Dan Snow's History Hit - Islam vs Christendom

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

As two of humanity's great religions, Islam and Christianity have shaped much of the world's history. Empires across the globe have risen and fallen under their influence, and there have been many occasions for them to go head-to-head on the battlefield. So what have been some of the greatest military clashes between Islam and Christianity? Dan is joined by Sir Simon Mayall, a former Middle East Senior Adviser at the UK Ministry of Defence, to discuss three key clashes; the Siege of Jerusalem in 1099, the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the Great Siege of Malta in 1565.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download the History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download the History Hit app from the Apple Store.

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. We're talking about some of the greatest Christian-Muslim clashes in military history on the podcast today, from the Crusades, the great battles of the 15th and 16th century, as the Ottoman Caliphs pushed ever closer to Europe and into the Mediterranean. I've got an expert on the podcast, Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayle. He's a retired British Army officer. One of his last jobs in the British military was he was the Middle East advisor at the Ministry of Defence. He's an academic. He studied the history of the Arab world in detail, Oxford and other places. And he's written a fantastic book about his experiences in the Middle East, in the Gulf and elsewhere, called A Soldier in the Sand, a personal history of the modern Middle East. Go and check it out, everybody.

In this episode of the podcast, we're going to talk about three sieges in fact, three great sieges that defined the course of Islam's relationship with the West. The first was the successful siege of Jerusalem by the first crusaders, the capture of Jerusalem. The second is the fall of Constantinople, the great siege by Mehmed that finally extinguished the Eastern Roman Empire. And the last one is the great siege of Malta, when a small but highly committed force of Christian knights held back a gigantic Ottoman amphibious force. Three great sieges and one great historian to tell me all about them. Enjoy.

T-minus 10. Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off. And the shuttle has cleared the tower. Simon, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Real delight. Well, we are talking about some of the most gigantic clashes in the fraught relationship between Islam and Christianity. Where do you think we should start? Do you think the first crusade, the siege of Jerusalem, the Christian attempt to capture the Holy Land, is that the

best place to start? I think it's so seminal that it is a good one to start as Jerusalem is such a pivotal religious site, obviously for the Jews, and certainly for the Christians after it does become the most holy, holy site in Christendom, and clearly has huge significance for the Islamic world as the third most holy site. So the taking of Jerusalem very early on by the Muslims after the death of Muhammad, and then 450 years in which the Christians were very firmly on the back foot, and then looking as a focus to retake the Holy Land. And there's a certain time, as we know, in the late 11th century, where the whole series of factors come together, which suddenly allow a sort of counter offensive

by Christendom, as it were, which does lead to extraordinary success in 1099 and the retaking of Jerusalem after 450 years. I think it's a good place to start, although the background, there's much happens in between Umar and the First Crusade. We're so used to talking about how war is messy and unpredictable and longer and harder and the outcomes more uncertain than the protagonist's hope at the outset. I always think the First Crusade is a kind of counterexample. It actually goes really well, doesn't it? The Christians set out on this almost impossible mission, and they sort of succeed. Well, they do. And there are a number of factors, but it is quite remarkable that in

1095, when Pope Urban II goes to Clermont to remonstrate with the French king and do some administrative stuff, he's fundamentally going there to give him a hard time over his adulterous affair. And, you know, along the way, he meets up with one of the pretenders of Byzantium, Alexis III, and who says, you know, could you help us? We're under pressure from the Seljuk Turks. And then he runs into Raymond Saint-Gilles, who's clearly looking for some way to use his money in something good. He suddenly sort of says, well, why don't we have a sort of military pilgrimage? And then the social media equivalent of the 11th century, the pulpit across the churches of Western Europe. And he just strikes an extraordinary chord with the idea that

you can harness the martial prowess of early medieval Europe on a pilgrimage or a holy grail type mission at a time when the Byzantine Empire is looking for assistance. And suddenly this extraordinary outpouring of martial fervor and sort of religious fervor to everybody's amazement, given the times and the distances involved and the uncertainties. Literally tens of thousands of people start streaming east. Much to everybody's both amazement and in some circumstances horror, frankly, from the Byzantines who were looking for a few well-regimented soldiers to come and help them on the eastern frontier, not a huge ideological, religio-crazed bunch. And they hit the Muslim empire or the Muslim world at a time when Islam is very heavily divided between the Abbasid caliphate and the Fatimids. The Abbasids, of course, the guardians of Sunni theology, and the Fatimids are sort of a sheer cast off who've taken Egypt and dominating North Africa

