Settlement of the Order at Malta.—A Barren Waste.—A New Era for the Natives.—Foundling Hospitals.—Grand Master La Vallette.—Sailors and Soldiers.—Capture of Prisoners at Mondon.—A Slave Story in Brief.—Christian Corsairs!—The Ottomans attack the Knights in their New Home.—Defeat of the Turks.—Terrible Slaughter of Human Beings.—Civil War.—Summary Punishment.—Some Details of a Famous Siege.
Settlement of the Order at Malta.—A Barren Waste.—A New Era for the Natives.—Foundling Hospitals.—Grand Master La Vallette.—Sailors and Soldiers.—Capture of Prisoners at Mondon.—A Slave Story in Brief.—Christian Corsairs!—The Ottomans attack the Knights in their New Home.—Defeat of the Turks.—Terrible Slaughter of Human Beings.—Civil War.—Summary Punishment.—Some Details of a Famous Siege.
When the Knights of St. John accepted the gift of Charles V., and removed to their new island home in October, 1530, they came in small numbers. Their fleet consisted only of three galleys, one galliot, and a brigantine. Malta was then comparatively a barren waste; nothing could appear less inviting. With the picture of verdant, sunny Rhodes still fresh in their minds, these bare rocks must have seemed terribly inhospitable and dreary to the new-comers. The very title of Rhodes is of Greek origin, having its appropriate appellation, and refers to the great number of wild roses which grow spontaneously upon that lovely island. The Knights had lived long and prosperously upon what was and is still known as the "Garden of the Levant," hence the contrast was naturally disheartening. Here the rocky surface was treeless and white with desolation. In Rhodes they had left whole forests of sycamores, planes, and palms, together with groves of olive, almond, and orangetrees, while in Malta arboreal ornamentation was literally conspicuous by its absence.
The thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude intersects both of these famous islands, which are, however, separated by six degrees of longitude, the climate being nearly identical. Rhodes was larger than their new island home, its earlier history showing it to have been, like Malta, at one time in the far past, a prosperous Phœnician colony. There was no alternative for the Knights except to make the best of the situation, and so without wasting time in useless regrets, or repining, they set to work energetically to introduce improvements, and to adapt the locality to their most urgent necessities. The present site of Valletta was then sparsely occupied by a few poorly constructed cabins, Città Vecchia, situated two leagues inland, being the capital of the island. The Knights first selected their headquarters at Borgo, on the shore of the present Grand Harbor. After the decisive victory over the Turks in 1565, Borgo was named Città Vittoriosa, that is, the "victorious city," in honor of the gallant defense it made on that memorable occasion, and thus it is known to-day.
As to the Maltese peasantry, who were thus summarily transferred from one mastership to another without being permitted any voice whatever in the matter, they naturally received the new-comers at first with considerable reservation, but were soon on friendly terms with them, and erelong they cordially joined interests. At the first coming of the Knights, it is true,the Maltese were not in a condition to dispute the new authority placed over them, yet they had influence enough to exact from the brotherhood certain satisfactory terms as the price of their yielding ready submission. The Grand Master, in behalf of the order, solemnly swore to "preserve inviolate, for the inhabitants of the group, all of their present rights, customs, and privileges." Realizing the importance of retaining the good-will of the people, the fraternity as a body were careful to exercise towards them, in these early days of their settlement here, great consideration and generosity. They did not bear themselves as conquerors, but rather as friends, a community having a common interest, and they demanded no service from the Maltese for which they did not honestly pay. They encouraged them to till the ground by introducing new seeds, and by giving the natives valuable and practical information. They brought fruit and ornamental trees from the mainland, and in many ways stimulated the islanders to adopt progressive and profitable ideas for their own special benefit. The Maltese were a coarse, uncultured race, scarcely amenable to argument, and difficult to reason with. They followed in the footsteps of their forefathers, and ignored all experiments, however promising. But tangible results were convincing, and so steady improvement followed the efforts of the Knights to enlighten the dull native brain.
It was the beginning of a new era for this isolated people. The spirit of neglect which had so longreigned supreme upon the group was now superseded by another instinct with life and enterprise. Though the natives had not sufficient intelligence to originate ideas, yet when placed before their eyes they could appreciate and adopt them. The mass of the people seemed neither to know nor to care about the government under which they lived, provided they did not experience any personal harm or undue restrictions at the hands of those in power. They appeared to be content so long as they were permitted to join in the almost daily church processions and festivals, always remembering and demanding the utmost freedom at recurrence of the annual Carnival. They entertained no spirit of loyalty except towards themselves and their hereditary forms and ceremonies. This was nearly four hundred years ago, but almost precisely the same spirit prevails among the Maltese to-day.
At the time when the Knights first came hither, Malta was hardly fortified at all. True, Fort St. Angelo existed in name, and it mounted a few small guns, but a score of Algerine pirates could have landed and taken possession, so far as any protection was afforded by this apology for a fort.
The thin layer of soil which covered the rocks of the island here and there was hardly sufficient to till, and no extensive effort at agriculture or gardening seems to have been made by the natives before the Knights came to Malta, or at least not for centuries. In any other hands save those of this thrifty anddetermined semi-military organization, the island would have been but a sorry gift. It is described by a popular writer of that period as being "nothing better than a shelterless rock of soft sandstone called tufa." Subsistence for the dwellers upon the group, with the exception of fish, which were plenty enough, was brought almost entirely from Sicily, or the mainland. Frequent invasions of Saracens and Turks, continued for so many years, had devastated the islands, discouraging and impoverishing the natives, large numbers of whom had been carried away by the invaders and sold into slavery. This was the usual mode of disposing of prisoners of war in those days among people of the East. According to the authority from which we have just quoted, Malta was in 1530 "intensely dry and hot, with not a forest tree, and hardly a green thing to rest the eye upon." This barren waste, however, was destined in the course of a few years to put on a very different aspect, and to become an attractive example of fertility and fruitfulness; in fact, a dépôt of vast importance, by the exercise of energy and engineering skill.
