Knights of Malta – Ingliando

On this day, one of the longest sieges in history, from 1648-1669 (21 years), came to an end when the Venetian defenders finally surrendered the City of Candia on the island of Crete to the besieging Ottoman troops. When the Knights of Malta attacked an Ottoman convoy and landed at Candia with the loot, the Ottomans retaliated with 60,000 troops taking the whole of the island from 1645-1648, except for the capital city of Candia. When the French abandoned Candia in August 1669, Captain General Francesco Morosini was left with just 3,600 fit men and very limited supplies. He had little choice but to accept the terms and surrender to Ahmed Köprülü, the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. However, the effort and cost of the siege contributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, especially after the Great Turkish War.

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On this day, Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan and leader of the Ottoman Empire, made his second attempt to conquer the island of Malta in a siege that lasted almost four months. Having driven the Knights Hospitaller out of their island stronghold in Rhodes in 1522, Suleiman was determined to drive them out of Malta and to use the island as a strategical stepping stone in his long-term plan to conquer more of Europe. The islands of Malta and Gozo had been granted to the Knights in 1530 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and they had quickly turned the island of Malta into an important naval base, renaming themselves the Knights of Malta. Although heavily outnumbered by the Ottoman troops during the ‘Great Siege of Malta’, the Knights and their Spanish, Greek, Italian and Sicilian allies managed to fight off the invaders who eventually retreated on the 8th September.

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