and actually have seized Jerusalem. So both sides have got no interest in helping each other. And lo and behold, in on this fault line come the crusaders of the first crusade. So it's very lucky timing on behalf of the Christians. You mentioned these people flooding east, these crusaders. Was anyone in charge? Who told them where to go, where to meet up? Who was sort of coordinating after the Pope had issued the clarion call for this to happen? Yes, Deus le vult, God wills it. In technical terms, the first crusade is always known as the sort of knight's crusade because there was no real overall leader. The Pope puts a man called Adama de Puy in charge, I mean, extraordinary thing to have a sort of clergyman leading a huge military pilgrimage. And of course, the term

crusade is slightly anachronistic, it comes in later, these are military pilgrimages. But the sort of dramatis personae, there's the brother of the King of France, who really goes there because the king, because of his adulterous relationship, can't take the lead. There's Raymond Saint-Gilles, Raymond of Toulouse, who's one of the wealthiest knights and landowners in Europe, who arrogates to himself a leadership role. There's Bohemond of Taranto, who's one of these Norman freebooters in Sicily. There's Robert of Normandy, who's one of the sons of William the Conqueror. And Godfrey de Bouillon, who, again, is a knight from Lotharingia, what is current day Belgium. So it's a sort of coalition

of social equals with a degree of sort of commitment, a degree of money, a degree of who can get their feudal knights to follow them, nominally under a spiritual guidance of Bishop Adhemer of Puy, who's a very, very distinguished man, who sadly, of course, actually dies outside Antioch in 1097, which is about a year and a half before they take Jerusalem. So by the time the crusade gets to Jerusalem, this 2,500 mile, largely on foot, fighting at Nicaea, actually fighting the Byzantines along the way as well, and Dorylaeum outside Antioch, and staggering on eventually outside the walls of Jerusalem in early June 1099. But leadership was always a real issue at the heart of the first crusade.

So Simon, really an extraordinary feat of logistics and military prowess, even frankly, getting to the walls of Jerusalem by June 1099. What happened then? Well, they gather outside. One's got to imagine now, it's quite a battered organisation that arrives outside the gates of Jerusalem. Elements of it have been on the road for nearly three years. They're not looking at these splendid knights of armor that we sort of imagine in Hollywood

versions of Ivanhoe. It's a very battle-hardened organization. Some of the leadership has peeled away. Godfrey de Bouillon's brother has gone to set up a sort of crusader kingdom, as it were, in Edessa. Bohemond of Taranto has taken Antioch, so he stayed there. Raymond Saint-Gilles is always in contention with Godfrey and Robert of Flanders, Robert of Normandy. But they are driven on in many ways by the fervor of their, what you might call the civilian hangers-on, who are there genuinely on a pilgrimage. And hundreds have died along the way, hundreds have been deserted, people have turned back. So they turn up outside the gates of Jerusalem, and there is the Fatimid garrison under a chap called Zuflikia, named after the Caliph Ali's sword, with 400 Nubian, black Nubian cavalry of a real surprise, as you can imagine,

to the Crusaders from North Europe, and a degree of the local garrison within Jerusalem. Most of the Christians had been thrown out and quite a lot of the Jews. And the army then sort of splits, really. They try an early attack on the walls, and the walls are really quite impressive. And those who have been to Jerusalem will understand a bit of the topography. There's only certain areas where you can approach as an army or get a siege engine. So they try a couple of attacks. Raymond Saint-Gilles goes to the southern end, where he can get a bit of a foothold against the

wall. Godfrey de Bouillon, Robert of Flanders, and Robert of Normandy really go to the south, because you're talking about national groupings of Normans, Provencalers, Lothringians, who all basically fight as ethnic units, as it were. And there's a bit of a stalemate. And eventually, the summer goes on. And you can imagine the place littered with dead, rotting bodies and mules and real logistic difficulty feeding an army and certainly getting water, always the pressure of disease. And eventually they realize they're not going to be able to stay as a co-owned army for a long time. And they do a sort of seven circles of Jerusalem. All the prostitutes and

the hangers-on at this stage are thrown out of the camp. And they parade seven times around the walls of Jerusalem to the derision of the garrison who are sort of mooning on the walls. At that stage, they've just by great good fortune, a Genoese ship or couple of ships has landed in what is modern Jaffa with some timber. And timber, as you can imagine, is in short supply, but there's enough by scrimping and scraping to make a couple of siege engines, siege towers. One goes to Raymond Saint-Gilles and one is with the northern element, Godfrey and the two Roberts. And on the 13th of July, they basically think we've got really a last chance of this. And they give the defending garrison an idea that they're going to hit one end of the wall. This is

in the north. And overnight, Godfrey de Bouillon, under cover of darkness, as it were, rolls his siege engine up to a rather more, what he believes, auspicious place in the wall to attack. Of course, the whole idea is they're spreading the garrison out. The garrison have got their own problems as well. And so you reach this stage on really the 14th of July, 1099, where it really is an all or nothing at all attack. And in fact, it is thrown back. And therefore, on the morning of the 15th, you just get this last attempt. And Godfrey de Bouillon is, you know, in Chronicles, is on the top of the siege tower with his crossbow. And you get to Engelbert and Little of Lux of Luxembourg we are told get into the fighting tower Raymond of Saint-Gilles is doing his bit down in the south and they manage to get the drawbridge

