Navy of the Sovereign Order of Malta

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The Great Port of Valletta with ships of the line and galleys of the Order of Malta Navy, painting from 1801

The Navy of the Sovereign Order of Malta was the first Navy of an Order of Knights ; it had its first tasks to cope with in the late Middle Ages. It took part in pilgrimages, crusades, many battles and skirmishes in the Middle Ages and modern times for several centuries and was effectively dissolved with the capture of Malta by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.

The Order of Malta flag was also used by the Order's navy
Two other variants of the flag of the Navy of the Order of Malta

history

Beginnings in the Middle Ages

The task of many orders of knights that existed in the Middle Ages ( German Order , Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem , Order of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem and the Knights Templar ) consisted of protecting pilgrims and promoting pilgrimages to the Holy Land and supporting sick citizens as well as to ensure the fight against unbelief.

While pilgrimages in the 11th century mostly still took the arduous land route, the faster and supposedly safer sea ​​route was later increasingly preferred, which was organized in particular from the cities of Venice , Genoa , Pisa and Marseille as well as other Italian and French trading communities and, to a limited extent, by a considerable demand and regular execution of the trips, literally resembled a regular service.

So it was not surprising that the knightly orders known at the time undertook ship transports in order to be able to realize two of their main goals at the time - the promotion of pilgrimage and the protection of pilgrims. In addition to these goals, economic interests later also played a role.

The first beginnings of registered ship activities in the service of the orders go back to the 12th century. The establishment of the order's own fleets began at the end of the 12th century. Chartered ships from Catalonia , Provence and Italy have been handed down by the Order of St. John . An admiral is known from the documents for the first time in 1299 . Just as different offices were assigned to individual tongues (i.e. languages), the Italian tongue held the office of admiral.

Other surviving records of ship activities date from the 13th century, dated to 1216, which allowed the Knights Templar and the Order of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem to undertake unrestricted ship trips from Marseille laden with goods, pilgrims and merchants to the Holy Land.

However, the Marseille shipowners saw themselves disadvantaged by this regulation, so that the crossings to the Holy Land were later limited by the Supreme Court of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to two ships per year and 1,500 pilgrims per ship.

The sea route became more and more important, as the Ottomans conquered areas in the Balkans , Greece and Asia Minor, and there were hardly any alternatives left to reach the Christian pilgrimage destinations unharmed by land. The sea route almost always led via the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean , where the Order of St. John later had its central seat.

In addition to the transport of traders, goods and pilgrims on the existing ships, military needs also finally arose. The military alignment of religious armies was initially only designed for overland routes. Since successful military campaigns also required the careful and rapid transfer of armed forces and military logistics, transport ships (mostly merchant ships) were used by the armed forces of the Order in the Middle Ages.

The order of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem (whose members were also called hospitallers or hospitallers) was the first order to build a (war) navy, as it is defined by today's understanding, towards the end of the Middle Ages.

If the number of these ships was initially still quite small, the fleets of the various orders were evidently expanded according to their own needs and circumstances.

Conquest of Rhodes and establishment of the order there

Galley of the Order, painting by Charles-François Grenier de Lacroix from 1765
Battle of the Order's galleys off Rhodes, drawing / copper engraving by Stefano della Bella
The galley harbor of Rhodes, etching by Albert Berg from 1861
Another view of the galley port of Rhodes. The dam of Saint Nicolas is also shown here, etching by Albert Berg from 1861

After disputes between the Order and the King of Cyprus , the then Grand Master Foulques de Villaret came up with the plan in 1306 to conquer Rhodes , which was poorly defended by Byzantium , which he succeeded in 1309. The order established a central base here and began to expand the existing fortifications.

The ships held in reserve for the Order of St. John were mainly used to defend the island of Rhodes at this time. But they also took part in distant sea battles, such as the sea ​​battle near Evia in 1344, in which the order placed six of the 25 participating ships under the leadership of a papal legate . The ships of the order were commanded here by Giovanni de Biandrate .

