The Ultimate Medieval Battle For The Mediterranean

at the end of the Middle Ages the island of RADS is the scene of a bloody clash between Soldier monks and the ottoman Army defending the Fortress a small band of knights on the Eastern edge of Christian [Music] Europe rad with the first line of defense against the Ottoman Empire they face the largest army in the world led by a young Sultan determined to take the island at any [Music] price he was ambitious to show his presence in the Mediterranean as a strong rival to the European sovereigns he took all his strength to roads because he wanted roads for almost 6 months the W City will fight one of the toughest battles in [Applause] history it was seemed almost impossible to capture and it had a reputation of being impregnable a bloody struggle for territory marked by courage and betrayal he was cut into four pieces and the four pieces hang on different bits of the wall in a harrowing Siege in which East and West rival Empires and religions clash in a merciless struggle for control of the Mediterranean Sea June 1522 nearly 200 ottoman ships from Constantinople hve into view of the port of Roads there in the aan sea a few miles from the Turkish Coast 100,000 men prepare to land on the island they have come to snatch roads from the hands of the knights hospitallers who have ruled the island since the beginning of the 14th century to do so they'll have to conquer their Fortress which meant have deemed impregnable but for the Ottomans young Sultan sulan anything seems possible he's thirsty for conquests he's 26 and ascended to the throne in 1520 upon the death of his father the kings of Europe all mistakenly think of him as rather shy he's Keen to show that he's a force to be reckoned with and they thought he would not be a warrior like his father well they were wrong any new and young Sultan is expected to win some victories to prove himself uh to the people his adversary on roads is Philip viler Grandmaster of the order of the hospitals at 57 descended from a family of aristocrats he's considered a skilled Diplomat but he's new to power the grandmas was certainly perceived by the knights as a man of great courage great determination and great skill and a man who was prepared to die for his cause he's taking charge of an order known for its fanaticism the hospitallers are a community of soldier monks that were very active at the time of the Crusades but they were driven out of the Holy Land in the 14th century now they've settled on the island of RADS the order is going to set up a religious state where as an order they will be the Sovereign of the place they have all author and the place belongs to them they've established a Catholic Outpost in the East but now it's highly coveted by sullon they're in the Forefront of Christianity it has been several decades now that they are the only ones to be so Advanced towards the east towards the orient at the time of the sea RADS with the first line of defense against the Ottoman Empire was like the Cornerstone of holding back the ottoman tide in 1522 the Ottoman Empire is the most powerful political and military force in the world Solomon's Empire stretches from the southern danu to Egypt and North Africa but RADS is a thorn in the Sultan's side not only is it run by Catholic infidels but the knights are using it as a base to raid ottoman shipping in the Mediterranean roads is very tiny next to the Ottoman Empire but it threatens the economic aspect of the Empire too firmly that it can no longer tolerate this hospital as presence and there's another reason for suman's urge for war the Hospers have enslaved hundreds of Turks suon subjects and this is um unsupportable really to the authority and the Dignity of the sulan that was a matter of sh for the Ottomans it was really almost an obligation to attack roads to release them but Philip viler and his Knights believe they can stop sullon and hold roads the two men will fight for the Mediterranean and for their ideals sullon for the East and Philip viler for the West who will prove to be the fiercest and which one of them will win the battle on June the 10th 1522 2 weeks before the beginning of the siege The Grandmaster receives a letter from the sultan ordering him to hand over the island and its Fortress immediately the letter in which the hospitallers are called upon to surrender is a declaration of war actually I'm coming and you better just watch out you are an evil man you attack our Fleet you attack our my subjects so we want you out viler doesn't respond to the letter instead he starts his preparations for an inevitable Siege he's confident for a reason the knights at RADS have already beaten the Ottomans once 40 years earlier it was a famous Victory but they knew that the Turks would return the order of hospitallers which has been preparing for a Siege since the previous one which took place 42 years earlier knows that the attack will be imminent as chief of the armies viler has personally trained his troops he