms. He allowed the knights to leave with honor. They could take their weapons,  their flags, their holy relics.

 They could board their ships and sail away because even Sullean, the conqueror, the warrior, the sultan, [music] respected their courage. There’s a historical quote attributed to him as he watched the knights leave roads. It pains me to force this brave old man from his home. Sullean was young, magnanimous in victory.

 He thought the knights were finished, that they’d fade into irrelevance, become monks in some  monastery somewhere, praying and growing old. He was catastrophically wrong. In 1530, 8 years after roads fell, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles Vanted the Knights a new home, Malta, in exchange  for one symbolic rent, one falcon per year.

 The Knights accepted because what choice did they have? But Malta was nothing like roads. Roads had been beautiful, fertile, prosperous. Malta was described by contemporaries as nothing but rock and sky, 12,000 inhabitants, [music] no natural resources, barely any fresh water, summer heat that could kill a man in armor. It was a barren waste.

 But the knights didn’t complain. They got to work. From 1530 to 1565, they transformed Malta. They built fortresses. They dug wells. They trained the local Maltese population. They rebuilt their navy and they went back to doing what they’d always done, raiding Ottoman shipping.

 The Knights became what some called Christian pirates. They’d sail out of Malta, intercept Ottoman merchant ships carrying silk and spices from the east. Free Christian slaves chained to the oars, and  sail back to Malta with captured treasure. They were relentless, fearless, and extraordinarily effective. Between 1530 and  1565, the Knights of Malta became the single greatest threat to Ottoman control of the Western Mediterranean.

 And Sullean, now older, angrier, hated them for it. Year after year, the raids continued. The humiliations mounted. The Sultan’s advisers whispered,  “The knights mock you. They are a cancer on the body of Islam.  They must be destroyed.” But it was one raid in particular that pushed Sullean over the edge.

 In 1564, a knight named Romeus, one of the most daring commanders in the order, captured an Ottoman treasure ship. This wasn’t just any ship. On board were the Ottoman governors of Cairo and Alexandria. Wealthy men, powerful men, heading to Mecca on pilgrimage. But also on board was someone even more important to Sullean personally, his elderly former nurse, an old woman who had cared for him as a child.

 Now in her 80s, heading to Mecca to fulfill her religious duty before she died, she was captured, held for ransom, paraded through the streets of Malta like a prize. For Sullean, this was the final insult. 71  years old now. Knowing his time was running out, knowing that his legacy would be defined by what he accomplished in his final  years, he called his advisers and he gave the order.

 Assemble the fleet. Gather  the army. We sail for Malta. And this time there will be no terms, no surrender, no mercy. The Knights of St.  John will be exterminated. Every last one. This wasn’t just  military strategy. This was revenge. A 43-year  grudge match between an empire and an order of warrior monks.

 Between Islam’s greatest sultan  and Christianity’s last crusaders, between two 71-year-old men who had been enemies since  they were young. Sulleman and the knight’s new grandmaster,  a Frenchman named Jean Paris de Lavallet, had both survived roads in 1522. Both remembered that siege. Both knew this would be the last time they faced each other. One of them would die.

 The other would become immortal. Jean Pariso de Lavallet. If you’re going to understand why Malta survived, you need to understand this man. Because he was the rock on which the entire defense was built. Born in 1495 in southern France. Noble family, could have had a comfortable life as a lord.

 Wealth, power, a wife, and children. Instead, at age 20, [music] he joined the Knights Hospitaler. He took vows, poverty, chastity, obedience, but most importantly, he took the vow to fight for Christ until death. And he meant it. In 1522, he fought at the siege of roads. He was 27 years old. He saw the walls collapse.

 He saw half the knights die. He watched as the order was forced to abandon their [music] home. He swore it would never happen again. In 1541, Davalet was captured by Ottoman corsair during a naval battle. He was chained to an ore in a Turkish galley, enslaved. For one year, Jean de Lavallet, a nobleman, a knight, a warrior of Christ,  rode in the belly of a Muslim warship, whipped, starved, surrounded by the screams of dying men.

Most men would have broken. De Lavallet’s hatred of the Ottomans only grew stronger. He escaped [music] during a Christian raid on the galley, fought his way free, made it back to Malta. And from that  day forward, he was a man with a mission. In 1557, at age 62, Jeavallet  was elected grandmaster of the Knights Hospitala, and he immediately began preparing for the war.

 or he knew was coming. Contemporary sources  describe him as a formidable old man, tall, lean, gray bearded with eyes that could cut through steel. He spoke eight languages. He was a master swordsman. He could outthink most generals half his age. But more than that, he had absolute faith. Faith in  God.