down and get a plank onto the battlements of Jerusalem these two brave knights are literally shimmying across they're sitting on the plank and Godfrey's loosing off crossbows and leadership right from the front. And they get onto the walls of Jerusalem. And you can imagine, they look like the sort of knights we know from the Bayeux Tapestry. They look like the knights that we imagine at Hastings. This is only 30 years on from that. And there's sweat in their eyes and they're grasping those sort of large kite-shaped shields and either a battle axe or a sword, history doesn relate and the two brothers stand back to back and they just push back push back push back against the garrison and more and more people come across the plank and they clear the battlements they clear a couple of the towers and sooner or later they're inside

jerusalem at the southern end raymond also makes a chance to get through onto the walls and down into the heart of Jerusalem. Zophlakir and his Nubians take refuge in a citadel and the rest of the garrison and largely most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem are put to the sword. And then history relates that the knights, wading in blood up to their ankles, make their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built by Constantine himself earlier on to give praise to God. And it's the usual sanguinary story with a rampaging army absolutely indiscriminately massing anybody who stands in their way until order is restored and the leadership can take over again. But it is extraordinary at the end to take these great walls with this battered army at the tail end of this, as I say, in some cases, three-year military pilgrimage, Dan.

The Fatimids, as you say, they're based in Egypt. What was Jerusalem's status? Although it was a holy city, was it very well defended? Was it seen as a kind of key point of the medieval Near East? Or were they almost slightly confused by this crusading horde's obsession with this city? I think they were. But again, being monotheists themselves, I do think the Islamic leadership understood the significance of Jerusalem. They had held it for nearly 450 years, but it had been held by Orthodox Sunnis, the Amayads to start with, then the Abbasids, the Caliphates based in Damascus, and then subsequently in Baghdad. And the Fatimids were viewed both ethnically different because they were largely Berbers from North Africa, intermarried with Arabs, but of course, heretics. So at a certain stage, you know,

all the big major cities that we think of in the Middle East, Antioch, Aleppo, Mosul, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, were all really at odds. So in the idea they would support each other. So whatever they thought about the significance of Jerusalem to their own religion. It was this division in the Islamic world that just created the circumstances under which a very bold thrust by this very disparate coalition of Western knights with this vast army of sort of hangers-on pilgrims and all the usual paraphernalia of a medieval army get as far as Jerusalem and then extraordinarily the military prowess allied to religious fervor gets the likes of the Gittel Engelbert brothers onto the walls of Jerusalem that afternoon on

the 15th of July, 1099. So the significance was really understood. And it really was just an extraordinary focal point for the religious certainties, I suppose, of both Muslims and Christians. But both the Christian world and the Muslim world were very divided themselves. And this is the story, really, although the big story of Islam versus Christendom. You know, the story within Christendom is the Catholic Church and the confrontation, competition with the Orthodox, and later on, of course, the confrontation between Catholics and the Protestants of the Reformation. And in the Islamic world, very much between Sunni and Shia. And eventually, of course, between Arab and Turks under the Ottomans. And this is a sort of backdrop. And at certain stages, this coalescence

of tensions, both within religions and between religions, creates opportunities within which some of these decisive battles are fought out on particular fault lines of history. So Jerusalem was recaptured by Muslim forces in 1187, which prompted the Third Crusade. And we could go on talking about the Crusades forever here. But what's interesting about your work is you're trying to kind of look right across the great canvas of Christendom's conflict with Islam. And should we talk about another great

siege, this time a siege which shows Muslim forces dominant, the siege of Constantinople 1453, which was always when I was a school child, it was always given as one of the great turning points of history. Do you think the siege of Constantinople, do you think it stands up in the bright light of the 21st century still as one of these great moments when history pivoted? I think it does. Frankly, at that stage, the Byzantine Empire was so weakened. In fact, it really only existed almost in the minds and the memories of Christians, in terms of any capacity to influence decisively anything. It was Constantinople. What had happened, of course, in the intervening times, as you said, Jerusalem retaken, never really properly retaken,

there were a few truces, etc. The Third Crusade comes and goes. The Fourth Crusade is, of course, the one that really destroys Constantinople. It's a shocking episode in the history of Christianity. We should quickly dwell on that. Tell everyone about the Crusaders on their way to fight the forces of Islam in the Holy Land. They take a bit of diversion. Just quickly remind us what happens there. It's another occasion when a Byzantine emperor, in this case a pretender, comes across a whole load of knights who are once again gearing up after the basically the failure of the third crusade although it's the one best known to a sort of british english audience because it's got richard the lionheart and saladin says if you divert to help put me on the throne of constantinople