has 16,000 men with 600 fanatically devoted Knights at their core a mixed Army of mercenaries and 6,000 rodians also fight at their side he has lived through sieges and therefore he is a formidable opponent and he done everything that he could to prepare for this event they have 18 months of Food Supplies buried in enormous silos they have huge amounts of gunpowder hospitallers are always ready they ensure the Ottomans will get a hostile reception the main aim was to leave the attackers with as few resources as possible so they they Scorch the land viler knows that the ottoman Fleet will Begin by blockading the port the first thing to do is to prevent their ships from getting too close to the Fortress so the hospital has unroll two huge defensive chains to block access to the Sea the shorter of the two runs between the nyak tower which today no longer stands and the St Angel's Tower the other runs between the St Angel's Tower and the St nich Tower chains like these are a traditional deterrent of the time the chain is not necessarily an element that would stop a fleet but the ships that will come against this chain will be suffering real damage wood against metal it's a relatively bad survival with a port barred the Ottomans land on the beaches and position their camps just 440 yards from the walls they too are preparing for a siege for more than a month soldiers servants and slaves come ashore as well as powerful new artillery weapons such as culverins bombards arises and dozens of cannons capable of firing 600lb Stone balls obviously it was a very big operation out of sight of the uh Fortress we think of the Ottomans as great Fighters but they were also incredibly good at the logistics of war the ottoman Army is so big that it can hold the city in a pins grip over a distance of 2 miles from one shore of the island to the other it was a military tactic to encircle the knights uh behind the Fortress The Defenders are looking out at this vast Panorama of human activity or inspiring sound the call to prayer the sound of of animals a sea of tents because every every uh Soldier had to bring their o their own tent the besieged inside the Fortress if they could see the tent this would demoralize them they could see how huge the besieging Army was a great human spectacle if we're not about to be attacked by an ottoman Army to further tighten their grip the Ottomans dig a gigantic circular trench around the city he will both protect their camps from attack and prevent the hospitals from leaving the perimeter it protects a little and above all you have to be out of range of enemy guns if you want to camp in peace you have to avoid getting Canon Balls to the Head the ports locked down the city's surrounded the total blockade that Solon wanted is perfectly in place up till now the sultan hasn't yet been there at the scene from now on though his presence will be decisive at the end of July soliman himself arrives in roads accompanied by 100,000 additional troops joining the 880,000 already in place he took all his strength through roads he took his army to roads he took all the power he had to roads because he wanted roads his arrival was celebrated with gunfire from the uh from the ships any Siege in which s takes place is one that you have to win it's looking like an uneven contest Solomon knows he's up against some dangerous Knights after all they've already defeated the mamaloes here in 1440 and 1444 as well as the Ottomans themselves in 1480 they just might be able to repeat those victories they are monks thus their only concern is to pray and fight there aren't many of them but inside the Fortress there Reigns an espra core that has seen them through the most violent Wars they've come from all Western Europe to fight in eight National groups with each group defending an area of the Fortress that it Knows by heart from west to east the first sector speaks French followed by the German sector and the French province of a then come Spain England and provance and finally Italy and C everyone is responsible for their area and everyone is responsible to hold 2,000 men were placed at four different points on the walls there was also a fairly large contingent of 6,000 men around the grandm and a contingent of soldiers who had to be able to quickly defend this or that part of the walls that were threatened so that their defense was still mobile viler is in command of less than 20,000 soldiers he knows that statistically he has little chance of winning a battle against an army five times larger but the hospitallers have another major card to play The Fortress of Roads is a house a refuge and a Homeland for the knights and the people of RADS who live in it it's a citadel they know how to defend its design is revolutionary for its time the original walls built in the Middle Ages were high and thin but succeeding Knights have used the last 40 Years of peace to upgrade [Music] them the walls stretch along all 2 and 1 half miles of the city's Edge and they're built at an angle