For centuries the Order of St.John later to be later known as the Knights of Malta had been the indomitable protectors of Christianity.  When the Crusaders took the city of Jerusalem in July 1099, within the confines of the Holy Shrine they took the duties of Hospitallers.  The hostility of the Muslims and need to safeguard the Holy Land entitled the order to endorse also into a Military role.  More fighting and conflicts ensued.   The superiority of Muslim army was so large that it was impossible to make any attempt at resistance.

When the Muslims regained control of the Holy Land, the Knights relocated to Rhodes.  As the Hospitallers could no longer fight the Muslims on dry land, the sea became the theatre of the military action of the "Religion", as the Order came to be called.

 Rhodes was the best operative base as it was the meeting point of the routes from the East and the West.  Very soon, Rhodes became a landmark that belongs to the Order.

The nobility of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and England sent their younger sons to serve under the Order. It was decided to gather the Hospitallers into groups according to their countries of origin.  Originally, the Langues were seven, namely Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, England (with Scotland and Ireland) and Germany. Later, in 1462, Castille and Portugal split from Aragon to form the eighth Langue.
As the Order was becoming stronger and stronger day by day, the Ottomans attacked repeatedly in order to drive their enemy out of the Mediterranean. 

On December 24th of 1522, following six months of fighting, the Turks took possession of the island of Rhodes.

There, they fought the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, putting up such an impressive defense that after a protracted siege Suleiman allowed them to withdraw with honours. 

At sunrise on January 10th the Order of the Hospital left the land that had been its home for more than two centuries.  After many difficulties the fleet of the Order landed at Civitavecchia at the end of July.

The next seven years saw the Knights wandering homelessly around the Mediterranean Sea. The geographical position of Malta made it a natural bastion from where the Knights could monitor all the movements of the Turkish fleet which was becoming increasingly aggressive and sailed the seas undisturbed. The Spanish Sovereign took this matter into account.  On the 23rd March 1530 King Charles of Spain bequeathed the Island of Malta and Tripoli to the Knights of Saint John, who were at that time under the command of Grand Master L’Isle Adam.  Some months later, the Order reached Malta and solemnly took possession of the Island.

An Ottoman force of 10,000 men led by Dragut attacked Malta and Gozo in 1551. In spite of the fact that they failed to seize Malta, the Turks pillaged the island of Gozo and enslaved all the inhabitants with the exception of the elderly. After Gozo, Dragut made straight for Tripoli, where he defeated the Knights and banished them.

This was a very serious blow for the Knights. Grand Master D’Homedes’ immediate reaction was to defend the Maltese shores and to strengthen the forts of Saint Angelo and Saint Elmo, while at the same time erecting the new Fort Saint Michael.
 

It was on the 18th May 1565 that the Turks launched their massive attack against Malta. The Turkish historian Pecevi asserts that the number of galleasses and every other kind of vessel reached the total of 300.

Malta, site of many a siege in its history, was a formidable target. Jean de Valette was in command of the defense, a seventy-year-old who had fought Suleiman's forces years earlier at Rhodes.

The Knights themselves, 700 strong fighting alongside 8,500 Maltese men-at-arms, tough enough opponents, were made even tougher by strong fortifications on the southern edge of Malta's main port of Grand Harbour.

There, two peninsulas entered the harbour and both possessed strong defenses. The western peninsula, called Senglea, was completed encircled by the walls of Fort St. Michael. The eastern peninsula, Birgu, had the smaller Castel Sant'Angelo on its tip while its approaches were walled off by the bastion of the Post of Castile. The fortified village of Birgu lay in between. The walls fronting both the peninsulas were not very strong, as the defense had been planned to beat back a naval attack, not one from the landward side. Across the harbour juts another peninsula, Sciberras. It is the northern boundary of Grand Harbour and the southern boundary of another, the harbour of Marsamxett. At its tip, protecting the entrances to both harbours, was Fort St. Elmo.

In an unusual move, Suleiman did not command the invasion; instead, he appointed his favourite general, the seventy-year old Mustapha Pasha, to lead the army while naming his grandson by marriage, Admiral Piali, to command the fleet. The two disliked each other and in a second unusual decision, Suleiman put neither in overall command. To assist both army and navy, corsair King Dragut of Tripoli provided a further 3,000 soldiers and was to be the mediator between the two commanders.  

Admiral Piali feared the west wind and decided to fleet the galleys in Marsamxett.  The lack of coordination between the navy and the army lead only to sporadic attacks and the forces of the ottoman empire were staggering and unfocused. 

The Turks brought (in addition to their normal complement of artillery) three specially cast cannon for the battle, one firing 200-pound stone balls, the other two firing 90-pound iron balls. Their initial target was Fort St. Elmo, and on 27 May the cannonade began.