Faith in his order. faith that if they stood firm, Christ would deliver them. He wasn’t a fanatic. He was a realist. He knew the Ottomans were stronger, better supplied,  more numerous. But he also knew something the Ottomans didn’t. That 500 men who believe they’re fighting for God are worth 5,000 who are only fighting for gold.

 From 1557 to 1565, Dea Vallet prepared Malta for siege. He reinforced Fort St. Angelo, the main fortress at the tip of the  Burgu Peninsula. Massive walls overlapping fields of fire, bastions designed  to withstand the heaviest artillery. He built Fort St. Elmo, a new star-shaped fortress at the  entrance to the Grand Harbor.

 Small, but positioned to control access to the port. He built Fort  St. Michael, defending the city of Sanglia. But he didn’t just build [music] walls. He built a spy network. Knights stationed in Constantinople sent word. Informants in North Africa reported troop  movements.

 Captured Ottoman sailors were interrogated. By 1563,  two full years before the invasion. Devellet knew it was coming. He knew Sullean was building a fleet. He knew the Sultan had sworn to destroy Malta. He knew the storm was gathering, so he prepared. In the spring of 1565, Deavallet gave orders that shocked the Maltese  population.

 Harvest all crops, ripe or not. Bring everything inside [music] the fortress walls. Poison every well outside the fortifications. Fill them with animal carcasses, dead horses, dead dogs, anything to make the water undrinkable. Demolish every building within cannon range of the walls, houses, barns, churches, anything that could provide cover for Ottoman sharpshooters.

 Leave the Ottomans nothing. No food, no water, no shelter. The Maltese people  protested. You’re destroying our homes, our livelihoods. Dear Vallet’s response was cold and true. If the Ottomans take this island, you will have no homes, no livelihoods, no lives. You will be slaves or  corpses. Better to burn your houses now than watch the Turks burn them with you inside.

 He was preparing for total war. But Dea Vallet’s greatest strength wasn’t his tactical brilliance. It was his leadership. He gathered his knights in the Chapel of St. Angelo, all 500 of them. And he spoke. Here’s what we know. He said, reconstructed from multiple historical accounts. Brothers, we are the last crusaders,  the last warriors of Christ who hold territory in our own name.

 Jerusalem fell. Acre fell. Roads fell. We are all that [music] remains. The Turks are coming. 40,000 of them, perhaps more. They have cannons that can shatter castle walls. They have the best soldiers [music] in the world. They have time supplies, ships. We are 500 knights. We have 6,000 total [music] defenders if you count the Maltese militia and the Spanish reinforcements.

We are outnumbered 7 to1 humanly speaking. We cannot win. But we are not here to win. We are here to hold. Every day we  survive is a day that Europe prepares. Every Turk we kill is one less attacking Rome. Every hour we stand is an hour that Christendom remains  free. You took vows, poverty, chastity, obedience, but also this to fight for Christ  until death.

 Today God asks you to fulfill that vow. I will not order you to die. But I ask you, will you stand? Will you [music] hold this rock against the greatest empire on earth? Will you be the shield of Christendom one last time? Or will you flee and let the Turks march to [music] Rome unopposed? Every single knight knelt. Every single one vowed to stay, to fight, to die if necessary for God, for Malta, for Christryendom. This wasn’t bravado.

 This wasn’t propaganda. These were men who genuinely believed that their souls eternal salvation depended on fulfilling their vows. That if they died defending the faith, they would wake up in paradise. They weren’t afraid of death. They were afraid of failing God. And that made them the most dangerous warriors on earth. May 18th, 1565.

Dawn breaks over Malta. And on the horizon, sails appear. Not one, not 10, 193. The lookouts on Mount Sberas saw them first. They rang the alarm bells. The sound echoed across the island. Church bells joined in. A cacophony of warning. The Ottomans had come. Across Malta, the civilian population dropped everything and ran. Farmers abandoned their fields.

