The Great Siege of Malta 1565

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is The Jesse Kelly Show. Another hour of The
Jesse Kelly Show. On an amazing Tuesday. We had a
rip roar in first hour. If you missed any of that,
including the Crappiest Country in the World Championship, you gotta
go download the podcast. iHeart Spotify iTunes. We don't have
any time for anymore of that right now. In fact,

(00:20):
we don't even have any time for politics. Now. I
should remember I have to keep this in mind. This
is something that's easy to forget. Not everybody has been
listening for the seven years we've been on the air.
In fact, most have not. People come along relatively recently.
So I need to explain something about me before I

(00:42):
derail the show. I love history, to be honest with you.
It's my favorite thing in the world. I love it.
It is what I do in my spare time. I
read history books. I gobble up all the history information
I can. You want to hear the biggest old Man

(01:04):
Jesse thing in the world. I love museums. I'm don't
roll your eyes, Chris, I'm a museum guy. And occasionally
on The Jesse Kelly Show, I try to do it
every three or four weeks I would say, we take
time and I tell a history story about some sort

(01:25):
of historical event, battle, expedition of some kind, whatever happens
to interest me. And yeah, we take requests for them
and things like that. But I love it. I enjoy it.
If we if you and me, if we could right
all the wrongs in this country, get rid of all
these dirty comies, I'd probably do history every single day.

(01:48):
That's how much. That's how much I genuinely enjoy it.
I'd quit and go just start a history podcast. But
we got work to do now. Again. This is just
in case you are new. I do not always fit
it all in one show. This show is three hours long.
It depends on the history tale. I've had these things
stretch out three or four days. I'm just gonna go

(02:11):
in and tell you right now, the chances I'm able
to finish this entire thing tonight are It's almost zero.
It's probably zero. We'll come back and do some more
politics next hour. There's just so much background I want
to go into, and then the siege itself. It's a
little more complicated than some other things we've done. I

(02:34):
have a lot a lot of reasons, but it's gonna
take a little bit and I'm gonna talk history. If
you don't like it, change the channel. I'll see you
next hour or tomorrow. I love it. Now, I want
you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that

(02:54):
you are manning a cannon and obviously you are firing
cannon balls at the other side, and the other side
is firing cannon balls back at you. Not an ideal situation,
obviously a little bit frightening. Only you see their cannons

(03:18):
go off one day and you're thinking, uh, oh, I
better take cover. There's a cannonball come in my way.
Only after you duck down, you hear the cannon ball
land and it doesn't sound like the other cannon balls

(03:40):
at all. In fact, it made a kind of funny splat.
So you poke your head up to see what the
problem is, and you find out they didn't fire a
cannon ball this time. They fired your best friend's head
at you. We are about to talk about one of

(04:04):
the nastiest sieges and most important sieges in human history. Honestly,
you can say this siege probably affects the world we
live in today, and the world we live in today
possibly would have been radically different. What time period are

(04:25):
we in now? The Siege of Malta is in the
fifteen hundreds, and I'm about to give a bunch of
background on the two different sides. So just hang with
me for a moment. But it's important to understand just
some basics about the technology and the world we live
in in the fifteen hundreds, right, So this is post
Christopher Columbus. You got that fourteen ninety two and all that.

(04:48):
This is the era where there still have sailing ships.
Ships still have sales in them. So there's no engines
and things like that. But it's not all bows and
arrows and sores words. However, there are crossbows, bows and
arrows and swords and they are employed a lot on

(05:10):
the battlefield. There are cannons, As I just pointed out,
each every major country will have cannons at their disposal,
and they have i'm gonna call them guns muskets, you know,
old single shot things that they are the most basic

(05:31):
thing you have ever seen, gigantic, heavy, cumbersome, not very
accurate at all. We're look, you're not going to square
up against a guy who's two hundred yards away and
have a snowballs chance, and you know where of hitting
him with these things. So yes, gunpowder and shot and