Battle of Tunis in 1535 with the participation of the order
Battle of Lepanto in 1571

A harbor basin in Rhodes Town was designated as the berth for the order's navy in Rhodes : the galley harbor . The port entrance was protected by two fortifications , a defense tower on one side and the fortress of St. Elmo on the opposite side. The access to the main port could also be secured with an iron chain located just above the waterline so that enemy ships could not enter any of the downstream ports. In addition to the galley harbor in Rhodes Town, there were also larger natural harbors on the entire island, which were secured with defense towers and could also be used as replacement berths.

In the decades after 1344 the number of ships of the order decreased. Participation in sea operations and naval battles also decreased, which in 1420 even led to public criticism by Venetian traders in Crete , especially since the order had promised to keep ten galleys in stock after the conquest of Rhodes , which was apparently not kept.

According to historians, these circumstances were due to the fact that there were problems in getting locals interested in military service so that additional ships could not have been manned.

What is certain, however, is the knowledge that a limited number of ships were always kept on Rhodes or in relative proximity to the order base in order to guarantee the protection of the island.

When a fleet of Mamluks appeared off Rhodes in 1440 , the seven galleys and ten smaller ships of the order had to oppose a superior force in order to prevent the capture of important parts of the island. The order's fleet under Marshal Pierre du Boys was able to move the Mamluks fleet to retreat in 1440 with heavy losses. This then moved towards the Turkish coast, where the ships of the order had to give up the pursuit due to the too high draft. The next day, the Mamluks' fleet moved towards Kos , destroyed many of the order's facilities and enslaved the inhabitants.

At times, the number of galleys on Rhodes tripled, but usually there were only three to four galleys and a few barges and smaller ships in the island's ports or in the surrounding waters.

The order finally received support from Christian ships without religious affiliation, which were equipped with letters of misery and allowed to bring in Muslim ships and their cargoes from the ports of the order.

The piracy organized in this way , which incidentally was also carried out with ships of the Navy, brought the order considerable income . During the two hundred years of residence on Rhodes, the ships of the order became the most feared corsairs in the Mediterranean.

The many armed conflicts with the Mameluks and the strong competition from the Venetian pilgrim transports with the so-called Venetian Jaffa galleys now meant that the order hardly carried out any pilgrimage transports.

The Republic of Venice had secured appropriate protection contracts with the Mameluks and cheap mooring fees in the ports of Jaffa , so that the pilgrims could travel relatively safely and cheaply with these providers to the Holy Land and thus increasingly use Jaffa galleys.

This was possible because Venice maintained lively trade with the Ottomans and avoided armed conflicts as far as possible. Even after armed conflicts, the Republic of Venice did an excellent job of reviving trade with the former enemy as quickly as possible. The Order was unable to carry out this balancing act, as the fight against unbelief was constantly on its agenda and therefore the “people of other faiths” had to be fought instead of trading with them or concluding agreements.

In any case, the pilgrimages were hardly profitable for Johanniter and many other Western providers, as ship losses through hijacking and draconian mooring fees in the destination ports made the project almost incalculable.

The demand for pilgrimages with ships of the knights of the order sank enormously, so that one of the most important orders of the order, namely to promote the pilgrimage, could hardly be pursued and was ultimately neglected.

Expulsion from Rhodes in 1523, new beginning and establishment in Malta

Depiction of the siege of Malta in 1565. In the upper right third of the picture, Fort St. Angelo is provided with an oversized order flag. To the right of St. Angelo, between the two headlands, the small galley harbor is shown.
Sea battle of Foça 1649
Photo detail from the galley harbor of Malta. On the left are the thick fortress walls of Fort St. Angelo.
Depiction of the Battle of the Dardanelles in 1656 with the participation of the order
Meeting between the Maltese and Turks in the Mediterranean Sea in 1645 . Depiction of the attack by the order galleys Capitaine de Malte , St. Johann , St. Joseph , St. Laurentz , St. Maria and Victoria on Turkish ships off Rhodes
Fighting an Ottoman galleon by galleys of the Order under the command of General Boisbaudran, painting from 1650
Painting of a naval battle between an Ottoman ship and two ships of the order under the command of Langon in 1719 - here the order already uses ships of the line .

