One is inevitably reminded of Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’, for the style of warfare had changed little over the centuries. Warfare was still entirely personal, and in such close engagements individual morale counted for more than anything else. The Bashi-Bazouks, driven forward by the fear of their officers behind them, and yet again by fear of the Janissaries behind them, did not relish the punishment that even a small group of dedicated armoured men could inflict upon them. For them, as indeed in a different way for the Christians, it was an age of superstition. Omens and portents were everywhere and—just as in ancient, classical warfare—the hands of the gods were seen as spread in involvement over scenes of carnage and battle. Somehow, the banners of d’Aubusson’s standard bearers, shining bright against the sky above the smoke and turmoil of the struggle, were interpreted by the Moslems as the figures of strange Christian divinities come down to protect those who believed in them. (It must be remembered that almost all were illiterate and that, because of the requirements of their religion, all images were foreign and indeed incomprehensible to the Moslem mind.) A sudden wave of panic overtook the foremost Bashi-Bazouks. They turned to flee along the narrow, spilling wall from these strange men encased in metal—behind whom shone colourful and curious images that twisted and lifted in the wind of battle. The banner of St John the Baptist, the Banner of the Holy Virgin, and the Cross of the Order of St John became converted in the eyes of their opponents into terrifying djinns, devils from the abyss.
That is one explanation of the sudden flight of the leading Turks, who had gained a seemingly impregnable position on the ramparts—with all the city of Rhodes laid out before them. There are others. The Christian version was that a cross of gold appeared in the sky accompanied by the figures of the Virgin Herself, and by St John clad in goat skins and followed by a dazzling band of heavenly warriors. The more simple and prosaic explanation is that it was the very mass of the Turkish soldiers all piled together in so narrow a space that caused their ruin. When the leading Bashi-Bazouks met the small group that opposed them they turned in undisciplined fear, to be cut down by the officers and Janissaries behind them. As men spilled off the crumbling parapet, causing others to fall in their own ruin, no one knew what had caused the original panic. No one could make themselves heard above the din, smoke and confusion of battle, to restore order and to secure the advantage that they had won. In any case, in such encounters the advantage nearly always lies with the defenders. It is they who see ruin staring them in the face and they who, aware that only desolation and death await them, fight with the fury of the hopeless.
Unbelievably, so it seemed, the tide of battle turned. It was now the Turks who fled helter-skelter before the advancing tide of Knights and men-at-arms. Meanwhile the sharpshooters in the city below picked them off as they fled, silhouetted above the ruined walls of the Langue of Italy. ‘We cut them down like swine’ reads one account. Flying in panic confusion the Turks were chased back as far as their main camp at the foot of Mount St Stephen to the west of the city. Here the ultimate disgrace befell them: the Sultan’s standard, the Banner of the Grande Turke, was captured by the victorious Christians.
Estimates of the number of Turks slaughtered on this day vary from 3,500 to 5,000. The figures are probably exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the Turkish losses were severe, quite sufficient to make them lose heart in the whole campaign. Among those who fell were 300 Janissaries, who had stormed into the Jews’ Quarter and were cut off and killed to a man when the rest of their forces turned and fled. Caoursin in his description of the siege, which was printed in Venice in the same year, describes how the city was heaped with Turkish corpses, and how the defenders had to burn them to prevent a plague breaking out. The defenders’ losses were comparatively small, although one chronicler says that ten Knights were killed in the battle in the Jews’ Quarter alone. Whatever the true figures, the fact remains that the general engagement on July 27th marked the end of the Turkish attempt to destroy Rhodes. Within ten days their army had struck camp and was assembling on the beach at Trianda, that pleasant anchorage where they had landed in expectation of a quick campaign and easy plunder just three months before. Even now Misac Pasha did not give the order to embark, and the army remained in Rhodes for a further eleven days. No doubt he feared the Sultan’s anger: unsuccessful generals and unsuccessful politicians were not retired with honours at the Sublime Porte but had their heads divorced from their shoulders. In the event he was lucky and, upon his return, although threatened with execution, the Sultan relented and exiled him to Gallipoli.