(05:52):
those things they do matter. It is important. But I
wanted you to understand we're still talking swords here, okay, lords, cannons,
old old guns. Now, before we get to Malta, I'm
going to talk about two different sides Jerusalem. We're gonna
go way, way, way, way way back. This is about

(06:15):
the year one thousand, and in fact, very close to
being exactly a thousand years ago. Jerusalem. You are well
aware Jerusalem is considered a holy land for the three
largest religions on the planet, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. That

(06:37):
is the case today. If you go to Jerusalem today,
you will see all three represented there. And it was
very much the case back in this era. And the
Muslims and the Christians both have laid claim to it.
They want it to be theirs, and they're fighting over it.

(06:59):
This is the era of what is known as the Crusades.
I'm not going to do a bunch of Crusades history.
But you've heard of a pilgrimage, right you at least
understand what a pilgrimage is. Christians at this time will
make pilgrimages and the same way you would do today.
I guess you could argue what we did as a

(07:20):
show a couple of years ago was a pilgrimage. You
are going to visit the holy sites of what you believe.
Muslims make pilgrimages there as well. Christians would make pilgrimages
to Jerusalem. While there, and remember there's all kinds of
fighting going on and ugly things. An order has been started.

(07:45):
What is an order exactly? I want you to think
of the Knights of Columbus. You've heard of the Knights
of Columbus. My father in law is a member of
the Knights of Columbus. What do they do well. They
serve the community in various ways. They'll give back, they
do fish fries. It's an order. Orders were a little

(08:08):
different back then. Now they did a lot of that
as well. But they could be they could be orders
of service, they could be military orders. An order begins
in Jerusalem in the year one thousand and It is
known as the Knights of Saint John, or the Knights

(08:29):
Hospitaller or the Knights Hospitaler, depending on how you want
to pronounce it. I'm going to tell you right now,
I picked the one that I thought was the coolest sounding,
and so it's the what I'm sticking with. The Knights
of Saint John is the one I'm sticking with. But knights,
hospital or hospitalery is a very very common way. It's
an order. It was not a military order. When it began.

(08:53):
You know the name hospitaler, hospital er, depending on your accent.
It was a hospital. They started a hospital in Jerusalem.
They did not only treat Christians or Jews or Muslims.
All were welcome. They started a hospital there. Hospitals. We
are used to hospitals being everywhere today, even if you're

(09:15):
in a rural area, there are hospitals twenty thirty minutes
from you. If you're in an urban area, you're probably
ten minutes from a hospital. That is not the case
in the ancient world. They started a hospital to care
for the sick. But like I said, this was an
era where there was quite a bit of com It
still is, but there was quite a bit of controversy

(09:38):
over this chunk of ground. Wholly to the Muslims, holy
to the Christians. The Jews are not gonna they're not
going to play a major role in our story here.
So we're gonna set them aside right now. And they
were fighting over it, the Christians and the Muslims were
fighting over it. And if you were a Christian making
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, remember flying in on United you

(10:02):
have to walk, ride a horse, ride a camel, and
it was a dangerous affair. We'll continue in a moment.
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful Tuesday,
doing some history right now on the Siege of Malta.
If you're just joining us, don't worry. You just missed
a touch of background on one of our two sides.

(10:24):
The Knights of Saint John or Nice Knights Hospitaller. They
start a hospital in Jerusalem around the year one thousand.
But Christians making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem at this time
they kept getting attacked, attacked by robbers, attacked by Muslims.
It was a problem. So the Knights and I should

(10:44):
pause real quick. Jewish producer Chris said something during the
break about the Knights Templar. There's a very famous this
is not them, this is not them. It's a no.
I wasn't insulting you, Chris, but a lot of people
would think are these the same nights. The Knights of
Saint John were a Catholic order very similar to the
Knights Templar. These are not them. This is a separate group,