Due to its strategically favorable key location, Rhodes was a constant disruptive factor for the Ottoman Empire . Since the Ottomans wanted to secure a supremacy in the Mediterranean, it is not surprising that the Sublime Porte made several attempts to take the island. By December 1522, however, all attempts were successfully repelled.

It was not until 1522 that an invasion army sent by Suleyman I was able to land on Rhodes and shoot the fortifications with heavy artillery ready to attack, whereupon the knights under Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam surrendered on December 22, 1522 and had to give up the island. The surviving members of the order were given safe conduct and in January 1523 they departed on five galleys of the order's navy.

After the loss of Rhodes, the order was initially without a central seat and without a basis for its main task, which was actually in the Holy Land. Some of the fled knights settled in Crete or withdrew to the other possessions of the order in Europe.

In order to prevent further forays of the Ottomans to the west and to be able to militarily counter the dreaded Ottoman fleets and corsairs in the Mediterranean, Emperor Charles V gave the islands of Malta and Gozo as well as Tripoli, which was conquered by Spain in 1509, to the knights as a fiefdom . The headquarters of the order has now been established in Malta - in the following years the name of the Order of Malta became established .

Since the defenses and port facilities on the island did not correspond to the state of the art and also did not meet the military requirements, the existing defenses were expanded and new facilities were built.

The “Great Port” of the city of Birgu was established as the base of the order's navy . In 1552 the Fort St. Elmo was built here, so that the “Great Harbor” in front of the galley base could be protected by this fortification. However, the facility was almost completely destroyed during the siege of Malta in 1565 and was not renewed until Valletta was rebuilt.

Fort St. Angelo , which was also upstream and was expanded into a sea fortress in 1670, was intended to prevent possible attacks on the city from the sea and at the same time protect the fleet from destruction. The galley harbor (Porto dele Galere) was located in a separate, artificially constructed harbor basin behind Fort St. Angelo and could therefore be well defended from here. The construction of the Cotonera Lines fortification, also begun in 1670 and completed in 1760, finally added to the defensive capabilities of the existing fortifications and served to protect the important structures of the Order of St. John in the area of ​​the Grand Harbor, to prevent shelling of this area from the heights in front and to create a refuge for the rural population.

The naval supply and equipment center was also located near the galley harbor: warehouses, workshops and a naval bakery were built here alongside accommodation for soldiers and dock workers. When the volume of the fleet increased, the adjacent larger harbor basin known today as “Dockyard Creek” was also used as a berth for ships of the order. St. Elmo was expanded in 1687 and 1689 by another defensive ring, so that guns could also be set up here and the fleet could now be protected by two upstream fortifications.

The shipyards were traditionally located in Kalkara . Unless the order appropriated the ships of the navy by leasing, capturing or buying them from abroad, they were manufactured here. Similar to the base in Birgu, the shipyards were protected by a sea fortress built in 1670, Fort Ricasoli .

The order also had naval bases on the neighboring island of Gozo . The Mġarr ix-Xini gorge , which was cut into the rock by a primeval river, flows into a small bay that was used by the knights as a galley port and at the level of the port entrance was provided with a tower to defend the base. In addition, there was also a naval base with a galley port in the port of Mġarr on the southern tip of Gozo .

After the naval battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, a general change in strategy in naval warfare could be observed: if it was common before and in the naval battle of Lepanto to sail large fleets of the Sublime Porte and the Christian nations, including knights of the order, against each other, this followed Battle both warring sides to use small parts of the fleet. In addition, both sides increasingly used the instrument of piracy or corsairism to weaken the other side. The order followed this strategy with its military orientation. The Maltese corsairs wrote their own chapter in the history of piracy.

Expulsion from Malta and the end of the Navy

Not only the Christian orders of knights waged wars and skirmishes, in 1792 coalition wars broke out in Europe . France, under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte , strove for supremacy in Europe and thus also in the Mediterranean region.

Bonaparte finally undertook an Egyptian expedition between 1798 and 1801 to weaken the supremacy of the British in the Mediterranean region. On the way to Egypt was Malta, which, strategically located, could play a key role for dominance in the Mediterranean and was therefore also important for French interests.

