Empires of the Sea - the Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580 (23 page)

The next day, Mustapha decided to deal with the Mdina cavalry. It was a decision he should have taken at the start of the siege, and failure to do so had cost him dearly. Piyale was tasked with wiping them out. A careful ambush was prepared; a detachment of troops was sent out to raid cattle grazing on the plain outside the city. When the Christian cavalry rode out to see the raiders off, they found their return barred by large formations of Ottoman infantry. It took a fierce fight and the loss of some thirty men and horses for the men to scramble back to the city, some on foot making it back only the next day. Piyale’s men then advanced on the city. As they drew near, they were surprised to see a large number of soldiers on the battlements. The Ottomans had believed the place to be weak and poorly defended; instead the walls were crawling with troops who unleashed a torrent of gunfire, beat their drums, and rang the church bells. Piyale’s advance may have been opportunist rather than planned—they had brought no heavy cannon with them—but they decided to withdraw. The Ottomans were running out of time; there was little spare energy to attend seriously to Mdina. They marched back to camp. The “army” on the walls breathed a sigh of relief; a large part of it was composed of civilians—peasants and their wives, even children, dressed in spare uniforms and parading on the ramparts.

When the captives from this ambush were marched before Mustapha, he heard some unwelcome news. Don Garcia had dropped Don Salazar, an experienced captain, onto the island the day before to reconnoiter the situation before mounting a full-scale rescue bid. Mustapha played down this morsel of information but realized its significance. Time was running out, and he was under pressure from all sides. On August 12 he received the letter Suleiman had written on July 16. With it came an oral account from a herald, outlining the sultan’s mood: he was uttering terrible threats in the case of defeat, which would be “to the affront to the sultan’s name and his unconquerable sword.” Victory would bring matching rewards. Mustapha was evidently keeping his head down, unwilling to send Suleiman bad news. When the sultan wrote again on August 25, he still had had no direct word from his general. The tone was more insistent: “The
chaush
Abdi, who had brought some good news about the conquest of certain towers in the harbour of the fortress of Malta, has been sent back to you. But up to now I have had no news from you. I have decreed that you should send me some information on the siege of Malta. Have you got enough provisions and weapons for the soldiers? Is the day of conquest of the Malta fortress near? Have you sighted any enemy navy? You should send me some information on the situation of the enemy navy and our navy. Up to now I have sent you seven ships carrying provisions. Did they arrive? Send me some messages.”

Both Suleiman and his general were seriously concerned about Don Garcia’s buildup. When Piyale snatched some men from the Sicilian coast on August 17, the pashas realized that a formidable rescue operation was in progress. Day and night Piyale’s galleys were patrolling the island, firing shots across the Malta channel to intimidate the Christians. Anastagi had been tracking their movements from the shore and found this guard duty perfunctory; morale was obviously low. “I have often left guards to discover what they are doing…. They always leaveat one hour in the night. At times we saw a fire ten miles out to sea which we believe belonged to them and that they do it to put their mind at rest; this is all the guarding they do.”

Both commanders were struggling for morale. La Valette gave out that relief was on its way, Mustapha that it was small and badly equipped, but the pasha’s problems were growing by the day. The men were being thinned out daily by war and disease; supplies of gunpowder and munitions were short; it was becoming harder and harder to force men out of the trenches to run to certain death. Mind games became more ingenious; on the night of August 18, thirty Ottoman galleys sailed out to sea under cover of darkness with a large number of men on board. The next day they reappeared, pretending to be a new relief of crack troops. The men were dressed up as janissaries and sipahis, welcoming cannon were fired, and flags planted on Mount Sciberras to show this huge new force to the defenders. Mustapha knew from the deserter Aguilar that the defense must be close to breaking. He pressed on with the siege.

This miniature shows Hayrettin Barbarossa in Istanbul, receiving instructions from Suleiman to rebuild the Ottoman fleet and wreak havoc on the realms of Charles V.
SONIA HALLIDAY PHOTOGRAPHS/TOPKAPI PALACE MUSEUM, ISTANBUL

Charles V, the stern and resolute emperor of war, by Titian. Charles spent large sums commissioning images of martial and imperial power.
THE ART ARCHIVE/MUSEO DEL PRADO MADRID/GIANNI DAGLI ORTI

Charles’s expedition to Tunis in 1535 to destroy Barbarossa: his galleys advance in waves to bombard the outer port of La Goletta. Tunis is beyond the lake, where Barbarossa’s fleet is bottled up.
THE ART ARCHIVE/UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GENEVA/GIANNI DAGLI ORTI

Winter 1543: Barbarossa’s lean predatory galleys in Toulon harbor terrified his nominal allies, the French, almost as much as his enemies.
THE ART ARCHIVE/TOPKAPI MUSEUM, ISTANBUL/ALFREDO DAGLI ORTI

The Ottoman sultans’ triumphs at sea were celebrated in books of exquisite miniatures. Here Ottoman galleys row into battle, with bow guns firing and flags flying.
THE BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Admirals and enemies: Hayrettin Barbarossa and Andrea Doria as aged men.
THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY/TOPKAPI PALACE MUSEUM, ISTANBUL; GALLERIA DORIA PAMPHILJ, ROME, ITALY, GIRAUDON/THE BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

The start of the siege of Malta: on May 27, 1565, the Ottoman army converges on Saint Elmo. White turbans swarm up the Sciberras Peninsula; to the right, miners and siege engineers lug up materials and tools; to the left, shrouded corpses are carried off into tents; center foreground, the pashas discuss tactics, flanked by janissaries with arquebuses.
NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, LONDON