Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.

In the year 870, the Arabs, after dispossessing the Greeks, erected here a small fort for the purpose of guarding their marauding vessels which anchored in the Great Harbour. On the arrival of the Knights of St. John it was made the chief bulwark of the town, and consequently was very much enlarged. In 1686 new fortifications were added to it under the auspices of the Grandmaster Gregorio Carafa, and finally it assumed its present state in the year 1690 under the reign of Adrian de Wignacourt, as may be seen from an inscription over the outer gate.

We give our readers a short account of the siege of Borgo, and Senglea in which Fort St. Angelo had so considerable a share.

"After the capture of St. Elmo, in the year 1565 by the Turks, a christian slave was sent from the Turkish camp to St. Angelo, in order to propose a negotiation; but

being sent back with an answer of defiance, the entire peninsulas of the Borg and La Sangle were invested without delay. The latter town, and its principal defence, Fort St Michael, were the points against which the besiegers directed their fire. Several batteries, planted on Mount Sceberras and the hill of Coradino, completely commanded these posts, and as they were esteemed the weakest, the flower of the Order undertook their defence. The Harbour of the French alone remained open, and here the Ottoman leader determined to make his principal assault; but as it was impossible for a flotilla to pass under the batteries of St. Angelo without certain destruction, he determined to adopt the expedient of transporting a number of boats from Marsamushetto into the Great Harbour, across the isthmus which joins Mt. Sceberras to the mainland. The desertion of a Greek officer from his service, however, put the knights in timely possession of this project, and occasioned it to be materially altered.

Thus forewarned, the Grandmaster prepared to defeat the contemplated assault. The seaward walls of La Sangle were heightened by his orders, and the cannon on them brought to command the inner port at every point; while a vast stockade, extending from Mount Coradino to the point of Sanglea was formed, by driving huge piles into the shallow water, and then fixing a chain on the top of them by means of iron rings. In order to remove this barrier, Mustapha dispatched a band of expert swimmers under the cloud of night, with axes in their girdles, to open a passage through the booms and palisades; but the noise of these adventurers alarmed the garrison, and the guns on the walls immediately commenced a fierce cannonade. Being too elevated, they threw their shot over the heads of the Turks, and therefore proved ineffective; but at the suggestions of Admiral de Monte, a party of Maltese swimmers were dispatched against them, and after a sanguinary water combat, completely routed the Turks. A subseqent attempt was made to destroy the booms and stakes, by means of cables worked on the shore by ship capstans; but this also was baffled by the intrepidity of the marines, who swam out again and cut the ropes.

Enraged at being thus circumvented in a favourite project, the Pasha, on the 5th. of July, ordered his guns to open simultaneously on the two batteries which had been raised on the hill of Sta. Margarita, and the the rock of Coradino commenced a furious cannonade against Fort St. Michael, and the bulwark of Sanglea, while those on Mount Sceberras and the hill of Salvador played on Borgo and the castle of St. Angelo. The cannonade did not cease until considerable breaches were made in the advanced works of both towns, and the Pasha was only delayed from making an attempt to storm the latter, from a desire that the Viceroy of Algiers would soon arrive with a reinforcement to share in the assault.

Hassan, the leader of the Algerine troops, soon came, accompanied by two thousand five hundred chosen soldiers. He was the son of the famous Barbarossa, and the

son-in-law of the scarcely less famous Dragut, who lost his life on the cape on which Fort Tigné stands. To this young warrior was committed, at his own request, the land attack on Fort St. Michael, and to Candelissa his lieutenant, the maritime part of the enterprise. Under his superintendence, and in accordance with the Pasha's original project, a number of boats were dragged over land from Marsamushetto, and launched in the Great Harbour, where they were manned with four thousand Algerine and Turkish soldiers. Under a galling fire of round shot and musketry, the enemy sprang bravely upon the stockade, which obstructed the entrance of his fleet into the French Harbour, and with hammers and hatchets endeavoured to demolish it. After several attempts they succeeded in forming a passage to an uncovered part of the beach, at the extremity of Senglea. This headland was defended by a battery of six guns playing level with the water, and by a strong intrenchment, within which were posted a number of expert harquebusiers. Several discharges of shot among the assailants greatly diminished their number; but, rendered desperate by the perils which surrounded them, after a combat of five hours, they forced the defenders to retire, and planted seven Turkish ensigns on the summit of the entrenchment.

