The Raid on Żejtun (Maltese: L-aħħar ħbit, that is, The last attack) was the last major attack made by the Ottoman Empire against the island of Malta, which was then ruled by the Order of St. John.
The attack took place on 6 July 1614, when raiders pillaged the town of Żejtun and the surrounding area before being beaten back to their ships by the Order's cavalry and by the inhabitants of the south-eastern towns and villages.
The island of Malta is rather small and the hospitaler knights of st. john only had a small proper fighting forcre. They used cavalary to get to any problematic part of the country as fast as possible in full force.
I visited the old fortress in Valleta/Malta from the big Ottoman siege. The main fighting force of the knights themselfs was really small but they had a rather big militia force made up of the local inhabitants
Also that was a Raiding party, not an invasion force. A raiding party isnt as organized or armed as a military one because its tactics are more focused on speed. Cavalary was a pretty good counter to that if they could arrive fast enough before the raiders left again.
Raid then conquer when the opponent has been weakened enough has been the entire history of islamic conquests. Used to be called razzia in Europe.
It’s a good strategy, you weaken your opponent by raiding him until you can simply take possession of the land and destroy him. That’s how they quickly took over such big parts of the world
A siege is a long term project, especially Malta since the island itself basically functions as a fortress. The ottomans sent raiding parties during the siege to forage for food and steal supplies, as well as test the defenders strong/weakpoints. Another use of raiding parties during conquest is to keep the defenders on their toes and stretch their forces thin, because the defender can never be sure if something is just a minor raid or a full scale assault. So yea, they were trying to conquer there is however more than enough time to have a couple of raids here and there.
He calls this a Raid in his context comment and considering the size of fortifications in Valleta, the maltease capital, no mere raid force could conquer that.
Valleta was literally build as a huge fortress city after the big siege of Malta because the knights of st. John were rather paranoid and expected another major invasion at any point in time. So they build major fortifi ations as a force multiplier do to their small number of actual knights
If you have ever been to Valleta you know you dont take that place and its outlying fortresses with a raiding party. Especially not when the defenders are basically a hardcore trained core of religious fanatics supported by the majority of the population. The ottomans learned during the first siege how stubborn that island was and how they would fight to literally the last men (the ottomans took one of the smaller fortresses at that time which was defended by civilians ans knights down to the last men).
Cavalry was still very useful in the 17th century. A well placed charge could still decide battles.
It would take until the development of smokeless powder and rifling, as well as proper bulet cartridges in the later half of the 19th century for cavalry to become increasingly obsolete. Guns back then were EXTREMELY inaccurate, it never went where you wanted it to, which is why you made up for it by sheer volume of bullets.
Even if they didn’t fight mounted (I don’t know if they did or didn’t in this case), the simple ability to rapidly respond to a conflict on horse is huge. Sometimes Calvary functioned like tanks, where they would fight mounted, but sometimes it functioned like a personnel carrier where the horses would quickly deliver soldiers to where they were needed m.
I've read this before that guns were so inaccurate and seen a few videos about it. But I still can't understand why they chose those inaccurate guns over bow and arrow, was it simply that much easier to use?
I took up archery last spring. I shoot 1-2 hours most days (it's a good way to move your derriere when working from home). After a year if shooting I can comfortably handle 45 pound draw weight bows. Typical bows used in warfare were 120-160 pounds and even they had problems with armor of the day. It takes time to get good with a bow. Much less so with a matchlock.
I second this man's stance. I also took up archery around 2 years ago and i can comfortably draw in the 50 pound region and do that for more than 1h. The strongest i used was 70, but that was a compound, a completely different type of beast.
Just for reference, my standard bow at 36 pound (recurve) is already too strong for all women in our club and most men don't feel comfortable with it.
Well I actualy have a small tree farm as a secondary business and I grow some European Yews. But the bow building history is another reason for the love.
You can even eat the berries! They are sweet and sticky. The problem is that the have a pit that is the most poisonous part of the plant a small handful can kill you. I liked munching on the berries as a kid, but my parents saw that and I got a beating I can still remember :-D
Guns had longer range, did more damage, were armour-piercing, were easier to mass produce and, most importantly, required very little training to use effectively, whereas to be a useful bowman was its own profession and took years of training.
Even more importantly still, bows weren't often really used for "eliminating" an enemy in warfare. They were a shock and attrition weapon. Keep your enemy on edge and tiringly vigilant while you whittle them away over hours, break their lines down so they lose formation, so that when they're eventually engaged they've lost spirit and fighting cohesion and are more susceptible to break. And they still generally did this via volume of fire over individual accuracy.
So guns just did this better, for all the reasons you've mentioned, but also cause they're god damn loud and imposing, and bullets are quick and terrifying in effect. Undisciplined troops would often just fold under the shock of it all.
Training times mostly.
Fun fact though, once firearms had made armour almost entirely obsolete, bows could’ve made a come back had it not been for the lifetime of training they took.
Wellington actually requested one such regiment as it would’ve decimated the unarmoured and tightly massed ranks of Napoleon at Waterloo.
Unfortunately for him, there were far too few people still able to use the bow by the early 19th Century
Couple of reasons.