The material improvements thus introduced, together with the protection from foreign enemies which the Maltese gained, was to be considered with many qualifications. Magdalen asylums and foundling hospitals, to which priests and Knights could recommend their favorites for shelter, became most suspiciously numerous. The inference is only too plain. The native population, as usual, emulatednot the virtues, but the vices of the new-comers. That the group must have flourished greatly under the Phœnicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans, there are plenty of monuments still extant to prove; but under the Arabs and Sicilians it had gradually declined, until the period when it came into possession of the Knights of St. John, who began promptly to restore its fallen fortunes, though, as has been intimated, at the expense of the morals of the people.
The galleys of the order did not lie idle after the fraternity had become fairly settled at Malta. They were promptly put in fighting condition, and constantly swept the neighboring seas, capturing prizes in all directions, even seeking the Turkish craft at the very mouth of the Dardanelles, and the Algerines on their own coast. The Knights filled the fighting ranks of the crews in their ships with Maltese, who were admirable sailors, and reliable for all sorts of sea-service. A score of Knights were quite sufficient to man each galleon, aided by a hundred or thereabouts of the trained seamen of the island. The slaves at the oars were not depended upon to act as belligerents, nor were the few hands who managed the sails and the running gear of the vessels. The Maltese had long before signalized themselves for valor and skillful seamanship under their own commanders, by capturing the entire Venetian fleet, together with Andrea Dandolo, the admiral who commanded it. At another time they destroyed the large flotilla of theRepublic of Pisa, and thus raised the siege and blockade of Syracuse. Though the protection afforded the inhabitants of the group by the Order of St. John was ample, and freed the people from all fear of predatory invasions, still the influence of the Knights was less for peace than for war, and, as has been shown, was not calculated to permanently improve the material condition of the common people of Malta.
The renowned Dragut, daring and reckless pirate as he was, shunned a meeting with the red galleys of the Knights. "Fate is with them," said this dreaded corsair, referring to the armor-clad Knights, whom he had so often met in battle. "Our swords will not wound, nor our spears pierce them."
La Vallette, who was at this time "General" of the galleys, proved himself as successful at sea as he did afterwards upon the land, when, as Grand Master, he conducted the famous and successful defense of Malta. His career was a remarkable one. He became a Knight before he was of age, and was conscientiously devoted to the order, body and soul, to the very last of his life. A predatory warfare both on land and sea was carried on incessantly by the Knights against the Turks, in which they were almost always successful. The historians tell us that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Valletta became a vast slave mart, supplied with human merchandise by means of the invasions and sea-captures of the order. On one occasion a thoroughly organizedand well-equipped force engaged in an expedition by which the Knights surprised and captured the city of Mondon, in Morea, whence they brought away a large amount of riches. We find enumerated in the list of their booty, eight hundred Turkish women and girls, whom they enslaved! The reader will please remember that we are writing of a fraternity,—a so-called religious brotherhood,—whose solemn vows bound them to charity, poverty, humility, and chastity. One feels not a little inclined to moralize, in this connection, upon the contrast between profession and practice, and on the weakness of human nature in general. These Knights of the cross reveled in cruel warfare; it was recreation to them. They displayed no want of valor, but they did exhibit "a plentiful lack" of Christian charity.
Among the beautiful women who fell into the hands of the Knights at the capture of Mondon was one possessed of marvelous loveliness both of form and features. Soon after her capture she became the property of Viscomte Cicala, who finally made her his wife. Being his slave, there could be no choice on her part, whether she would consent to the arrangement or not. The fruit of this marriage was a son, whom the father named Scipio, and had baptized into the Roman Catholic faith. This boy, when he grew up to man's estate, as the story runs, to fulfill a solemn vow made to his mother hastened to Constantinople, where he enlisted in the Ottoman army, and promptly embraced Mohammedanism. By hisextraordinary valor and intelligence as an officer in the Sultan's service, he rose rapidly to the command of the Turkish army. In this position he proved himself one of the most able and active enemies the Christians had to contend with. He caused great destruction in their ranks, because of the knowledge he possessed of their modes of warfare. When he was engaged in battle with the Christians, his war-cry was, "Remember Mondon!"
In the lapse of years, aggravated by the numberless onslaughts of the Knights upon their commerce, also envying the great improvement and manifest prosperity evinced at Malta under the management of L'Isle Adam and his successor, La Vallette, Turkish jealousy was aroused to the highest point of endurance. The commerce of Egypt and Syria was in danger of annihilation. The Knights of St. John were virtual masters of the narrow seas,—they were the "Christian" corsairs of the Levant! In the forty-three years which had transpired since the Knights were driven from Rhodes, the Turks had many times seen cause to regret the clemency which had been exercised toward the Christians in allowing them to depart from the island in peace. The Sultan's royal liberality, it must be confessed, had been ill-rewarded. The Order of St. John had proved to be more of a thorn in the side of the Ottoman power than when its stronghold was on the nearer island. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Sultan resolved again to attack the Knights in their more recenthome, and thereby not only to avenge the great losses which his people had sustained on sea and land, but also so effectually to demolish the power of the Knights as to disperse and break up the order altogether. Twice the Sultan brought large, well-organized forces to Malta for this purpose, first in 1546 and again in 1551, on both of which occasions the Ottomans were ignominiously defeated, and as usual with great slaughter. Their admitted losses aggregated from ten to twelve thousand men, killed outright, on each of these occasions. Their perseverance under such discouraging circumstances was marvelous, yet only characteristic of the race. The Turks always fought bravely, hand to hand, spurred on by a religious frenzy which led them to disregard all personal danger. They had no fear of death, which to the faithful Mussulman only signified instant transportation to the Mohammedan paradise, with them "a consummation devoutly to be wished."