Grand Master d’Aubusson, although his life was at first despaired of, recovered from his wounds. He was fortunate, as were the other Knights and all those who fought for the Order in this and other sieges, that the Order possessed the finest physicians and medical equipment in Europe. With a knowledge of hygiene, proper sanitation, and pure drinking water, the Order and its defenders always had the advantage over an enemy encamped under canvas, in insanitary conditions, and with only the most elementary medical care. Then, as in later centuries, an army in the field almost invariably suffered more losses from sickness and disease than from battle.
Rhodes and the Order of St John had survived, but the toll was a terribly heavy one. The fertile island looked as if clouds of locusts had passed over it, while ruined farms and houses, slaughtered animals and scorched grapevines, showed that the Turk in his passing was as great a destroyer as the Tartar or the Mongol. It would take years before the evidence of the siege of 1480 was effaced from the landscape, and many months before the ruined walls and towers could be restored. Had Mehmet himself returned with a fresh army the following year there can be no doubt what the result would have been. Rhodes at that moment could not have endured another siege. In the spring of 1481 the great conqueror himself led out his army to achieve what Misac Pasha had failed to do the expulsion of the Knights and the destruction of ‘their damnable Religion’. On his way south through Asia Minor he fell ill of dysentery, or a fever, and died. The Order was spared by the will of God.
Chapter 14
PEACE AND POWER
The main result of the siege of 1480 was to restore the Knights to a prominence in Europe which had largely escaped them ever since the loss of Outremer. Their raiding parties into Asia Minor, their successful galley actions against Egyptians and Turks, all these had seemed very peripheral activities to the powers of Europe, concerned with their own internal affairs and their external rivalries. But ever since the fall of Constantinople and the steady encroachment of the Turks upon European territory the eyes of Popes, rulers and princes had been increasingly turned towards the eastern frontiers of the continent. Out there, far away in the Aegean, so close to Asia Minor as almost to be part of Turkey itself, the island of Rhodes was Europe’s last hope in the East. The news that Mehmet II, the unconquerable Sultan, had sustained a major reverse at Rhodes, and that his army and fleet had been decimated and forced to turn tail, brought a new surge of hope. Perhaps Turkish fortunes were not irreversible? Perhaps this strange crusading Order, which for a long time had seemed an anachronism, was the potential instrument that might breach the main gate of the Turkish empire? Rhodes and the Knights who defended it were now seen as standing in the front rank holding back the hostile tide—unconquerable swords laying waste the infidel.
The outcome of 1480 was that gifts of money and munitions poured into the island from all over Europe. As one of the last secure ports of trade with the East, Rhodes attracted merchants and tradesmen, artisans and ship captains, as well as plain freebooters eager to operate under licence against the rich shipping routes of the Moslem world. D’Aubusson was not slow to catch on to the advantages to be gained for his island-state by this new and favourable light in which it was now held. He needed in any case as much money as he could get to repair the ravages of the Turkish occupation and siege. The towers and walls must rise again, but twice as powerful as before, and constructed to the designs of
the best military architects of the period. Among those who were sent on diplomatic missions was the Rhodian Vice-Chancellor, Caoursin, the author of the eyewitness account of the siege. As ambassador to the papal court he would make sure that the Pope and his cardinals, and everyone of importance who came within the papal circle, heard from his own lips of the gallantry of the Knights, of the terrible reverses of the Turks—and of the necessity to aid Rhodes in every possible way.