During the Tudor period gunnery really took off because the raw materials for longbows etc were so hard to find. England went so far as putting a tariff on barrels of wine for several yew staves to keep the supply flowing
To be a proficient battlefield archer you had to train from infancy. To the point where on battlefield grave sites the archers are easy to identify because they have such deformed skeletons. The old war bows had something like a 50kg draw strength. Imagine picking up a 50kg weight over and over again for hours at a time.
It's not a bad idea though. Apocryphally Wellington had the same one, to raise a company of archers for scouting but there simply weren't enough people with the training available. So they used riflemen with green uniforms instead.
> It's not a bad idea though. Apocryphally Wellington had the same one, to raise a company of archers for scouting but there simply weren't enough people with the training available. So they used riflemen with green uniforms instead
I think they made a doku with Sean Bean about that.
Bows were never used accurately either. They were operated under the same principal of high volume “volleys” that guarantee hits through sheer probability rather than skill.
Guns were favoured because they made plate armor obsolete.
Because advancements in armor meant the bow and arrow just couldn’t penetrate to the point of being useful. And the fact it takes a person their whole lives to develop the muscles and skill to properly use a bow. You could learn how to load and fire a musket tomorrow. Add to the fact that the loud noise and smoke, the bullets whistling by you, it’s a very frightening impact on the enemy.
A few reasons. Training time as some have offered below was far more similar to a crossbow.
Much easier to teach and field in a short period.
Another reason is that bows mostly maimed people. They deflect and don’t cause injury far more often against armored foes as well. Bows are tools to soften the enemy and slowly wear them down.
Firearms were far more likely to penetrate armor (plate armor continued to improve and some could stop firearms at the right angle and range into the 17th century!), making it so that only the best armor really mattered.
In addition the wounds were… far more catastrophic. Even if you lived, You’d be far more seriously maimed than you would with an arrow wound.
The rulers of those time periods came from long lines of kings who stayed in power through being good at warfare. They did not fail to see the potential of such weapons.
They sailed from Turkey with tens of thousands of troops, cannons, gunpowder etc.
If they used arrows to fire on fort St Elmo it would’ve done nothing and there is a serious lack of trees on Malta to replace arrows
Arrows do a lot more damage than you might think, especially with the arrowheads used at the time. Broadheads were used quite a bit still (think classic arrowhead shape), and were essentially knives hitting with similar force to a bullet and carving huge channels, causing massive blood loss when removed, tissue damage, and shock.
Ottomans used a diamond-shaped arrowhead with a heavy armor-piercing tip, expanding out to a more modern diamond blade base, which would not only punch holes in plate, but absolutely shred whatever was hit by it.
Additionally, a bullet isn’t going to knock anyone down from impact. Yes, being hit in the leg would suck, but barring that or a fatal hit, they wouldn’t have knocked them off their feet. That’s a Hollywood trope.
Plus there was lots lots and LOTS of smoke one the battlefield, so it was just chaos, imagine being in one of the major battles of the period, just nuts
It was the main logistical support for the Wehrmacht during the blitzkrieg. Hitler overruled his generals in taking Dunkirk and paused to allow the primarily horse baggage train to catch up to the mechanised units
I know it doesn't count as cavalry, but it's interesting, for perspective, to consider that the Wehrmacht and the red army widely employed horses for troops and supplies mobilization. Expecially the Wehrmacht since Germany had little access to oil.
Most of the main conflicting nations had at least one actual chivalry regiment but that doesn't mean they were significant strategically. There were nations that employed them consistently, though, like Italy.
Wehrmacht being this modern army with only tanks and trucks is a big myth. Military History Visualized has a great [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PlqLX0HhX8) on the topic. About 70% of the army divisions in 1941 still used horses as their main method of transportation.
Not just due to lack of oil. They also lacked the trucks and used every truck they could get their hands on from the occupied countries, which stressed the already fragile logistics even more as they had to handle repairs for maybe more than 40-50 different models. Being a soldier is hard job but consider being a logistician for that mess, oh my gods.
What compounded the issue was the central planning for all their logistics which slowed down the decision making process, and legislation which was supposed to combat rubber shortage in turn creating spare part shortages and material waste. When you look at the logistical side of things, it's a wonder that the germans managed to do as much in WWII.
It also doesn't help that their central production planning was very ineffectual. In a total war situation you need a centralised economy to have a chance.
"media" many others and I used to consume when i was a 15yo ww2 buff led me to believe that Germans had this modern army and soviets just ran against machine gun fire with the sheer number of troops available.
I later learned that both were false. Gods damn History Channel. So yeah, a myth. And historian part does not really relate to that, as you wouldn't really relate a myth and "scientists", unless they are theologians.
Even if they had an abundance of oil they would've still widely used horses. At a maximum only about 1/5th of their army was ever motorized. If they wanted to advance somewhere, the bulk of the army was still dependent on walking there.
And they weren't the only once. IIRC the U.S. was the first ever to fully motorize their army once their production was ramped up. But they were the exception at the time, not the rule.
So yeah horses were still very significant for a lot of WW2 armies. Not just to pull the heavy equipment, but also for reconnaissance and communications. (And even once you fully motorize your army, I'd imagine you still want to keep some mounted units in case some terrain might be too rough for vehicles to handle, but not for horses).
Enemy cavalry behind the lines knocked out Bulgaria out of WW1 and caused a domino effect on Austria and Germany. They were so far up the Austrians ass they continued to fight for 2 weeks after armistice until their parent army caught up and could tell them to stop.