i'll put all the weight of the byzantine empire behind you in your attack on the infidels in the Holy Land and Egypt. So that was one side. The other side, of course, was the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade overreach themselves and do a deal with the Venetians to equip a huge navy in order to take this huge, inverted commas, huge putative army to the Holy Land. And then they find they haven't got enough people or horses to get on this boat that allows them to repay the Venetians. And the Venetians have got their own axe to grind with the Byzantine Empire. So they basically get the crusaders and rather say, look, if you diverge, you know, we've got a chance to kill several birds with one stone here. You know, we'll take the fortress of Zara if you come with us and help us. Zara is held by a Christian Catholic king, Andrew of Hungary. So straight away, the crusade is compromised. They then

go on to Constantinople, put the pretender on the throne. And then the pretender finds out he can't, frankly, get the Orthodox Church remotely aligned with the Catholic Church. This was always a source of huge weakness in the Christian position, this division between the Orthodox element of Christianity and the Catholic element, and can't repay the money, can't divvy up any resources for the Crusaders. And the Crusaders always with this interesting mix of martial fervor, religious fervor, and old-fashioned desire for booty and land, suddenly see it in their interest to overthrow the emperor. And basically, they end up taking Constantinople. So Constantinople and the Byzantines, who'd largely been doing a lot of

the heavy lifting against the Islamic tribes and had been doing for hundreds of years, long before the Crusaders, now find themselves absolutely fatally weakened. The split between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church is rather cemented for all time. And any idea that you could harness the combined resources, manpower, treasure, military might of Christendom against Islam is really destroyed. And the new Crusader kingdom only really lasts until 1261. But it's affecting damaging the capacity to repel a resurgent Islam, which by this stage is really been driven in that part of the world by the rise of the Ottomans. Come the early 14th century, the Ottomans largely begin to take over leadership of the Sunni Arab world. The Ottomans at this stage,

another one of these very predatory nomadic belligerent tribes out of Central Asia that periodically swept west, doing a sort of dance of death with the Abbasid Caliphate, largely taking over their driving on into Anatolia, then across the Bosphorus to enter into the Byzantine civil wars. And ultimately, by the time of Mehmed II in the year 1453, largely all that is left of the Byzantine empire, to all intents and purposes, is Constantinople, the Red Apple, this great city of, at one stage, possibly up to a million inhabitants, now an absolute shadow of its former self, really existing simply by virtue of its extraordinary masonry defences, the land walls of Theodosius, but really at the will of the Ottomans if ever they had both the inclination and the resources and the time and effort to take it for

themselves. Let's talk about the time and effort that Mehmed II deployed against Byzantium. He goes through quite a lot of both. Huge fleet, big army, big artillery train. They're taking no chances. Yes, it was a huge army, but any siege normally requires about three times the size of the defending force. The defending force was very depleted, but the Byzantines had been reinforced by an extraordinary man called Giuseppe Giustiniani and Genoese mercenaries, fundamentally, some Venetians, some free booters, the citizenry to an extent. But Mehmed assembled another great coalition of Janissaries and bashy bazooks and, as you say, this extraordinary artillery train, which in terms of scale and size had not been seen on a battlefield before.

And a great fleet, which eventually, of course, he, in an extraordinary, brilliant, imaginative move, actually puts on rollers and takes over the ground around Perra, for those who know the topography on the other side of the Golden Horn, and basically bypasses the great chain that stretched from Galata across to the battlements of Constantinople and should have made the Golden Horn a protected harbour for the Byzantine fleet. So on the one hand, he's hammering against the walls of Theodosius with this great array of cannon. He's attacking it quite routinely in order to try and wear down the defenders. And then to the great dismay of

the defenders of Constantinople, they wake up one morning to find that Mehmed II has outflanked the great chain and has a huge fleet inside what they thought were their inner defenses and capable now, of course, of attacking the sea walls and therefore dividing the defenders' efforts away from the concentration, which they were doing very successfully on the Theodosian land side walls, to also have to defend the sea walls again. So Mehmed II, despite a lot of dissension within his own camp, a lot of people who said, is this really worth it? We're worried about another Western Christian army coming to help relieve the siege. We've heard rumors that there's going to be a

fleet of Venetians and Genoese and who knows what else assembled by the Pope to come up the Dardanelles and rescue them. So they feel time's running out. Both sides, to an extent, go through waves of optimism and pessimism and internal dissent. But at last, Mehmet II, his spy network tell him that this fleet are not going to get there in time. They're slow assembling. There isn't a threat, really, from a significant army coming down to relieve them. So he redoubles his efforts to smash down the external walls while drawing off the defenders

