Abstract
Reviewed by: Kate Fleet, Newnham College, Cambridge University, UK
Beginning with the Ottoman siege and conquest of Rhodes, Bruce Ware Allen’s book describes the activities of the Knights of St. John after their departure from Rhodes to their arrival on Malta, and the unsuccessful Ottoman siege in 1565. The book is divided into four parts. Part One, ‘Corsairs and Rulers’, discusses the Ottoman siege and conquest of Rhodes in 1522, the departure of the Knights and their settlement on Malta, a new home which the Grand Master l’Isle-Adam was not at first terribly taken with when offered it by Charles V. As Bruce Ware Allen puts it, ‘it was not an enticing offer’ and l’Isle-Adam initially ‘put it on the back burner’ (23). However, having exhausted all other options, the Knights eventually accepted Malta in April 1530. Part One then covers the activities of the Knights between 1531 and 1540, military naval operations between 1541 and 1550, the fall of Tripoli, held by the Knights since 1530, to the Ottomans in 1551, the Ottoman recapture of Jerba in 1560, and the lead-up to the beginning of the Ottoman siege of Malta in 1565. The siege itself, which is covered in considerable detail and told with great panache, is dealt with in Part Two, ‘Objective: St. Elmo’, Part Three, ‘Honor Bought with Blood’, and Part Four, ‘A Line Drawn in Water’. The book is well written and the reader is easily carried along.
While the author is happy among the Knights, he is clearly not on such comfortable ground when talking about the Ottomans, whose names he persistently misspells. The Ottoman historian and statesman Celalzade Mustafa Çelebi appears as Mustafa Gelal-Zade on pages 3 and 270 and Mustapha Gelal-Zade on page 19. Uludj Ali (i.e. Uluç Ali, later grand admiral and known as Kılıç Ali) also appears as El Eudj Ali (229). The famous figure who became Ottoman grand admiral, Hayreddin, known in the West as Barbarossa, appears as Khairedihn throughout and the Ottoman grand admiral at the siege of Malta, Piyale Paşa becomes Piali. The military unit, the ocak, appears as ojark (109), the military title çorbacı becomes shorbadji (109), the kapı ağası appears as capigias (76) and what is presumably the infantry, the yaya, becomes the ‘Iayalars, religious fanatics intent on death’ (88), which is now given a double plural, both the Turkish lar and the English s.
The book contains various odd omissions. While Ottoman power ‘grew steadily’ after the establishment of the state, the Ottomans suffered ‘setbacks’ caused by Vlad III and George Castrioti (3). Very oddly the author makes no mention of the arrival of Timur and the disastrous battle of Ankara in 1402, which removed the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I and shattered the Ottoman state, a ‘setback’ of rather more monumental proportions that the irritations caused by Castrioti or Vlad III. Apart from a few passing mentions, the author does not deal with the battle of Preveza in which the Ottoman fleet under the command of Hayreddin defeated the fleet of the Holy League led by Andrea Doria in 1538. Nor does he discuss the Ottoman-Venetian war between 1537 and 1540 which ended with Venice agreeing to pay a large indemnity, handing over Monemvasia and Nafplio, and ceding the Aegean islands already taken by Hayreddin.
The book also contains startling errors. The author gives the date for the capture of Constantinople, surely one of the best known dates in Ottoman history for specialist and non-specialist alike, as 1457 (179). The 1522 conquest of Rhodes is given as 1521 in the chapter title of chapter 1. The author asserts that the Ottomans ‘founded their principality in 1299 in eastern Anatolia’ (3). Putting to one side the problem of dating, the Ottomans were nowhere near eastern Anatolia at this point, the Ottoman beylik emerging in the far north-western corner of what is modern-day Turkey. Manisa is described as being on the east coast of Turkey (72), which is unfortunate for two reasons. In the first place the one coastline that Turkey does not have is an eastern one, and Manisa is on the opposite side of the country in the west, and not on any coast.
Described on the dust jacket as ‘a fresh, vivid retelling of one of the most famous battles of the early modern world’, Bruce Ware Allen’s book certainly presents a vivid account. Unfortunately, it is also, from an Ottoman point of view, an inaccurate one.