Great Siege of Malta 1565: La Valette's Knights Outlast Suleiman

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Expelled from Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1522, the Knights Hospitaller received Malta and Gozo from Emperor Charles V in 1530 for an annual rent of one Maltese falcon, delivered to the viceroy of Sicily on All Saints Day. From Malta they raided Ottoman shipping as corsairs, and in 1564 they captured a galleon belonging to the chief eunuch of the Seraglio, carrying the governors of Cairo and Alexandria. Warned by spies, Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette recalled the knights, harvested unripe grain, and poisoned wells outside the walls. In May 1565 about 6,100 defenders, including 500 knights, faced nearly 200 ships and 30,000 to 40,000 troops, among them sipahis and Janissaries.

Suleiman split command between general Mustafa Pasha and admiral Piyale Pasha, who feared the sirocco and insisted on taking Fort St. Elmo to secure Marsamxett Harbor. The star fort held for about a month and cost at least 6,000 Ottoman lives, including the corsair Dragut. When the Ottomans floated headless defenders on crosses, La Valette fired the heads of Turkish prisoners from his cannons. A hidden sea-level battery at Fort St. Angelo shattered a flotilla dragged overland toward Senglea, and in August, with Birgu breached, a cavalry raid on the Ottoman hospital camp triggered panic and retreat. Mdina bluffed with long-range fire, the relief force landed, and the fleet sailed on September 13.

• Captain Gonzalo de Medrano, sent back to hold the rubble of St. Elmo, was shot in the head while seizing an Ottoman standard.
• Five cannons fired at water level skipped shot through the packed boats, killing about 800 attackers in minutes.
• Vincenzo Anastagi's cavalry from Mdina hit the undefended hospital camp, and the Ottomans mistook it for the Sicilian relief army.
• About 130,000 cannonballs were fired over the summer; a third of the knights and a third of the Maltese died.
• Europe's donations funded a new fortress city on the St. Elmo peninsula, named Valletta after the grand master.