In Our Time - The Siege of Malta, 1565

Episode Date: January 11, 2018

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the event of which Voltaire, two hundred years later, said 'nothing was more well known'. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman leader, sent a great fleet west to lay siege to Malta and capture it for his empire. Victory would mean control of trade across the Mediterranean and a base for attacks on Spain, Sicily and southern Italy, even Rome. It would also mean elimination of Malta's defenders, the Knights Hospitaller, driven by the Ottomans from their base in Rhodes in 1522 and whose raids on his shipping had long been a thorn in his side. News of the Great Siege of Malta spread fear throughout Europe, though that turned to elation when, after four months of horrific fighting, the Ottomans withdrew, undermined by infighting between their leaders and the death of the highly-valued admiral, Dragut. The Knights Hospitaller had shown that Suleiman's forces could be contained, and their own order was reinvigorated. The image above is the Death of Dragut at the Siege of Malta (1867), after a painting by Giuseppe Cali. Dragut (1485 – 1565) was an Ottoman Admiral and privateer, known as The Drawn Sword of Islam and as one of the finest generals of the time.With Helen Nicholson Professor of Medieval History at Cardiff UniversityDiarmaid MacCulloch Professor of the History of the Church at the University of OxfordandKate Fleet Director of the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies and Fellow of Newnham College, CambridgeProducer: Simon Tillotson.

This is the BBC. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programmes if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoyed the programmes. Hello, in 1565, Sultan Solomon the Magnificent, the Ottoman leader, sent a great fleet west to lay siege to Malta and capture it for his empire. Victory would mean control of trade across the Mediterranean,

and a base for attacks on Spain, Italy and even Rome. It would also mean the elimination of Malta's defenders, the Knights Hospitola, whose raids on his shipping had long been a thorn in his side. News of a great siege of Malta spread fear throughout Europe, though that turned to Elation when after four months of horrific fighting, the Ottomans withdrew. The Knights Hospitabell had shown that Solomon's forces could be contained, and their own order was reinvigorated.

With me to discuss the Siege of Malta, 1565R. Helen Nicholson, Professor of Mediable History at Cardiff University, Dermann McCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford, and Kate Fleet, Director of the Skeletor Centre for Ottoman Studies and Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Kate Fleet, how had the Ottomans come to such prominence in the Mediterranean? Well, of course, when the Ottomans started off, they hit the sea pretty early. But after 1453, that gave them control of the straits between the Black Sea in the Mediterranean, and at that point, Mehmet II started moving his navy out.

out westwards. And the reasons for that advance was partly strategic because by now the Ottomans had a lot of Mediterranean coastline, all of modern Turkey, round the corner with Greece and up into the Adriatic. So part of it was strategic part also was a desire to control trade routes and also to conquer areas that had economically important. So Mehmet II had this drive and certainly a desire to move westwards across the Mediterranean. He defeated the Venetians and took over various territory from them, including Negroponte, where one of the Ottoman sources says that the fighting between Muslim, it was so close that Muslims and infidals were hair to hair and beard to beard. So he took Negroponte and he moved on. He attacked roads, not

successfully, the hospitalist stronghold. And then he also, of course, moved further west and set troops on Otranto and southern Italy. So that's a clear indication. at this point, the end of Mehmet's reign, that the Ottomans have Mediterranean ambitions. Can I go back a bit? Yes. You skipped over the big thing, like they took Constantinople in 1453.

That was quite important, wasn't it? And can we have a little before then? They came out of the blue in your account. All of a sudden they're whooping away, Miss Constantinople. How did they get to be able to take Constantinople? Okay, the interesting thing about Constantinople, yes, it's always presented as an absolutely massively important event.

And of course, for the West it was, and there were huge repercussions and great distress and much moaning and wailing by the West that hadn't actually done a great deal to prevent it happening. But moving backwards before we get to Constantinople, the Ottomans, of course, as soon as they start to move, they start in that. What date? Right at the beginning, say around 1300. 1300 of the beginning of the Ottomans.

We've got a date, great. So you want to go right back to the beginning. Very small state in what is modern Northwest Turkey. So from there they expand, and as soon as they expand southwards, and west, of course they hit the coast. So very early on, although the Ottomans are not regarded as a sea power, actually very early on, they hit the sea and they had to, as soon as they moved into European territory, which is the middle of the 14th century, they needed to be able to control the sea to an extent because they had to move backwards and forwards between the Asian side of the state and the

European side. So actually they begin as a sea power much earlier than is usually presented because they had to. And by the roundabout, certainly by 3090, they had a strong. arsenal in Gallipoli. So you think conquering Constantinople wasn't a big deal? Well I think it was a big deal symbolically. But if you think of... I think it was a heck of a deal symbolically, wasn't it?

Well, okay, symbolically, but if you think of what was left of the empire, the Byzantine Empire by 1453, so the Ottomans have already ringed it round. They've got a lot of territory around and they've taken places like Thessaloniki. So in a sense, by the time the Ottomans took Constantinople, the actual

taking of it was not such a... Well, except it was supposed to be untakeable. Yes, but by that stage, there was so little left, there was so ability, I don't know if Helen would agree with me. But I would say that, I mean, it's quite a fun argument. All right. That I would say that it's not as significant as it has become symbolically significant. How much control did they have over the North African coast in the Mediterranean when they began to move west, as you said in your first answer?