Fishermen abandoned their boats. Mothers grabbed their children and sprinted  toward the fortress cities of Burggu and Sanga because they knew what was coming. Everyone knew. The fleet was massive beyond comprehension. 193 galleys and warships. The sails stretched from horizon to horizon. 15,000 sailors and oarsmen.

 most of them Christian slaves chained to the oars rowing their Muslim masters toward a Christian island. And on board 40,000 soldiers,  6,300 janiseries, the Sultan’s elite infantry, young men taken from Christian families as boys, converted to Islam, trained from childhood to fight and die for the Sultan.

 They were the best infantry in the world. Disciplined, fearless, fanatical. 9,000 Sepahi cavalry, the Ottoman heavy cavalry, noblemen who fought on horseback with lances and sabers, and 25,000 more, North African Berber warriors, barbar corsaires, irregular troops, volunteers seeking glory  and plunder, 40,000 men. against Malta’s 6,000.

 The invasion was commanded by three men. Mustapa Pasha, age 60, commander of the land forces, a cautious, methodical general, veteran of a dozen sieges, personally chosen by Sullean. Piali Pasha, age mid30s, commander of the fleet, young, aggressive, ambitious, the hero of the battle of Gerba in 1560 where he destroyed a Christian fleet.

 And the third commander wasn’t there yet, but he was coming. His name  was Dragot, Turgot race, known to Christians as Dragot, 80 years old. the drawn  sword of Islam. The most feared corsair in the Mediterranean. A man who had fought  the knights for 40 years. A man who had raided Christian coasts from  Spain to Sicily.

 A man who answered only to the Sultan himself. Sulleman had personally asked him to come to Malta. Finish this, Dragot. Wipe them out. And Dragot, though old, though ready to retire, could not refuse his sultan. He would arrive [music] in 2 weeks with 13 more GS and 1,500 elite fighters. But even without him, the Ottoman force on May 18th was overwhelming.

 The fleet sailed past the Grand Harbor. The Ottoman commanders looked at the fortifications and understood immediately. Fort St. Elmo commanded the harbor entrance. Its cannons could sink any ship trying to enter. The main harbor wasn’t accessible, so they sailed south to Mars Lock Bay. And there, on May 19th, they landed.

 The first 500 soldiers waded ashore. Devellet sent 300 arabuzzias, soldiers with early firearms, and a unit of cavalry to meet them. There was a brief bloody skirmish. Shots fired, swords drawn, men screaming. The Maltese killed perhaps 50 Ottomans, lost  20 of their own, then retreated. It was symbolic resistance, a message. We’re here.

 We’re not afraid. But everyone [music] knew the truth. You can’t stop 40,000 with 300. May 20th, the main force landed. [music] 25,000 more soldiers disembarked. Horses, camels, supply wagons, 70 enormous siege cannons. It took two full days to get everything ashore. The Ottomans set up a fortified camp near the village of Mara, just south of the Grand Harbor.

 And on their march north toward the harbor, they passed through a small village called Zaiton. Zon had about 200 inhabitants, Maltese farmers, fishermen, their families. The Ottoman commanders sent a message. Submit to the Sultan. Convert to Islam. You will be spared. The villagers refused. Every single one.

 The Ottomans put the entire village to the sword. Men beheaded, women killed, children killed. Bodies left in the streets as a warning. News of the massacre spread across Malta within hours. The message was clear. Resist. And this is what happens. But it had the opposite effect. The Maltese population, who had never particularly loved the knights, who saw them as foreign occupiers, rallied to their defense.

 Because this wasn’t about politics anymore. This was about survival. This was Islam versus Christianity, the cresant versus the cross. And the Maltes were devoutly Catholic. They would rather die than submit. 4,000 Maltese men, farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, took up arms, grabbed pikes, swords, rocks, whatever they could find. Old men who could barely walk volunteered to carry ammunition.

 Women volunteered to repair walls, nurse the wounded, make gunpowder. Even children, boys as young as 10, volunteered to run messages, bring water to the fighters. Malta became united in a way it never had been before. From his headquarters in Fort St. Angelo, Jeallet watched the Ottoman army grow like a dark stain spreading across his island.

40,000 men, 70 cannons, the greatest military force the Mediterranean had seen in generations against his 6,000. One of his advisers asked him, “Grandmaster, what are our chances?” Davallet’s response is recorded in multiple sources. Our chances of survival, almost none. Our chances of victory, zero.