(11:07):
all right. So they expand and they go from being
just a hospital just giving medical care to a military order.
Now they are a strict military order. They are funded
by various sources, and they are well trained, very very
good fighters. Eventually, during those crusades, the Muslims are led

(11:32):
by a man named Saladin. If you are ever, if
you are a history buffet, all know anything about the crusade,
you will have heard of the name Saladein. Saladein was
a famous Muslim general, very very talented, and he won.
It became his And after he won, he took this

(11:53):
military order of knights and he kicked them out. He
kicked them out to a place called roads. Now we're
going to pause for just a moment. The Knights of
Saint John are on a place called Roads. In case
you're wondering where this is. This is important for our story.
Like I said, there's going to be a lot more
background in location here to try to explain who's who

(12:16):
and what's what and where we are and I know
you're listening, not looking at it. So the Mediterranean, you
know about the Mediterranean, you're at least aware of it.
That's where Greece and Italy and all that. The southern France,
Southern Spain, that's where all those things are. But Italy,
Southern Spain, Southern France, that is the Western Mediterranean. The

(12:40):
Eastern Mediterranean is Greece, and this is where Turkey is located,
all right, So that's the Eastern Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has
always since boats have gotten onto the water, the Mediterranean
has been prized choice territory. You want the Mediterranean to

(13:01):
ship goods and men, and you want to be able
to ship things to and fro. The Mediterranean is prime
real estate, and it is still prime real estate to
this day. You want to be able to own the waves,
own the shores on those waves. By the way, I
should note northern Africa. This is all part of the Mediterranean.
Now that brings us to the Ottoman Empire. I'm not

(13:23):
going to go into the whole background on the Ottoman Empire.
We've done a bit of them before, and we'll probably
do a bit of them again because they're a fascinating,
powerful empire. They rose up and they began to conquer
the world around them. Very very powerful, very very smart,
science heavy, really sharp empire that was run in a

(13:46):
really sharp way. And they're Muslim. What was Europe? Europe
was Catholic slash Christian. Honestly during the era we're in,
that's when Protestantism and the Catholics were starting to kill
each other. We're not going to go in any of that.
I'm going to dumb this down and just say Europe
was Catholic at this time. Okay, Europe's Catholic, Europe's Christian

(14:11):
or whatever. The Ottomans are Muslim. That may mean nothing
to you, maybe you have no belief system or whatever,
but that is not at all important to our story.
What is important to our story is it meant everything
to both sides. For the Ottomans as they rose up
and they began to conquer really the Muslim world. They

(14:33):
were conquering much of the Muslim world, pulling them under
the Ottoman umbrella. They were selling themselves and viewed themselves
as we are the protectors of Islam. We are the
ones who will spread Islam, we will protect the people
of Islam. And for a very very, very long time.

(14:54):
The Ottomans saw themselves that way, and many people in
the Islamic world saw themselves that way. Now, as the
Ottoman Empire, this Islamic Empire was rising, Christian Europe, Catholic
Europe was afraid, and understandably so. It wasn't an ungrounded fear.
The Ottoman Empire was spreading and conquering and spreading and conquering.

(15:17):
And there was an event which we've done before. I'm
not going to go into it, the Byzantine Empire or
the Eastern Roman Empire, depending they would have called themselves Roman.
They had Constantinople. It was really the center of Christianity
at the time, and in the fourteen hundreds, the Ottoman

(15:37):
Empire took the center of Christianity at this time. Whatever
your belief system is, I want you to picture what
you consider to be maybe your most holy or cherished place.
Imagine it falling to what you consider to be your
religious mortal enemy. The fall of constant Antinople rocked and

(16:04):
brought a whole lot of fear into Christian Europe. These Muslims,
are they gonna come kill us all? Are they gonna?
Are they gonna come bring Islam and force it into
all of Europe. They're so powerful, how do we stop them?
So this happened in the fourteen hundreds. Now something else
had happened then. Remember I said that the Knights of

(16:26):
Saint John were sent to Rhodes, and we'll get to
that in a moment. Jesse Calishow dot Com. We're doing
a little history on the siege of Malta and I
realize they're a bit a bit a thousand of them.
So we're talking about the one in fifteen sixty five. Okay,
just to spoil it, but we're not quite there yet.
The Knights of Saint John get kicked out of Jerusalem
when the Muslims conquer it, and they get sent to Rhodes.