Okay, so yes, they're moving west by the, what happens is corsairs who become increasingly important, These are the Barbary pirates Exactly One of them Very very famous Barbarossa In Western sources Hyretin Pasha

He is in Established himself In Algiers and Tunis How much control did they have Over these corsair pirates Well that's another interesting point Because in a sense It brings up the question

What do you mean by Ottoman control How important was I mean did the corsas do What they asked them to do Well mostly yes Right But not always But on the other hand

It means that that territory in North Africa is under Ottoman control, however, tenuous, but it's still Ottoman. Well, we got there. We got there. We got there. We got there. Helen Nicholson, on the island of Malta, there were the Knights Hospitaller. What was that background? The Knights Hospitler, or Order of Sir John the Baptist, as contemporaries also called them, started in Jerusalem in the 1060s, founded by Amalfi merchants. So they were an Italian order by origin, who had asked,

the Sultan of Egypt for permission to set up a hospice so that they had somewhere to stay when they came to Jerusalem for their trade and also Western pilgrims would have somewhere to stay in Jerusalem because of course Jerusalem is the centre of Western pilgrimage, even in the 11th century. After the First Crusade, the hospitalers, as they became known because of their hospital, expanded not only running a hospital for the poor sick, but also guarding pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, either by hiring mercenaries or probably by the 1130s. They're recruiting warrior members who will escort the pilgrims themselves. So the hospitalers became not just a religious order, privileged by the Pope as an independent order, independent of all secular and other ecclesiastical

authority, but they were also a military religious order, part of their vocation is to defend Christians and therefore also to defend Christianity. They weren't the first religious order that became military because the Templars had done it first, but not long before. And the fact that there were two military religious orders in the Kingdom of Jerusalem by the 1130s, 1140s,

shows how much need there was for Christian fighters to defend Christians. how they justify themselves as defenders of Christians is interesting. The hospitals are always very strong on propaganda. One of the things that was surprised me when I read the notes was that their hospital in Jerusalem got bigger and bigger, but also took in Arabs, Jews. It was a hospital for everybody.

It was a hospital for everybody. How unusual was that? Well, there were not that many hospitals in the West at this time. But still, how unusual was it? It was very unusual in that. They claimed, the crusaders claimed after they captured Jerusalem, that Muslims and Jews would not be allowed into Jerusalem anymore, but clearly they were, because they were welcomed into the hospital.

They were made to leave Jerusalem. They had to leave Jerusalem in 1187 after Saladin captured it. And eventually they landed up in roads. They went to roads after the kingdom of Jerusalem had been conquered by the Mamlux of Egypt in 1291. To cut to the chase, they got pushed out of roads. by the Ottomans. They got pushed out of roads by the Ottomans in 1522 after seeing off the Ottomans in 1480, as Kate's already referred to. But in 1522, they didn't get the Western aid they needed and they were not that far away from Istanbul, Constantinople. So they lost roads. So they're in a

rather beleaguered position, aren't they? They're out of Jerusalem. They've lost roads. Because of the Reformation, they're losing their properties in Europe. They're losing their special place and they land upon Malta. How did that happen? The emperor Charles V offered them Malta and asked them to look after the city of Tripoli on the North African coast which the empire had conquered in 1510 I think. The hospitals weren't that anxious to take on guardianship of Malta because it's a long way from the Holy Land. There would not be the Christian pilgrims travelling to Malta as they had been to Roe. On the other hand, it did fulfil their vocation

of defending Christian territory. Malta had been a Christian island since at least the 13th century and before 70, when it had been conquered from Tunisia by the Muslims. And so they could claim to be continuing part of their vocation and they had nowhere else to go at this point. That's the sticking point, wasn't there, really?

They wasn't anywhere else. Yes. Demma McCulloch, how clearly defined, How blurred were the divisions between the European Christian powers and the Ottomans at this time we're talking about as well? Well, it's often presented as a clash of civilizations, and this is sort of a great cliché about the great battles, the siege and then the Battle of Lepanto. But, of course, it's much more complicated than that

because the civilisations are clashing amongst themselves, particularly the Christians. Melvin, you've already mentioned, the Reformation. Now, that's the huge split within what had been the Western Latin Church. So now you've got Catholics and Protestants fighting each other, regarding each other with great hatred. But not just that, there are great powers within Europe, Christian Europe, which loathed each other.

And the big loathing is between the Habsburgs, the Holy Roman Emperor and his family, and the Valois, the dynasty of France, let alone second-rate powers like the Tudors on the edge. So when Christian Europe confronted the Ottoman Empire, empire. It was not a unity at all. And how did that affect the way they confronted them? Did they say we'll make alliances with them to help ourselves against our enemies in Europe or what?