Bonaparte landed on the island in 1798 with his fleet of over 400 ships and, with only a few skirmishes and without great losses for both sides, forced the surrender of Malta from the Knights of Malta.

The order also had to hand over parts of its fleet to Bonaparte and finally leave Malta with the remaining ships. The French fleet then sailed on, but left 3,000 soldiers, including five batteries of artillery, as occupation troops in order to maintain control of Malta and prevent the Knights of Malta from returning. A British fleet under Nelson , Graham and Pigot nevertheless managed to starve the French stationed there on September 4, 1804 after a long siege of Malta and to force them to surrender the island.

After this was liberated from the French occupiers, the first preparations were made to re-establish the order in Malta. The appointment of a council was organized and all important offices were filled, even a governor-general was appointed. Even the provision of ships for the order's navy from Kronstadt was already settled when the British opposed these plans and decided not to vacate the island. The Amiens peace treaty stipulated that Malta should go back to the Order and be subject to permanent neutrality guaranteed by all major European powers . But since the British feared renewed French influence on the island and Malta was strategically located in the Mediterranean Sea, the 26th article of the compensation plan of the Amiens peace treaty was simply not implemented.

The British kept Malta and finally added the island to the British Empire in 1814 . As after the expulsion from Rhodes, the order did not have its own central seat and was without a base for its own fleet.

The end of the crusade movement as well as the end of the order's navy were thus initiated by these overall circumstances - the order's navy was not re-established after 1798.

Hierarchy, equipment and composition of the Navy of the Order

Battle of two ships of the line under the knight Jacques François de Chambray against an Ottoman flagship in 1732

An admiral was responsible for the order's fleet , but he was mainly responsible for administrative tasks. He was responsible for the order's armed ships and their crews. He was authorized to charter additional ships and to hire sailors and soldiers .

From 1462 the Admiral of the Order was also responsible for the Greek fleet and had his own bookkeeping regarding the materials for the construction and equipment of the ships. He was subordinate to the Marshal of the Order and had to assist him when he went out for sea operations.

The Grand Master of the Order had to provide all the funds for the fleet, while the Treasurer paid for the galleys and crews. However, the order was partially in the fortunate position of being able to fall back on papal funds for arming the ships . In addition, the order received many material support from regents through the construction and subsequent leasing of ships, for example. B. by Margrave Heinrich III. or King Richard the Lionheart .

The captains of the Order's fleet were formally referred to as "commanders of the ship".

Finally there was an elected “Commander of the Fleet” (also called: “Commander of the galleys”) on Rhodes, who was subordinate to the Admiral. He was allowed to propose to the admiral the captains of the other ships in the order's fleet.

The ship's crews of the order are usually made up of members of the order, the sailors mostly from residents hired in port cities or mercenaries who are experienced in combat, e.g. B. the so-called. Prussian ship children together. In the Order of St. John it was also customary for the "brothers" to take care of their own weapons for close combat.

The order, like the French navy, also benefited from the fact that a large number of French knights served in the navy of the Order of St. John in Malta. It was expected of a French knight stationed in Malta that he would perform patrol duty on a galley of the order, or in the 18th century on sailing warships or ships of the line of the order.

When the order came to its seamen and soldiers in this way, the French navy benefited in reverse from the fact that the knights sent back had combat and sea experience and could therefore be preferred in their own circle of the navy, provided they had proven themselves in the service of the order. This procedure then also brought about historical celebrities such as the French admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse , who performed his naval service as a youth on ships of the order. However, this regulation had a disadvantage: When France went to war, it withdrew a large part of its knights from the service of the order, so that the order was faced with sudden personnel shortages.

Ships of the Order (selection)

The order's navy has been equipped with different types of ships over the centuries. A basic distinction was made between galleys and sailors. These have also been run in parallel administrations since 1700. Until shortly before the end of the order, the galley was the most important type of ship. It was primarily intended for boarding combat, but with its main gun it also had a long-range weapon that was dangerous for sailing ships. The galleys differed in their size, because there were both flagship galleys, i.e. galleys on which the commander of the fleet sailed, and "ordinary" galleys. In rare cases, half-galleys were apparently also used.