The Ottomans stormed the fortifications of the Knights at great disadvantage. Inspired by their fanaticism, they advanced over the dead bodies of their comrades, which formed a bridge across the deep ditch, while the defenders were sustained by a lofty and heroic resolve to conquer or to die. The meeting of such opponents caused blood to flow like water, while the sacrifice of human life must have been enormous. It was the calm, unshrinking determination of the soldiers of the cross that rendered them so invincible, both on sea and on land, and that insured themvictory, though they were always outnumbered in every conflict. A few score of men inspired by such a strong will as actuated the Knights of St. John, and so well versed in the use of deadly weapons, became a host in themselves. It was in the siege of 1551 that the order lost one of the most active and important of its members in the person of the Cavalier Repton, Grand Prior of England, whose prowess as a soldier of the cross was long remembered by his brethren in arms.
This frenzy, leading to the sacrifice of one's life in the hope of gaining Paradise, as exhibited by the Turks, seems ridiculous, no doubt, to the average reader, but it exists to-day in various forms among Eastern nations. The devout Hindoo solemnly believes that the shortest road to eternal life is to be submerged in the all-cleansing, sacred Ganges. His body is in the ordinary course burned upon its banks, while the ashes are carefully gathered and cast into the flowing tide. So infatuated were the pilgrims at one time, who came to Benares to bathe in the sacred river, that the English police were obliged to use force to prevent them from drowning themselves and their infants in these waters. It was so with the Turks, who believed themselves to be serving Allah and dying in his service, when they fought the Christian soldiers. "These infidels seem to welcome death," said Grand Master La Vallette, while at his advanced age he was wielding the deadly battle-axe upon the ramparts during the siege of Malta.
In the two attempts upon the island in 1546 and in 1551, the Mohammedans outnumbered the Maltese garrison ten to one. Having so often tested the prowess of the Christians in battle, the Turks would not attack the Knights except with a force much superior in numbers. In their most prosperous days in Malta, the Knights proper, that is, those holding full membership in the order, never numbered more than six or seven hundred, but there were various grades of men-at-arms, and of trained native Maltese, attached to the service of the Knights, thus swelling the fighting force to a fairly effective body. Many of the Knights were distributed over Europe, the order having "chapters," or "commanderies," as they were called, in France, Germany, England, Spain, and Italy, from which the headquarters at Malta drew pecuniary support to meet all ordinary demands upon it. But the treasury of the order was amply supplied in reality by preying upon the commerce of the Mediterranean between Sicily and the Levant. Occasionally, when seriously weakened by warfare, fresh members from these European dépôts joined the main body on the island for more active duty. A requisition to that effect being issued by the Grand Master, it was responded to with alacrity by the home members. It was a period when chivalry flourished in Europe, as we have already indicated, when warfare against the Mohammedans was deemed among the Christians an absolute service to God.
There was undoubtedly anesprit de corpsamongthe Knights of St. John, which was strong enough to hold them in the ordinary bonds of brotherhood, and to keep up the forms of their religious vows and purposes. Yet those who knew their history at this period do not credit them with much consistency or pious devotion to the sacred obligations which they had voluntarily assumed. They were often anything but harmonious among themselves, requiring the intervention of stern rules exercised by an unquestionable authority.
While L'Isle Adam was alive, bending under the accumulated weight of many years, and still suffering much pain from the wounds he had received in various battles with the Turks, he was nearly disheartened and broken down with sorrow at the growth of domestic quarrels and jealousies among the fraternity over which he presided. In vain were all his earnest admonitions and pacific attempts at reconciliation. The time had come for exemplary action. He was severely just in administering the duties of his responsible office, and was both respected and feared by all backsliders. One cause, and perhaps the principal one, which induced quarrels among the Knights was that of the difference of language. There was a certain national rivalry which was ever coming to the surface, and which proved a chronic source of trouble. This spirit finally broke forth in open warfare, civil war, and was conducted with deadly hostility between the several factions. Duels and personal conflicts were of daily occurrence. It was a crisis in thehistory of the order, but L'Isle Adam, notwithstanding his physical infirmities, was fully equal to the trying occasion. He had faced the furious enemy in too many a hard fought battle to know anything like hesitancy at a critical moment. A brief court-martial was promptly held; the trial of the accused Knights was short and decisive. The reckless and guilty culprits found that they had been playing with fire. Twelve of the accused were ordered to be stripped of their official garments and insignia, and were ignominiously expelled from the order and the island, while an equal number were condemned to immediate death. These last were inclosed in canvas bags, after they had been securely bound with ropes, and, similar to the Turkish fashion of treating unfaithful women, they were thrown into the sea to drown! It was the iron hand of discipline, Oriental and heathenish in the character of the punishment, but it was effective in its results. Any halting in purpose on the part of L'Isle Adam at that critical moment would have proved to be the death of the order. We may be sure that there were no more attempts at civil war among the Knights. Order was firmly reëstablished. The vows of the members bound them to the most implicit obedience. They were rebellious; they disregarded the Grand Master's commands, and consequently they suffered condign punishment.
A terrible example having thus been made, the members realized thereafter both the certainty and the severity of the punishment which awaited thosewho indulged a like rebellious spirit. Four years after the settlement of the order in the island of Malta, L'Isle Adam died. This was in 1534.
It was in 1565 that the Porte made its greatest and final effort to capture Malta from the Knights of St. John. The Sultan determined to crush out the life of a fraternity which for centuries had been so persistently arrayed against his race. The immediate circumstance which at last awakened the fury of Solyman, and brought matters to a climax, was the capture by the Knights of a Turkish galleon, on the Ottoman coast, richly laden, and belonging to the chief black eunuch of his royal establishment. Enraged at this, the Sultan vowed to bring about the destruction of his old enemies, if it cost the lives of half his subjects. In pursuance of this resolve, after a full year occupied in elaborate preparations, one hundred and thirty vessels, carrying about forty thousand men, sailed from Constantinople, under command of Mustafa Pasha, who had grown old in the wars of his country, and having been joined by an Algerine flotilla manned by piratical crews, and led by the notorious corsair Dragut, appeared in due form, May 18, 1565, upon the Maltese coast. The force thus organized on the part of the Turks was one of the most complete, in its warlike character, which had ever floated in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. Its success seemed to be a foregone conclusion with all except the gallant Knights themselves.