by attacks on the seaward while drawing off the defenders by attacks on the seaward walls. And the whole thing eventually, of course, comes to an absolute crescendo. Yes, there have been attempts to undermine those walls. I think Serbians in particular, the expert miners working for the Turks, trying to bring those walls down by mining underneath them. And then the defenders digging counter mines. And there would have been underground battles and tunnels collapsing. It would have been hellish. It would be absolutely hellish, absolutely hellish. As you quite rightly say, Dan, the Turks have made themselves very, very good masters of mining techniques. They drew from across their empire, vassal states or mercenaries. The man who built

the giant cannon that knocked down, eventually, you know, punched a hole in the wall was a Hungarian, you know, a Christian. Selin Iso, many of the Serbians were Christians. The combination of this, and you can imagine the wear on the nerves of the defenders, day and night, the sound of artillery, day and night, the drums from the Ottoman camps, day and night, the worry about these mines undermining the great Theodosian walls. And as you say, the sort of counter-mines and digging and trying to drop in. Very reminiscent, of course, you know, of a much later war, World War I. And extraordinarily grubby.

I mean, close combat at any time. A visceral, viscerally, emotionally and physically demanding experience. But down among the tunnels underneath the walls of Constantinople must be Dante's Inferno, images from hell. You listen to Dan Snow's history. We're talking about the clash between Islam and the Christian world. More coming up. On Gone Medieval from History Hit, we set out to solve the biggest mysteries of the Middle Ages. So many of these travellers who went out looking for Prestor John, what did they think they were hearing? We explore cutting-edge research. Genetic signatures found in present-day Jewish populations were shared by the genetic ancestries we found.

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And then tell me about the final assault in late May, because there's a moment of utter tragedy here as well, isn't there? With one of the bravest of the brave, who eventually is wounded and taken off the walls, and that's the beginning of the collapse of the resistance. Yes, this is Giuseppe Giordani, who has been absolutely magnificent. He is a mercenary, but he's a fantastic leader. And it just is, once again, for those of us who love our history, the influence, good or ill, tragedy or victory, of an individual. And in this case, having been absolutely stalwart, leading sorties out through the sally gates to take the fight to the enemy, rallying the troops

on the walls, being the advisor to Constantine XI, the emperor, who in due course will die fighting, his body will never be discovered. There's two walls in Constantinople, the outer wall, then a sort of gap, and then the inner walls. And the idea was to lock the doors of the inner walls and fight from the outer walls and in between the two walls. And Giuseppe himself has already said, nobody must retreat from here. And somewhere along the line, he gets wounded, badly wounded. But after everything, his spirit fails him. And he demands to be carried into the city proper through the inner walls. And the extraordinarily brave defenders, who

know it's almost a hopeless task, but have been holding out for week after week after week, see their great commander fall, but then see him asked to be taken away. And there's fighting on the walls at the time, and the Ottomans have found a sally gate, which they're coming through, they haven't managed to close it properly. And like so often in history, an individual's actions either rally troops or weaken them. And in this case, it turns into a riot, and everybody begins to try and flood back through the inner gates to get into the city, although everybody should have known that in that way disaster lay. And he's taken to a ship. And he dies, I think, about 36 hours later.

And his reputation in history is one of those things you just say, even if the overall result had not been the same, he died fighting on the walls. His reputation was one of the great heroes of the defense, albeit ill-fated defense of Constantinople, would have been assured. And it is a tragedy somebody like that, for whatever reason, his nerve deserted him. And Mehmet II just, at this stage, just pushing people in. Doesn't matter what the carnage is. It doesn't matter how many die. We just keep going. We're scrabbling over the walls. We're pushing through the salliegates. We're taking the casualties. It doesn't matter. More people, more people,

more people. And just the attrition and then the failure of will. But conversely, of course, that is the moment where Constantine XI does take his place in history, no doubt wearing some extraordinary armor or the red busking boots of a Byzantine empire charges into the fray, dies like a Byzantine empire should die at the fall of the great Constantinople and disappears into the throng and is never seen again. Very great tragedy. And then, of course, Mehmed II's troops break into Constantinople, break into Hagia Sophia and the usual, again, break into Hagia Sophia and the usual, again, sanguinary consequences of an army that's been promised three days of riot and excess and license. Huge destruction, huge loss of life, people trying to get on the ships to escape, and some do. And then Mehmet II being the great

leader of the years, the great historical figure, reimposing discipline on his army, cleaning the city up, hurling down the cross from the top of Hagia Sophia, rededicating it as a mosque. And the sheer shattering realization as the news goes through, percolates through Europe, that Constantinople, you know, this city, the capital of the Roman Empire since Constantine in the fourth century, has fallen. 1100 years of this fixed point in Christianity's history has fallen. And even, of course, you know, you could put it down somewhere to the failures within Christendom to come to their rescue, or the splits between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches, or the, dare I say,