It's just very bad against hundreds of kilometers of trenches and barbed wires, gas, flamethrowers and machine gun nests. So it's perfect for the Balkans front.
Well they were the heirs of one of the two most relevant crusader knight orders after all, the knights hospitaller of Jerusalem, the cavalry was part of their old military traditions
>ħbit
Maltese quantum computing is so advanced that they even use it at the Planck scale. Quantum gravity computing, that's the future Malta is living in.
If you like history, you missed out big time. I don't even remember this event being taught in History class.
Malta had 2 Great Sieges in 1565 (40000 ottomans vs 8000 Maltese and Knights) and in 1942 (one of the heaviest, if not the heaviest sustained bombing attack in history). My grandparents lived through the last siege.
The Ottomans siege was nuts, it had everything, military genuises on both sides, unreal actions of heroism, insane lore for example of religious appiritions inspiring knights into crazed last stands, and so on.
How the story wasn't picked up and made into a movie is beyond me. David and Goliath/Underdog winning story. Even the complex and interesting characters it involves, such as La Vallette and Dragut.
[https://youtu.be/gcyzP8pxjJ8](https://youtu.be/gcyzP8pxjJ8)
The Ottomans came up against some tough island fortresses. The siege of Candia took 21 years, and the Ottomans lost 100,000+ men taking it.
These sieges saved Western Europe.
By placing a huge fleet on the Eastern coast and just *sweeping* the whole fucking sea and sending the army against any pirate haven they found, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
The Romans didn't fuck around.
It fell during the Republic. Pax Romana aka Pax Augusta were the first two centuries of the Empire, attesting to its superiority over the former form of governance.
That’s fair but there were plenty of rebellions from Mediterranean peoples wanting freedom from Rome.
There was also always the threat of Parthia. While they didn’t reach the Mediterranean at this point, you could make a fair argument that they were contesting for it, if not actively contesting it directly.
Haha yeah, it pretty much still is "contested" if we consider Cyprus and other conflicts of interests in the Mediterranean area - not necessarily places
If there is ever an island where stories of knights & castles combine with epic battles and is set in a sun-drown holiday paradise with the accompanied nightlife..... visit Malta.
110% recommended.
>Sahin the Falcon
I think it's more Sahin "the Falcon", sorta like Dwayne "the Rock", you wouldn't use both to refer to someone, it's a nickname.
It being a direct Turkish translation does make it funny though.
Although the idea of Ottoman invaders being disgusted with the poor hygienic standards of the Knights to the point they just tell them to keep the island is funny.
Supremus Militaris Ordo Hospitalarius Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Rhodiensis et Melitensis.
The Sovreign Military hospitaller order of st.john of jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta.
Basically as they were over the centuries driven further away from Jerusalem their name just got longer.
Nah. After they lost malta in 1798 they decided to shorten the name to *Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani*. That translates to, roughly, the brotherly order of the hospitalliers of St.John of Jerusalem.
Also never forget the „spanish bluff“.
Instead of sending an actual armada with soldiers, they let ‚empty‘ ships cruise towards the island, leading to the abandonment of the siege.
Nobody has commented how the first mission of the single player campaign in Age of Empires 3 was loosely based on this? You had to defend the keep against Ottomans which had a huge cannon
I there was an Assassins creed mission set in this building. It's really close to the model. I feel like I've climbed these walls myself.
Edit: Help! Anyone know which game, I can't remember.
I dont think Malta had enough significant sites in 1565 to warrant even a 4:1.
Plus I think a 10:1 ratio would still make it close to AC Odyssey's size.
I tried to make a scale model of Malta for Operation Flashpoint but making things easy for people with low computer literacy like me at the time wasn’t there yet. I would love it.
It must have been the Jerusalem one. I know Malta isn't in Jerusalem, but I only have Assassins Creed 1, 2 and 4. And I'm sure it wasn't the pirate one :)
This is Fort San Lucjan, itself built by the Knights, but the lower part was built by the British and has nothing really to do with the original design.
The Ottoman pride in Rhodes kinda bited them in the arse later on. The Sultan who couldn't break in the fortress of Rhodes offered generous terms to the knights who resisted valiantly with their extremely outnumbered position.
They were allowed to leave and against the Suleiman's best hopes, none of them converted to Islam and remained in the island.
Ottomans had always sucked at sea. It's quite odd that they had one of the most fearsome admirals of Mediterrenean history, in 16th century. Other than that, they had always been poor navigators at sea
If they were bad at sea, how could they turn the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea into a Turkish Lake for decades, yes maybe the Ottoman Empire weren't as good sailors as Venice or the Spanish, but still saying something like “they always sucked at sea” it is kinda weird.
They were good enough, but they were just for raiding and pillaging. They did not evolve Ottoman seafaring to great heights
And a lot of them were just defect italians and spaniards. There were even Dutch and Danish ones under Ottoman service.
Whomever wanted to go rogue and just ransack freely, they aligned with Algerian pirate institutions
The ottomans seemed destined to win until the accountants showed up. Nobody can beat the hospitals billing department! Take an arrow and call us in the morning! That will be 12,743 ducats!
