The Shield and The Sword

by Ernle Bradford

  She, like the galley, could also trace her origins back to the Phoenicians whose merchantmen had been known to them as a ‘Gaulos’ or ‘Tub’ from their shape—something like a half walnut. These of course were designed for carrying capacity above all, and were dependent almost entirely upon sails for their motive power. Beamy, high-sided, and driven by squaresails or a combination of squaresails and lateens, they were better sea-boats than the galleys, but were cumbersome to handle and, unless flying with a fair breeze astern, were no match for the galleys. Half way between these two types of vessel came the galleass, a cargo-carrying ship mainly dependent upon sail but which also had oar-power and, at a later date, was capable of mounting a fair weight of guns. It was a combination of the round ship and the galleass, evolved into a thoroughly seaworthy vessel in northern waters by English, Danes and Dutch, that was ultimately to supersede all others. For the moment though, during the centuries that the Knights were in Rhodes, the galley was the most powerful ship upon the sea. Its design was so good that, even though somewhat discredited after the seventeenth century, the galley would still be active upon these tideless waters until the nineteenth century when the advent of steam as a propulsion power changed the face of all the seas and oceans.

  Quite apart from the lead and line for determining depths when in pilotage waters, the galley masters and their navigators had portulans or pilotage books. Their principal navigational instrument was the compass. These were in common use by the fourteenth century, and references to the magnetic compass occur as early as the twelfth century. In view of the fact that the original establishment of the Hospital derived from the merchants of Amalfi it is interesting to note that it was often claimed that the compass itself had originated there. The fact is that the Amalfitans almost certainly learned about the compass during their trade with the East, and that it was known to the Arabs a long time before it became generally used by Europeans. It is possible, however, that it was the Amalfitans who first anchored the compass needle to a marked card so as to make compass reading considerably easier. Prior to this the early method of using the magnetised needle was to rub it on a lodestone, thus magnetising the metal, and then to pierce a reed or a thin sliver of wood with the needle and float it in a bowl of water, when the needle would turn and point to magnetic north. Such a system was of course of little use unless the weather was fair, for if the vessel was rolling or heeled to a wind it was almost impossible to keep the bowl sufficiently still. Quite apart from the compass, the pilots had their knowledge of the stars to guide them at night. Polaris the North Star had been used as a navigational aid since the days of Homer—and probably long before.

  When the galleys were out in company, say four of them at a time, tactics were very similar to those adopted by the cavalry, the ships advancing in line abreast against the enemy. Quite often, however, the galleys went out in twos, and they then used tactics very similar to those of the hunting lion and lioness. Hearing that a merchantman was bound through a particular channel the fastest galley would endeavour to get behind her, leaving her ‘mate’ lurking behind a suitable point or headland. The galley would then drive the fleeting merchantman in the required direction. At the very moment when it might have seemed that she had the legs on her pursuer and was about to make good her escape, the merchantman would find her way barred by the second galley sliding out from concealment to bar her course.

  At the last stages of the run-in, or when just about to board the enemy, the Knights had another trick up their sleeves. This was Greek fire, or ‘wild fire’ as it was sometimes called. An invention of the Byzantines, the crusaders had come across it during their centuries in the East where it had been used in the defence of walled cities and castles. Composed of a mixture of saltpetre, pounded sulphur, pitch, unrefined ammoniacal salt, resin and turpentine (there were a number of closely guarded formulae) Greek fire was an incendiary weapon. It could be used as a liquid mixture and ejected from copper tubes so that it came out as a roaring flame, rather like a modern flame-thrower, or it could be made into a mixture designed for a hand grenade. It was poured into thin clay pots, ‘of a size that would fit a man’s hand and could be thrown 20 to 30 yards’. The mouths of the pots were sealed by canvas or thick paper and secured by cords dipped in sulphur which ran down inside the pot. Just prior to throwing them the cords were lit, thus ensuring that when the pot burst one or more of the fuses would explode it. On highly inflammable wooden decks, or among tangled canvas and cordage, Greek fire could be a deadly weapon, quite apart from distracting the enemy at the very moment that the boarding party was swarming over his side. There is no record of the Knights having used Greek fire as the Byzantines had done on an earlier occasion when their fleet had put to flight a Pisan fleet by the use of flame-throwers: ‘On the prow of each ship he (the Byzantine admiral) had a head of a lion or other land animal fixed, made in brass or iron with the mouth open, and gilded over so that the mere aspect was terrifying. And the fire which was to be directed against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through the mouths of the beasts, so that it seemed as if the lions and other monsters were vomiting fire.’

  It is more likely that the Knights confined themselves to less elaborate methods such as the incendiary hand grenade (from which in any case there was no danger of a ‘flash back’ into one’s own vessel). Sea-fighting was still essentially land-fighting afloat, the object being to board and overwhelm the enemy. It was not for a long time after the general use of cannon ashore that ships would be constructed which would win their battles by accurate and heavy gunfire. Arrows, crossbow quarrels, and incendiaries only served to soften up the enemy. It was the armoured knight and the mail-jerkined man-at-arms, swinging themselves over the gunwales and beating down their opponents, that finally determined the course of an action at sea.