Rowed launches were also used for special occasions, such as ceremonies of the grand master or representative purposes. Smaller rowed vehicles were assigned to the galleys as service vehicles and placed under the control or used as scouts or in port service. In addition to smaller ships such as barges and even smaller ships and boats such as B. Tartans , the use of Schebecken , some of which were equipped for rowing, is documented.

For many years, a "large ship" (Navis Grossa or Grande Nef) was always kept in store, which, according to paintings and drawings from that time, must have been carracks as well as galleons.

Later, high-walled types of ships equipped with many guns, such as galleons and later ships of the line, influenced the shipbuilding of the various navies, as these ships were able to hold their own against a majority of galleys. The order's navy did not shut itself off from this development either: these were mostly double decks, each equipped with 50 to 60 cannons . Although the upkeep of these ships devoured almost 45% of the order's income, they continued to be used increasingly to combat Muslim shipping.

The use of a corvette is also documented.

Battles, skirmishes and expeditions with the participation of the Order's Navy (selection)

Personalities in the service of the Order's Navy (selection)

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The order was also called the Order of St. John , later called the Order of Malta - see also History of the Order of St. John
  2. ↑ a b after Hasecker
  3. ↑ a b After Hasecker, p. 57.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j after Upton-Ward
  5. ^ Jürgen Sarnowsky: The Johanniter. Munich 2011, p. 37.
  6. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, also according to Hasecker, p. 58. The high number of 1,500 pilgrims per ship is, however, viewed by experts as exaggerated; However, Hasecker deduces from this that the Johanniter had established themselves in these pilgrimage transports.
  7. ↑ after Hasecker, p. 58.
  8. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, p. 41 ff., E.g. B. Knights Templar .
  9. ↑ According to today's understanding of the term "navy" or "Kriegsmarine", these ships did not fall under this definition, as the ships were also used as merchant ships and for other civil purposes and were also not exclusively purchased and maintained for naval troop transport or other military purposes were.
  10. ↑ here in contrast to the merchant navy
  11. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, in the year 1300 the orders of the Templars, Hospitallers and the King of Cyprus together could only muster 16 galleys.
  12. ↑ Specialist literature assumes that della Bella was in 1644/45 as a kind of drawing "war reporter" in the Mediterranean and portrayed the battle between the order's galleys and Ottoman ships - according to Divid Klemm, p. 9.
  13. ↑ to Hammer-Purgstall
  14. ↑ So z. B. in Lindos .
  15. ^ After Upton-Ward; The public complaint by the Venetian trader Emmanuele Piloti has come down to us.
  16. ^ After Upton-Ward. For a galley of the Order, around 200 armed soldiers plus crew were required per ship. The order is said to have had problems reaching this number for the existing ships.
  17. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, this allegation at Rhodes is exemplarily documented as follows: In 1461 there was the so-called large ship of the order Galley of the Guard , which was permanently stationed on Rhodes. From 1481 to 1488 there was another large ship, the Navis Grossa (also called Grande Nef ), which was also stationed here.
  18. ↑ a b According to Upton-Ward in 1522 the Navis Grossa , the three barges Galiega , Barciotto and Marietta and 16 other ships were intended for service in the coastal waters of Rhodes.
  19. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, corresponding corso contracts are first handed down from the years 1413 and 1416.
  20. ↑ Most literature describes piracy as corsair
  21. ↑ According to Hasecker, p. 75, from 1421 Catalan pirates were on the move in the Mediterranean, starting their operations from Rhodes and causing considerable damage to the Egyptian trade.
  22. ↑ a b According to Kramer and Reinkowski, p. 58.
  23. ↑ The Republic of Venice maintained regular profitable pilgrimages from Venice to the port city of Jaffa .
  24. ↑ after Ridler
  25. ↑ According to Kramer and Reinkowski, p. 53ff.
  26. ^ After Riley-Smith. Note: The known literature describes the capture of Malta by Bonaparte contradicting itself. There are depictions that depict the knights of Malta surrendering without a fight because, according to the order's code of conduct, no fights against Christians were allowed. Riley-Smith has apparently researched more closely here and describes battles that lasted two days, but which are said not to have been marked by any great bloodshed. He sees this as being due to the fact that a large part of the knights had already exceeded the age limit for fighting, the stored and decade-long and thus ailing black powder as well as the unused guns of the fortresses no longer enabled any great resistance. In addition, the “common soldiers” of the order were too inexperienced and undisciplined for a siege battle to be able to resist the French troops. Riley-Smith goes on to state (on p. 296) that Grand Master Hompesch and his knights were "disgraced". This could have led to a more advantageous presentation of history for the order, as it was justified in some literature with the code of conduct “No violence against Christians”. In this article, the descriptions by Riley-Smith were given preference because they are understandable and there are also paintings that depict the capture of the island and on which fighting is depicted.