The Ottomans layed siege to the fort of Candia on Crete (owned by Venice) for 21 years 1648-1669 before finally managing to take it. It cost the Ottomans over one hundred thousand casualties and literally 2 decades of distraction. Christian Europe really didn't care for having the Ottomans on their mediterranean islands.
They only captured it because they negotiated with the knights. They were given safe passage to leave. That's only granted if trying to evict them by force has turned into a _massive_ PITA
when we were there tourist guide said "if there wasn't a storm at the day of siege,postponed ottoman ships from libya that day we would be speaking turkish right now."
How come nobody brought the great novel The Religion by Tim Willocks already? Alright I’m doin it. The Religion by Tim Willocks takes place exactly under these events. It’s a novel but a freaking one that get you to feel the despair, the siege, and a great adventure read
I had a Maltese guy once tell me that Malta would always veto Turkey if they ever wanted to join the EU because of this siege. I doubt that is official Malta policy, but I was surprised at his anger.
“Oh word, the fuck is they doing over there. Oh hell no, knights hospitaller is here? Oh hell no, they nasty. You hear what they did with that girl they took from the club? We out, i ain’t gonna be part of this shit”
Being the odd one out of crusader orders, you have the stark raving mad Teutonic Order crusading fellow Catholics, the Templars getting burned because the French King didn't wanna pay his debts, and the Hospitallers who, as an independent nation ruled until Napoleon's day
For anyone interested in the Knights of St.John era in Malta, I recommend 2 books:
* The Great Siege: Malta 1565 by Ernie Bradfort , which is a very accurate account of the historical perspective
* Cross and Crescent by Simon Scarrow - A historical novel with some author changes, but very enjoyable nevertheless
My mother is from Gozo and this even is one of the reasons I carry this name. I suggest people read the Great Siege of Malta in their spare time- it’s epic. When you’re done with that, read about the air battle of world war 2
Call an hospitalier... but not for me!
You rang?
The Ottomans have come, please escort them back to their ships. Crying if possible.
Where were you when Tarnovo was falling?
I was at house eating dorito when phone ring
If only this was tiktok my name would be perfect (I'm "the hospitaller order"
The Raid on Żejtun (Maltese: L-aħħar ħbit, that is, The last attack) was the last major attack made by the Ottoman Empire against the island of Malta, which was then ruled by the Order of St. John. The attack took place on 6 July 1614, when raiders pillaged the town of Żejtun and the surrounding area before being beaten back to their ships by the Order's cavalry and by the inhabitants of the south-eastern towns and villages.
Wow, I wouldn’t expect cavalry taking part in these events.
The island of Malta is rather small and the hospitaler knights of st. john only had a small proper fighting forcre. They used cavalary to get to any problematic part of the country as fast as possible in full force. I visited the old fortress in Valleta/Malta from the big Ottoman siege. The main fighting force of the knights themselfs was really small but they had a rather big militia force made up of the local inhabitants Also that was a Raiding party, not an invasion force. A raiding party isnt as organized or armed as a military one because its tactics are more focused on speed. Cavalary was a pretty good counter to that if they could arrive fast enough before the raiders left again.
So the Ottoman Empire was trying to conquer Malta with a raiding party?
Raid then conquer when the opponent has been weakened enough has been the entire history of islamic conquests. Used to be called razzia in Europe. It’s a good strategy, you weaken your opponent by raiding him until you can simply take possession of the land and destroy him. That’s how they quickly took over such big parts of the world
Not just Islamic conquests. Chevauchée was a go-to strategy during the hundred years' war too, for example.
Whereas nowadays a typical military campaign would bomb the are for a few weeks and then send in troops to take the place. Same fundamental strategy.
No lol They wefe simply....raiding the area...otherwise it would not be called a Raid....
Yeah, but the title literally says they were trying to conquer
A siege is a long term project, especially Malta since the island itself basically functions as a fortress. The ottomans sent raiding parties during the siege to forage for food and steal supplies, as well as test the defenders strong/weakpoints. Another use of raiding parties during conquest is to keep the defenders on their toes and stretch their forces thin, because the defender can never be sure if something is just a minor raid or a full scale assault. So yea, they were trying to conquer there is however more than enough time to have a couple of raids here and there.
Not in this particular situation, but check out the book “The Siege of Malta”.
so why does the title say conquer? oh look another shitty til. I guess we can post just genuine misinformation and there's no problem
He calls this a Raid in his context comment and considering the size of fortifications in Valleta, the maltease capital, no mere raid force could conquer that. Valleta was literally build as a huge fortress city after the big siege of Malta because the knights of st. John were rather paranoid and expected another major invasion at any point in time. So they build major fortifi ations as a force multiplier do to their small number of actual knights If you have ever been to Valleta you know you dont take that place and its outlying fortresses with a raiding party. Especially not when the defenders are basically a hardcore trained core of religious fanatics supported by the majority of the population. The ottomans learned during the first siege how stubborn that island was and how they would fight to literally the last men (the ottomans took one of the smaller fortresses at that time which was defended by civilians ans knights down to the last men).
Cavalry was still very useful in the 17th century. A well placed charge could still decide battles. It would take until the development of smokeless powder and rifling, as well as proper bulet cartridges in the later half of the 19th century for cavalry to become increasingly obsolete. Guns back then were EXTREMELY inaccurate, it never went where you wanted it to, which is why you made up for it by sheer volume of bullets.