to thwart [Music] cannonballs imagine you would have the vertical wall and in the lower part you have some sort of counterbalance which makes the Cannonball tend to rebound on it a bit and also they were built of a kind of soft Sandstone if the cannon fired at the walls the the Sandstone would just absorb the cannon ball and it would get stuck in the walls without actually knocking the wall down roads is now considered the most modern stronghold of its time which means we already have for the defense something that is physically very strong and even without any Defenders we already on a very complicated Path Road really become a laboratory for the development of a city and it was really about as modern as you could get the whole game has changed we have seen the development of gunpowder weapons of Cannon to stop this new threat the curtain wall the outer amp part that connects the various Towers has been reinforced along its entire landwood side the walls are twice as thick now and they're filled with rubble the sections that have previously been most exposed to attacks are now three times wider almost 40 ft thick the entire city has two and in some cases three rings of walls with ditches on either side to create a bottleneck to trap any so who enters it they describ the ditches a terrifying like a hell because they were very wide and uh deep just to cross the Deep ditch to get to the walls was looked impossible designed by Italian Engineers The Fortress is a Killing Zone it is a complex def defensive Maze of 11 Gates Aros slits a draw bridge dry modes and underground passages but the most Innovative technology is the Bastion this construction is designed to defend against new artillery and mines it enhances and strengthens the existing tars which still offer the ideal defensive position to even get to the main tower you'd first have to manage to take over this Bastion which is something fortified that we don't dare to imagine it soldiers almost shoulder Tosh shoulder with firing positions at almost every meter they built five bastions which are sort of dond shaped defenses quite sharply angled to deflect shot so one of the functions was to be able to do Crossfire along the line of the walls so that if for example somebody got into the ditch they could be shot at from all angles a few days before the beginning of the siege Philip viler continues to refine his defenses with the help of the military architect Gabriel tardini adjusting layouts measuring distances and Fields of fire will this be enough to protect the hospitallers and the entire population of Roads against 160,000 [Music] soldiers in his headquarters on the hill outside the city Suliman is getting impatient the time for confrontation has come at the beginning of August the knights open far viler oversees the volleys from the widest ramp Parts which serve as an artillery platform for about 50 cannons the feature about August is that we don't have a very intense fight you have to imagine a shot every 30 minutes a cannon shot every hour as the Ottomans far back each shot exposes their position at first the rodian artillery systematically destroys the Ottomans artillery but suon is only probing his enemies defenses the Ottomans when they fired their small cannon against the walls they were immediately killed and the cannon destroyed by The Defenders on the wall they were doing this just to to test how far the cannon could be from from the wall in early September suon gives the order to bombard ad willll a his Gunners deploy a battery of dozens of cannons along the entire Arc of the ottoman's defense trench the Ottomans did not concentrate the canonade on one particular area actually ottoman Siege tactics are based on the quick knockout blow the Cannons are providing cover for a creeping threat for the ottoman Gunners to bring down the Walls quickly they have to get as close as possible to the fortifications sullon designs a complex network of four trenches built parallel to the wall by 60,000 miners armed with shovels and pickaxes all hidden behind screens covered with animal skins they dig a zigzag of linking passages between the trenches why do they do this they do do this because if you're a Rifleman standing on a wall and there's a trench directly in front of you you just keep your gun fired on that point they could kill everybody who was in the trench if it was zigzag they couldn't fire straight round it and from these narrow ditches we can imagine that from 100 m to 100 m new trenches are gradually being made closer to the wall area the purpose of all these successive trenches is to be able to install highly protected soldiers closer to the walls work on the trenches continues through [Music] August the ottoman miners also dig hundreds of yards of underground tunnels their goal is to reach the foot of the Fortress and blow up the base of its walls and bastions with explosive charges and they would fill it with uh sacks of gunpowder then they would make a fuse and Lead it back if a mine was