That's partly what happened. Because the King of France was the enemy of the Habsburg, his ally was likely to be the Ottoman Sultan. And that happened during the early 16th century of the war alliances between France and the Ottomans, which infuriated the power. let alone the Habsburgs. And there you have the problem that this is not a direct clash of civilizations in which everyone knows their place. And there were connections with England

and Elizabeth I first as well. But let's stay with the Habsburg, because a lot of people might not understand how powerful and big and rich the Habsburg Empire was and how it saw itself as the guiding of all that was good in Catholicism and Europe. Could you develop that? Well, the Habsburgs had achieved

an extraordinary feat of becoming a great world power by marrying people. And gradually bit by bit, they built up this huge empire in various bits of Europe. So you've got a central European bit. You've got the low countries, enormously wealthy. You've got kingdoms

in Spain. And then the overseas empires which Spain and Portugal developed. So the Habsbergs have got charge of all that. They are the great world power, much to the fury of their various monarchical rivals. How did they

employ this power with regard to the Ottomans? Did they feel that the Ottomans were to be watched? Were they frightened of the Ottomans? What was going on there? Well, they're very worried indeed by the Ottomans because the Ottomans were pressing on lots of different fronts, particularly in Central Europe, where the Ottomans

were gobbling up territory, which was Habsburg, or the Habsbergs would have liked to have had it. They were actually, in that situation, being much more like a clash of civilizations. An Islamic power was going through Hungary, great small, smashing defeat of the Hungarian monarchy in the 1520s.

So the Hasbergs really did see themselves as the guardians of Europe, with the awful consciousness that in their own world, they were also defending Catholicism against Protestantism. So there are all sorts of things that a man like Charles V has to worry about simultaneously. Eight Fleet, let's talk about Sultan Solomon the Magnificent. I'll quite like saying that, actually. Solomon the magnificent before we talk about his forces.

What sort of man was he? He was in his 70s. What else? Ah, he was obviously a wildly successful Sultan. And, of course, very successful militarily, lots of campaigns. The general impression is very much, often the idea is that Sultan Suleiman represents something of a peak point for the Ottoman Sultanate. He's known as the magnificent in the West, but he's known as the lawgiver in Ottoman history. history. So a lot of his reign is also, a lot of it's about conquest, but also about stabilising control and also in a sense working out how is that huge empire going to function? Because if you

think of the size of the empire that it reaches under Sjuman's reign, there has to be a structure to make it actually work. Can you know some idea of the size? It's stretching all the way across from Iran, right the way across through to it. It's got territory on the Adriatic, so right the way across there. It's cross the Black Sea, into the northern part of the Black Sea, all the way around what is modern Middle East right the way across North Africa. So it is an enormous empire. And the interesting things, how are you going to control that? So part of that of reaching this peak is all the structures,

the administrative structures, how do you actually run your economy? And there you see the development of difficulties, because it's such a huge space and also difficulties of economic control. But one of the factors, I think, important with Suleiman, in fact, in general, is seeing the empire not as something that's strong central control necessarily from Istanbul, but it's rather like concentric circles. So the farther you get away, the less central control you'll have, but the whole system works because at the end of the day, if necessary, Istanbul can control.

What were the forces that Solomon sent to Malta, to take Malta? Ah, the numbers are a bit vague depending on the sources, but roughly between 130 to 300 ships is normally presented as the figure. Large number of galleys. But also within that you had ships that were transporting horses, You had the ships that were transporting all the military hardware and of course provisions because that was very important for provisioning the troops. On the number of troops that went was estimated between 30,000, 35,000

of whom around 5,000 were januaries. So it's actually a really large military force arriving. With all these slaves pulling the rods across the... Slaves played quite a big part in all this. Exactly, because you had a huge number of slaves actually pulling those oars. So a big galley could have a number of eight hundred, people on it. How many slaves on a gully of 800 people? You could have say 30 odd banks of rows and you could have five to seven people per row and then pulling

X number of all so you could have up to five people on one ore. So you're talking about 200 men rowing. Because you've got these are huge, the big galleys are really huge. And of course the problem is a combination of sail and ore because of maneuverability and also because if you don't have any wind, you're not going anywhere. You had to have the power that came with. Sorry, excuse me, sorry. By any contemporary standards, this was a massive force. Yep.

Going out there. Okay. So they get to Malta. They row to Malta. And how did the siege begin, Helen Nicholson? Oh, can you just tell us who was in charge? On Malta? No, no. Solomon didn't go himself. He put three

people, three people in charge. Who were they? There was Mustafa Pasha, who was in charge of the land forces. There was Piali Pasha, who was in charge of the Navy, and he and the Order had crossed swords before because they'd met at Jirba in 1560 when the Order had been involved in an expedition there. So he was familiar with the Order and they knew him. And then there was Dragut Reyes, or there were different ways of spelling and pronouncing his name, but he appears on the BBC's page advertising this, so listeners may already have seen him. and he at that point was ruling Tripoli, which had been captured back from the order in 1551, usually portrayed in the West as a very effective corsair.