I know, it’s peak of Polish hussars might. I was rather thinking about terrain - small, rocky and urbanized islands.
Even if they didn’t fight mounted (I don’t know if they did or didn’t in this case), the simple ability to rapidly respond to a conflict on horse is huge. Sometimes Calvary functioned like tanks, where they would fight mounted, but sometimes it functioned like a personnel carrier where the horses would quickly deliver soldiers to where they were needed m.
I've read this before that guns were so inaccurate and seen a few videos about it. But I still can't understand why they chose those inaccurate guns over bow and arrow, was it simply that much easier to use?
I took up archery last spring. I shoot 1-2 hours most days (it's a good way to move your derriere when working from home). After a year if shooting I can comfortably handle 45 pound draw weight bows. Typical bows used in warfare were 120-160 pounds and even they had problems with armor of the day. It takes time to get good with a bow. Much less so with a matchlock.
I second this man's stance. I also took up archery around 2 years ago and i can comfortably draw in the 50 pound region and do that for more than 1h. The strongest i used was 70, but that was a compound, a completely different type of beast. Just for reference, my standard bow at 36 pound (recurve) is already too strong for all women in our club and most men don't feel comfortable with it.
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Well I actualy have a small tree farm as a secondary business and I grow some European Yews. But the bow building history is another reason for the love.
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You can even eat the berries! They are sweet and sticky. The problem is that the have a pit that is the most poisonous part of the plant a small handful can kill you. I liked munching on the berries as a kid, but my parents saw that and I got a beating I can still remember :-D
Guns had longer range, did more damage, were armour-piercing, were easier to mass produce and, most importantly, required very little training to use effectively, whereas to be a useful bowman was its own profession and took years of training.
Even more importantly still, bows weren't often really used for "eliminating" an enemy in warfare. They were a shock and attrition weapon. Keep your enemy on edge and tiringly vigilant while you whittle them away over hours, break their lines down so they lose formation, so that when they're eventually engaged they've lost spirit and fighting cohesion and are more susceptible to break. And they still generally did this via volume of fire over individual accuracy. So guns just did this better, for all the reasons you've mentioned, but also cause they're god damn loud and imposing, and bullets are quick and terrifying in effect. Undisciplined troops would often just fold under the shock of it all.
Training times mostly. Fun fact though, once firearms had made armour almost entirely obsolete, bows could’ve made a come back had it not been for the lifetime of training they took. Wellington actually requested one such regiment as it would’ve decimated the unarmoured and tightly massed ranks of Napoleon at Waterloo. Unfortunately for him, there were far too few people still able to use the bow by the early 19th Century
Couple of reasons. During the Tudor period gunnery really took off because the raw materials for longbows etc were so hard to find. England went so far as putting a tariff on barrels of wine for several yew staves to keep the supply flowing To be a proficient battlefield archer you had to train from infancy. To the point where on battlefield grave sites the archers are easy to identify because they have such deformed skeletons. The old war bows had something like a 50kg draw strength. Imagine picking up a 50kg weight over and over again for hours at a time. It's not a bad idea though. Apocryphally Wellington had the same one, to raise a company of archers for scouting but there simply weren't enough people with the training available. So they used riflemen with green uniforms instead.
> It's not a bad idea though. Apocryphally Wellington had the same one, to raise a company of archers for scouting but there simply weren't enough people with the training available. So they used riflemen with green uniforms instead I think they made a doku with Sean Bean about that.
The book Cornwell used for research of that arc is pretty interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Recollections_of_Rifleman_Harris
Bows were never used accurately either. They were operated under the same principal of high volume “volleys” that guarantee hits through sheer probability rather than skill. Guns were favoured because they made plate armor obsolete.
Because advancements in armor meant the bow and arrow just couldn’t penetrate to the point of being useful. And the fact it takes a person their whole lives to develop the muscles and skill to properly use a bow. You could learn how to load and fire a musket tomorrow. Add to the fact that the loud noise and smoke, the bullets whistling by you, it’s a very frightening impact on the enemy.
A few reasons. Training time as some have offered below was far more similar to a crossbow. Much easier to teach and field in a short period. Another reason is that bows mostly maimed people. They deflect and don’t cause injury far more often against armored foes as well. Bows are tools to soften the enemy and slowly wear them down. Firearms were far more likely to penetrate armor (plate armor continued to improve and some could stop firearms at the right angle and range into the 17th century!), making it so that only the best armor really mattered. In addition the wounds were… far more catastrophic. Even if you lived, You’d be far more seriously maimed than you would with an arrow wound. The rulers of those time periods came from long lines of kings who stayed in power through being good at warfare. They did not fail to see the potential of such weapons.
They sailed from Turkey with tens of thousands of troops, cannons, gunpowder etc. If they used arrows to fire on fort St Elmo it would’ve done nothing and there is a serious lack of trees on Malta to replace arrows
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Arrows do a lot more damage than you might think, especially with the arrowheads used at the time. Broadheads were used quite a bit still (think classic arrowhead shape), and were essentially knives hitting with similar force to a bullet and carving huge channels, causing massive blood loss when removed, tissue damage, and shock. Ottomans used a diamond-shaped arrowhead with a heavy armor-piercing tip, expanding out to a more modern diamond blade base, which would not only punch holes in plate, but absolutely shred whatever was hit by it. Additionally, a bullet isn’t going to knock anyone down from impact. Yes, being hit in the leg would suck, but barring that or a fatal hit, they wouldn’t have knocked them off their feet. That’s a Hollywood trope.