successful it could bring down a larger portion of the wall this undermining is solon's trump card it is said that a third of the Ottoman Army were miners silver miners uh from the Balkans and these men who are skilled miners they are actually the key weapon of Ottoman sieg Warfare the miners try to work in secret but the knights are on the lookout for the slightest movement and they soon spot The Turk strategy [Music] they have to act quickly before the mines explode and bring down the fortifications so The Grandmaster calls on tardini the engineer the Italian comes up with an ingenious solution he builds drums wooden frames covered in skins places them on the ground and scatters dirt on them any underground movement vibrates the dirt and tells him the enemy must be digging nearby a miners make quite a lot of noise they're picking away the ground sends back a lot of sound so there's a way to anticipate that something is going on and these allowed uh The Defenders to detect uh mines and get a reason idea of the position the hospital's Gunners then dig counter tunnels to meet up with their enemies the ground under roads becomes an antill if they can dig a tunnel under or near the ottoman's mine they can put gunpowder in it and blow up both tunnels at the same time [Music] so there's a kind of cat and mouse game going on during the month of August but there are always uh more mines being created Philip viler is Happy tardini has managed to neutralize several dozen tunnels preventing suman's armies from advancing at the sustained Pace the sultan demands as August ends the knights are keeping their attackers at Bay but events will soon remind the Great Master he should always remain wary of the sultan Philip vadon does not have enough soldiers to consider an attack and he won't so the pace of the siege of Rose is set by suon on September the 5th with the siege already a month hold the inhabitants of the Fortress are surprised by a huge explosion the ottoman artillery have just detonated two mines under the English Bastion opening a breach in the building more than 30 ft wide [Applause] Solon reckons its high time he took the city and he orders his janises his Elite infantry men into the [Applause] breach it's a violent attack but Philip viler and his Knights managed to repel the enemy so despite the success of the mines they were not successful in entering The Fortress this is the first real test of the defenses of the city with this first breach the impregnable Fortress suddenly seems vulnerable The Grandmaster knows it and of course the knights and their slaves indeed had to work day and night once the mines exploded to to rebuild what had been knocked down when you have to urgently repair a collapsed wall and when you have to bring food or hurry to bring gunpowder where it's lacking then the entire population is involved so the whole city of Roads is defending itself for several weeks the hospitals and the Ottomans carry on exchanging cannon fire the Turkish miners tunnel relentlessly increasing the number of explosive charges under the walls of [Music] Fortress Two Weeks Later in mid-september a second powder attack rips open the bastions of provance and Spain once again the hospital has put up a fierce defense the Ottomans will succeed in gaining a foothold for a full day they fight inside the Bastion the Spanish stronghold change his hands twice during the day taken recaptured retaken and finally freed by the knights hospitala The Grandmaster knows that this new Blow To The Fortress irreparably weakens both the city and its Army which loses several hundred men in a single day we can feel that it is the first time that it is almost collapsed as the hospitaler knights are just far too heavily outnumbered against the Ottomans sensing the blow to his enemy's morale the sultan orders his artillery to increase its bombardments tenfold but this means advancing his cannons to within 650 ft of the wall it's a complex maneuver the heaviest guns weigh two tons and must be moved in separate parts it takes days for each unit to move into position but the Ottomans do it efficiently and they were experts in moving Cannon a group of men in the ottoman Army who were permanently employed were called the sort of the gun Carriage men who were responsible for transporting Cannon the ottoman bombardments Pound The Fortress but by the end of September sullon is losing patience [Music] the head of his army Mustafa Pasha promised to take roads within a month yet after two months Victory is still not within sight Under Pressure muster paser decides on what he hopes will be a final bold attack his troops will simultaneously assault the strongholds of Spain England provance and Italy Pasion knows hundreds of his men will die die in the attempt but he can wait no longer in the morning of September the 24th the ottomans are set to seize the Fortress of RADS this is the moment really for a Mass Attack already you can see the morale of the Ottoman troops Under Pressure preachers went