(16:50):
But they don't just sit around on roads. They fortify roads.
Now here's the important part. I just talked about the
Ottoman Empire expanding and growing, spanning and growing. They are
in the Eastern Mediterranean at this time. Rhodes is over
there in Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean. They attack roads,

(17:14):
the Ottoman Empire does. The Knights of Saint John were
not chumps, as we will continue to find out. They
were hard as nails, and for them this was a
deeply religious conflict. They saw themselves as being the protectors
of Christenedom, the protectors of the Catholic Church, the protectors

(17:36):
of people who believe in Jesus. In the same way
the Autumn saw. Ottomans saw themselves as you know, the
sword of Islam, all those things they attacked roads. The
Knights fight so valiantly that the big cheese of the
Ottoman Empire says, hey, by the way, his name is Suliman.

(17:58):
I probably should go ahead and name him. I try
not to give you too many details and names, but
Suliman the Magnificent, I'm sure he nicknamed himself. Suliman the
Magnificent is so impressed by how valiant the Knights fight
he does not wipe them all out. When he defeats
them at Rhodes, he says, you know, you guys fought

(18:20):
like lions. I respect that, so you may go. He
grants them clemency and safe passage for their bravery. So
anyone he hadn't already killed, he says, you can go. Well,
now you have the Knights of Saint John, this religious order,
and they don't have a home, so they are given

(18:42):
a home by Christian Europe. Their home is a place
known as Malta. Where is Malta. Here's where it is.
You know, I told you there's an Eastern Mediterranean and
a Western Mediterranean. Don't worry if you don't have it memorized,
it's not important. There's an eastern half and there's a
western half. You know, Italy, that boot that comes down,

(19:06):
and then there's that huge island, Sicily that's right off
the toe of that boot. Right to the west of
that boot. Right below Sicily, there is a frankly, pretty desolate,
crappy piece of rock called Malta. So when the Knights
of Saint John were given Malta, you should understand a

(19:30):
couple things. This was not exactly a luxurious post. But
they were people without a home at this time, and
there were Maltese people on Malta who weren't necessarily given
a choice in this whole thing. The knights were given
this place, and the knights stepped in and they made

(19:52):
it their home. Now, I already told you the Ottomans
were expanding. They were coming. They were coming west towards Europe.
They were moving from the east to the west. They
were already taking over places like Hungary. Christian Europe is
not only divided in fighting itself, they are deathly afraid

(20:13):
of the Ottomans who are coming the Ottomans. The Ottomans
as they seize more and more control of the Mediterranean,
they are taking over. I already told you how important
the Mediterranean is today and was in yesteryear. They are
taking over valuable sea lanes, and they're now getting stupid

(20:34):
wealthy shipping goods and services back and forth across the Mediterranean.
So you're a knight, you're in Malta. What do you do? Well,
you're on an island. You're there to protect Europe. The
Ottomans are the Muslims are your sworn enemy. You need

(20:55):
to build up the fortifications of the island and then
get your butt on a boat and you need to
go make life very very miserable for the Ottomans. And
they do. The Knights essentially, they kept calling them, They
call them corsairs. You've ever heard that term corsair? Corsair?
You know what a corsair is. It's a pirate's it's

(21:18):
a pirate. When you don't want to call somebody a pirate,
The Knights sail forth and they start creating nightmares for
the Ottomans, raiding ships, raiding goods, kidnapping people. They are stealing,
essentially stealing now, I already said Sulaiman, the magnificent big

