The Ambassadors Hall at Castile was packed to capacity last Monday for the second lecture in the series organised by the Malta Historical Society for its members and the general public.

The theme this year is The Great Siege and the speaker on Monday was well-known historian and author Stephen Spiteri who spoke about the fortifications at the time of the Great Siege. Most of what he had to say is included in his latest book, but hearing him speak made a welcome introduction as well.

There can be no siege without fortifications. The Knights of St John were the product of the Crusades and by the time they came to Malta they had acquired considerable expertise on fortifications. This, in a way, was their insurance policy since at any time they could expect retaliation for their attacks and when they came they ran for cover within their fortifications.

One can also say that the Great Siege of Malta in 1565 was in retaliation for the many attacks carried out by the Knights in previous years.

There is a general lack of pre-Siege documentation on the fortifications in Malta, as well as general lack of availability of pre-siege archaeological remains.

One thing however is known for sure: as soon as the Knights set foot in Malta they saw how Mount Sciberras (today’s Valletta) presented a direct threat to Birgu and to what became known as Senglea. Due to lack of funds and to the impending arrival of the Turkish armada, the knights were compelled to hurry and had to forget any long-term plans they may have had with regard to Mount Sciberras.

They thus focused on beefing up what defences there were in Senglea, Birgu and Fort St Elmo. By the time the Turks turned up, in May 1565, not much had been done.

St Elmo

As soon as the Turks landed they focused on attacking Fort St Elmo. There are those today who disagree with this strategy and say the Turks should have cleaned up the rest of Malta before focusing on St Elmo or Birgu. But for the Turks, the safety of their fleet was of paramount importance: they needed a good refuge for it, which they thought they could not get at Marsaxlokk, where they had landed. The only safe harbour for the Turkish fleet was Marsamxett. This is why their first target was St Elmo as this guarded the entry to the two harbours.

Fort St Elmo however was never designed to withstand a siege: it was only a low-lying coastal fort, star-shaped, exposed to the higher ground at its back on Mount Sciberras.

Conscious of this exposed position and the Turkish razzia of 1551, the knights built a small triangular shaped ravelin outside the fort on the land side. This was positioned outside the fort as there was no space for it inside the fort.

Even so, however, the fort was miserably indefensible: it could not see any attackers from the Marsamxett side and it had next to no flanking devices: the defenders had to show themselves to see where the attackers were.

After the siege was over, and the fort had fallen, Laparelli wrote that the fort was surrounded by a large glacis of stones, mostly stones chipped from the excavated ditch that were not levelled or pressed down. This too helped the Turks approach undetected.

One can still see very small parts of the pre-siege walls on the lower part of the fort’s wall today, mostly reconstructed in the 16th century.

There is also a story to be told about the very low wall on the land side: La Valette sent over mattresses and bags of wool so that the defenders could improvise defences from that.

The Turkish assault began when the Turks filled the ditch with rubble and began shooting at the fort’s most exposed part of the ramparts from two angles from the higher ground. This was a time-honoured method of successively weakening and battering down the key rampart.

In fact, the ravelin in front of the fort was the first to fall. This was, as said, poorly built and not well defended and in a short time the Turks were in control of the situation.

The knights rebuilt St Elmo after the Great Siege but the British changed the nature of the fort: they poured concrete down vaults and passageways which today cannot be explored because of this cement.

Nevertheless, one can still see, in those blocked-off passageways, graffiti possibly inscribed by the knights or even by the Spanish soldiers who helped defend the fort until they were all killed.

St Elmo had two great cannons, but one had to be dismantled because it was positioned on shaky foundations.

As part of the frenzied defence measures, the rampart was strengthened by means of buttresses and earthworks.

The fort’s gate was known as Porta del Soccorso, this was a secondary gate, not a relief gate. The main gate was known as Porta Marina. The chapel predated the fort in that location.

Birgu

Although the town today has the same footprint, the fortifications have changed greatly since the time of the Great Siege. Birgu today, one can say, is the product of de Mondion: two bastions, one cavalier and one horn work – the Post of Castile.

During the Great Siege, Birgu had two bastions – St John and St James and the Post of Castile. The town’s fortifications were constructed in a sort of series of platforms. Birgu too had two gates – the Porta Superiore and the Porta Marina.