Although much less strong than the forts across the harbour, Fort St. Elmo held out for a month. Mustapha had hoped to attack the fort from both the landward side and from the harbour against the southern face, but a chain strung across the mouth of Grand Harbour made the naval bombardment impossible.

The elite Turkish Janissaries attempted to scale the walls with ladders, but Knights armed with Greek fire and their own artillery repeatedly turned them back.

At night boats would ferry reinforcements across Grand Harbour and remove the wounded. When the fort finally fell on 23 June only nine Knights remained alive. These prisoners Mustapha beheaded, then crucified the bodies and floated them across the harbour so the remaining Knights could ponder their own fate. Valette returned the favour by executing Turkish prisoners and firing their severed heads out of his cannon.

The excessive time of over a month lapsing before Saint Elmo was finally taken; the valour shown by Knights and Maltese alike; the death of notorious high-commander Dragut: all these were major setbacks against the Turks that eventually led to Grand Master La Vallette’s and his Knights’ triumph in the Great Siege.

After losing some 8,000 men taking the weakest of the three forts, Mustapha tried to offer the Knights terms to abandon the island, as Suleiman had done at Rhodes.  In return, Valette offered him the ditch at the base of his fort's walls, where he was welcome to leave the bodies of his Janissaries.

Mustapha prepared for a fight to the death and ordered the bulk of his army around the harbour to attack Forts St. Michael and Sant'Angelo. He also dragged eighty galleys across the Sciberras peninsula, just as Sultan Mehmet had done to facilitate his conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

This gave Mustapha the ability to bombard the forts from both landward and seaward sides. To counter this, Valette ordered another chain strung across the Bay of the Galleys. As the Turks were marching off Sciberras to take up positions below St. Michael and Sant'Angelo, reinforcements numbering 600 Spanish soldiers, 56 artillerymen, and 42 Knights landed on the north side of Malta and quickly marched overland and entered Birgu before the Turks could stop them.

The first assault on St. Michael came on 15 July, when boatloads of Turks debarked from the galleys and tried to land on the Senglea peninsula's western shore. They were held back by underwater wooden stakes driven into the floor of the harbour while a second thrust attempting to get past the chain at the mouth of the Bay of Galleys was destroyed by cannon fire from Sant'Angelo.

After that the Turks held back on their attacks but maintained an almost continuous bombardment of both peninsulas. When an attack against Fort St. Michael broke through the outer walls on 7 August, a timely attack on the Turkish rear by a cavalry force from Mdina relieved the pressure and forced a withdrawal, saving the fort.

By the first of September both sides were growing desperate. The defenders had lost some 5,000 killed, including more than 200 Knights. Only about 600 men (including walking wounded) manned the walls. The Turks, while suffering casualties from both combat and disease, still heavily outnumbered the Knights of St. John, but they were unprepared for a siege that would last through the winter.

The arrival of promised reinforcements from Sicily under Garcia de Toledo brought the siege to an end. Toledo secretly debarked 8,000 troops on the island's northern Bay of Mellieha, then marched them to occupy the high ground of Naxxar, between Mdina and the harbour.

Hearing of this, Mustapha began embarking his men. When, however, he learned of the size of the relief force, he ordered his men back off the ships and into combat. It was not a wise decision.

Tired and dispirited Turkish troops had little success trying to beat back a mad charge by the newly arrived Knights of St. John, who lusted for revenge. A small force briefly held some high ground, but when they were overrun the remnants of the Turkish army fled for their galleys.

Mustapha himself commanded a rearguard that bought his men sufficient time, but by the evening of 8 September the Ottoman ships were rowing eastward for Constantinople.

On the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, on 8th September (henceforth also known as ‘Victory Day’), the Te Deum was sung in a procession through the streets of Vittoriosa and a solemn mass was celebrated at the Church of Saint Lawrence, where Grand Master La Vallette was accustomed to offer his prayers.

After the Great Siege, the Knights built the City of Valletta in honour of their victory. They adorned it over the years, making it one of the most beautiful cities in the Mediterranean - a truly Baroque City.

When the Ottoman galleys were defeated in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, Malta was no longer threatened by the Turks. As years went by, the Turks lost their interest in the Mediterranean. Thus, the reason for the existence of the Order became questionable. The life of many Knights started to degenerate. Few indeed could be praised for their exemplary conduct. Intrigue and discord among the Knights spread like a rampant disease.

The end of the eighteenth century witnessed the appearance of a great leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. The French General gained strong support among several Knights, especially since the most important language within the Order was French. It was through the manoeuvre of young French Knights, together with some help from Maltese accomplices, that the change in rule was gradually achieved and Napoleon Bonaparte could take over his command of the Maltese islands. This he was able to do in early June 1798. Yet another long reign in Maltese History, this time of 268 years, had come to an end.