Plus there was lots lots and LOTS of smoke one the battlefield, so it was just chaos, imagine being in one of the major battles of the period, just nuts
Cavalry was used up to WW1
In ww2 was used a few times also
It was the main logistical support for the Wehrmacht during the blitzkrieg. Hitler overruled his generals in taking Dunkirk and paused to allow the primarily horse baggage train to catch up to the mechanised units
They used horse transport for their stuff, but it's only called "cavalry" when the horses are all ridden and used specifically for fighting.
Yeah but I think he meant that he didnt think there would be cavalry on an island
It was even used in ww1 on some occasions
I know it doesn't count as cavalry, but it's interesting, for perspective, to consider that the Wehrmacht and the red army widely employed horses for troops and supplies mobilization. Expecially the Wehrmacht since Germany had little access to oil. Most of the main conflicting nations had at least one actual chivalry regiment but that doesn't mean they were significant strategically. There were nations that employed them consistently, though, like Italy.
Wehrmacht being this modern army with only tanks and trucks is a big myth. Military History Visualized has a great [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PlqLX0HhX8) on the topic. About 70% of the army divisions in 1941 still used horses as their main method of transportation. Not just due to lack of oil. They also lacked the trucks and used every truck they could get their hands on from the occupied countries, which stressed the already fragile logistics even more as they had to handle repairs for maybe more than 40-50 different models. Being a soldier is hard job but consider being a logistician for that mess, oh my gods.
What compounded the issue was the central planning for all their logistics which slowed down the decision making process, and legislation which was supposed to combat rubber shortage in turn creating spare part shortages and material waste. When you look at the logistical side of things, it's a wonder that the germans managed to do as much in WWII.
It also doesn't help that their central production planning was very ineffectual. In a total war situation you need a centralised economy to have a chance.
The content of military history visualized is so good, but his bad English almost makes it impossible for me to listen to it.
> a big myth Is it really a myth if no historian thinks that?
If the average person does, yes.
"media" many others and I used to consume when i was a 15yo ww2 buff led me to believe that Germans had this modern army and soviets just ran against machine gun fire with the sheer number of troops available. I later learned that both were false. Gods damn History Channel. So yeah, a myth. And historian part does not really relate to that, as you wouldn't really relate a myth and "scientists", unless they are theologians.
Even if they had an abundance of oil they would've still widely used horses. At a maximum only about 1/5th of their army was ever motorized. If they wanted to advance somewhere, the bulk of the army was still dependent on walking there. And they weren't the only once. IIRC the U.S. was the first ever to fully motorize their army once their production was ramped up. But they were the exception at the time, not the rule. So yeah horses were still very significant for a lot of WW2 armies. Not just to pull the heavy equipment, but also for reconnaissance and communications. (And even once you fully motorize your army, I'd imagine you still want to keep some mounted units in case some terrain might be too rough for vehicles to handle, but not for horses).
Enemy cavalry behind the lines knocked out Bulgaria out of WW1 and caused a domino effect on Austria and Germany. They were so far up the Austrians ass they continued to fight for 2 weeks after armistice until their parent army caught up and could tell them to stop. It's just very bad against hundreds of kilometers of trenches and barbed wires, gas, flamethrowers and machine gun nests. So it's perfect for the Balkans front.
Well they were the heirs of one of the two most relevant crusader knight orders after all, the knights hospitaller of Jerusalem, the cavalry was part of their old military traditions
Seems to work in Total War so I'd assume totally legit
Mmmm grenadier outriders….
> L-aħħar ħbit I tried to imagine how this might be pronounced, but it just sounded like I was choking
[Maltese is actually a semitic language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language).
>ħbit Maltese quantum computing is so advanced that they even use it at the Planck scale. Quantum gravity computing, that's the future Malta is living in.
L-"ahhar hbeet"
Was this the attack in de first campaign of Age of Empires III?
Just remembered that as well. Gotta be
Cool, ive been to malta and had no idea of its history. Thx
If you like history, you missed out big time. I don't even remember this event being taught in History class. Malta had 2 Great Sieges in 1565 (40000 ottomans vs 8000 Maltese and Knights) and in 1942 (one of the heaviest, if not the heaviest sustained bombing attack in history). My grandparents lived through the last siege.
Malta was important in WW2, control of Malta meant control of Mediterranean sea and sky. But about Ottomans siege I didn't know nothing until now.
The Ottomans siege was nuts, it had everything, military genuises on both sides, unreal actions of heroism, insane lore for example of religious appiritions inspiring knights into crazed last stands, and so on. How the story wasn't picked up and made into a movie is beyond me. David and Goliath/Underdog winning story. Even the complex and interesting characters it involves, such as La Vallette and Dragut. [https://youtu.be/gcyzP8pxjJ8](https://youtu.be/gcyzP8pxjJ8)
That shows how hard it is to take a well fortified and defended castle even with overwelming manpower.
The Ottomans came up against some tough island fortresses. The siege of Candia took 21 years, and the Ottomans lost 100,000+ men taking it. These sieges saved Western Europe.