In the mean time, while this grand expedition wasbeing organized, La Vallette, then Grand Master of the Knights, was kept well informed of every movement at Constantinople, and he was by no means idle. Every exertion was made to place the island in a good condition of defense. A general summons was issued, recalling all Knights who were absent in Europe. A large body of infantry was raised in Sicily, two thousand men and more, who were gradually transferred to the island. Ample quantities of provisions, arms, and ammunition were accumulated. The native militia enthusiastically joined the service of the Knights, and were carefully trained to the handling of weapons preparatory to the arrival of the enemy. Thus, when the Turks made their appearance, the Grand Master had at his command a force of about nine thousand men, well prepared to meet them. Nearly six hundred of this number were Knights proper, full members of the Order of St. John. These latter had been trained from boyhood to the use of warlike weapons, and each man was equal to a score of ordinary soldiers, as organized in those days. Still, it must have been an anxious occasion among the Christians and their allies, the Maltese, especially so to those who remembered the siege of Rhodes. The Ottomans were much more formidable now than they were then. They conquered in 1522. Who could say what would be the result in 1565? The Mohammedans, as usual, vastly outnumbered their opponents; indeed, it is reported that Solyman declared: "I will send soldiers enough towalk over the bodies of these proud Knights without unsheathing their swords to fight." The Sultan was so confident of victory that all his arrangements were made for the future occupancy and governorship of the Maltese group.
The Grand Master assembled the Knights to an extraordinary meeting. He bade them reconcile themselves with God and with each other, and then prepare to lay down their lives, if necessary, in defense of the faith which they had sworn to shield. All schisms were forgotten, as might naturally be expected. The order, in face of an enemy, was as one individual. After renewing their vows in the most solemn manner, they joined hands and hearts in the great purpose of defense, resolving to inflict dire destruction upon the common enemy. There was no more jealousy or rivalry between individuals of the order, except as to which should exhibit the greatest and most effective bravery upon the ramparts, or on the occasion of a sortie. This spirit of chivalrous emulation among the Knights cost the enemy daily many scores of lives.
Thus began one of the most sanguinary sieges ever recorded in history. It lasted for nearly four months, and was characterized by unrelenting desperation on both sides, reviving again the bloody scenes which were enacted at Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes. The thirty-five years which had transpired since the Knights took possession of Malta had been largely devoted to strengthening their means of defense, andin supplying their armory with the most effective death-dealing weapons. The present site of Valletta, it should be remembered, was then simply the bare promontory of Mount Sceberris.
The Grand Master knew every movement of the enemy, through the capable spies whom he maintained at Constantinople, and was promptly informed by them of the sailing of the expedition. The Christian forces, therefore, were in no wise taken by surprise, while the Turks were amazed at the ample preparation evinced in the manner their first onslaught was received, and the terrible slaughter of their forces, while the cheering battle-cry of the Knights of St. John rang ominously in their ears. They could not have hoped to take the Christians wholly unawares, but they had no idea that the Knights were so thoroughly prepared to receive them with stout arms, keen-edged weapons, and an abundance of death-dealing missiles. The invaders had brought siege artillery with them, and after the first assault, from which they had hoped to achieve so much, but in which they were tellingly repulsed, leaving hundreds of their best soldiers dead in the trenches and upon the open field, they resorted to their reserved means of offense. Some of their cannon were of such enormous calibre as to throw stones weighing three hundred pounds. Yet so clumsy was this primitive artillery, and so awkwardly was it served, that it often inflicted more destruction on the Turkish gunners themselves than on the Christians.
The struggle raged fiercely day by day, and the victims were reckoned by hundreds among the enemy every twenty-four hours. The carnage among the besiegers was awful. Their close ranks were mowed down by the Knights, as grass falls before the scythe of the husbandman.
When the Ottoman soldiers came in a body, bearing scaling-ladders wherewith to reach the top of the rampart of St. Elmo, and while they were in the most exposed situation, sharp-cornered stones, as heavy as two men could lift, were launched suddenly upon those ascending the ladders, forcing them to the ground, and killing them in large numbers. Boiling pitch was poured upon the upturned faces of the assailants, blinding and agonizing them. Iron hoops bound with cotton thoroughly saturated with gum and gunpowder were set on fire, and so thrown as to encircle the heads of three or four of the enemy, binding them together in a fiery circle which they could not extinguish, and which burned them fatally before they reached the ground below. Many other horribly destructive and fatal devices were adopted by the defenders, which spread death in all directions among the Turks. When one of the enemy succeeded in reaching the top of the ramparts, he was instantly met by a Knight, whose keen battle-axe severed his head from the body, both head and body tumbling back into the ditch among the assailants. Still, the indomitable Ottomans renewed their attacks from day to day, hoping to carry the fort at last byexhausting the physical endurance of the defenders, though it should cost ten Mussulmans' lives for one Christian. Each time they marched to the assault, the death-dealing rocks, the boiling pitch, and the fiery hoops did their terrible work, in connection with the ordinary weapons of war, in the use of which the Knights were so expert. It is said that in the hands of a powerful man familiar with it, no weapon is so destructive at close quarters as the broad-bladed, keen-edged battle-axe of those days. The Orientals depended almost solely upon their crude firearms,—the blunderbuss,—together with their light swords and spears.