the French and the Holy Roman Emperor. But it's a shockingly seminal moment for the psychology of the Christian world. And so amidst all that bloodshed, the Ottomans capture Constantinople. You mentioned that they started out as a sort of nomadic tribe bursting out of Central Asia. They're obviously transforming themselves into the kind of glorious dynasty that we know from the high period of their rule. And I guess Constantinople is part of that because they set themselves up as Caesars, don't they? They call themselves Caesars, and they become one of the most fabulous dynasties in European history. And their best period is yet to come after Mehmed II. I suppose like many of these predatory nomadic tribal invaders that start

with, they have a real sense of history, eventually the Ottomans. They have been brought up to an extent within the Abbasid culture, so they understand imperialism. They have converted to Islam, so they get the caliph piece. They get the sultan piece because they took it. And they do really genuinely understand what they have achieved by overthrowing Constantinople. Shortly, they'll inherit what used to be the Roman fight against the Persians. And of course, the Arabs and the Persians, Turks and the Persians take on this really millennial fight there. And as you say, they do style themselves as Caesars, the equivalent of

Caesars. They become what could only say historically very worthy successors in many ways, given their military success, but the civilizational culture the Ottomans have. So then they also keep going. This is not the end, Constantinople and the Balkans. Their campaign into the Mediterranean looks at one stage like they might take over Italy. So let's come on to the last great battle in our triptych of titanic clashes, which if you like, I guess we could look at the idea that the Ottomans are extending out into the Mediterranean and really becoming a North African and European power. Yes, well, for a very long time, they are very much a sort of, obviously a land power. One of the first things they do, not long after Mehmed, is try to kick the Knights Hospitaller, one of these last sort of remnants,

really, of the Crusader presence in the Near East. The Knights Hospitaller end up taking roads. They hold it for nearly 200 years after the fall of the Crusader kingdoms, and they conduct a very, years after the fall of the Crusader kingdoms. And they conduct a very, very aggressive naval battle. They become great naval warriors, the Knights of St. John of the Hospital. Soon after Mehmed, they're driving on into the Balkans, as you say, but they're also trying to guarantee their domination of the eastern Mediterranean. And they alight on roads as a complete thorn in their side and eventually crush them. There's a siege in 1480, there's another siege in 1520 and 1522 when the Knights of St John basically agree in armistice and off they sail to the western Mediterranean where some years later they're given as their new base the island of Malta.

And in the meantime, on the basis of shared Islamic beliefs, the Ottomans really established a very, very important, very significant strategic alliance with the corsairs of the Barbary pirates, based in what we would know nowadays as modern day Tripoli, Djerba, Algiers. Again, very predatory, very aggressive, very skilled sea-going pirates, basically, who are responsible

for huge depredations along all the Christian coasts of the North Mediterranean. I mean, over this whole period, it's assumed to be about a million people are taken into slavery. It's not really much discussed nowadays, but about a million people are taken by Barbary pirates and corsairs operating against the islands and the coastline of Europe. Of course, at the same time, over in Spain, the Reconquista, another branch really of the Crusadian effort, King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella, are expelling the Moors, as it were, the Moors, the Muslims out of Spain. So at a certain stage, Suleiman the Magnificent, under whom the great attempt to take the Western Mediterranean takes place, he's the son of Selim the Grim. Selim the Grim is the man who gave it to the Safavids, both the hated

Persians and now the heretic Persians because they are Shia. He's taken the fight to the Mamluks, so he's overthrown that last bastion of Arab leadership. He's taken the cloak and the sword of the Prophet Muhammad back to Istanbul, now called Istanbul after the fall of Constantinople. Istanbul, now called Istanbul after the fall of Constantinople. His son, Suleiman the Magnificent, now throws the knights out of rows. He drives on up through the Balkans. He defeats Angerets at Mohatch. He takes Belgrade in 1529. He drives on to Vienna. But come about 1565, near the time of the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, he turns his attention to the island of Malta. And if he can take Malta, there's a chance he could retake Sicily, which at a certain stage had been held by the early Muslims, the Saracens, as they were known in history.