I imagine that in Constantinople, he was seen somewhat differently as an effective administrator and military leader. So these are the people on the Ottoman side, but Dragut Reyes hasn't arrived yet. He is not with the fleet. He is still in Tripoli. So the fleet is arriving with two commanders on board and it was reported later that they had fallen out on the way. Then on Malta we have the order led by Grandmaster Jean de Vallette who is a veteran of the wars against the Ottomans and who was one of those who was in Tripoli when it was captured by Draghi

race. There is still how many hospitlers? Let me say perhaps 500 Knight Brothers and the serving brothers and there would also be a number of priests. How many in total? In total the contemporary figure is 6,000

which includes 3,000 Maltese fighting men. 35 to 40,000 coming up and 6,000 on the island. Yep. So that's clear, right. Yes. Quite a few of these are people who come from Europe to help the order. Some of them being the orders members and others being volunteers.

So they get down, what do they do? The Ottomans land in the south of the Irish, and there was a discussion as to what they should attack first. Remember that Dragut Rees hasn't arrived yet. Mustafa and Piaoli Pasha's had argued one wanted to attack the old city on Malta Imdina and the hospitalist fortresses to the south of the Grand Harbour. That was Mustafa Pasha's view. Piali Pasha decided they should attack St Elmo Fort, which is a very small fort at the end of the promontory that borders the north side

of Grand Harbour because they captured that and it was only a small fort he reckoned they could do it in a few days they would then have control of the Grand Harbour They should have waited Well they didn't wait for Dragout Ray's opinion They went to attack

He was against it when he came to his opinion This was a dreadful thing to do Because although theoretically St Elbow should have fallen very quickly The Order itself said that later on that there was no way that fort should have been able to held out. In fact, it held on for a whole month

so that the Ottoman forces were tied up attacking one small fortress for over, for 30 days, when they should have been aiming their forces at the hospital of small fortresses to the south of the Grand Harbour, which they could have flattened quite quickly. So, Dermond, it wasn't a great beginning.

They spent a month where they said, as Helen said, they should have spent a few days. the cleverest Admiral, who turned up later that was hoped, said this was a terrible mistake. So after a month there, what shape were the Ottomans in? And actually, more importantly, what shape were the hospital is in? You have to remember that it's very hot, appallingly hot. I mean, Malta is dry, and both sides, therefore, are contending with our weather, apart from anything else. But it's always the trouble with a big fleet or army.

again the 16th century, rulers get together these vast forces and then they really can't control them properly, particularly if there are powerful personalities in charge. So although the forces look immensely weighted towards the Ottomans, the defenders do have the advantage, though their numbers are much smaller, of an extraordinarily grand situation in terms of where they're defending from. The Grand Harbor, which is now called Baleta is a most astonishing sight which many listeners will have seen these two great harbours either side

of a great tongue of land with very powerful forts on one side it's something which you can defend very easily as long as you're well supplied and that was a very foolish move on the part of the Ottomans not to actually cut off effectively that whole area around the Grand Harbour

from getting subpoly supplied. Why didn't they... Excuse me. They were obviously very clever warriors one way and another. They conquered so much

as we've been told by... Why didn't they just do that simple thing like cut of supplies? That's mysterious. I mean, my colleagues may have views on this which, to clarify it,

but I do think it's when you get two powerful personalities, both of whom think they can win a war. And the Sultan is a long way away and they can quarrel between themselves and no one can resolve it.

Can we just going to these quarrels a bit more with you, Kate Fleet. They're quarrelling these two. What are they quarrelling about? Well, a lot of the discussion about quarrels comes more from Francesco Balbito Correggio, so relying on renegade information. The Ottoman sources...

He was a chronicler of this. And he was present on the seat in water. But the Ottoman chronicles themselves, the histories are not particularly revealing of the details. However, the interesting point is that they all agree that the reason for the failure is the disagreement between the two Mustafa Pasha and Piali Pasha.

So what were they disagreeing about? There appears to be an idea that Piali Pasha was jealous of Mustafa Pasha because Mustafa Pasha had been made the head of the whole outfit. Piali Pasha maintained that he was in charge of the fleet and okay, Mustafa Pasha could do everything on land.

The interesting thing about, because a lot of the sources also blame the fact that Piala Pasha and Mustafa Pasha didn't follow the advice of Turgut in Turg. No, Turggut Prashe was asked for his advice. Because if you look at the orders actually sent out from Istanbul, it's a slightly different picture. So what is requested is that Turgh Pasha, he's an extremely efficient corsair, he's incorporated into the Ottoman system as the governor of Tripoli. He is requested to send his ideas about tactics.