Early in the siege of which we are speaking, the commander of the Mohammedan army resorted energetically to mining, in furtherance of their attack upon Fort St. Elmo, but the Knights were no novices at counter mining. On one occasion the Turkish engineers had sprung a device of this sort so near to the defensive bastions as to make a wide breach in the stout walls. This was not unexpected by the Knights, who had, in fact, been on the watch for just such an opportunity. Hardly had the shower of the débris ceased to fall, before the enemy rushed forward to enter the fort by the newly made breach. The turbaned throng, a thousand men and more, with waving banners and upraised swords, crowded together upon the spot, little heeding what was to follow. And yet there was a moment's pause, a moment of utter silence, as though those soldiers of the crescentinstinctively waited for something to happen, they knew not what. It was like the awful stillness which precedes the hurricane at sea. The moment this pause occurred, the Knights sprung a well-prepared mine beneath the very feet of the densely crowded body of the enemy, blowing nearly two thirds of their immediate assailants to instant death! Seven hundred Turks are said to have lost their lives at that terribly fatal explosion, as though struck by lightning. The whole Ottoman force rapidly withdrew in utter confusion and amazement.
The moral effect of this frightful catastrophe to their army led to quiet in the Turkish camp for several days, though it did not fail to create among the invaders a spirit of revenge which amounted almost to madness.
Jean de La Vallette, Grand Master of the order, was well fitted for his position in this great emergency. He was seen everywhere, even in the thickest of the fight, praising the valor of the Knights and leading the most hardy. Though he was gray with age, being threescore years and ten, still his practiced arm was stout and able to wield the terrible battle-axe with dire effect. He had always been famous for his expertness with this weapon. He was thebeau idéalof the soldier-monk, and the true embodiment of a spirit of chivalry which was fast passing away. At this special time his experience was of the greatest advantage, and his judgment was always sound. Having once been a captive among the Turks for aconsiderable period, he knew their mode of warfare, and spoke their language. Though stern and inflexible in character, and often charged with cruelty, he is represented to have been always just, and devoutly religious. To his skill, courage, and iron will, together with a spirit of tireless energy, more than aught else, the Ottomans owed their final defeat. His very name has become a synonym with the Maltese for genius, piety, and courage.
It is true that on the closing days of the siege, the Knights of St. John were joined by long-delayed reinforcements sent from Italy, but so far as we can discover, these fresh troops were not called upon to go into action with the enemy. The siege was virtually already at an end when they arrived upon the scene. The Turkish army had suffered beyond all precedent. Three quarters of their number had laid down their lives in this sanguinary and useless siege. The fort of St. Elmo had finally been captured by the enemy, but forts St. Angelo and St. Michael still remained intact. These forts were also stormed again and again, but the now weary and disheartened Ottomans were repulsed each time with awful slaughter. At last, when it became known that reinforcements sent to the Knights had actually landed upon another part of the island, Mustafa Pasha was compelled to order the galleys to prepare to sail for Constantinople with the small and shattered remnant of his army. Further prosecution of the siege was out of the question, and those of the Turkish army still left alive,struck by a panic, threw away their arms, and fled toward the galleys.
In this hasty and demoralized retreat of the enemy, the Knights saw their chance for an effective dash; so getting a few score of cavalry together, until now inoperative, they fell upon the rear of the fleeing Turks and slaughtered them in large numbers, while many were driven pellmell into the sea, where they were quickly drowned.
While the siege was in active progress, all Europe was anxiously watching the struggle, and when it closed with such decided results, and with the utter discomfiture of the Ottoman power, Europe rejoiced. In Rome (as well as in many other capitals), the ancient city was illumined, and salutes were fired from the fortress of St. Angelo, on the banks of the Tiber, while a thanksgiving mass was celebrated in all the churches. Pope Pius IV., as a special mark of his favor, offered La Vallette a cardinal's hat; but the hero of Malta considered his position far more elevated than that of a cardinal, and graciously declined the honor.
Result of the Siege.—Native Women serving as Soldiers.—The Maltese Militia.—The Knights gain World-Wide Applause.—Rage of Sultan Solyman.—Agents of the Grand Master become Incendiaries.—La Vallette, Hero of the Siege.—The Order still Piratical.—The Turks and Knights Affiliate.—Decadence of the Chivalric Brotherhood.—Momentary Revival of the Old Spirit.—Treacherous Surrender.—French Sovereignty.—End of the Order.
Result of the Siege.—Native Women serving as Soldiers.—The Maltese Militia.—The Knights gain World-Wide Applause.—Rage of Sultan Solyman.—Agents of the Grand Master become Incendiaries.—La Vallette, Hero of the Siege.—The Order still Piratical.—The Turks and Knights Affiliate.—Decadence of the Chivalric Brotherhood.—Momentary Revival of the Old Spirit.—Treacherous Surrender.—French Sovereignty.—End of the Order.
Many interesting considerations suggest themselves in connection with this remarkable siege. The lack of discipline which characterizes Oriental soldiery was an element constantly operating against the assailants. Had the siege opened on true engineering and military principles, such an enormous and well-armed number of Turkish fighters must have overwhelmed the Christians at the very outset. This, however, was not the case. The siege seems to have been a series of blunders on the part of the Ottomans from the beginning until the end, or at least until the arrival of Admiral Dragut, who took partial command and gave the operations the benefit of his great military experience. Henceforth something like order and system were evolved from the utter confusion which reigned supreme in the Turkish army.
