Empires of the Sea - the Final Battle for the Mediterranean 1521-1580 Read Online Free PDF Page B

stone “pleasure-house” to be constructed to provide his winter quarters; the siege would continue.
    It straggled on through the whole of November. The knights were now too few to guard every sector of the wall, nor did they any longer possess sufficient slave labor to repair defenses or move guns. “We had no powder,” wrote the English knight Sir Nicholas Roberts, “nor [any] manner of munitions, nor vittles, but…bread and water. We were as men desperate.” No substantial help arrived by sea, and the Ottomans were securely lodged in the Spanish breach. By now the gap was wide enough for forty horsemen to enter side by side. Further attacks were made, but the bitter weather and slashing rain dampened morale: “insistent and interminable downpours; the raindrops froze; large quantities of hail fell.” On November 30, the Ottomans made their last major assault. It failed, but they could not be pushed back. The contest had reached an impasse. Realists within the town “could not think the city any longer tenable, the enemy being lodged forty yards one way and thirty yards another way within the city, so that it was impossible for them to retire any further, nor for the enemy to be beaten out.” Suleiman, on the other hand, was watching his army being decimated by the day. Modern fortress design had been remarkably effective in evening up the contest. He knew his soldiers’ endurance was finite. He had to find a solution.
    On December 1 a Genoese renegade appeared unexpectedly at the gates, offering to act as an intermediary. He was chased away but returned two days later. It was the start of a cagey attempt to broker negotiated surrender, in which the sultan could not be seen to be involved. It was beneath the dignity of the most powerful ruler on earth to seek peace. Mysterious letters repeating the terms were delivered to the grand master, which Suleiman denied sending, but gradually a pattern of diplomacy emerged. The knights debated the issue at length in closed council. L’Isle Adam would have preferred to go down fighting; so distressed was he at the prospect of surrendering the island that he collapsed in a faint. But Tadini knew that militarily their case was hopeless, and the citizens of the town, remembering the fate of the civilian population at Belgrade, made tearful supplications. The defenders were surprised and initially suspicious of the terms: the knights could depart with honor, taking with them their possessions and arms, with the exception of artillery. The freedom and religion of the remaining townspeople would be respected; there would be no forced conversion to Islam, nor would the churches be turned into mosques. No tribute would be required for five years. In return the knights were required to surrender all their islands and fortresses, including the fort of Saint Peter the Liberator on the mainland. The generosity of the terms suggested that Suleiman also needed an end to winter warfare: he had been fought to a standstill. He even offered to provide the ships for the knights’ departure.
    Stop-start talks dragged on for a fortnight. L’Isle Adam tried to play for time and had to be brought back to negotiation by another attack. In the end he accepted the inevitable. Suleiman was firm: he would have the fortress, even if “all Turkey should die,” but he convinced the Christians of his good faith. To create a climate of trust, Suleiman withdrew the army a mile back from the city, and hostages were exchanged. Among these was Sir Nicholas Roberts, the first Englishman to record a meeting with a sultan. The experience left a deep impression: “The Great Turk is very wise, discreet…both in his words and deeds,” he wrote. “We were brought first to make our reverence unto him, we found…a red pavilion…marvellous rich and sumptuous.” Here he made obeisance to Suleiman, who was “sitting in a chair, and no [other] creature sat in the pavilion, which chair was of fine gold.”