I didn't realise he sent his ideas, right. So that was requested in as early as autumn 1564 when the Sultans getting the thing ready. The question is, when the two Piala, Piali, Bush and Wisterfasha arrive, Turgut Pasha, as Helen said, was not there, which is also quite interesting, because he'd been instructed to join them as early again as the autumn of 1564,

which may come back to your initial question, how much can you trust the Corsairs? He was still in Tripoli. So the argument in some, or certainly some Ottoman historians argue, that in fact the idea that the commanders would have sat there waiting for up to two weeks for a Corsair commander to come along and tell them

what to do was somewhat unconvincing, given the hierarchical structure of the Ottoman army that it was very unlikely that Mustafa would have been instructed to rely on to a good point. Let me get this clear because we've got to get a little bit of a move on. He sent them advice which I didn't know about it. Oh he was asked to send advice? He was asked them right. We don't have

evidence. We don't have everything. So we assume he did. Anyway, whether he did or he didn't he was asked to send advice, they made the, but still what did they quarrel about? Did one of them say go to the left the other say to the right? The other say sending ships first. What did they quarrel about? The argument that comes out, not

in Ottoman sources, but comes out in contemporary Western sources, is that Mustafa Pasha advised taking the three, attacking immediately, so Saint-Michaeli Borgue, La Chitevecia, Piala Pasha refused to move his ships from the harbour. He said, this is a harbour where I am safe, until you give me a harbour that's better, I'm not moving at all. So once Piale Pasha refused to join the bombardment, the whole plan fell flat.

When Turgut Pasha arrived, he was said to have been supportive of Mustafa's original plan. Had they done that, they would have taken water. But the argument is that Piadopussia chose to keep the Navy safe, keep it in the harbour and refuse to sail out and attack. So he wouldn't go. Helen, Helen Nicholson, how significant for the siege? I've talked about drug at a great deal and got one or two things wrong, so let's get it right.

He came after a month and was killed soon after that. But how significant was his death? It was a great morale blow to the Turkish side, and a great morale boost to the hospitalers and the Maltese because he had such a reputation as a military leader and was he who had inflicted a number of defeats on the Maltese and the Order of St John in the past. So his death was seen as a sign that God was on their side

and ironically as reported in the Western sources he was actually killed by his own men. A gunner on the Turkish side aimed his gun too low and shot Dragut Togut in the back. And he lingered for a few days and then died. So there was much rejoicing on the hospitler's side. Shortly after that, they lost St Elmo, but they felt then that though St. Elmo had fallen,

it was not the catastrophic and complete loss. It could have been because one of their greatest enemies was dead. And there's a great sapping of morale and the great sapping of resources on the side of the Ottomans. Indeed, they lost a loss of men. And what did they do to the hospitalers and the people in St. Elmo? Can you say that this time? Yes.

Everybody was killed, except for a few Maltese who managed to swim across the harbour to safety and a handful of the knights who were captured by the corsairs who ransomed them, or held them for ransom. And by killed, their heads were chopped off. Their heads were chopped off,

they were gutted and their bodies were thrown into the sea. This is not unusual behaviour during Holy Wars or indeed any other war. It deliberately means that you... I'm pleased, dear. Yes. Why should you doubt it? Obviously, you can imagine the thoughts of the hospitalers and the Maltese as they saw the bodies of their dead comrades floating in the water. But at the same time, it encouraged them they were not going to stop fighting now. They were going to avenge them. So much of this is about morale, isn't it? I mean, that's the basis of siege warfare. I mean, the armaments were improving in the 16th century, but still there's a limit to how much you can hurl out of extremely strong.

piece of fortification. So really it's about morale. And if you can terrify defenders into surrender, like doing horrible things to the bodies of their mates and then showing them this, that's one way forward. But a high morale among a besieged garrison with enough water and enough food, and they can just sit it out. And that's partly the story of the siege of Malta, that the besiegers lost their bottle. in this situation in the end. You've done wonderful work on religious history. To what extent can we say that this is a religious world, not a crusading, not it isn't part of the crusades,

but to what extent can we say it's religious? Oh, it's intently religious. Isn't it just a power grab by Solomon? Well, it's a power grab, but it's a power grab for Islam with the intention of becoming the Roman Empire. And that was the point of seizing Constantinople. How does that make it religious? Because this is a new Roman Empire in the name of Allah,

just as the old Roman Empire had become a Christian Empire. So there's a very direct sense of religious dimension there. And on the other side, a huge religious dimension, because Christian Europe was threatened by the Ottomans with extinction in the end. And so the knights increasingly saw themselves as the resource for Christianity against this invading force.

And they were also intensely by now Catholic. They had burned Lutherans in the island of Malta because they were now the defenders of the faith. So that there's a very strong feeling, a very strong rhetoric, which of course is part of the morale thing. Can you give us one or two instances before we move on? What made this religious?

So far I've heard of people's heads being chopped off. We know that heads were used as cannonballs. I know that the Lutherans were burnt. I think people, some people listening, I'll say, where's the religion there? Well, the religion is defending Western Christianity, which the West would have thought simply was Christianity. And that meant Catholic Christianity.

The Knights had now been repudiated by Protestant Europe, but they were defending something, which felt very much in the need, needed to be defended Roman Catholicism. Kate. Yes, I'm not quite so sold on the religious idea myself. I think from an Ottoman

point of view, it is much more as you said in the first place related to a land grab. The Ottomans are advancing territory. The West is not, if you're talking about religious terms, what is more important for the Ottomans is looking east. The real danger comes from the east.