The vast number of the Ottoman forces, compared with that of the defenders of Malta, only served to emphasize their final and utter defeat. True, there isa great difference between contending parties when one is fighting in the open, while the other is protected by well-constructed walls of stone, but the Turkish commander, though foolhardy, was not blind, and he must have taken that into consideration when he made his opening and reckless attack upon the stronghold of Fort St. Elmo. It is quite possible that excessive numbers may prove an element of disaster, under certain circumstances. This was exactly the case in the first onslaught of the Ottomans, who came to the attack almost in a solid body,—a mere reckless, over-confident mob,—relying upon their numbers rather than upon any appropriate tactics. In after assaults more discipline was adopted and observed. The forces were divided so as to attack various points simultaneously, while a heavy reserve was held well in hand to launch upon the point where any temporary success disclosed a weakness in the defenses. The enemy had learned a bitter lesson by experience; that vain, ill-conceived attack at the opening of the siege having cost them between three and four thousand of their best soldiers. The bodies of these men who were slain before the stout walls of St. Elmo lay unburied for days in the trenches and approaches to the fort, creating a terrible stench, which caused a fever to break out in the Turkish camp, nearly as fatal to them as the missiles and battle-axes of the Knights.
During the progress of the siege the Maltese women not only tended the sick and wounded, but constantlyserved refreshments to those who could not leave their posts of duty. They also transported the wounded upon stretchers to the hospitals, and brought powder, shot, and rocks, to aid the defenders upon the ramparts. Though many of them were killed and others wounded while thus engaged, they bravely continued their important services to the last. One historian says that twice when the Turkish shot had cut down the red banner of St. John, with its eight-pointed cross of white, it was a Maltese woman who instantly rushed to the exposed point and raised it again over the ramparts, where stout and ready hands once more secured it in position.
It is a notable circumstance that the native population, though so clearly Arabic in their origin, manners, and customs, have never, so far as we know, sympathized with the Mohammedans.
Further details of this memorable siege would but weary the reader. Suffice it to say that the final defeat of the Turks showed them to have lost, since they had landed in Malta, thirty thousand men killed, besides hordes of wounded left unfit for future service. Of the Knights and their auxiliaries, who aggregated, as will be remembered, about nine thousand fighting men, only six hundred remained capable of bearing arms! The Maltese militia, so say contemporary writers, proved to be effective soldiers, numbering about three thousand men at the beginning of the conflict, but they were nearly all destroyed during the protracted siege. They were amphibiousfighters, sometimes leaping into the sea, holding their swords in their teeth, and successfully attacking the Turks from this element in which they were so much at home. They aided most materially in the general result, and indeed, but for their gallant services, the Knights could not have held out to the close, when the reinforcements arrived.
This decisive victory gained over the Ottoman power was not alone of great significance to the Order of St. John, but it was of immense importance to all the dwellers in the Mediterranean ports west of the Levant, relieving the several exposed nationalities from the fear of predatory visits of Turkish or Algerine galleys. These notorious corsairs had for centuries made the great inland sea the terror of all honest seamen, seriously crippling its commerce. But at the siege of St. Elmo the most daring leader of the pirates had lost his life, and his followers were no more to be feared, at least for a considerable period. By their brave and successful defense of Malta, the Knights permanently fixed the boundary of the Ottoman power, so far as regarded its possible extension westward. Up to this time, Solyman II., like his father, called the "Magnificent," had his eyes fixed on Europe, the eventual conquest of which they both boldly resolved upon, but the tide of successful warfare in that direction was now stayed. Advance upon the Christian powers was quite impossible, while there remained upon their flank and rear so efficient and implacable an enemy as the Knights of Malta.
The admiration and gratitude of the Christian world at large were manifested by liberal donations from all quarters to swell the depleted treasury of the order, while earnest and able aspirants hastened to join its ranks. The Knights, by their display of indomitable courage and prowess in war, justly won the name of the heroes of Christendom. They were men, as we have seen, of whose morality the less said the better, but who as soldiers merited their unrivaled reputation.
The rage of Sultan Solyman at the complete defeat of his army and the return of his unsuccessful general was terrible. He immediately resolved to gather another army and flotilla, with which to conquer Malta, to lead this expedition himself, and to take with him a hundred thousand soldiers to insure victory. Preparations were accordingly begun in the great arsenal of Constantinople by collecting arms and ammunition for the carrying out of this purpose, especially including the storage of large quantities of gunpowder. When this had progressed for a few months, La Vallette was informed of the object by his well-paid spies in the Turkish capital. The Knights could not withstand another siege. Their ranks had been so thinned as to leave only a skeleton organization, and the outlook for them was indeed desperate. The Grand Master knew that he could no longer hope to oppose force to force successfully, and that other and effective means must be promptly adopted to cripple and discourage the persistent enemy. La Vallettesecretly instructed his unscrupulous spies to fire the arsenal of Constantinople, promising a grand premium if success followed the attempt. This was done. Large stores of powder had already been gathered here for the expedition; and its explosion destroyed not only the arsenal itself, with its store of arms and equipments, but also wrecked the entire fleet, which was being equipped close at hand. The instant destruction of human life, as well as of war materials, was enormous, so great, in fact, that the expedition was necessarily abandoned for the time being. The death of the Sultan of Turkey soon followed the blowing up of the arsenal, thus preventing any renewal of the design against the order.
The successful defense of Malta proved to be the last great feat of arms achieved by the Knights of St. John. They had completely broken the Ottoman power, so far as aggressive operations were concerned. There was now no active enemy with whom they were called upon to contend. Rest and recuperation would seem to be absolutely necessary after the terrible strain which had been put upon their endurance; and they had most certainly earned the right to enjoy such a respite. Of the Grand Master, La Vallette, it is recorded that, during the heat of action, when the Turks were storming the walls and his battle-axe was spreading death right and left, his associate Knights besought him not to so expose his life. It was then that he replied: "How can I, at my age of seventy-one years, die more gloriously than in the midst of mybrothers, in the service of God, and in defense of our holy religion?" He was the soldier-monk par excellence, possessing grand physical powers, devoutly pious according to his creed, and a grand example of chivalry. It is not too much to say that it was his hand that hurled back the shattered and riven power of the Turks. Age had not withered his ambition or enterprise. He resolved to build at once a new and thoroughly fortified city by the shore, on the promontory of Mount Sceberris, the present site of Valletta, and to remove the capital of the island to the coast. The outcome of this purpose is the beautiful city which we have already described, in the erection and fortification of which the order reached the acme of its defensive purposes. It may be truly said that they were at last fully prepared and able to repulse any force which could possibly be brought against them, and the universal knowledge that this was so prevented any further attempt at molestation.