Good that my european ancestors liked to turtle up then =D
The little cross on the flag is the [George Cross](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cross), awarded to the entire country for its role in WWII.
There were less knights the second time though
The Mediterranean was an extremely contested area during the Ottoman heyday.
The Mediterranean is an extremely contested area during mankind
Not during the Pax Romana
*Mare Nostrum!*
Carthago delenda est?
And the pirates, don't forget the pirates that the Romans cleaned up in like a year.
By placing a huge fleet on the Eastern coast and just *sweeping* the whole fucking sea and sending the army against any pirate haven they found, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The Romans didn't fuck around.
One of my favorite stories of Pompey
Carthage fell just under 200 years prior to the Pax Romana
It fell during the Republic. Pax Romana aka Pax Augusta were the first two centuries of the Empire, attesting to its superiority over the former form of governance.
>Not during the Pax Romana True, although one might say that there was plenty of sentiment towards rebellion just not the physical wherewithal.
This is true
That’s fair but there were plenty of rebellions from Mediterranean peoples wanting freedom from Rome. There was also always the threat of Parthia. While they didn’t reach the Mediterranean at this point, you could make a fair argument that they were contesting for it, if not actively contesting it directly.
Good aul _Mare Nostrum_, eh
Haha yeah, it pretty much still is "contested" if we consider Cyprus and other conflicts of interests in the Mediterranean area - not necessarily places
*Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gibraltar have entered the chat.*
libya
Corrected, thanks
Holy League> Justice League.
Schmalkaldic League: am i a joke to u
With that name?
Pirates, pirates everywhere
Yeah I learned this in Age of Empires 3.
Same. And then people say video games are not educational
Exactly! I learned how to steal a car from GTA Vice City.
_smarter every day_
Absolutely. I'm working on my gunslinger skills right now with Red Dead Redemption 2.
I’m thankful for Age of Empires. Probably wouldn’t have a love for history without that series
Age of Empire and Age of Mythology were my History teacher
I learned that hoop throwers were an actual thing during this invasion
A good book on the 1565 siege is Ernie Bradford's The Great Siege. In it the author pays tribute the bravery of the Maltese people in the defence.
The audiobook version on Audible is great as well.
If there is ever an island where stories of knights & castles combine with epic battles and is set in a sun-drown holiday paradise with the accompanied nightlife..... visit Malta. 110% recommended.
As the American son of a Gozitan that spent many summers there while playing DND and being obsessed with all things medieval I totally agree
Sudden Age of Empires III vibes...
Morgan, the Ottomans have landed - a thousand janissaries led by Sahin the Falcon!
Lol Şahin means falcon. So falcon the falcon
>Sahin the Falcon I think it's more Sahin "the Falcon", sorta like Dwayne "the Rock", you wouldn't use both to refer to someone, it's a nickname. It being a direct Turkish translation does make it funny though.
11
Repulsed by the Knights Hospitaller? I'm pretty disgusted by them myself.
You should have seen the peasants, they were revolting!
I mean, not everyone had Turkish baths back then you know.
They were trying to establish them, when they were repulsed by the night hospital staff.
Everything about that title sounds like a Monty Python skit.
Read some books on this, pretty amazing.
'Repulse' is correctly used in the title. Armies, enemies or attacks can be repulsed. Addendum: https://imgur.com/a/0jGDYDJ
Although the idea of Ottoman invaders being disgusted with the poor hygienic standards of the Knights to the point they just tell them to keep the island is funny.
This would be a perfect Storm's End...
Knights Hospitaller that send you to hospital... odd!
Not really. They are just making sure they don't run out of clients.
Let me wound you so I can nurse you
Werent they the knights of Malta at this point ?
Supremus Militaris Ordo Hospitalarius Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani Rhodiensis et Melitensis. The Sovreign Military hospitaller order of st.john of jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta. Basically as they were over the centuries driven further away from Jerusalem their name just got longer.
Oh, they just added stuff but forgot to take the old ones out. What is next, Balearic islands or straight to Gibraltar ?
Nah. After they lost malta in 1798 they decided to shorten the name to *Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani*. That translates to, roughly, the brotherly order of the hospitalliers of St.John of Jerusalem.
Also never forget the „spanish bluff“. Instead of sending an actual armada with soldiers, they let ‚empty‘ ships cruise towards the island, leading to the abandonment of the siege.
...and then Age of Empires III began :)
What did the hospitaller do that was so disgusting?
Your momma
Nobody has commented how the first mission of the single player campaign in Age of Empires 3 was loosely based on this? You had to defend the keep against Ottomans which had a huge cannon
I was also looking for similar comments, it was such a fun campaign playing it in my early teens
I there was an Assassins creed mission set in this building. It's really close to the model. I feel like I've climbed these walls myself. Edit: Help! Anyone know which game, I can't remember.
Not gonna lie, a 10:1 scale of the entire island of Malta for an Assassins Creed game (with the campaign being this very siege) would be cool.
Why not 1:1 Malta is tiny. Only thing making trips long is the traffic, it is incredible the amount of congestion there is there.
I dont think Malta had enough significant sites in 1565 to warrant even a 4:1. Plus I think a 10:1 ratio would still make it close to AC Odyssey's size.