The religious challenge comes from the east. It comes from Iran. Shi'i Iran. So the Christian West isn't such a big deal for them in the first place. Then they... And so I... Obviously, the terms are used,

they refer to the nasty, pesky infidels or the wicked infidels and they're talking about the Christians to the West. But I would argue that Ottoman drive is not about religion. It's about economic resources. It's about land. Much more than it is the idea

of having a religious conquest. I would take that point, certainly. But you've got to think of the perception of Christians in this. They had watched the Kingdom of Hungary being completely eviscerated in the 1520s. They've seen cathedrals turned into mosques. And for them, perhaps much much more than the Ottomans, this is a religious war, a war for existential survival, if you like.

Can you tell us what tipped the balance in favour of the knights in this siege? because in the end the Ottomans pulled away after nearly five months. Yes. And we don't know that the hospitalists were very ingenious, they fought very hard and all that.

We say all that, can't take it for granted, but they were and they did, yes. No, I think that obviously the tactical error right at the beginning, Santell-Elma was a big, big mistake. Lost a lot of men, lost a lot of equipment. The points that Dermott has made about the heat, the problem with provisions and the problem of water. Also, by September, this is the,

coming to the end of the campaigning season, that fleet needs to get back to Istanbul. So that is said in Ottoman sources that Mustafa Pasha was much concerned that they needed to leave for that reason. But what I think really tipped it was what has been alluded to, this failure to blockade Nortar, because it is an island, and that's what they should have thought about. They should have put in a blockade, which is interestingly what Turgut Reis was instructed to do by Istanbul, blockade and what he did not do. So again, there was a problem there. But because they failed to blockade the island, they couldn't protect their own.

revisioning ships and they couldn't prevent reinforcements and help coming to the hospital as that was fundamental. When the reinforcements came from Sicily, landed in the west of Malta, that was the end for the Ottomans. And that's what really tipped it. Ellen Nicholson, there were reports people in the fighting were sending out reports. How reliable, are these good, reliable reports that we have, that you have? Well, clearly they are the only reports we have. Yeah, but are they reliant? So we have to rely upon them. There's other evidence turns up later on, isn't there?

There is. And I think the reports are insofar as any battlefield report is reliable, as reliable as we could expect. And scholars do rely upon them at least to understand how the battle was seen from the inside. In the heat of the moment, things had to be exaggerated to some degree because the Grandmaster, for example, was continually pressing forward. Grandmaster the head of the hospitals. Yes.

Was continually pressing for aid to be sent to him from the viceroy of the King of Spain in Sicily. Why didn't he? The excuse given was that he couldn't get permission from Philip of Spain to send a fleet, but also it does take time to put a fleet together. And when they set out at one point they was turned back by bad weather, then there had also been some doubt as to how much help a relieving force could give

and whether it might just be better to wait and see whether the order could turn the Ottomans back themselves, or even as Philip suggested, if the island did fall, he could recapture it later. So, there was some doubt of Sicily

as to whether they did need to send a relieving force, and so if the reports from the battlefield were exaggerated, that might be a reason. Dermud, what else did the Ottoman? must have on their plate at this time? Oh, so much. I mean, as Kate's already pointed this out, and they're looking eastwards, they're looking to Iran, which is a huge worry, perhaps a bigger

worry than actually anything the Christians could do. They've got that frontier moving in Central Europe. They've got North Africa. They are trying to consolidate their power in Egypt. They're looking at the Black Sea. How many problems do you need? And so, although this is an important siege, it's only one thing on the plate. And you can see someone in some office in Constantinople, in the end, saying, oh, come on, well, we've got other things to do. However epic it looks from a European point of view, in one sense, Western Europe is a bit of a side show for the Ottomans.

It doesn't look like that, looking eastwards from a Christian side, but that's how it is. On the other hand, there's great shame, as I understand it. There's a feeling that it was a fiasco. And Solomon doesn't like losing, Kate? No, it was not the greatest hour for the Ottomans. And of course, the Ottoman sources, that's part of the problem, a lot of the Ottoman sources are really quite,

they don't give much information on this. They do report, however, that Pia Lepashe and Mustafa Pasha sailed back, red-faced and ashamed to Istanbul. Mustafa Pasha took the blame for what had happened, or he was blamed for what had happened, and he lost his position when he returned. On the other hand, I agree totally with, the dermot, yes, it was extremely

irritating, but it wasn't necessarily a catastrophe, and of course they took chaos immediately afterwards, so 1566 they took Hios and they also then got Cyprus. But that's within their empire. I mean, you are such experts, but

the fact is, had they got Malta, they'd have been in reach of Italy, Spain, they'd have been in a key position, say, they're very clever people, they must have known that they lost a big opportunity. You can't just pass it by about it just a pimple on the edge of the orange. No, it's not a pimple on the end of the on the edge of the orange. It would have

brought a completely different map. But the fact it didn't... Well, that's quite something, isn't it? To have a completely different map? It would have given potential. In fact, Suleiman is reported, again, from the sources of the direction from the West. According to a spy sent by the hospitalers in 1564,

