The entrance to Mandraki harbour

Suleiman's intended assault was presaged by an exchange of letters to the Grand Master de L'Isle Adam which were no more than thinly-veiled threats couched in the diplomatic language of the day and they were answered in much the same way by the Grand Master. While these preliminaries were going on the Knights wasted no time in preparing their already impressive defences to repel the invaders. The Rhodians were instructed to burn anything which could aid the enemy and retreat into the Citadel ; it is not difficult to imagine the anguish of the Rhodians forced to burn their crops and abandon their homes but the bonds had grown strong between the Knights and the Rhodians over the years and they faced the common enemy together. In later years pioneers on the Western plains did much the same thing when faced by Indian attacks. There were never more than 600 nights on the island and with a 1,000 mercenaries and the remainder made up of Rhodians the whole garrison numbered no more than 6,000 men.

The history of Rhodes is far too lengthy to relate here but apart from the school of sculpture which produced the Laocoon and Winged Victory of Samothrace it is always associated with one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, the Colossus of Rhodes. The story of the Colossus is hardly relevant to the present tale but the Mediterranean is so rich in historical events that it is difficult at times not to diverge ---so bear with me in the following indulgence;

In 305 B.C. the Rhodians had a disagreement with Macedonia which led to an expedition besieging Rhodes led by a Macedonian general with the impressive title of Demetrius the Besieger. With an army of 40,000 men and a unique siege engine of bronze and oak, Demetrius was expected to take the island with ease. The ensuing siege lasted for a whole year and culminated in a pitched battle in which the Macedonians were roundly defeated and Demetrius and the remnants of his army fled the island leaving the shattered siege engine of which so much was expected to the Rhodians. The islanders then sold the great weapon to finance a statue of Helios, the Sun God and Protector of Rhodes. Chares of Lindos was commissioned to sculpt the great statue and there arose in time a statue 100 feet tall { 30 foot shorter than the Statue of Liberty} cast in bronze taking 12 years to complete and erected in 290 B.C. Both Chares and his sculpture were fated to come to a tragic end ; the sculptor committed suicide when he discovered an error in his calculations and the Colussus came crashing to the ground during an earhquake after standing for a mere 65 years. Incredibly, the broken parts of the figure remained where they had fallen for the following 800 years until an enterprising Arab army sacked Rhodes and carried off the bronze to be sold in Syria. Legend persists that the statue straddled Mandraki harbour but mathematicians are sceptical and a more likely place is where the Palace of the Grand Master stands today.

A sketch of the town of Rhodes at the time of the siege quite clearly shows Mandraki harbour where the Turks anchored and the walls of the Citadel which were besieged on all sides.

While the diplomatic niceties were being observed and the Knights were preparing their defences, Suleiman was assembling a vast flotilla of ships { said to be in the number of 200 } in preparation for his assault on Rhodes. The number carried on the ships has been estimated at somewhere between 150,000 and 100,000 fighting men. Suleiman's final letter to De L'Isle Adam spelled out his intentions with stark clarity ;

"The Sultan Suleiman to Villiers de L'Isle Adam, Grand Master of Rhodes, to his Knights, and to the people at large. Your monstrous piracies, which you continue to exercise against my faithful subjects, and the insult you offer to my imperial majesty, oblige me to command you to surrender your island and fortress immediately into my hands. If you do this, I swear by the God who made heaven and earth, by the four thousand prophets which came down from heaven, by the four sacred books, and by our Great Prophet Mohammed that you shall be free to leave the island, while the inhabitants who remain there shall not be harmed. But if you do not obey my order at once, you shall all pass under the edge of my invincible sword, and the walls and fortifications of Rhodes shall be reduced to the level of the grass that grows at their feet."

The Street of the Knights

While the defenders toiled at making the fortress as strong as they could, morale was raised when the acknowledged foremost soldier of his day arrived on the island and pledged his support. He was immediately made an honorary Knight and placed where his talents could be put to best use. This was not quite as easy as it appeared because Gabriel Tadini was a man of many parts; he was a professional soldier, an engineer, a brilliant artilleryman, versed in military architecture and above all expert in the art of mining and counter- mining. Tadini had come from Crete. He had no illusions about the situation in which the Knights were placed and he would play a major role in the forthcoming siege.

The Turkish fleet was sighted in July, 1522 and after anchoring in the bay they assembled the whole panoply of equipment necessary for a long siege. First, they set up camps all around the fortress, then came the small arms and ammunition and finally the siege engines and huge cannon balls { many of these are still in the city, placed in artistic triangular mounds or more pragmatically used as traffic bollards }. Very soon, the first of these great granite balls began to rain down on the Citadel and Tadini's artillery wasn't slow to respond. The Knights were not content to sit back and soak up this punishment and at this stage they were strong enough to make sorties outside the walls hindering and harrying the attackers greatly. With the arrival of Suleiman himself on 28th July, the battle commenced in earnest. While the cannon balls pounded away at the masonry, Turkish sappers began to dig a series of trenches designed to bring down the weakened outer walls and allow the Janissaries to try to force an entry into any gaps thus made. Mining beneath fortifications had been perfected to a fine art by the Turks and the miners themselves were a breed apart ; their work was specialized and dangerous in the extreme.

The idea was simple enough - to tunnel under the walls of the besieged city, remove the debris and set up a fabric of wooden beams and posts to support the masonry. When all was ready a signal was given to light the wooden structure whereupon the masonry fell into the trench and the Janissaries would dash into the breach. The advent of gunpowder was a refinement which meant that explosive charges made the mining operations even more effective { exactly the same operations were being carried out in World War 1 by men of the same breed }. Counter-mining techniques were crude and in the main involved breaking into the tunnels and killing the Turkish miners before they could lay their charges. Many a desperate struggle went on underground in the damp and gloomy chambers with the only practical means of combat being hand-to hand fighting. The miners on both sides were exceptional in their courage and bravery and there must be many exceptional deeds which have gone unrecorded and unheralded.

