NOEL GRIMA
Historians delving through the notarial archives have discovered details hitherto unknown about the mostly Maltese side of the Great Siege, it was revealed last week.
For many long years, the notarial archives were in a very bad state, but now, thanks to the work of Dr Kola Vella and Joan Abela, order has been restored and catalogued and historians can pore over the 600-year old documents, previously left lying around.
Undoubtedly, the most intriguing is a note written by Notary Giovanni Baldacchino on 7 September 1565, when the Gran Soccorso had arrived in Malta and the Turks were fleeing. As he was writing in his register, in Mdina, the Notary suddenly stopped to thank God for the appearance of the Gran Soccorso.
Next, chronologically, is a will made out by Notary Giuliano Muscat in October 1565, which lists the inventory of a Maltese mounted soldier, from his rifle to the breastplate, chain mail vest and crossbow.
In 1566, Notary Anton Cassar carried out a full inventory of the arms and armour in Mdina after the end of the Great Siege. In this inventory he says that the Maltese had shields with the white cross of the Knights painted on them.
Some time after the end of the siege, Notary Bernardo Magri listed a number of items of Turkish weapons and armour. However, it seems that contrary to what happened in Rhodes, only a small number of the weapons and armour the fleeing Turks left behind was declared and registered, probably because such items were more prized for their resale value than as mementos of the Great Siege.
Dr Stephen Spiteri delivered the second lecture in the series organised by the Malta Historical Society last Monday. Not as many people attended the lecture in the Ambassadors’ Hall at Castile compared to the number who had attended the month before, probably scared off by Carnival Monday and the biting cold.
The theme of Dr Spiteri’s lecture was “Arms and Armour during the Great Siege”. He referred to his 2005 book on the subject.
The Great Siege was a clash between two armed forces. The size of the Ottoman army was exaggerated by Christian writers of the time and this may have had an unplanned effect: it would seem, for instance, that Don Garcia de Toledo delayed sending the Gran Soccorso because he feared that the Turkish army which had invaded Malta was too big for his soldiers.
It seems however, from a letter sent by a member of the Gran Soccorso, that the Turkish army numbered around 22,000, not the 40,000 to 80,000 that had been reported earlier. The figure of 22,000 seems to be more realistic as this was around the size of the Turkish army that fought in Hungary.
The knights, on their side, could only muster some 6,000 to 7,000 men, including the Maltese militia, so the ratio was three or four to one.
The smaller size of the Turkish army also explains why the Turks could not keep the whole of Malta under siege and how the relief force of the Piccolo Soccorso could land at Cirkewwa and walk all the way to Kalkara without being noticed by the Turks.
In reality, the Great Siege was another episode in a much wider conflict, the world war of the 16th century; or, we may also say, Part 2 of the Siege of Rhodes.
What we call the Hospitaller army was not a real army at all in the modern sense of the word. Warfare then was still a product of the feudal system and the weapons used were mostly medieval.
At the heart of the Hospitaller army there was a hard core of some 500 professed knights, some quite old, who fought as individuals, not as a body.
These were supplemented by a mercenary force, as in the days of the Crusades in the Holy Land, and also the native (Maltese) militia, who in feudal terms were obliged to serve the Order in time of need.
The Spanish and Italian mercenaries who fought in the Great Siege did not fight under the control of the knights. In fact, Grand Master de Valette had problems with them when he wanted them to go and defend Fort St Elmo. The Spanish mercenaries made it clear to him they had no intention of being sacrificed.
The Maltese militia came from the villages and the two towns of Malta, some 5,000 men from places like Birkirkara, Qormi, and so on.
The fighting that took place in the Great Siege was influenced by what ended up revolutionizing warfare – the introduction of firearms. This new weapon had the advantage that it shortened the time needed to train people to fight, but the weapons were still in the first process of development and could not be used efficiently. To fire a rifle (or arquebuss as it was known) was a time-wasting process, as Dr Spiteri demonstrated when he showed the audience a clip from YouTube, which shows that the whole process of firing one shot took some two minutes. That was why the soldier who fired then had to be protected by two pikemen while he reloaded and repeated the procedure.
Most of the knights who fought would have been more comfortable fighting as they were used to – mounted on horses – but the nature of the terrain and the location of the fighting as well as the shortage of horses did not allow this. The small cavalry force there was belonged to Maltese noblemen in Mdina and was not really used until the last days.
The body armour protected mainly the upper part of the body and the legs were unprotected, as the fighter needed to be mobile. We get an idea of the body armour of the knights from the armour displayed at the Armoury. One distinguishing feature is that the breastplates of the knights were very finely decorated. The knights still used the crossbows, even though firearms had been introduced. Each knight had to provide his own armour and they were only delivered to the armoury after the knight’s death.
On top of the chain mail, the Knights wore a sopraveste, red with a white cross.
The mercenaries were similarly armed, but their armour was very plain although quite effective.
Swords were used but no sword from the time of the Great Siege has survived except de Valette’s sword, which he left in the Birgu church and which is now in the parish museum.
The militia were poorly armed with weapons that pre-dated the arrival of the knights – a vest of quilted cotton with metal studs, and padded hats. Some had firearms but most had short spears, crossbows, and pikes. The crossbows came in handy in rainy weather when firearms could not be used. So many crossbows were used during the Great Siege that 100 cases of crossbows were imported in 1567 and distributed at Mdina.
The Turks, on the other hand, had two main categories of fighting men: the Janisaaries and the Sepahis, who were the feudal equivalent of knights.
The Janissaries were the infantry and their main weapon was the scimitar. Again, their mode of fighting was not as a body but individually since they were fiercely independent. Later on, after the Great Siege, Turkish forces forced them to be less individualistic.
Like the knights, the Turks too had their firearms, which were longer than the ones used by the knights, and had a longer range, but they were used more for sniping than as a battle weapon.
The Sepahis customarily fought mounted on horses but this was not possible during the Great Siege. The Turks, thus, lost in Malta one effective method of fighting, which was a very swift attack. They do not seem to have brought their horses to Malta.
Added to these two forces, the Turkish army also carried a large number of volunteers who were put in the vanguard of all attacks and quickly became cannon fodder. Many were corsairs from North Africa, mostly Berbers. Again, there is a question of knowing how many of them there were. Bosio says they were tens of thousands but it seems that at most they were around 1,500. They seem to have fought in the attack on Senglea but lost heart and were not allowed to fight again.
As for the heavy weapons, the Turks seem to have come to Malta with around 60 war guns, so the siege was no skirmish at all, or retaliatory attack. On the other hand, we do not seem to have a complete inventory of the heavy guns of the Order. We only know that 14 carriage guns were sent to Sicily to be refounded after the Great Siege.
The next lecture in the series will take place on 30 March at Palazzo Parisio (Foreign Ministry) when Dr Charles Savona Ventura will speak about the medical aspects of the Great Siege.