(21:41):
Cheese of the Ottoman Empire. He had previously let the
Ottomans go, or let them sorry, he had previously let
the Knights of Saint John go. He had given them clemency.
He was displeased, to put it mildly, to find out
that the Knights of Saint John, who he had let go,

(22:01):
we're now raiding his ships and making his life miserable.
He thought that was completely out of line. And frankly,
he probably has a pretty good point, but that's not important.
What is important is this Suliman not only goes down
to Northern Africa and takes over the portion of Northern

(22:22):
Africa the Knights had. Word gets back to the knights.
You see, this is every era is an era of
intelligence gathering and spying. I already said. The Ottoman Empire
had taken over Constantinople, it's known today as Istanbul. They
had taken over Constantinople, that was the capital of the
Ottoman Empire. Word got back to the Knights on Malta

(22:46):
that Suliman the Magnificent was building a large fleet. The Knights.
It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out what
he was planning on doing with that fleet. They figured
out he was coming, and they knew it was going
to be large. They knew that he was going to

(23:08):
be coming to take Malta from them. So now I
have to do something, and I'm probably gonna have to
do this a couple of times, but I try to
make sure you can visualize what we're dealing with here,
and this is probably the most complicated thing I will
ever have you visualize. So I'm going to simplify it. Okay,

(23:31):
you know what pac Man looks like. Everybody knows what
pac Man looks like. He got it, pac Man. If
you don't know what pac Man looks like, I can't
help you. Okay, pac Man. I want you to picture
pac Man and his mouth is open to the right,
all right, His mouth is open to the right. For
simplicity purposes, this is going to be our Malta. Okay,

(23:54):
you have your pack pat Man, pac Man pictured in
your head. Now, pac Man on his lower jaw towards
the back of his lower jaw. He has two teeth.
They're close to each other. They're both coming out of
his lower jaw. He has two teeth. You with me.

(24:18):
There are four locations that are going to matter for
the siege of Malta. The siege of Malta is not
one gigantic fortress. It's a big, desolate, crappy island. It
is four locations. There is one. Don't worry about memorizing
all this. I'll keep covering it again. There's one on
pac Man's nose, up by where his nose would be.

(24:42):
This is going to be the site of a lot
of nastiness. This is called the Fort of Saint Elmo.
Don't worry about memorizing the names the teeth down to
the teeth. The teeth have names, which we'll get to.
That's not important. I'll get to those in a little
bit now. The fourth location is his tonsils, way back

(25:04):
in the back of his mouth. And again I'm making
this very simple. M Dina is what it's called. So
you have his nose, two teeth, and his tonsils. That
those are the four locations of the four fortifications on Malta,
and the Ottomans are coming and there's a lot of

(25:26):
them and the Knights have to get ready. We'll continue
in a moment. It is the Jesse Kelly's Show on
a Fantastic Tuesday. Remember you can email the show Jesse
at Jesse kellyshow dot com. As we as we go
over the Siege of Malta. So that was a little
bit of the background. The Knights of Saint John are

(25:48):
digging in on Malta. They know the Ottoman Empire is
coming with the massive invasion fleet, and so they begin
to fortify the island. The four locations I already discussed
just for your reference in case you're interested, it is
the Fort Saint Elmo, Seglia, Burgo and m Dina. Don't

(26:11):
worry about those four locations. Don't worry about the names.
Just know there are four locations. For now, we're going
to focus on a couple different things. How are they
planning on fighting this? What are the Ottomans bringing first?
The Knights of Saint John on Malta. They understand there's
very little chance for them to win without help. Now,

(26:33):
I already said Europe it was not a unified place then,
it's not a unified place now. But back then it
was really really not unified. The Knights were sending out
essentially help wanted letters. They were reaching out to the pope,
they were reaching out to kings. Hey I need troops,
I need help, I need boats that the Ottomans are coming,

(26:55):
the Muslims are coming. Help, please send help. They are
not getting rejected. I should clarify. But everyone they're asking
for help from, they're most definitely dragging their feet. Oh hey,
you need some help. Yeah, well, you know, I got
to move some things around. We'll get on that at