For forty years the Order of St John enjoyed an unprecedented period of prosperity, their reputation higher than ever before. Quite apart from the successful outcome of the siege there were other reasons for this. One was that there was a new feeling of optimism in the air since the opening up of the Atlantic trade routes to the New World gave western Europe the access to immense wealth which could not be denied them by the Turk. True, the old trade routes to the Far East were barred by the Ottoman Empire lying like a scimitar across all Asia Minor and the Near East, but the Knights had now inspired the hope that these two could in time be restored and Turkish power broken. (Perhaps, indeed, it could have been if the European powers had been prepared to support the Knights with men, as well as money and materials.) The other heady influence during this period emanated from Italy and spread like wildfire throughout Europe—the Renaissance. The fuse for this had been fit as long ago as 1204 when the Latin conquest of Constantinople had unleashed innumerable works of art, as well as artists and craftsmen, into the victorious city of Venice. Among the loot from Constantinople were the bronze horses that now adorn St Mark’s in Venice, the Byzantine enamels that decorate the famous Pala d’Oro in which rests the body of St Mark, and the finest Byzantine ivory casket in the world, the Veroli casket. Ever since then the influence of the ancient world had been gradually permeating Europe, and by the fifteenth century there came the flowering summer of speculation in science and philosophy, of technical and artistic achievement, and in the whole concept of man as the measure of the universe. In Rhodes these things will have had comparatively little impact, for the Knights were bound to a system of ideas and a way of life that was at complete variance with the new thought. Nevertheless even here the influence of the Renaissance was to be felt, particularly in the scientific study of military architecture; in the great advances that had been made in cannon-foundry and weapon design; and in the elaboration of the galley into a work of art as well as a more efficient weapon of war.
But what above all gave the Order of St John during these years the opportunity to turn their small state into an almost model kingdom of efficiency and prosperity was the dispute over the Ottoman succession that followed upon the death of Mehmet II. The Sultan had had three sons, the eldest of whom had been strangled on his father’s orders for seducing a wife of his chief Vizir. (Fornication, adultery and sodomy were common enough in Turkey, but even a son must be sacrificed if it meant retaining the good will and loyal service of a senior administrative official.) The two sons who disputed the imperial throne were Bajazet, the second son, and Djem, the youngest. At first glance it might seem that Djem had no claim to the throne, but his and his supporters’ contention was that he had been born when his father was already Sultan, whereas Bajazet had been born before he had ascended the throne. This conception of being ‘born in the purple’ was a Byzantine inheritance, and might casuistically just be held to refer to the throne of Constantinople. It could hardly be considered as applying to all the lands of the Ottoman Empire, where the Moslem writ held good that the eldest son must succeed. Nevertheless it was upon Djem’s claim, and the dispute between the two brothers, that d’Aubusson, as skilful in the wiles of diplomacy as in the arts of war, managed to secure the Order a long breathing space during which to put its house in order.
Defeated by his elder brother in 1482 in a battle at Bursa, the ancient capital of the Ottomans before their acquisition of Constantinople, Djem had fled to Egypt where he failed to arouse the support of the ruling Mamelukes. After a further attempt against his brother, in which he was yet again defeated, Djem in his search for an ally and protector turned to the Grand Master of the Order of St John. The choice may seem incongruous, but the fact was that he had had a close and friendly relationship with d’Aubusson since he had been employed by his father as an ambassador to the Order. The Knights in any case were the principal enemies of the Sultan, and the Sultan was now Bajazet. If Djem could enlist their help and have himself made Sultan he would be quite agreeable to coming to such terms with them as would guarantee their security in Rhodes, while at the same time guaranteeing his own upon the throne. Pretenders and contenders for thrones have commonly looked towards their country’s enemies for succour and support.
So, in the midsummer of 1482, the youngest son of Mehmet II sailed into the harbour of Rhodes in the Order’s flagship, with an escort specially provided for him by the Knights of St John. He received a reception worthy of a reigning monarch, the whole city en fête, the balconies dense with Rhodian beauties eager to behold the son of the man who had tried to destroy their city, and the pavements thronged with citizens, sailors and foreign visitors. The Grand Master himself accompanied by the Council waited on their mounts to receive their guest. Djem himself was ugly, he squinted, he was short—though immensely broad—and had physically little to commend him except the bravery of his robes and his jewelled turban. But the fact remained that he was symbolic of the might of his father, and of that great empire which Mehmet had everywhere led to victory—except at Rhodes itself.
Djem became d’Aubusson’s personal guest and the Grand Master showered upon him all the entertainment of which the island was capable, from feasts and banquets where—like his father before him—he showed, contrary to the edict of the Prophet, a considerable fondness for wine. But although treated with every mark of favour and consideration he was a prisoner none the less, watched always by a detail of Knights: as much for his own protection as for anything else, for the spies and poisoners of the Sultan had a way of infiltrating into the cities of their enemies. It was probably on this account that d’Aubusson came to the conclusion that Djem was too much of a liability to be allowed to remain in the island. Enemies of d’Aubusson and of the Order have maintained that the unfortunate Djem was used quite cynically as a pawn on the chessboard, and that the decision to send him away to Europe was only made because d’Aubusson envisaged that he could be more useful there in any subsequent dealings with the Sultan Bajazet.
