By 1517, the Ottoman Empire had successfully annexed the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, and
thus had secured control over Egypt, Syria, Hejaz [heejaz] and the Levant. The Empire
nearly doubled in size at this time, but the descendants of the House of Osman would soon
hunger for further expansion. A number of events would make the Ottomans vie for naval
dominance in the Mediterranean Sea. Taking Rhodes was the crucial first step for gaining
this dominance and that made a war with the Knights Hospitaller inevitable.
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The Ottoman takeover of Egypt changed the situation in the Mediterranean basin, as European
merchants lost their spice trade routes. It was also crucial in terms of Islam, as the
last Abbasid caliph Al-Mutawakkil III was captured and forced to surrender the title
to Selim I, which meant that the Ottoman sultans now claimed overall leadership over the Muslim
world. According to Ottoman sources, that forced the Safavid shah Ismail I to sue for
peace with Selim, but that is not confirmed by Iranian sources. However, we know that
a large garrison was left by the Ottoman sultan in Eastern Anatolia on his way back to the
capital. During this period, the Ottomans became eager
to build a sizable navy, both to defend against the superior European naval powers and to
gain new lands in the region. The expansion of Spain in Northern Africa created another
opportunity, as the amir of Algeria decided to invite the Ottoman privateers Oruj and
Hayreddin [hey’re’DIN], who would be later known as Barbarossa, to help him against the
Spaniards in 1516. By 1518 Hayreddin made Algeria an Ottoman province and although Spain
continued to fight him for a few years, the Ottomans now had a springboard to attack both
Italy and Spain. In 1520, Sultan Selim I passed away, succeeded
by his son, Suleiman, today known as Suleiman the Magnificent. The new Sultan’s desire
was to gain more lands in Europe. As the Hungarian kingdom was going through
a period of crisis, in 1521 Suleiman restarted the war against it. His goal was the most
important fortress on the Danube – Belgrade. We have limited information on the siege,
but it started on the 25th of June, and it seems that there was a few hundred strong
garrison defending. By the end of August, Belgrade was captured, opening the heart of
Europe to Ottoman conquest. At the same time, Suleiman continued his naval
preparations. He wanted to conquer the island of Rhodes, in order to strengthen his position
in the Mediterranean. The owners of this island were the Knights of St. John, also known as
the Hospitallers. They had been thorn in the Ottoman’s side for more than a century and
a failed attack on them had already been made in 1480.
To understand the Knights of St. John, we must go back a few centuries to their origin.
The Knightly order begun in the time of the First Crusade, as the Knights Hospitaller
operated hospitals in the Holy Land for Christian pilgrims. Later, they transitioned into a
military order, and by the time of the Third Crusade had become one of the most formidable
fighting forces in the Levant. However, in 1291 the Knights were pushed out of their
last bastion on the mainland, when the city of Acre fell to the Mamluks. By 1310 they
had managed to conquer the island of Rhodes from the declining Byzantine Empire and had
turned it into their new base of operations. By 1521, The Knights of St. John had become
notorious pirates, skilled seafarers that were the scourge of Ottoman merchant ships
in the Mediterranean. They had been a constant drain on Ottoman resources, and an obstacle
in the Ottoman attempt to control the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, it is not surprising that after
Belgrade had been taken, Suleiman decided that the Knights of St. John had to be expelled
from Rhodes for good. The Fortress in the city of Rhodes was the
most fortified bastion in Christendom, designed by the best Italian engineers money could
hire. It was easily defendable from all sides, and protected in most areas by three rings
of thick stone walls, with protruding bastions which defenders could use to harass attackers
from multiple angles. The battlements were divided up into national segments, with Bastions
defended by the French, English, German, Auvergne [orvern’yeh], Provencal, Spanish and Portuguese
chapters of the Knights of St. John. Taking a fortress such as that would require a massive
cost, both in materials and human lives. Yet, Suleiman remained adamant in his resolve.
The Grandmaster of the Knights, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, knew that a siege upon his fortress
was soon to come. He sent messengers beseeching European leaders to come to the aid of Rhodes,
but this bore no fruit. Part of the Venetian garrison on Cyprus joined the Hospitallers,
but that was all the help they were getting. By June of 1522, the 400 ships strong Ottoman
navy was ready to sail. Led by the Sultan’s brother in law, Mustafa Pasha, the massive
navy sailed from its base in Gallipoli down to the Island of Rhodes. The entire island
was blockaded, isolating it from the world. On July 28th, the Ottoman army arrived upon
the Island, led by Sultan Suleiman himself. 100,000 strong, it was made up of labourers,
engineers, infantrymen, and the Sultan’s elite Janissary corp. In contrast, the defenders
of Rhodes commanded by de Philippe Villiers L'Isle-Adam numbered only 6703, only 703 of
which were actual Knights of St. John, with the rest being the Venetians and the native
Latin and Greek population of the Island. The Knights were prepared for a siege by the
time the Ottomans had arrived. All the wheat on the Island had been harvested and stored,
ensuring the Turks would not be able to live off the land. A giant iron chain had been
lifted across the city’s harbour mouth, ensuring no access into the city by sea. They
were prepared to see this battle out. The Sultan had set himself up in a ceremonial
tent outside of gunshot range, and only then did the siege officially begin.