among the ottoman troops to tell tell them that you are fighting for Islam and for your faith and you must uh be proper Warriors for religion but the ottoman maneuver faced with a besieged people for whom defeat is not an option is a disorderly and suicidal tactical error and the six hours of bitter fighting at Close Quarters this thought would all be with swords and Pikes and Men hacking and slashing at each other the knights were remarkably good soldiers they obviously knew the fortifications extremely well and what are the best points for defending it and then they are driven by a faith which is also extremely strong which means that when they're in the fight they're individually huge war machines for the first time the Ottomans Retreat leaving behind hundreds of dead in his diary a humiliated suon writes a single sentence the attack has been repulsed mustfa Mustafa Pasha after this assault has lost all credibility he was not enough decisive and he just uh returned back uh with a defeat this is a kind of a humiliating moment the next day sullon sentences Mustafa Pasha to death for his failure in the end though he spares his brother-in-law's life but he replaces him at the head of his army at the beginning of October The Siege begins to take its toll on both sides despite their numbers the ottomans are struggling but now the resistance of the hospitallers is beginning to waken and they have a serious problem the gunpowder is running out they've used too much of it to counter the work of the Turkish sappers the ottoman Maritime blockade means there's no hope of [Music] resupply they start counting the jars of powder to see how much is left hospitallers have almost stopped shooting the grandm is is forced to take a drastic decision no one shoots with gunpowder anymore on the road site without his personal goad more isolated than ever Philip viler calls for help from the Christian World there was very little help from Christian Europe his best hope is Venice then an independent republic with territories around the Mediterranean Venice had already just made a treaty with the Ottomans so for those reasons could not help venice's power is built on sea trade the knights raids on otoman shipping are bad for business Venice has no interest in it Venice wishes to remain at peace with the Ottomans and because Venice does not like the hospitaler as much because it doesn't like the private as much anymore the hospital has found themselves quite alone they were not supported by the Christian World by the end of October The Grandmaster has to face the facts his army can only look on helplessly as their fortifications crumble one by one the logistical problems of the besieged city embolden suon even further he moves his cannons closer still to within less than 60 yards of the walls the Gunners ramp up their shelling of the already weakened parts of the Fortress the Spanish and English defensive strongholds Verge on collapse but when you put 50 gunshots in a square of 10 m by 10 m the wall behind it will be nibbled away you need to nibble 8 m but it will happen by early November most of the English Knights are either wounded or [Music] dead then the grand Master suffers another blow his engineer Gabriel tardini is studying the city's defenses when a sniper shoots him in the [Music] head incredibly the engineer doesn't die but he's out of action for several weeks still the hospital is fight on the mentality of the ninth is they're really tough they've given their lives to this he comes from a long tradition of people who have fought and died in Siege Warfare he is not going to be the man who surrenders who drops the ball the siege of Roads has become a war of nerves for both sides it's a test of composure endurance and [Music] bravery 4 months into the Siege the efforts of the now exhausted Turkish Siege forces have still not paid off they're ravaged by dentry and everyone wants the siege to end especially since it's the rule in the ottoman professional Army to wage war from January to October and then return home but that's not what Solon is planning he never thought returning back without taking roads he wants to wipe out the knights more than ever even the ottoman soldiers sometimes wanted to stop and they believed that they are going to return back to Istanbul and Sultan slan never allowed them uh to think in this way everyone knows that this Siege will carry on and winter is coming the weather has turned cold by the end of November it's all right for suan he has built a stone winter quarters where he can live uh and manage The [Music] Siege Philip viler expected the Turks to flee at the first sign of cold weather now he knows they're not going to back down to make matters worse and in a sign that morale is at its lowest the knights are starting to find traitors all over the Fortress there are obvious links between some of the inhabitants and the Ottomans after all there are enslaved Turks working for the knights you wonder if the person next to you is not a Turkish