In 1560 it was hurriedly reinforced by means of a ravelin of earth and stones in front of the bastions to provide protection against an artillery bombardment from Santa Margherita Heights and also from attacks from the areas near the end of the ditch.

After the fall of St Elmo, the Turks attacked Birgu and Senglea as one since they perceived the area where Birgu ends and Senglea begins as the weakest point of the fortifications.

That is why the Post of Castile came under attack both from the artillery on Santa Margherita Heights and Kalkara, as well as from the Turkish trenches and from the north entrance to the ditch.

But the Knights did not have all that long experience in sieges and fortifications for nothing. For it was here that they came up with their trump card. Without being seen by the besiegers, they built a second line of fortifications inside the Birgu fortifications. They got the stones for this second line of defence from houses, which had been demolished by the attacks and even stones from any houses still standing that could spare them.

The space between the outer bastions and this second line of defence thus became a terrible killing field for the Turkish soldiers after the outer bastions were breached and the defenders had retreated to the second line of defence. In effect it left the Turks who came through the outer bastions with no cover.

It may be that there are still some areas in the Vittoriosa bastions today that date from pre-Siege times, mostly on the Kalkara side of the ditch.

Senglea

Many books about the Great Siege speak of a Fort St Michael but this is a misnomer. In fact, this was a small fort that existed before Senglea was built. The knights surrounded the area we call Senglea with a second line of bastions of which Fort St Michael was a part.

It is very difficult today to find any pre-Siege elements in Senglea since the town has been defaced both by the construction of the dockyard, especially on the Corradino side, and by World War II damage. It is a pity that a cavalier was demolished in 1926 for the construction of a school but one can still see very little remains of this defensive structure near the Clock Tower. The gate was near what is known today as the Macina but today’s gate has been moved inland. What we see of historical value in Senglea dates from the late 1600s – a town built on a rectangular pattern. This was not so during the time of the Great Siege.

The 1565 invasion found the work to create a defensive structure around Senglea still unfinished. The new defences were still not packed solid inside and the ramparts were very low. The knights themselves knew about the weakness of this defence and hurriedly built a counterguard and dug a ditch around the ramparts.

The Turkish attack, when it came, was from the front as well as from the sides. They tried to enter the breaches caused by the artillery attacks but were unsuccessful when the invaders found themselves facing the second line of defence.

Another defensive structure was the palisade in the water on the Kalkara side.

Both Bosio and others who wrote about the Siege say that the Italian knights who came from the areas around Venice brought with them an Italian defensive device – the Porporella – a sort of wooden rampart that was used successfully in the siege of Birgu and Senglea to outwit the attackers.

A final defensive structure was the chain that closed off the mouth of the creek and thus impeded an attack from the sea side.

Fort St Angelo

Basically, Fort St Angelo was still a largely medieval castle that was reinforced by the knights prior to the Great Siege with a small bastion on the landward side, a cavalier and a ditch which fed into the moat.

Most of the bastions we see today are mainly 17th century ones but there may be some pre-siege walls near the moat.

Mdina

The capital city was still basically medieval. The knights added two bastions and some walls on the side then known as the Cortina dell’Episcopato (on the side at the back of the cathedral and the bishop’s palace, facing Ta Qali). They also added the double system of walls, most of which can still be seen.

One of the bastions constructed by the knights in pre-siege years also includes a sort of novelty. Since Mdina is situated on mainly clay foundations, and since such fragile foundations were very easily perforated by sappers digging underneath, shafts were dug at various places so that any eventual explosion caused by the attackers in the subterranean tunnels they would have dug would dissipate in the air and not cause so much damage. This was done as early as 1547.

The other bastion, St Peter bastion, which was built later, does not have this feature.

Gozo’s Cittadella

The Gozo Cittadella was still, at the time of the Great Siege, recuperating from the 1551 invasion, when the Turks had abducted almost all of Gozo’s population.

Still, in the years after this traumatic event, the knights began to reinforce the fortifications, traces of which can still be seen today, as in the sally port and in some of the walls.

The next lecture in the series will take place, again in the Ambassadors Hall at Castile, on Monday 23 February when Dr Stephen Spiteri will speak on “The arms and

armour of the Siege”.