In early August, Ottoman artillery began to bombard the fortress walls. The Turks were
at the peak of military technology, and used everything from Great Bombards that cracked
open stone walls with massive cannonballs, to incendiary firebombs fired into the city
to sow chaos and death to its denizens. Despite this, the masterfully designed walls of the
Christian fortress held firm. During the shelling, the Ottoman forces had dug in, and had created
a network of protective trenches and wooden palisades surrounding the fortress.
In order to undermine the Fortress’ defenses, the Ottoman generals set their sappers to
dig their way under the walls and set explosive mines. These sappers were mainly Christians,
recruited from the Ottoman Balkan territories, and had a treacherous job. They inched along,
yard by yard, digging trenches towards the city walls and protecting themselves with
wooden planks and animal hides. Despite this, many sappers were killed by the defenders’
precise gunfire. Many more were blown up, as the Knights had
set up an ingenious system by tying a sheet of animal membrane tightly between two wooden
stakes with bells, so that any vibration below the earth would cause ringing. This would
alert the defenders to sappers below, who would detonate any nearby counter-mines. The
defenders managed to collapse over 50 Ottoman tunnels. They had also bored spiral shaped
vents into the walls of their fortress, so the mines that did detonate had their blast
force vented out, and the structural damage reduced.
Despite the best efforts of the defenders, on September 4th, two Ottoman mines beneath
the English Bastion detonated, collapsing an 11m long segment of the wall and filling
the moat beneath it. With an opening, Ottoman infantry charged into the Bastion and managed
to drive off the Rhodian defenders. They planted banners on the battlements to celebrate their
victory, but were promptly driven off by a counter attack led by the English Knights,
and the Grandmaster L’Isle-Adam himself. Twice more the Ottomans attacked the breach,
but each time the English Knights, aided by their German Brothers, held the line. Both
sides took heavy casualties in this exchange. It is said that the Sultan’s master gunner’s
legs were blown off by a Rhodian cannonball, while the Knights had three major commanders
killed. By late September, Ottoman morale had begun
to decline. Yet on the 19th of that month, Ottoman spies managed to inform Suleiman that
the Spanish and Provencal Bastions were less protected than they originally thought, with
no inner wall or protective ditch. With new resolve, the Sultan ordered a renewed full
assault on these portions of the Fortress walls. The Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha led
the attack. The bombardment took the Knights by surprise, and the Ottoman forces manage
to get over the walls of the Spanish bastion. A fierce melee ensued, with elite Janissaries
dueling disciplined Knights. The Spanish bastion changed hands twice, but ultimately, the Ottomans
were repulsed from the walls. Furious at this failure, the Sultan demanded
that Mustafa Pasha be executed, yet relented upon the pleading of his high-ranking officials
to do otherwise. Nevertheless, Mustafa was shipped off to Egypt and replaced with Ahmed
Pasha, an experienced military engineer. Back and forth fighting continued throughout
the month of October, mostly around the collapsed wall of the English Bastion. The Knights and
their Rhodian subjects managed to keep the Janissaries at bay, but each sortie would
cost precious lives, lives that the highly outnumbered defenders could not afford to
lose. By December, both the Ottomans and Rhodian
defenders were thoroughly demoralized. The Ottomans had experienced a massive loss of
life, and disease ran rampant through their ranks, killing many more. Meanwhile, the Knights
and Rhodians had few living defenders remaining and with no help on the way, they knew they
could not hold out much longer. On December 11th, peace talks between the
two sides began. Suleiman offered the citizens of Rhodes food and protection if they surrendered,
but death and slavery if he had to take the city by force. Negotiations would soon derail
when the Latin and Greek citizens pushed too hard for assurances from the Sultan, who ordered
his men to resume bombarding the city once more.
On December 17th, Ottoman forces once more overran the Spanish Bastion and killed its
defenders. This time, it remained permanently in the Ottoman hands. It was the end for the
Knights. There were simply not enough soldiers left to defend the city, and the walls had
been all but reduced to rubble after months of constant shelling. A peace was made on
the 20th, and the terms were fairly amicable. The surviving Knights would be spared their
lives, and be provided ships by the Sultan to sail to Crete. The citizens of Rhodes were
promised safety from massacre, the desecration of their churches, and freedom from Ottoman
taxation for 5 years. The Knights departed from their fortress with
honour, wearing their full regalia and beating their drums. They embarked on the ships provided
to them after a valiant defense, and sailed away from the Island. At this point the Ottoman
and the Western sources differ, with the latter claiming that a massacre followed and the
Church of St. John was converted into a Mosque immediately. The sources are also conflicted
on the number of the Ottoman losses, ranging from a thousand to 20 thousand casualties.
As a result of the conquest of Rhodes, the Ottoman Empire secured total domination of
the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, but the Ottomans would have to meet the Hospitallers in the
battle yet again. For now, Sultan Suleiman was able to turn his attention towards the
core of Europe. His invasion of Hungary and the famous battle of Mohacs [moha’ts] would
be soon to follow.
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