 But our duty, absolute. We will hold this island as long as God gives us strength. And when we can hold no longer, we will die with swords in our hands and prayers on our lips. The Turks may take Malta, but they will pay for every inch of it in blood. May 21st, 1565. The Ottoman army marched north from their landing site toward the Grand Harbor.

 They crossed the barren Maltese landscape. Rocky, hot, barely any shade. And all the wells they found were poisoned. Dead animals floating in the water. The stench unbearable. Devallet’s scorched earth strategy was already working. The Ottomans reached Mount Cberas, a hill overlooking the Grand Harbor. And from that vantage point, they saw the fortifications, Fort St.

 Angelo, massive, commanding the southern end of the harbor. Fort St. Elmo, star- shaped at the northern tip of a peninsula, controlling the harbor entrance. Fort St. Michael defending the city of Sanga and the walls of Burgu, thick, angled, built with the latest military architecture. This was not the defenseless waste they’d been told about.

 Mustapa Para and Pi Para held a council of war. Mustapa wanted to march inland, attack the old capital of Mdina first. It was poorly defended. Capturing it would demoralize the Christians. Piali disagreed. No, we need the harbor. Our fleet can’t stay in open water forever. We need a safe anchorage. That means taking Fort St. Elmo first. Mustapa. St.

 Elmo is small, but it’s well defended. It could take weeks. Pi weeks? Look at it. It’s 200 yd across. Maybe 150 defenders. Our cannons will level it in 3 days. We’ll storm it on the 4th. By May 25th, we’ll be inside the harbor. The debate went back and forth, but Pi’s argument won. They would take St. Elmo first. Fort St.

 Elmo sat at the tip of the Cberus Peninsula between two harbors. Its cannons controlled the entrance to the Grand Harbor. It was small, the smallest of Malta’s three main fortresses, but its position was critical, and the defenders inside knew it. May 22nd through May 24th, the Ottomans positioned their artillery.

 60 cannons, enormous bronze bombards, some of them so large it took teams of oxen to move them. They positioned them on Mount Skyberas overlooking Fort St. Elmo from high ground. Three rows of artillery. Front row, light cannons and culverins for harassing fire. Middle row, medium cannons for sustained bombardment. Back row,  basilisk bombards, massive siege guns that fired stone balls weighing up to  600 lb.

 The guns were positioned 600 paces from the fort. Close enough to be devastating. Far enough to be safe from St. Elmo’s return fire. Inside Fort St. Elmo, 450 men prepared to die. 50 knights, the best fighters in the order, 200 Spanish  soldiers, professional fighters sent by the viceroy of Sicily, 100 Maltese volunteers, men who knew this was almost certainly a suicide mission, but volunteered anyway.

 They gathered in the fort’s small chapel. They knelt, they prayed, and they waited. May 24th, 1565. 4 in the morning, the Ottoman artillery opened fire. 60 cannons fired simultaneously. The sound was like thunder, like the world ending. Stone cannonballs, some weighing 600 lb, flew through the air and smashed into Fort St. Elmo’s walls.

 The limestone exploded on impact. Shrapnel flew. Dust and smoke filled the air. The defenders couldn’t see, could barely breathe. The noise was deafening. Men screamed, though you couldn’t hear them over the cannons. The walls, 30 ft thick in some places,  began to crack. This was the beginning of the bloodiest siege of the 16th century, and it would not end the way anyone expected.

The bombardment continued  for 12 hours straight. By nightfall on May 24th, sections of St. Elmo’s outer walls had collapsed. The defenders frantically rebuilt them with  rubble, piling broken stones back into the gaps, working all night because they knew tomorrow the cannons would fire again.

Across the harbor, Jean de Lavallet watched from the walls of Fort St. Angelo. He could see the constant [music] flashes of cannon fire, the smoke rising from Saint Elmo, the walls crumbling. One of his officers  said, “Grandmaster, they cannot hold. We must evacuate them.” Deavallet shook his head.

 “They must hold as long as possible. But they’ll die. Yes, they will die.  And in dying, they will save Malta. Every day St. Elmo  stands is a day the relief force gets closer. Every hour buys us time,” the officer was silent. Then Deavallet added quietly, “They know what they’re doing. They are fulfilling their vows.

 There is no greater honor.” The bombardment didn’t stop at night. Every few hours, the Ottoman guns would fire just to keep the defenders from sleeping, to wear them down mentally. It was psychological warfare as much as physical. Pali Pasha was confident. He told his officers, “St. Elmo will fall in 5 days, perhaps less.