And if he could get Sicily from there, he could drive on to Italy. And if he could take Italy, he could put the seat of the Catholic Church, Rome, under threat. So he assembles a great fleet in Constantinople, Istanbul rather, and he invokes the alliance with the corsairs, the Barbary pirates, under a chap called Draguris Barbarossa, as he's known in the Christian world, one of the great pirate leaders. And in 1565, they descend on the island of Malta. And the island of Malta is a really barren place. After Rhodes has fallen under a truce, handed over to Suleiman the Magnificent in return for being allowed to sail away with their guns, with their treasure, etc. The Knights of St. John are basically nomads for about eight years, and then they're given in 1530

the Isle of Malta, and it's not a patch on roads. It's a huge disappointment to them, but they take what it's given. And remember again, these are papal soldiers. They are looked up to, supported by the Catholic monarchies of Europe, but fundamentally they work for the Pope, as they have done almost since their inception in the early 12th century. So they're given Malta, and they know at a certain stage, Suleiman or the Ottomans are going to try and take Malta. So they hurriedly try and reinforce Malta. They build the great fort of St. Angelo. They reinforce the two peninsulas on the southern side of the Grand Harbour. They then cover the entrance to the Grand Harbour by building a fortification, Fort St. Elmo. They fortify Medina Rabat in the centre.

And then they set about harrying the corsairs and the pirates themselves and carrying on the business they'd slightly given up when they were thrown out of roads. And at this stage, another remarkable figure in history, John Parisot de la Vallette, becomes the grandmaster, a man certainly in the medieval stages, his old age. I think he's 70 by now, a man who's been a galley slave in the Ottoman galleys and then exchanged under one of the periodic truces. And here's the man who suddenly realizes that he has the fate of the Western Mediterranean, you know, up to a point, the fate of Christendom is going to rest on his shoulders, that he and his four to five hundred knights of St. John, along with some supporters from Italy, some supporters from Spain, not supporters from France other than

individuals, because funnily enough at this stage, not only is Christendom being thoroughly threatened by the Ottomans, but the Valois rulers of France have had a long falling out with the Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, and are actually in some form of treaty with the Ottomans. So there's a very sort of mixed bag and de Valette sends out all his messages saying, come here, he calls in everybody he can from his own order of chivalry. At this stage, of course, we're at the time of the Reformation. England is already a Protestant country in 1565 under Elizabeth. So Elizabeth and the Protestant states of the lowlands, Belgium and Holland, as we now know them, are not going to send any of their knights. They're forbidden to leave. So John de Valette is

every day looking eastward for news of the Ottoman fleet sailing. And of course, he gets that in the early months of 1565. research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. We should probably say for those people listening that think it's always been a straightforward clash between christianity and islam and things i hope we've given a sense in this podcast whether it's with the crusaders sacking byzantium constantinople whether it's with the the french quite approving sometimes of ottoman advances in eastern southeastern europe

it's a lot more messy than that. Absolutely, Dan. And I think this is what is fascinating about this whole period, all the sort of narrative behind this, because in many ways, the heretic is more dangerous to you in a religiously motivated society than the infidel. The infidel is going to get a hell anyway.

That's an easy one to define. What's really difficult is, of course, people technically from your own religion who espouse some sort of doctrinal heterodoxy. And of course, at that stage, the Turks who are aware they don't have the legitimacy the Arabs had, of course, because of Muhammad and the Arab origins of Islam. They also inherit a sort of historical battle against the Iranians. They inherit then this historical doctrinal battle against the Shia. So a bit like the Roman Empire a millennium earlier, they're always looking, yes, west

to expand into the lands of Christendom, but east and south fighting off other challenges to them from, in many ways, co-religionists. So you have that on the Islamic side. And of course, within the Christian side, we've talked about the Orthodox Catholic tensions. But of course, over that later on becomes the Protestant Catholic tensions. And even within that, you take two Christian powers, like France and the Holy Roman Empire, as it were, the Valois and the Habsburg. And you find in 1543, as it were, the Valois and the Habsburg. And you find in 1543, sort of 20 years or so before the great siege of Malta, that the Ottoman fleet actually winter in the French port of Toulon.

And the King of France allows the cathedral in Toulon to be turned into a mosque. And then in 1544, the Ottoman fleet fires off again because for the Valois, the power struggle within Europe is more important to them than the problems of the Ottomans. And as I say, take it the other way, sometimes the power struggle within Islam between Iranian Shia and Turkish Sunnis is more visceral than it is between their fight with Christendom. And that's a bit of the setting in 1065 for the very oddly uncertain or even lackadaisical response to John de Valette's pleas for Christendom to come to help defend the island of Malta in its strategic position in the Mediterranean against the Ottoman fleets, conscious of what will happen if he is defeated on that island by the Ottoman hordes.

But he is not defeated, is he? The siege lasts for four months, perhaps up to 30,000 Turkish losses as ever with the besieging force. Disease kicks in. It's difficult to supply them. They are throwing themselves against fixed defences. It is a savage siege. But in the end, the knights hold on, don't they?