(27:16):
some point in time. Keep in mind, they're desperate, they
need help. Now, what kind of numbers are we talking
about here? About seven hundred knights. That number will be
disputed no matter what source you read, but traditionally it's
thought to be about seven hundred knights. There are some
civilians on the island, as I pointed out, and there

(27:38):
are some other troops a few thousand who aren't knights.
Remember the Siege of Malta is normally it's sold as
seven hundred Knights versus thirty thousand Ottomans, and the Knights
had some help, but the Knights were most definitely the biggest, strongest, toughest.

(27:58):
They were the leaders of this whole thing. So that's
what they had. Now I gave the game away a
little thirty thousand ottomans. They're crossing the sea. They have
these gigantic galleys. Picture this, This is a galley. Is
a big ship. Eight hundred people on one ship. Even

(28:22):
if you picture old sailing ships as large, that's amazingly large.
They not only have sails, they have oars. Who mans
the oars slaves? Remember slavery. I know your history professor
told you that America was the only person, the only
country that ever participated in it. No, it has always existed,

(28:44):
will always exist, exists to this day as well. And
some of the worst slavery I've ever read about are
galley slaves. You are down in the bows of a ship.
It is nasty, it is smelly, Disease is every where.
The work is absolutely brutal. So anyway, these huge ships
are coming across the ocean. There are two different commanders

(29:09):
on this ship. Before they even get to Malta, they
are fighting with each other. They end up in a
nice little squabble. Generals have egos too, so that's already
a problem. But shouldn't be a big issue, right because
they obviously outnumber the Knights. There aren't that many of them.

(29:30):
In case you're wondering, pause, what were they arguing about.
Where They argued about a lot, but one of the
main things they were arguing about is, Okay, we have
these four locations on Malta. We have pac Man's nose,
his tonsils and the two teeth, and his bottom jaw.
What do we attack first? The guy who was in charge,

(29:53):
the guy who won the argument, he wanted to attacks
Fort Saint Elmo, w to attack pac Man's nose. So
they show up, they land their ships on there, and
they start bombarding this fort. Now, maybe you think this

(30:14):
fort is completely impregnable. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This fort is not impressive at all. It is not.
It is a fort, and the Knights have known they
are coming, so they're building it up. But this is
not some gigantic, impregnable fortress. The Ottoman's land right around

(30:37):
pac Mans i'd say, his forehead. They land their boats,
they land their troops, they put all their cannons out there,
and they start firing their cannons at Fort Saint Elmo
while the cannons are firing. They are digging trenches. In
case you're wondering, historically this is one of the most

(31:00):
ways to take a fortified city, not just tunnels, but trenches.
How does this work. Here's an example of how trenches work.
You obviously cannot just get in the ground with a
shovel and start digging in a straight line towards a
fort because then they're going to take their cannons and

(31:21):
their guns and they're just gonna shoot it down the
trench and murder everybody. So you instead you have to
zigzag back and forth, back and forth, essentially keeping the
trench always as a wall between you and the guns
that are on the fortification. Well, right away we are

(31:44):
seeing a problem the Ottomans are going to have. I
already pointed out that Malta is crappy, it's wind swept,
it's a rock. We're not talking about a lush place
before the Ottomans got there. The man in charge of
the knights, it's the last name I'm going to give you,
dave Lette is his name. He is the top knight, Davallette. Yes,

(32:08):
in case you're wondering, he is French. Don't hold that
against him, dave Lette, the man in charge of the knights.
He goes and he finds all the houses, all the food,
all the live stock around Malta, and he burns down
the houses, takes down everything, takes the food, and brings

(32:28):
all the stuff inside of the fortifications. A thirty thousand
man army from the Ottoman's lands, and there's nothing for
them to find to eat. They have to bring it
all with them. Now we will pause right there, and
we'll continue again tomorrow