  Chapter 12

  FROM FIRE COMES FIRE

  It was not to be expected that the Order of St John would be allowed to remain safe for ever in their fortress-island when they were so regularly harassing the Moslems. If their fighting record had been inadequate, as their enemies in Europe were prone to maintain, then they might have been allowed to remain masters of Rhodes. But it was because they were so active that they were bound to provoke retribution. Their record over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries speaks for itself. Two years after the sack of Alexandria the galleys sailed south from Rhodes and attacked the coastline of Syria, raiding and looting throughout the whole area. As a commando-type raid it was eminently successful. But it also revealed the inability of the Knights to achieve anything more than such hit-and-run operations. They did not have the men to secure a real foothold in the area.

  In 1396, in an effort to check the increasing power of the Turks, yet another Crusade was launched and a great international army assembled under the leadership of the Duke of Burgundy’s eldest son. The force, of about 100,000 men, was composed mainly of French, Burgundians, and Germans, together with an English contingent led by the Earl of Huntingdon, the half-brother of King Richard. The objective was the Turkish dominated territory behind the Danube. The crusaders hoped that, once the Turkish army had been defeated, they would be able to march through Anatolia and repeat the successes of the First Crusade, culminating once more in the liberation of Jerusalem. The Hospitallers in company with the Genoese and the Venetians were to provide the ships, and a fleet under the command of Grand Master Philibert de Naillac sailed north into the Black Sea and lay at readiness off the mouth of the Danube. After some early successes the army moved on to Nicopolis, an important fortified stronghold on the Danube, The army encamped round the city in an effort to starve it into surrender. Meanwhile the fleet moved up stream to prevent any supplies reaching Nicopolis by water.

  The crusaders had learned little over the centuries, and they had not even brought with them adequate siege engines to breach the walls. While they were encamped in relative idleness, hoping that the city would fall into their hands without further effort, the Turki
sh Sultan moved up rapidly with his army. This was largely composed of light cavalry, who were to prove more than a match for the old-fashioned tactics of the armoured Knights on their heavy horses. The result was almost inevitable, and in the ensuing battle the Turks were left masters of the field. Few Knights survived the slaughter, the only exceptions being those who could afford to pay the enormous ransoms demanded by the victorious Sultan. The Hospitallers themselves, although they did not suffer as badly as many of the others, were nevertheless involved in the defeat; a defeat which finally and forever turned the western Europeans against any further crusading adventures. As Sir Steven Runciman has commented: ‘The Crusade of Nicopolis was the largest and last of the great international Crusades. The pattern of its sorry history followed with melancholy accuracy that of the great disastrous Crusades of the past…’

  There was one salient difference, however: the last of the Crusades was essentially a defensive one. Instead of being launched at the heart of the Moslem enemy in their own territories, it was designed to prevent that enemy from advancing any further into Europe. The same inadequacy in military preparation, the same dissensions between rival leaders, and the same rash impetuosity on the field led to disaster. The principal lesson that the Hospitallers learned from the campaign was that they were now on their own. There would be no more major expeditions from Europe. They learned also that, just as the sea gave them their mobility to attack the enemy, so it gave them the mobility to withdraw rather than be captured or cut down like the land-bound soldier. It confirmed what they had learned during their sea-going years in Rhodes. Except on a very few occasions—and these more in the category of seaborne raids than land campaigns—the Knights were now wedded to the sea for almost four centuries.

  Despite a number of minor engagements the history of the next few years was comparatively quiet. This was largely due to the fact that the Turks were engaged in fighting the Tartars under Timur the Lame, who had also overrun much of the East and in 1392 had even captured Baghdad. The whole Moslem world was far too much preoccupied with the onslaught of the Tartars to worry about the relatively unimportant gadfly of a handful of Christians in Rhodes. The Knights were also to suffer from Timur’s conquering hordes when, in 1402, he swung north and captured Smyrna. It was the general confusion in the Moslem world that helped the Order to pull off a diplomatic coup a year later, and conclude a most successful treaty with the Egyptian Mamelukes. This gave them the right to maintain a consulate in Jerusalem as well as to open consulates at Damietta and Ramleh. Even more important than these diplomatic concessions was the fact that the Knights were to be allowed to rebuild their old hospital in Jerusalem. A clause in the agreement, designed to make the Rhodians happy, secured for them preferential trading rights in Alexandria, Beirut, Damascus, Damietta, and Tripoli. During the thirty-eight years that this truce lasted the Order and the island it administered enjoyed a prosperous period. But the fortifications were not neglected, and the galleys continued to sweep out from the Mandraccio on their caravans.