Suleiman's great aim wasn't... He didn't really think the island itself was so important. What it was important for was taking Sicily, taking Calabria, opening up the whole of that, of the West and they were saying that they would be able to extend their dominion. Excuse me. But going into the heart of what we call Christendom. Yes. So I agree. Moulter would then have led to something different. But the fact it didn't

happen wasn't necessarily a disaster. They've got a lot going on in the East. And what they did was concentrate on the Eastern Mediterranean. When Malta stops, that really in a way is the end of a strategy that looks at to the West, controlling the West Mediterranean. So then you have a sort of settling in the Mediterranean. Dermin? Yes. We've got to keep that map of the Mediterranean in your mind all the time. Malta's halfway along and whoever controls Malta is basically saying this is my half of the Mediterranean

or I'm going to have all the Mediterranean and it could go either way. Christian Europe's on the defensive so it's really got to keep the Ottomans, won't that at one stage? The Christian absolutely terrified. They think it's the last days. They think this is the end of all time

because the Pope has been challenged by Protestants the Ottomans are pressing on Christianity So in minds of Christians, this defence of a dry, small island is really part of the story of the last days. Can we, Helen, can we talk about the impact that the victory had on the hospitalers? It was the victory the hospitalers needed. They'd appeared to be a redundant order and questions had been raised at the Council of Trent about whether they were relevant for the current century, particularly as they were not very willing to reform themselves,

at least along the lines that the Council of Trent was suggesting for religious orders. But now they had shown that they were still the bastions of Christendom. They had turned back the apparently unconquerable Sultan of Istanbul. Having been defeated by him in the past, this was also settling some personal arguments as well. And the whole of Europe, and not just the Catholics, but the Protestants as well, could see how valuable they were for the defence of Europe against the forces of the Ottomans, the forces of Islam,

a different culture. So this assures the hospital is continuation. Donations flood in. They were able to fortify that promontory, which had St Elmer at the end, so Valletta is built. In fact, they turned Malta into a fortress island. Arguably, it was good for Malta because it means that considerable resources came into the island,

whereas it had been governed from afar for many centuries. Now it's being governed by people who have the interest of the island at heart, at least in theory. And they also continue to hold this position for another two centuries as guardian of Christian shipping in the Mediterranean, although the Venetians were not so convinced of that. And it gave a massive boost to morale, didn't it? It gave a massive boost to morale, did this? And the Ottomans were, the Ottomans were,

with a great feared enemy, and now they're a conquerable. They can be conquered. And they go on to be conquered again at the Battle of Lupanto, although, as Kate pointed out, the Ottomans were still making conquests in the eastern Mediterranean. They conquered Chios, they conquered Cyprus. So this doesn't stop the Ottomans conquering, but it does mark the end of their expansion to the West.

But it rested in the European imagination very strongly, didn't it go? That remarkable tower is telling. Yes, I think, again, perhaps picking up on your point about 14, 53, that it had enormous significance symbolically. It represented, as Dermot was saying, that if the Ottomans had taken, then you had a very different Western world. So from looking at it from the Christian West,

it was a massively important victory and one that could be very much embellished and used to show that that terrifying enemy, the Ottomans, were now defeatable. And of course, that was followed by the defeat Le Pantor. So again, that was very much a boost for morale, and it then carried on echoing from then onwards and gradually the Ottoman ceased to be the terrifying foe

that they had been from the 14th century onwards. But was this just one of the remarks that he flung over his left shoulder when Volta said, nothing is better known than the siege of Malta? Or was he speaking to a truth that was universally recognised? I think, well, he was resonating with his audience and also, of course, reflecting on the position of the Ottomans in the 18th century,

by which time they'd much decayed, and there had been a decisive turning point when they had failed to capture Vienna at the end of the 17th century. So you could look back from that to this great siege of the 16th century and say, yeah, that's the moment. And there's a lot of truth in that,

despite the fact that the Ottomans went on expanding, they have reached their limit. Well, thank you very much, Derman McCulloch, Helen Nicholson, Kate Fleet. Next week we'll be discussing one of the greatest Russian poets, It's Anna Ahmadaba, who was banned under Stalin. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now

with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. I think you should say something more about the letter itself now because it's an extraordinary place we have to visit, and I think we should encourage them to visit it. We're not a tourist point, now. No, but no, you really do get the feel of exactly what Helen is saying about the propaganda of victory. I mean, you've got Birgu,

renamed Vittoriosa. And that just says it all. Then you go to Valletta and it's this wonderful plan. Named after the leader of the leader, the multi-leader. Yes, Valletta. Yeah. So it's a vast memorial to a great commander. Do you think he was a great commander?

We didn't talk much about the hospitalist tactics, didn't we? It's morale. The idea of them squatting in, squatting in Fortside fortresses and hoping for the best. Well, morale is the thing. Yes, he is the trade as the great leader who keeps morale going at a point when everybody should be collapsing with despair, even when they expect aid to arrive on the 25th of July, St James is at John's Day and he doesn't come. He's the one that makes the rousing speech tell them they must do or die and God is on their side and we must continue to defend the island and God will help us and eventually, of course, aid does come and the Ottomans did retreat. been a galley slave in the Ottoman fleet,

hadn't he at one stage? Is that right? He was, yes. For how long? It was a few years. I can't remember exactly how many. Five years. It must be said he knew what would happen if they lost.