spy giving information or if it's not someone who's waving at the Turks to try to negotiate something there is a a Witch Hunt hunting for [Music] spies what's certain it shows a lot of nervousness Among The Defenders fear of Espionage in the city definitely affects the morale of the uh Knights and it it takes a worse turn Andrea deamaral a rival of The Grandmaster is accused of wanting roads to fall his servant is caught sending a message to the Turkish Camp Andre Andrea deal is accused of having given positions to the Turks and as a result of promoting attacks in certain strategic places and an important figure in the Knights of and John so this is really starting to scare the people the order is beginning to tear itself apart the damal doesn't talk under torture doesn't say anything and he dies he's decapitated he was then cut into four pieces and the four pieces hang hung on different bits of the wall his memory is marked by the Seal of treason this is it for andread but today we don't know if he really betrayed or Not by the end of November the hospitals are exhausted they still have bread and water but they have no ammunition at all and are thus incapable of resistance the world that the hospitals have overseen for two centuries is collapsing around them after months of bombardment the Spanish Tower Falls then the helpless hospitals must look on as the England provance and Italy fortifications crumble under the ceaseless Cannon far the walls are severely battered by this stage there are huge holes in them almost all the large Bastion uh had been uh either ruined or severely damaged but fighting on whatever the cost is at the core of the knight's beliefs the grandm still refuses to lay down his arms pH Philip V wants to go all the way and wants to fight to the end even if it means sacrificing his order and the inhabitants of the island by early December 34s of the Christian Soldiers and a large number of civilians have died and the stakes are getting [Music] higher so the risk is a loss of the walls a general assault an invasion of the city and a massacre of the city in secret meetings viler asks his advisor tardini if their resistance can continue tardini says it actually it's hopeless we cannot win we we you know it is hopeless we have to find a way out of this either we decide that everyone will perish in a great fireworks display that will make Martyrs and Saints or we give it [Music] the Grand Master relents he will try to negotiate for an end to the fighting with satisfactory conditions for both sides he will have to hope that the sultan is merciful despite solon's Gunners already opening a final breach at the main entrance to the city the sultan agrees to hold talks mainly because he himself can no longer afford to lose more menman knew that winter conditions will be very difficult for his uh troops as well so he was in a position to look for for a solution he needs to find a way to get the Defenders to surrender negotiations between the two sides begin on the 10th of December delivering the Fortress home to the knights for two centuries to the Ottomans is a cruel blow to Philip V but the order itself doesn't fare too badly sulan in his leniency as a young Sultan happy to have won leaves them the honors of the war they would not be uh killed they they could simply depart the knights can leave with uh all their possessions apart from their heavy Cannon Philip viler even secures the freedom of his 160 surviving Knights as well as the citizens of Roads who fought alongside them on December the 19th they reach an [Music] agreement accepting the conditions for for the surrender was a solution for both sides after 5 months of heroic defense by 650 Knights the city falls into ottoman hands it's not a clear and overwhelming victory for Solomon his troops have never actually managed to get into the Fortress but he comes out of it the winner and it adds to his glory as a young sultan in the early days of 1523 the knights Sail Out of Roads aboard their ships the order of the hospitallers will wander for seven years until the king of Spain Charles I entrust them with Malta an archipelago south of Sicily with the fall of Roads Solomon is now free to control trade in the Mediterranean fan won the thed really firstly through his own willpower phip de lost because he faced Salon under ottoman rule the island of RADS resumes its peaceful life in the renesance it becomes an essential Maritime stop between turkey and Egypt for Traders selling their silks perfumes and spices The Fortress a perfect example of the military G Genius of its day is now a UNESCO world heritage site [Music] [Music]

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 10,262

Keywords: history documentary, medieval history documentary, middle ages, medieval history, the middle ages, the dark ages, sulieman the magnificent, siege of rhodes, besieged fortresses battles of legend, medieval war, knights hospitelier

Id: NVi_GouOUT8

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024