  In Anatolia the main effect of Timur’s invasion was to introduce a further influx of hardy horsemen and warriors almost indistinguishable from the Turks. If Timur’s sons had not fought between one another over the succession there can be little doubt that Constantinople would have come under attack earlier than it did. During the breathing space afforded by this civil war the Byzantines managed to acquire a number of coastal cities that had formerly been theirs, while the Order of St John built a powerful fortress on the narrow peninsula that juts out from the mainland opposite the island of Cos. They now had the Cos channel securely in their grasp. The fortress called St Peter the Liberator still stands, its name corrupted into Budrum (from Bedros, Peter). It provided a refuge point for Christians fleeing from slavery throughout Anatolia, a place from which they could be ferried to the security of Rhodes.

  In 1440 Pope Eugenius IV preached a new Crusade. Only the Albanian chieftain Skanderberg, the Prince of Serbia, and the Hungarians came forward to declare war on the Turks and, after a few indecisive skirmishes, they were to sign a ten-year truce with the enemy. No western European powers paid any attention to the Pope’s call; they were far too engaged in their own affairs and national rivalries. As far as the West was concerned the Crusades were over. But the Knights, in the same year that the Crusade was preached, secured a notable victory. Their treaty with the Mamelukes had broken down and a fleet of seventeen ships had been despatched from Egypt to blockade Kastellorizo, that strongpoint held by the Order on the Turkish coast due east of Rhodes. The Order’s operational fleet at this time seems to have consisted of four sailing vessels—presumably ‘round ships’ designed for carrying troops and stores—and eight galleys. Coming, up with the blockading force they soon proved their immense superiority over the Egyptians, capturing twelve of their vessels along with all their crews. This in itself was profitable enough, but they went on to put a party of Knights and soldiers ashore, engaging the Mamelukes who had landed from the Egyptian ships. In the ensuing battle 700 Mamelukes were killed while the rest, unable to escape by the sea since their fleet was destroyed, were all captured. If the Pope’s call to arms had fallen on deaf ears the Order had shown that it was still as active as ever in its war against Islam.

  Four years later, in 1444, the Egyptians once more tried their hand against the Knights, landing on Rhodes itself and laying siege to the city. Their efforts were frustrated by their own inefficiency in siege warfare and by the strength of the city’s fortifications. Defeated yet again at sea, the Egyptians withdrew after a siege lasting forty days and returned to Alexandria. They were never again to trouble the Order of St John. Within a few years they themselves were to find the Turks at their gates, and their country was ultimately destined to become part of the Ottoman empire. Over the centuries since they had first established their hospital in Jerusalem and had evolved the military branch of their Order the Knights had been in conflict with almost every Moslem power in the East, as well as pagans like the Tartars. Their hardest task now lay ahead, for the Turks and Turcomans who embraced Islam were to combine the religious fanaticism of the Saracens with the hardiness and violence of the Asiatic steppe peoples.

  The activities of the Knights during the years since they had firmly established themselves in Rhodes, right up to the moment when the first major attack was launched against them (while ill-acknowledged in Europe) had been largely responsible for the fact that the Turks had never made much of a showing as a naval power. Like the Arabs long before them they feared and distrusted the sea. They might have echoed the remark of ’Amr, the great Arab conqueror of Alexandria: ‘If a ship lies still it rends the heart; if it moves it terrifies the imagination. Upon it a man’s power ever diminishes and calamity increases. Those within it are like worms in a log, and if it rolls over they are drowned.’ But the Turks, again like the Arabs, were to prove that within a comparatively short time they too could learn to be seamen. In this, and in their shipbuilding techniques, they were to be aided by Greek subjects from Asia Minor and by the knowledge and expertise of the shipbuilders of Constantinople. For, in 1453, the great city that had been founded by Constantine the Great, that had been captured by the Latins in the Fourth Crusade, and later retaken by the Byzantines, fell for the last time to the victorious Sultan Mehmet II.

  Mehmet, son of the Sultan Murad, was one of the most distinguished men in Turkish history and he was to make himself the terror of Europe. Although he was to advance Turkish arms into Europe itself, and to be revered ever after by his people as the conqueror of Constantinople and the founder of Turkey-in-Europe, he was far from being of pure Turkish descent. He himself liked to claim that his mother was a Frank, and he certainly had Greek and Armenian blood in his veins. His appearance was more European than Turkish, as is borne out by the famous painting of him by Gentile Bellini. A good-looking man, with piercing eyes under curved eyebrows, he had a thin Semitic nose above full red lips. An Intellectual, he had an extensive kno
wledge of Greek literature as well as Islamic, and he was well read in science and philosophy. A brilliant linguist, he spoke Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Persian. It was said of him that his greatest desire was to emulate Alexander the Great. Unlike Alexander, however, he was a man of monstrous cruelty, with all the implacability of the Oriental despot. When, on the death of his father, the latter’s widow came to condole with Mehmet and congratulate him on his succession her young son was at that very moment being drowned in his bath on Mehmet’s orders. Yet, like many a tyrant, he enjoyed the company of artists and scholars. His first words as he rode through conquered Constantinople were the lines from the Persian poet Sa’di:

  Now the spider weaves the curtains in the palace

  Of the Caesars,