The indefatigible Gabriel Tadini had invented a primitive seismograph made up of parchment and diaphragm which detected movement underground and the vibration caused by the activity of the Turks caused bells to tinkle signalling a counter-attack.

Opposite the tower of Aragon the Turks began to build a huge earthwork so that their cannon could fire more effectively on the town, the gunners being able to see their targets better from a higher vantage point. The building of this mound cost the Turks dear in lives as the arrows and artillery from the fortress picked them off but the Turks were profligate with their men and could well afford the losses. On completion of the great mound, their profligacy began to pay off as the cannon began to inflict an insupportable amount of damage within the walls and the Knights were forced into action with sorties outside the walls. Gabriel Tadini was at the forefront of a mounted attack which led to 200 Turkish gunners being killed but the bombardment began anew as soon as the Knights returned to the Citadel. The mining and bombing were beginning to take effect and the tiny garrison were becoming weary of defending so many fronts. On the 4th September, an enormous mine exploded reducing the bastion of England to rubble, allowing hundreds of Janissaries led by Mustafa Pasha to pour through the breach. The Grand Master himself led the counter-charge, accompanied by his standard- bearer, Henry Mansell. The ensuing struggle led to two hours of bitter hand-to-hand fighting in which Mansell was slain and the Turks lost an incredible 2,000 men. But, once again the Knights numbers had been reduced ---- The Turks could sustain their losses but the garrison could ill-afford to lose a man.

The Palace of the Grand Masters

Deep underground the mining continued and Tadini used all his experience to counter the Turks, sometimes sinking ventilator shafts to mitigate the force of the blasts. Hundreds of Turks were killed by the premature explosions of their own mines at the bastions of Provence and again at Auvergne but inexorably the digging went on. All around the walls, bathed in the Mediterranean sunshine, the defenders resorted to pouring boiling-oil, throwing boulders, firing arrows and the fearful Greek Fire. Greek Fire was terrifying weapon by any standards and the ingredients of Greek Fire were jealously guarded by the individuals who made it but the effect was a stream of burning pitch which stuck to anything it came into contact with; the Janissaries were especially fearful of the weapon as their flowing robes were always susceptible to the substance.

On the 24th September, the Turks deemed the garrison to be so weak that a final assault would see the Citadel fall and every gun opened up at the same time, followed by wave after wave of fanatical attacks by the Janissaries. The battle went on for the whole of the day and after hour after hour of hand-to-hand fighting, both sides had fought themselves to a standstill and the cool of the evening saw the exhausted Knights still holding on in their crumbling fortress. Mustafa Pasha and other leaders were sentenced to death by an infuriated Suleiman for their inability to take the City but he later relented. During the month of October, the Turks then settled for incessant raids allowing the defenders no time to rest. The Turkish losses were far higher than the Christian defenders but even if only one Knight was killed in an attack, nevertheless they became weaker in numbers and weaker with fatigue. Gabriel Tadini had been a heroic and talismanic figure for the Knights and it was a major loss when a serious wound took him away from the battle. On the 30th November, Suleiman again decided that a final assault would take the city and a full-scale assault again saw the Turks cut down in their thousands. After this, there were no more major assaults; even the Turks were becoming horrified by their losses and they spent their time tunneling but the end was near for the beleaguered garrison.

The courtyard of the Grand Masters Palace

When it did come, the end was an anti-climax after the ferocity of the preceding months. The Rhodians who had fought so courageously had become worried for their families and sent a deputation to ask the Knights to surrender. De L'Isle Adam would have none of it and declared his intention of fighting to the last man. On Christmas Eve, Suleiman sent an envoy to say that all their lives would be spared if the defenders surrendered; furthermore, he would allow those who wished to leave to do so in an orderly fashion. De L'Isle Adam still wished to fight on but this time a deputation of Knights persuaded him that the Order could rise again, wherein if they died here then the Order died with them no matter how heroically they fell. Suleiman was as good as his word and The Grand Master and the remnants of the Knights of St John left Rhodes forever.

The Turkish cemetery on Rhodes with the tomb of Suleiman's admiral

Suleiman's star was at it's zenith and he had displayed a rare benevolence in allowing the Knights to leave. Among them was a future Grand Master, Parisot de La Vallette who was to become one of the most remarkable men of his era. While at this time he truly was "Supreme Lord" Suleiman's departure from his usual ruthlessness was to sow the seeds of a disaster which would overtake him forty years hence.

They say that in places where terrible things have happened there is a atmosphere or an aura forever after. But that was never true about the little square where we used to sit each evening to have a drink and feed pistachios tothe barman's parrot. The only atmosphere we detected was of an evening balminess where small boys kicked a ball in the dust and the locals reflected on their day in the cool beneath the trees. One evening, strolling back to our hotel, we discovered a tiny church we hadn't noticed previously. The lights were welcoming so we wandered in. The walls were draped with flags and scrolls of cloth and manuscript, mostly American but other countries too and the messages they conveyed were dedicated to relatives they had who once lived here. They all paid homage to Jewish parents or grandparents who had been rounded up from every corner of the island and herded into the square by the Nazis during World War Two and from there they were sent to Auschwitz; the sentiments on those walls were enough to make the angels weep. We still sat in the square afterwards and contemplated on how those people must have felt to have been taken from their sunny paradise to somewhere resembling a medieval vision of Hell. And we understood that despite Crusaders, Holocausts or tourism life goes on as it always has gone on in Rhodes.