The sight of the Moslem standard floating triumphantly on this outwork, filled the knights with shame and indignation, and a fresh body of them, headed by Admiral De Monte, renewed the battle. After a severe conflict, the Turkish penons were torn down, and their defenders driven headlong from the rampart.

All those who failed to reach the boats were sacrificed, many shot while swimming after their boats, and of the boats themselves many were sunk by the fire of the batteries.

The landward attack, headed by the Algerine Viceroy in person was not more successful. At the sound of a signal gun, his troops rushed gallantly towards the breaches on the side of the Birmula Gate and the castle of St. Michael, and in a short space, a small corps of Algerines displayed their

ensigns in several points of the parapet. A murderous discharge, however, from the cannon of the fort poured death into the heart of the enemy, and drove them back again with great slaughter. Unable to stand the steady and destructive fire of the knights, the Viceroy at length sounded a retreat, leaving the flower of his troops lifeless at the foot of the rampart.

up

The Turkish general did not fail to follow this bloody effort with a fresh attack, but was again as violently repulsed by the bravery of the knights. Undismayed, however, by these successive repulses, he ordered a kind of bridge to be constructed, by means of which he anticipated his troops would be able to enter the works. The Grandmaster, who regarded this contrivance with apprehension, made two attempts to burn it by night; but the sleepless vigilance of the enemy rendered them futile. He at length determined to make a final attempt to destroy it by day, and his nephew, Henry de La Valette, was intrusted with the perilous duty. At the head of a body of picked men, and in the teeth of a heavy fire from the Turks, he sallied out, accompanied by a brother knight, with the intention of fastening a number of strong ropes to the principal posts and beams of the bridge, so as to enable them to drag it by main force from its position. The design, however, was baffled by the fierce fire of the harquebusiers, and the followers of young La Valette bore back the lifeless remains of their leader into the fortress.

The Grandmaster, though secretly mourning the fate of his nephew, did not allow himself to be deterred for a moment from effecting his purpose. By his orders, an entrance was opened in the wall, immediately facing the bridge, through which a piece of artillery was brought to play on the whole structure. A few discharges shattered it in such a manner as to render it unserviceable; and, on the following night, it was set on fire aud consumed to ashes.

Disconcerted by this event, the Pasha again ordered the Turkish batteries to open onthetwo towns with redoubled activity, and the contest waxed daily more bloody and

[ocr errors]

desperate. For four successive days the Christians were engaged in incessant skirmishes on the walls of La Sengle; and at length, on the 2nd of August, the Turkish horns sounded a scalade. The Turks fought with extraordinary obstinacy; but at the end of six hours their ardour abated, and they retired from the breaches leaving them choked with their dead. Five days afterwards, simultaneous attacks were made on Fort St. Michael and the bastion of Castile. The Janissaries, who led the yan of the battle, advanced against the former fortress with warlike shouts, and though the ground over which they crossed was strewn with mutilated bodies, they fought their way to the top of the breach, and for four hours maintained their position. At this crisis, not only the knights, but the citizens, men, women and children, hovered on the skirts of the combat and supplied their protectors with refreshments, or flung missiles and fireworks into the Ottoman ranks. Wearied and oppressed with fatigue, the Christians prepared for the worst, when suddenly, to their astonishment and joy, they heard a recall sounded along the Turkish line. This seasonable relief was occasioned by a diversion on the part of the Governor of the Città Notabile, who, observing from his post the cloud of smoke which enveloped Fort St. Michael, hastily ordered a few squadrons of cavalry to make an attack on the nearest point of the Turkish position. The knights who commanded this detachment led it down the Marsa, and massacred all the sick and wounded which were found in the hospital of the enemy. The fugitives who had escaped carried the news, that the Sicilian succours had arrived, which caused Mustapha, at the moment of victory, to relinquish the breach, and to march against this new foe. His indignation knew no bounds when he discovered the true state of the case; and had it not been for the harassed condition of his soldiers and the entreaties of his officers, he would have immediately marched back to the field.

More than a fortnight elapsed before a new attempt was made. On the 18th. August, the patience of the Turkish leader be

« PreviousContinue »