  27. ↑ a b After Falkenstein, p. 98/99.
  28. ↑ after Riley-Smith
  29. ^ After Upton-Ward; the office was first mentioned in writing in 1299.
  30. ↑ According to Falkenstein (p. 98) the construction and the subsequent leasing of ships for the order from Kronstadt are mentioned.
  31. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, the designation "Commander of the ship" was used as early as 1233 for the first shipments from Marseille to the Holy Land and then adopted in 1240 for the entire fleet.
  32. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, English: "Commander of the fleet" or "Commander of the galleys"
  33. ↑ According to Hasecker, p. 65.
  34. ^ After von Ranke, p. 45.
  35. ↑ to Autaz
  36. ↑ According to Falkenstein, the knights of the order were divided into the following categories: seamen, warmen, civil servants and scholars.
  37. ↑ According to Capponi, p. 332, the order's galleys in the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 were equipped with 5 permanently installed hunting guns and between 4 and 10 secondary guns (rotating guns and anti-personnel guns).
  38. ↑ Capponi differentiates between sottile , i.e. ordinary galleys, and bastarda galleys, i.e. larger galleys that could also be used as flagships. In other literature, these are also referred to as capitana instead of bastarda .
  39. ↑ After the Wismayer Sant'Anna and the Sant'Ursola , both from the year 1742nd
  40. ↑ After Wismayer, p 44, three hundred and first
  41. ↑ After Wismayer, p 259, the San Paolo from the year 1763 and Wismayer S. 237, the San Pietro also from the year 1763rd
  42. ↑ In 1527 the order's fleet had five “common” galleys, two carracks, a galleon and two barges, as stated in the essay by D. Tailliez “Les Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem à Nice et Villefranche”.
  43. ^ After Riley-Smith, p. 295.
  44. ↑ After the Wismayer Santa Maria delle Nevi from the year 1781st
  45. ↑ The entire armed forces of King Peter I gathered on Rhodes and from here undertook a crusade towards Alexandria. The order took part with 4 ships and 100 knights - as described in Hasecker, p. 74.
  46. ↑ According to Hasecker, p. 81, the order's navy supported a crusade led by Marshal Boucicaut (Governor of Genoa) from Rhodes, which was originally directed against Alexandria, analogous to the crusade of 1365, but then led against Tripoli and Beirut due to unfavorable wind conditions has been.
  47. ↑ After Hasecker sent Pope Callistus III. under the command of Cardinal Lodovico Scarampo a fleet to devastate Egyptian and Syrian coastlines. The order did not participate with its own ships, but the ships of the Pope were partly commanded by knights of the order.
  48. ^ After Upton-Ward; under the commander and administrator of Mallorca, Joan de Cardona, the order sent two galleys in 1470 to assist the Republic of Venice in defending the island of Evia .
  49. ↑ According to Upton-Ward, p. 54, and Rehm, p. 203. Pope Sixtus IV called a united fleet with the participation of Italy, Germany, France and Spain into being, made an alliance with Venice and Naples and brought up 85 galleys who sacked Smyrna and Cilicia . The order participated with two galleys under the command of Rudolph von Werdenberg (Brandenburg).
  50. ↑ According to Hasecker, p. 76, ships of the order successfully fought a fleet of seven Egyptian warships off the island of Kos , which were planning a raid on facilities on the island.
  51. ↑ According to Hasecker, p. 76, the large ship of the order fought the Mogarbina , a large Egyptian merchant ship. The booty made in this way must have been so immense that it exceeded everything that has been made in prizes up to now and was therefore obviously important for the chronicles of the order.
  52. ↑ According to Hasecker, p. 76, one of the greatest achievements of the order's navy: In the Gulf of Lajazzo near Alexandretta , the order defeated a squadron of 25 Egyptian war and merchant ships who successfully fought eleven merchant ships and four war ships as prizes could be brought to Rhodes.
  53. ↑ A Maltese fleet of six galleys captured and plundered a Turkish convoy of ten ships near Karpathos , which was on its way to Alexandria . The most valuable ship of the Turkish convoy was a galleon of around 1,200 tons, which carried one of the main wives of the Ottoman Sultan İbrahim and her considerable treasures and her entourage. This attack was one of the reasons for the opening of the 6th Venetian Turkish War (1645–1696), which ended with the loss of Crete for Venice after the siege of Candia - according to Eickhoff, p. 17ff .; see also article in engl. WP Action of 28 September 1644 .