He had, apart from the order being destroyed, it would not be a happy ending for any of them. He had no reason to surrender and when he was offered terms of surrender, he simply rejected them. He made it quite clear that he was going to die fighting and that he expected everybody else to do the same.

And, of course, many of them did. We haven't talked about the Maltese either. No. And perhaps most famously, and I'm sure I'm going to mispronounce his name, Tony Bajada, who was a Maltese who had also been a slave of the Turks in his past, but by the time of the siege is living in Imdina and was acting as, well, described as, a spy. He was carrying messages between the old city and the Grandmaster and back when the relief forces arrived in July. There's just a small relief force of about 700 warriors from Sicily. He's the

one that gets through the Ottoman lines. He has his secret route. He can swim across the Grand Harbour and brings the news to the Grandmaster. And he's the one who advises on what route the relief forces should take to get into Bergu without being intercepted by the Turks. So he's His role was much appreciated by the brothers, and he could speak Turkish. He could pass as a Turk if he was stopped. Well, he seems like a massive omission. We didn't really have time to mention him. It's also part of the myth, isn't it?

Because let's think about these poor Maltese. They're suddenly stuck with this religious order in 1530, coming in, just completely lauding it over them. They're just knocked around, and of course they're treated appallingly by the besieging forces. They are really the shuttlecocks in the situation. I kept mentioning the capital of Malta, which is Medina, which is Medina. This is an Arabic word, and this is an Arabic population with their language very strongly semitic. And they are just footballs in this situation.

Except you could say it would have been worse if the hospitalists hadn't been there, wouldn't it? I mean, the Ottomans would have swept in, swept it away. Well, just as many as they could. They probably swept out again. I mean, they wouldn't necessarily disturb them. Yes, it might have been better. They certainly swept across many times before because the history of Malta seems to consist

in the early modern period of the raiders from the North African coast coming in, raiding Goso, sweeping away the population, raiding into Malta, carrying away the cattle and chattels. As you say, they pass through, but another report by Balbiao, Western Source, who was at the siege, was that when Piari Pasha

sent a renegade Maltese to talk to the Maltese, who were fighting with the order and suggested to them that they will be better off under Ottoman rule they said no they would rather

be servants of the order than compares of the Sultan so they were not prepared to surrender and although once upon a time the islands had been Muslim now they were Christian and they wanted to remain Christian mind of that may still

best be boldly propaganda that is a Western source yes there was options and alternative but just to put to you, had the Ottomans gone to Malta and the hospital has not been there, they would have captured it more easily. And judging by their track record,

they would have been merciless, and then they'd have taken it over. So when you say, oh, it might have been better for them, I'm not so sure. What do you think? I wouldn't say that they would have been merciless. Again, it's a question of what do the Ottomans want? You've got the islands in the Eastern Aegean,

a lot of those actually requested Ottoman conquest. The point is if you're, or later on, for example, with Crete, If you're actually governed by the Ottomans, that does not necessarily, or I think generally mean a mercilist treatment. What the Ottomans want is taxes paid on time and they want stability. So if you take Crete, for example, the Ottomans come in, they take over Crete. Crete actually then gets to operate much more independently. It can respond to the economy of the Mediterranean much more than it had been able to before. So Ottoman conquest is also about making sure that you end up with stability and regular pay taxes.

and that is the Ottoman interest. They have no interest in creating massive instability because if you think again, you're sitting in Istanbul, you've got to control all this area. You don't want upset peasants. You don't want them moving off the land because it won't produce anything. You want them producing taxes.

You don't want them revolting. So Ottoman rule is not about crushing the Christian peasants. I was following an unconscious cliche, though. I think the Ottoman rule is much more about ensuring economic and political stability. Well, of course, one fact you've got, you haven't got in Malta as different sort of Christians, which of course in the eastern Mediterranean, the Christians are basically

Orthodox and they hate Catholics and therefore they can get a better deal out of the Ottomans very often than by Christians who regard them as heretics. Now in Malta, everyone is a Catholic. That's partly because anyone who isn't a Catholic has been burnt

at the stake or enslaved. So the population is with the knights in that sense in a very different way from where you from where you might in kiosk or whatever or roads. But if you'd had the Ottoman takeover, that would, in a sense, and situation had stabilized,

how much opposition would you have actually had from the population on water? I mean, that's a question one can't really answer, but it would be interesting to think what would actually have happened. Well, you'd get the same opposition as you'd get to any remote power ruling you, wouldn't you? And there wouldn't necessarily have been a religious dimension

particularly about it. It's just that remote powers generally try and extort. everything they can out of you. I think we have our remote controller, the producer, wanted to enter into the fray. Coffee, lovely. Coffee, lovely. A coffee, black coffee.

White coffee. White coffee. Thank you. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. Oh, hey, fancy meeting you here. I'm Sindhuvi. And if you enjoyed that, why not let Radio Force Comedy of the Week podcast into your feed?

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