The true facts are unlikely ever to be known, but on the face of it it seems reasonable enough to have sent him to a place of greater security than Rhodes. In the autumn of 1482 Djem was accordingly despatched in the Order’s flagship, destined for France and for the mother house of d’Aubusson’s Langue, Auvergne. Documents which Djem left behind for custody in the Order’s archives included one which gave the Order his authority to treat with Bajazet and secure from him a guarantee that the necessary funds would be made available to pay for Djem’s maintenance in the style that befitted a son of Mehmet, and a further document declaring that he left Rhodes of his own free will. A third, contingent on Djem’s ever regaining the throne, bound him, his heirs, and even his future successors to lasting friendship with the Order of St John.
If Djem could indeed be restored, then d’Aubusson would have secured a diplomatic triumph. If, on the other hand, as seemed likely, Bajazet was too firmly entrenched upon the throne ever to be shifted then a second line of policy must be adopted designed to secure his good will towards the Order. In the winter of 1482 a treaty was signed between Bajazet and the Order in which the former proclaimed that he would pay a large annual compensation to make good for the damage caused to the island during his father’s reign, and that he would also pay an even larger annual sum to the Order for his brother’s subsistence while in Europe.
Djem’s subsequent history—while tragic enough—has little bearing upon the Order in Rhodes. Having failed to secure any promises from the king of France for action against Bajazet, Djem, after a lot of
tortuous correspondence between d’Aubusson and Pope Innocent, finally arrived in Rome as the Pope’s guest. Here he remained, even after the accession of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, a prisoner, but well treated and accorded all the respect due to his rank. After further intrigue he was handed over as a hostage for the good behaviour of Pope Alexander to Charles VIII of France who had invaded Italy. He died at Terracina in Italy in 1495.
As usual, since the Borgias were involved, it was widely reported that he had been poisoned. This seems highly unlikely, for no one had anything to gain by his death—least of all d’Aubusson, who was also rumoured to have been privy to the plot. While Djem was alive the Hospitallers, the Pope, and the European powers had a powerful hostage in their hands, and one who could always serve as a useful figurehead if any opportunity arose to unseat his brother Bajazet. If d’Aubusson can be censured it is not for despatching him from Rhodes to France in the first place, but for having allowed him to be transferred to Rome which brought him into the hands of Alexander VI, and then of King Charles VIII. The charge of poisoning was common enough in those days when medicine was so little understood, and Terracina in the vicinity of the Pontine marshes was hardly the healthiest of places. Djem is just as likely to have died of malaria or of ordinary food poisoning as by any machinations of the Borgias.
The Order itself had nothing to gain by Djem’s death. Alive, he was valuable in any bargaining that might take place between Rhodes and Constantinople. Dead he was worthless. Some of the censures that have been directed against d’Aubusson derive from the fact that the Grand Master is seen to have been playing international politics with Djem as a pawn. But d’Aubusson of course, like all Grand Masters of any consequence, was a political animal. He had to be. He was head of a sovereign state, and one which, small though it was, was of extraordinary complexity. Because of its international character the Order was a microcosm of all Europe. Its Grand Master, indeed, was the only European to rule over a composite of nations which reflected the interests and concerns of some of the richest and most powerful families in many nations. Furthermore he could never afford to break with the papacy—whoever might be Pope. This fact almost certainly accounts for d’Aubusson’s original, if reluctant, agreement to hand Djem over to Innocent VIII. It is clear, at any rate, that d’Aubusson saw the death of Djem as the beginning of new difficulties for the Order. Within a year we find the Grand Master writing off to Sicily to enlist help from any shipowners or sea captains who might be prepared to bring their vessels to Rhodes and assist in the war against the infidel. He was, in effect, offering letters of marque to any privateers who cared to come and avail themselves of the rich pickings to be had on the Moslem trade routes.
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