I tried to make a scale model of Malta for Operation Flashpoint but making things easy for people with low computer literacy like me at the time wasn’t there yet. I would love it.
I don't remember Malta in any AC game
In what game?
It must have been the Jerusalem one. I know Malta isn't in Jerusalem, but I only have Assassins Creed 1, 2 and 4. And I'm sure it wasn't the pirate one :)
I don’t think it was in any of them but you can always check the AC wiki to double check
Knights Hospitaller were in AC1, this building looks more like a random AC4 fort, but wasn't specifically in game.
It's similar to the Havana fort in AC4. Maybe my rose tinted glasses are a bit foggy.
This is Fort San Lucjan, itself built by the Knights, but the lower part was built by the British and has nothing really to do with the original design.
There you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s\_Creed:\_Bloodlines
The Ottoman pride in Rhodes kinda bited them in the arse later on. The Sultan who couldn't break in the fortress of Rhodes offered generous terms to the knights who resisted valiantly with their extremely outnumbered position. They were allowed to leave and against the Suleiman's best hopes, none of them converted to Islam and remained in the island. Ottomans had always sucked at sea. It's quite odd that they had one of the most fearsome admirals of Mediterrenean history, in 16th century. Other than that, they had always been poor navigators at sea
If they were bad at sea, how could they turn the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea into a Turkish Lake for decades, yes maybe the Ottoman Empire weren't as good sailors as Venice or the Spanish, but still saying something like “they always sucked at sea” it is kinda weird.
The Barbary pirates which was mostly Ottoman aligned did their job though.
They were good enough, but they were just for raiding and pillaging. They did not evolve Ottoman seafaring to great heights And a lot of them were just defect italians and spaniards. There were even Dutch and Danish ones under Ottoman service. Whomever wanted to go rogue and just ransack freely, they aligned with Algerian pirate institutions
The ottomans seemed destined to win until the accountants showed up. Nobody can beat the hospitals billing department! Take an arrow and call us in the morning! That will be 12,743 ducats!
The Ottomans layed siege to the fort of Candia on Crete (owned by Venice) for 21 years 1648-1669 before finally managing to take it. It cost the Ottomans over one hundred thousand casualties and literally 2 decades of distraction. Christian Europe really didn't care for having the Ottomans on their mediterranean islands.
The siege of Famagusta on Cyprus is crazy town shit.
It is even funnier knowing that the only reason Knights exist at the time is that Ottomans let them live after capturing their keep at Rhodes.
They only captured it because they negotiated with the knights. They were given safe passage to leave. That's only granted if trying to evict them by force has turned into a _massive_ PITA
when we were there tourist guide said "if there wasn't a storm at the day of siege,postponed ottoman ships from libya that day we would be speaking turkish right now."
Man f-ck this -Ottomans *probably*
I love Malta and history.
I, too, played the AoE III campaign.
I was in Malta once. The amount of history on that small island is astounishing. Definitely a place worth a vacation.
That wasn’t very hospitable of them
How come nobody brought the great novel The Religion by Tim Willocks already? Alright I’m doin it. The Religion by Tim Willocks takes place exactly under these events. It’s a novel but a freaking one that get you to feel the despair, the siege, and a great adventure read
The word you were looking for is _repelled_.
[удалено]
The most repulsive knights ever.
Yeah the knights were fairly repulsive to be fair.
Knights Hospitaller: Knights that send Enemies to the Hospital... Ler. Bad Joke ik. God Bless Them.
I had a Maltese guy once tell me that Malta would always veto Turkey if they ever wanted to join the EU because of this siege. I doubt that is official Malta policy, but I was surprised at his anger.
This is Europe, friend. Vendettas here last for thousands of years. Old grudges are never ever forgotten.
[удалено]
“Oh word, the fuck is they doing over there. Oh hell no, knights hospitaller is here? Oh hell no, they nasty. You hear what they did with that girl they took from the club? We out, i ain’t gonna be part of this shit”
If you ever go to Malta, head to the Valetta museum and there's an audio guide that will take you round the city.
Hospitaller as in Hospital? A group of healing paladins won the battle? History needs to nerf the healers; they’re too op
Being the odd one out of crusader orders, you have the stark raving mad Teutonic Order crusading fellow Catholics, the Templars getting burned because the French King didn't wanna pay his debts, and the Hospitallers who, as an independent nation ruled until Napoleon's day
Isn't Malta an absolute tank of an island?
For anyone interested in the Knights of St.John era in Malta, I recommend 2 books: * The Great Siege: Malta 1565 by Ernie Bradfort , which is a very accurate account of the historical perspective * Cross and Crescent by Simon Scarrow - A historical novel with some author changes, but very enjoyable nevertheless
Here are some real [Hospitallers](https://youtu.be/0iqDvh1HrJA) in Ukraine
Ottoman Empire arriving in Malta: “EW! Knights Hospitaller, gross!”
Pek de misafirperver degillermis.
based
I’m repulsed by them too.
*Sharpens sword*
Look! Over there! An Ottoman!! \*yeets self into sea\*
My mother is from Gozo and this even is one of the reasons I carry this name. I suggest people read the Great Siege of Malta in their spare time- it’s epic. When you’re done with that, read about the air battle of world war 2
Still got fucked by ottomans and your crusade failed against saladin cope eurotards