It is a remarkable siege. And again, a lot of it hinges around individuals. The Ottoman fleet disembark actually at the south of the island. They really want to disembark in the harbor of St. George. It's one further up from the Grand Harbor. They know they're not going to get into the Grand Harbor, but they can't get in there really until Fort St. Elmo is taken. And that is at the bottom of what people would know now as the great city of Valletta, largely built with the largesse of

Christendom that, of course, pours in to Malta and to the Order of the Knights of St. John as a result of their extraordinary victory. So they disembark on the south. They come up. They capture one of the knights. He flayed alive. They try to get information. He says, well, the weakest spot to hit is a place called the Tower of St. Catharines. So they launch at St. Catharines. It's actually the strongest point. And this man has been extraordinarily brave under the utmost torture. And then they decide they must take St. Elmo first. So they move the bulk of their army off to what is called Mount Sybaris, which again is where Valletta is built. And it's quite mountainous rolling, looking down onto Fort

St. Elmo. And Colonel Lamasse is given by John de Vallette the mission of holding Fort St. Elmo for a week. That's his mission. Give me a week. And meanwhile, he is putting Fort St. Angelo and Burgu and Senglier. They're just continuing to build and build and build. The Turks are hoping to get the Maltese to come on their side. But the Maltese who've been always the victims, I suppose, of predatory corsairs are quite clear that while they may not like the aristocratic, arrogant knights of St. John, the deal they would get from the Ottomans would be far worse. And they're sort of unsung heroes of this. And they put all their effort into St. Elmo. And Le Mas holds on for a month. Unbelievable. Every day, they're on the walls.

a month. Unbelievable. Every day they're on the walls. The cannon, you know, which we saw at the Battle of Constantinople, Istanbul, are firing every day. It's the middle of summer again. One's got to imagine the flies and the stench and the ghastliness of being wounded, the sheer physical effort of fighting in armor on those battlements. But the Turks cannot take it. And every night, they move the wounded out, and more volunteers come across. The brave Maltese are swimming back overnight to bring messages and take messages, arms and ammunition, go ashore. At one stage, it becomes quite clear after three weeks that St. Elmo is going to fall. And some of the younger knights come back across and say to John de Lovette, we're knights, we're from the great chivalric tradition. What we want is your permission to sally forth, sell our lives dearly, take as many of the enemy with us as we can, and die gloriously in the service of God. And John de Lovette, the great

commander that he is, says, are you not listening? I have told you to hold St. Elmo as long as possible. Your coming here is mutiny. You can stand over there and I will find people who understand orders and will carry out my orders to fight and die in St. Elmo. And of course, these young knights, who you can say were there for all the right reasons by their like, absolutely just on their knees in front of the Grand Master, saying, forgive us, we get it, sorry, this is not mutiny. We genuinely thought that's what we did. And they all go back. And on the last day, when St. Elmo does fall, Colonel Lamas and his subordinate, they're so badly wounded already, they are strapped to chairs and they're carried onto the battlements, strapped to chairs with their armor on, with a sword in their hand

and a shield. And of course, at last, the Janissaries, the bashy bazooks, the cannon are raining down, the musketeers are firing, and over the walls come the Janissaries and put everybody to the sword. But he has bought, Lamas and his team, and those young gallant officers and the Maltese, the unsung heroes, have bought a month of time. And the Turks say, if the little brother has cost us so much, what price the big brother? In other words, Burgu, San Angelo, and Senglia. So it is a dramatic story. And at the heart of it, extraordinarily brave individuals on both sides, of course, an extraordinary defence. And it buys de Valette

time. And it also buys those who will eventually come as the relief for Malta, the time to assemble a relief fleet that will, at the end, be absolutely critical to the relief and the raising of the siege of Malta. An extraordinary moment in military history, at the end, be absolutely critical to the relief and the raising of the siege of Malta. An extraordinary moment in military history and the history of the Mediterranean there. Simon, thank you for doing this. We've had one great Christian victory over the Muslims, another titanic victory in Constantinople in the northeast Mediterranean, and then this in the central Mediterranean. There are plenty more we could do. Perhaps you come back on another time, we'll do some more of the great clashes.

Come here, writing a book. What's the book called? The book is called The House of War, Dan, which is basically an English translation of the Arabic Dar al-Harb, The House of War, which refers to those lands that are not under Muslim domination. The Muslim lands are known as the Dar al-Salam,

the House of Peace. And so it is trying to take about 10 great pivotal battles, but put them in the context of a sweeping narrative all the way back, really from the early battles by the armies of the early caliphs against the Byzantines and the Persian Sassanid Empire, and then take these waypoints, but put them in context, the wider picture, but also to look at some of these extraordinary individuals that we've touched on in order to look at their backstories. Why are they there? What was their competence? What happened afterwards? And what was the consequences of each of these battles in both the short and the long term, really starting with the foundation of the caliphate and ending really

with the collapse of the caliphate at the end of the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire springs apart after its defeat. It all matters, as any cursory glance at the modern Balkans or Middle East will tell you today. Thank you very much indeed for coming on and covering these great battles. Thank you very much, Dan. It's been a huge pleasure. you