 The walls are already crumbling. By May 29th, we will be inside the Grand Harbor.” But Pali Pasha didn’t understand what he was facing. He didn’t understand that the men inside St. Elmo weren’t fighting for gold or glory or land. They were fighting for God. And men who believe they’re fighting for God don’t surrender. They don’t negotiate.

 They fight until they can’t lift their swords and then they die. May 25th, 1565. Day two of the bombardment. Inside  Fort St. Elmo, the defenders gathered in the chapel before dawn. They knelt  on the stone floor and they prayed the prayer that knights had prayed before battle for 400 years. The Patanosta, the Our Father.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The chaplain gave them communion, the body and blood of Christ, because they knew some of them would be dead before the sun set, and they needed to be in a state of grace.

 At dawn, the Ottoman cannons resumed. And this time, something different happened. After 2 hours of bombardment, the cannons stopped and 6,000 Ottoman soldiers charged. They came like a wave. Janiseries in the lead, the Sultan’s elite. Crimson robes, plumemed helmets, screaming Allahu Akbar as they ran. Behind them, thousands more.

 Cippahei, Corsaires, irregulars, all of them rushing toward the breached walls of St. Elmo. The defenders watched them come. Knights gripped their swords. Spanish soldiers leveled their aquabuses. Maltese militia picked up pikes. The commander of St. Elmo, a Spanish knight, drew his sword and raised it high. He shouted to his men, “Brothers, today we prove that the servants of Christ do not fear death.

For Christ and St. John. The defenders roared back for Christ and St. John. The Ottomans hit the walls like a battering ram. Ladders went up. Men climbed. The defenders met them at the top. Sword against scimitar. Pike against shield. Point blank aquabus fire into charging soldiers. The killing began.

 For 5 hours they fought. Ottoman soldiers poured through the breaches. The defenders pushed them back. Bodies piled up. Blood soaked into the limestone. Men screamed, prayed, cursed, died. By sunset, the Ottomans withdrew. They had been repelled, but they left behind  400 dead. 400 Ottoman soldiers killed in one afternoon for a fort that was supposed to fall in 5 days. Inside St.

At Elmo, the defenders counted their losses. 30 men dead, 50 wounded, but they had held. As darkness fell, they went back to work, rebuilding the walls, treating the wounded, burying the dead, knowing that tomorrow the cannons would fire again, knowing that tomorrow the Ottomans would come again. The commander of St.

 Elmo wrote a message to  Jeallet. A messenger would swim across the harbor that night to [music] deliver it. The message was short. We held today. The Turks bled heavily, but our walls are crumbling. We need reinforcements or we [music] need to evacuate. We cannot hold indefinitely. Please advise.

 At midnight, a knight  stripped to his underclo. He tucked the waterproof message pouch into his belt. He whispered a prayer and he dove into the dark waters of the Grand  Harbor, 400 yardds to swim in darkness with Ottoman patrol boats searching for swimmers  just like him. If he was caught, he would be killed, but the message had to get through.

 Across the harbor, Jean de Lavallet couldn’t sleep. He stood on the walls of Fort St. Angelo,  watching the flashes of cannon fire in the distance. watching St. Elmo die inch by inch and he faced the hardest decision of his life. Because when that message arrived, he would have to answer a question that would determine the fate of Malta.

 Do you abandon St. Elmo to save those 450 men? Or do you ask them to stay and die to buy time for the rest of Malta? Do you choose mercy? Or do you choose duty? The defenders of St. Elmo had been given a mission. Hold as long as possible. But no one, not even Jean de Lavallet, knew how long, as long as possible would be.

The Ottomans said 5 days. They were wrong. What happened over the next month would shock the Ottoman Empire to its core, and it would cost 8,000 men their lives. May 26th, 1565. Dawn, the Ottoman cannons opened fire again. The siege of Fort St. Elmo had begun, and it would become the bloodiest month of the 16th century.

150 knights against 6,000 janiseries against the greatest empire on earth. They were supposed to fall in 5 days. Instead, they would hold for 31. And in those 31 days, they would kill 8,000 Ottoman soldiers. They would mortally wound Dragot, the greatest Ottoman  admiral in history. They would break the Janisary Corps in half.

And they would prove to the world that faith can move mountains or in this case  can hold a fortress when every law of war says it should fall.