literature

Essays
  • Ayse Devrim Atauz: Eight thousand years of Maltese maritime history. Trade, piracy, and naval warfare in the central Mediterranean. University Press of Florida, Gainesville 2008, ISBN 978-0-8130-3179-8 , pp. 160ff.
  • Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall : History of the Ottoman Empire. Largely from previously unused manuscripts and archives, vol. 2. ADEVA, Graz 1963, pp. 199ff. (Reprinted from the Vienna 1828 edition).
  • Friedrich von Raumer , Wilhelm Maurenbrecher (Ed.): Historisches Taschenbuch / NF , Vol. 5, 1844.
  • Johann Wilhelm Ridler : Austrian archive for history, geography, national studies, art and literature , vol. 2 (1832), p. 252.
  • D. Tailliez: Les Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem à Nice et Villefranche (PDF; 3.5 MB). Essay for the project Navigation du Savoir - réseau des arsenaux historiques de la Méditerranée , Association pour la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Maritime de Villefranche-sur-Mer.
Monographs
  • Niccolò Capponi: Victory of the West. The great Christian-Muslim clash at the Battle of Lepanto. Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2007, ISBN 978-0-306-81544-7 .
  • Robert L. Dauber: The navy of the Johanniter-Malteser-Ritter-Order. 500 years of naval warfare in defense of Europe. Weishaupt, Graz 1989, ISBN 3-900310-48-3 .
  • Ekkehard Eickhoff : Venice, Vienna and the Ottomans. Change in Southeast Europe 1645–1700 . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-608-94511-9 (reprint of the Munich 1973 edition).
  • Konstantin Karl Falkenstein : History of the Johanniter order. 2nd edition. Webel Verlag, Zeitz 1867 (EA Dresden 1833).
  • Jyri Hasecker: The Johanniter and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem (1480-1522) (Nova Mediaevalia. Sources and studies on the European Middle Ages; Vol. 5). V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89971-462-3 (also dissertation, University of Hamburg 2007).
  • David Klemm: Stefano della Bella (1610–1664). Drawings from the Kupferstichkabinett at the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20262-0 .
  • Heinz Kramer, Maurus Reinkowski: Turkey and Europe. A changeable history of relationships. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-17-018474-9 .
  • Anton Quintano: The Maltese-Hospitaller sailing ship squadron. 1701-1798. PEG, San Gwann, Malta 2003, ISBN 99909-0-347-6 .
  • Leopold von Ranke : French history. Mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, vol. 3. Salzwasser-Verlag, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-86382-954-4 (EA Stuttgart 1855).
  • Friedrich Rehm : Handbook of the history of the Middle Ages since the Crusades. Kriegers Verlagbuchhandlung, Kassel 1823.
  • Jürgen Sarnowsky : Power and rule in the Order of St. John of the 15th century. Constitution and administration of the Johanniter on Rhodes (1421–1522) (Vita Regularis. Orders and interpretations of religious life in the Middle Ages; Vol. 14). LIT-Verlag, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5481-7 .
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