The galleys of the Knights of St. John still roamed the seas in search of prizes, and woe betide any craft which they encountered sailing under the Turkish flag. It is said that a careful discrimination was not always exercised as to the nationality of the vessels which they attacked. Other craft than Turkish were often seized and pilfered, under some specious pretext, especially if they were Grecian. The galleys of that people, it must be frankly admitted, were mostly of a piratical character.
The rapidity with which the Knights recoveredfrom their late almost hopeless condition was marvelous. A large and thoroughly fortified city seemed to spring into existence as though by magic. To accomplish this, vast sums of money were required, and the principal sovereigns of Europe vied with each other in their gratitude, as to which should most liberally contribute means for the use of the order in Malta. The Valletta of our day, however, was not actually completed until some twenty-five years later.
While Emmanuel Pinto was Grand Master of the order, in 1741, the King of Sicily attempted to establish a claim upon these islands, and sent a select council to preside over its government. These officials, who came hither in great state, were summarily dismissed and sent back to Sicily by the Grand Master. The king in retaliation closed all the ports of Sicily against Maltese vessels. This was a serious matter to the latter, as the group depended upon that country for a large portion of its food supply, especially in grain. To meet this exigency, the Grand Master entered into a treaty with the old foes of the order, namely, the Turks, who gladly accepted a proposal which afforded them a respite from warfare with so active an enemy, and also enabled them, for the time being, to sell supplies to the people of the Maltese group. They joined the Knights also in an offensive marine warfare against the Sicilians, and soon caused the king of that country to regret the step he had taken against the Knights of St. John. After he had lost many vessels to the Knights and Turks combined,he humbly sued for peace, and made such ample reparation as was demanded of him for the needless war which he had caused.
Looking at the current of events from our own standpoint, and through the distance of time, it would seem that the Knights must have found it a rather uncongenial business to fight a so-called Christian power, side by side with their life-long enemies, the infidel Turks. True, it was but a temporary union, the object of which having been accomplished, the old spirit of enmity between the Knights and the Ottomans was resumed, and found expression in an immediate renewal of hostilities.
From this period the glory of the Knights of St. John seems to have gradually waned. Their religious zeal and simplicity of living had long since departed. Is not all growth toward ripeness also toward decay, unless directed heavenward? There was no longer any violent opposition to overcome by energetic action and self-abnegation, no enemy with arms in his hands whom they must conquer. The one power whom they had always antagonized was comparatively exhausted and undemonstrative. True manhood feeds upon—is supported by—antagonism, and opposition is the spur to heroic deeds. The life of constant warfare and the savage use of arms which the Knights had so long been accustomed to quite over-shadowed their priestly instincts, and as peace now reigned, they sought unholy excitement in various forms, such as were ill-suited to the vows andprofessions of the order. They now dwelt in sumptuous palaces, lapsing by degrees into utter idleness and libertinism. They had become the richest and most powerful brotherhood in the world. It is true that the outward forms of their religion were observed with more or less regularity, but it was an empty, heartless ceremony. The portraits, still extant, which were painted of them at this period, show that their dress was changed from steel armor and shirt of mail to velvet and gold-wrought fabric, of an effeminate character. Their chivalric impulses had departed. They gave way to the pleasures of the table and to the demoralizing wine-cup. Those who have written of the order understandingly as regards this period tell us that morality was at the lowest ebb with the individual members of the fraternity. In these latter years, joining the organization was the means of providing for a younger brother in titled European families. The order became the resort for libertines who had exhausted all home relations. It was not unusual for men, however dissolute, provided they belonged to the higher ranks, to become Knights of St. John as a final resort, after leading a godless and criminal career.
An instance which occurred so late as 1783 is called to mind, when the Knights, for a brief period, seemed to awaken to the old instincts and professions of their order. It was tidings of the fearfully destructive earthquake in Sicily, happening in that year, which so aroused the fraternity. Manning theirgalleys, after they had filled them with food, wine, and medicine, they sailed across the sea, and having landed amid widespread desolation, they assumed the rôle of good Samaritans, feeding the hungry, ministering to the sick, and smoothing the pillow of the dying. Thus they once more revived the memory of those grand, unselfish days at Jerusalem, when they were justly renowned and revered as Hospitallers, living up to their vows of poverty, charity, and chastity. This was, however, only the blazing up of dying embers, and the order lapsed once more into luxury and decay.
The final disaster which befell the Knights of St. John, as an organization, came through the medium of treachery, and that, too, of the grossest description, in 1798, when Von Hompesch was the Grand Master. This faithless man, like Bazaine at Metz, proved to be an arch traitor to every trust that had been reposed in him, and won the contempt of all Christendom.
Von Hompesch was a man entirely unfit for such an exigency as then occurred. He was devoid of all firmness or decision of character, and was, indeed, neither priest nor soldier except in name. It seems strange that he should have been chosen to so responsible a situation by his brotherhood, who must have known the man thoroughly. The application of the classic saying is clear: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." There was evidently considerable discontent under his authority, and rebellious expressions were not wanting. At thisdistance of time, and with our want of light upon the situation, no satisfactory motive can be adduced for Von Hompesch's treachery and general listlessness. The principal traitors who are known to have been most active in this conspiracy, for conspiracy it was, were the Knights of the division of Provence, Auvergne, and France, among whom liberal pensions and rewards were freely distributed by the invaders of Malta. It was thus that the French soldiers under Bonaparte obtained ready and easy admittance to the almost impregnable defenses of Valletta, absolute possession being given to them without any real or pretended fighting in their defense. "It was well," said an officer high in command among the invaders, "that some one was within to open the gates for us. We should have found considerable difficulty in entering, if the place had been entirely empty."
