SIEGE OF RHODES 1480
Knights Hospitaller Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson stood proudly in his new suit of gold damascene-decorated armour atop the battlements of the citadel of Rhodes on 24 May 1480. He watched intently as the Ottoman host prepared a great battery a short distance north of the stronghold. The Turkish soldiers busied themselves preparing a battery of three giant basilisks that they aimed at the Tower of St Nicholas, which stood like a lonely sentinel on the far end of a quarter-mile long mole on the east side of the port’s narrow galley harbour.
The heavy set, round-faced 57-year-old commander had prepared for this moment, and so had his predecessors. He was fearless in the face of the Turkish assault. Ever since Constantinople fell to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453, the Knights Hospitallers, whose base was the island in the Aegean Sea, had expected an invasion.
D’Aubusson, who came from central France, had served as a Knight Hospitaller on Rhodes for 26 years. During that time, he had gained invaluable experience in diplomacy, naval warfare and siegecraft. During his tenure as grand master, he had overseen the construction of new towers, bulwarks, and batteries to enhance the citadel’s defences. He was confident that he had done everything in his power to prepare for the inevitable siege of the fortress by the Ottoman Turks. The hour of reckoning had come, and he and his brother-knights were ready to cross swords with the Turks.
Benedictine lay brother Gerard de Martigues of Provence founded the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade. Although it began as a hospital to care for Christian pilgrims, 14 years later it became a monastic military order responsible for protecting fortresses and territory in the Holy Land. When the Egyptian Mamluks drove