French gold and cunning diplomacy, not French valor, opened the way into the well-fortified capital. Three days after the appearance of the French fleet off the harbor, the tricolor was floating over the historic battlements of St. Elmo. The indignation of the native Maltese was so great at this ignominious surrender of the island to the enemy, that the people rose in their anger and assassinated several of the most guilty of the obnoxious members of the Order of St. John.
Bonaparte agreed, by solemn compact duly written and signed, on behalf of his government, with the Grand Master, Von Hompesch, when he gave up thepossession of the island to him, that "the inhabitants shall be allowed, as of old, the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, their privileges and property shall remain inviolate, and they shall not be subject to any extraordinary tax." This agreement was a mere form on the part of the French, the pledges being all broken within one week from the day on which they were signed.
All Europe was amazed at this blot cast upon the escutcheon of a chivalric brotherhood like that of the Knights, whose record for loyalty to the order and its general purposes had been so gallantly maintained, and at such terrible cost, for so many centuries. To one who recalls the past history of these soldier-priests, such an ending must seem almost incredible. It is impossible not to contrast this shameful surrender with the valorous resistance of the Knights in the terrible siege of 1565, when their blood flowed free as water to sustain the honor of their flag, and to preserve the integrity of their order. The dying of the Knights who formed the forlorn hope of the fort of St. Elmo, one by one fighting at his post until he fell, is one of the grandest and most heroic tableaux known to the annals of history.
The new masters of the Maltese at once banished the traitor Von Hompesch from the island, and perhaps it was necessary in order to save his life, which the native population did not hesitate to threaten openly. He retired to Trieste, after receiving a princely fortune from France. This was in 1799.His death occurred in 1805, at Montpellier, in the sixty-second year of his age. He is dismissed from history, disgraced and forgotten.
The successor of this unknightly leader of the order was the Emperor Paul I., of Russia, who was chosen as adernier ressort. He was solemnly inaugurated, but was never more than nominally Grand Master. His election to the office was so manifestly an incongruous act, that it remained unrecognized. When the French established themselves in Malta, a number of the Knights took refuge in St. Petersburg, and there elected the emperor to the post even before Von Hompesch had formally resigned the office. Paul made several vain attempts to reëstablish the Knights, inviting the nobility of Christendom to enlist in the ranks of the ancient order. Success did not follow his efforts to this end.
The Knights were seen no more in Malta, though up to the arrival of the French they had been sovereign in the islands for two hundred and sixty-eight years. Twenty-eight successive Grand Masters had presided over them here, from L'Isle Adam to Von Hompesch.
The new masters of Malta made themselves odious to the people of the island by their reckless pillage and rapine, so that the French name has ever been held in abhorrence by them. The soldiery invaded the sanctuary of domestic life, and the honor of maid or mother was recklessly sacrificed by brute force to their vile appetite. We have referred in these pagesto the faldetta, which is worn by the women of Malta. There is a legend relating to this article of dress which occurs to us in this connection. It is to the effect that after Valletta was seized by the French troops, the women registered a solemn vow that, in memory of the brutal treatment they had received at the hands of the licentious soldiery, they and their descendants should for the period of one hundred years dress in black, whenever they appeared upon the streets, and that all should wear a distinctive hood, which is called the "hood of shame."
The local customs of the Maltese were outraged, and the legal code interfered with, by the French. Among other acts they abolished all titles, altered the laws affecting the tenure of property, and demanded that the sons of rich families should be sent to France for educational purposes. They seemed to try to aggravate the Maltese by petty and needless oppression, until at last, goaded beyond further endurance, especially in matters relating to church affairs, the islanders rose in insurrection, and were joined in their struggle by the English. The fleet of the latter had just arrived at Malta, fresh from the victory of Aboukir, and it heartily seconded the uprising of the Maltese against their oppressors. Without this timely aid they could have made but a feeble struggle for their freedom. The anger of the native population came to a climax when the French soldiery attempted to rifle the old cathedral at Città Vecchia, which was held by them in such special reverence. That ancient temple wasto the masses of the islanders what the more modern church of St. John had been to the Knights.
The French invaders were promptly driven within the walls of the fortifications, where they were virtually held as prisoners for the period of two years, submitting to every sort of deprivation, while looking in vain for reinforcements and relief from the government of France. That hoped-for assistance never came. At the close of the second year, the French troops were absolutely starved out, and compelled to surrender to the united English and Maltese. This was effected on honorable terms, the garrison marching out with all the honors of war, the whole force being transported to Marseilles at the expense of the British government. General Vaubois, the soldierly commander whom Bonaparte left in charge of Malta, was a brave and reliable man, and heroically maintained his trust to the very last, when his troops were on the verge of starvation. The English historian says, in relating the circumstances of the surrender: "When the garrison marched out, it was with famine proudly painted on their cheeks."
The siege was raised September 5, 1800, whereupon the English took formal possession of Valletta, together with the entire group, and they have retained it to the present time. They thus became the masters of Malta, but disregarded treaty promises, and refused in 1802, as was duly stipulated, to evacuate, and restore the islands to the Knights of St. John. It was this which occasioned the rupture of the Peaceof Amiens. Malta was, however, finally and formally transferred to the possession of England with the approval of the European powers, in 1814, at the treaty of Paris.
Since the year 1798, when the Knights of St. John were expelled from Malta, the ancient order, once so important a factor in the Christian world, has scarcely more than existed in name, though able to point to so proud and warlike a career, extending through a period of seven centuries. Few dynasties of emperors or kings have lasted so long as this famous order of warrior-monks, whose name was once the synonym for loyalty, but whose end was brought about by treachery within its own ranks,—an organization whose members began as paupers, but who ended as sybarites.