Asiatic Muslim Turks conquered Rhodes 485 years ago
For most Western people today, Christmas is a season of peace and happiness. But few remember that the relative security we enjoy now was won by force of faith and folk, courage and arms over the course of centuries.
In 1522, the season of the Nativity was desecrated in a devastating Ottoman Turkish campaign that ended in the genocidal murder and ethnic cleansing of innocent white people, and signalled a larger step forward in a relentless effort to subjugate us as a people, using the Mediterranean for the naval and marine flanking and encirclement of our southern perimeter. That Turkish island hopping campaign was not decisively checked for nearly another half century, but when it was, in 1571 at the Battle of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=507, it was a glorious display of European unity across ethnic, religious, political and regional divides.
On December 22, 1522, an enormous defeat was inflicted on the white race in the form of the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Rhodes, the major Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean. Rhodes was an Ottoman target because it was the military base of the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, the leading extant Crusading organization and the “special forces” of the white race in their day. The Knights Hospitaller were originally founded to aid Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land, and to defend them from Muslim violence. They founded a system of hostels (“hospitals”) that eventually spread across Europe and developed into the hospital system we know today. While modern people may be tempted to scoff at the Church and Civilization of the Middle Ages as superstitious and backward, these kinds of very real contributions to the welfare of humanity laid down the foundation on which later advances were built, from schooling and literacy to medicine.
Drawn from the warrior aristocracy, the Knights Hospitaller were also monks, sworn to poverty, chastity and selfless service to their fellow man. As aristocrats they also were highly trained fighters, having been raised since childhood in the tactics of the day. As a result, they, like the Knights Templar and other Crusading Orders, formed the “special forces” of their epoch, the “first to fight.”
Another appealing aspect of the Hospitallers was their Western internationalism, with membership from all across Europe, joined together in the defense of Western Civilization. Membership in the Order was prestigious, and aristocratic families from across Europe were proud to boast of a younger son’s membership.
After hard service in the various Crusades, the Hospitallers were finally driven out of the Holy Land in 1291, establishing their military (and increasingly naval) presence on Rhodes. Positioned as they were close to the Turkish mainland, the Knights carried on their own Crusade, stunting Turkish maritime expansion at a crucial period, when the Turks were consolidating their leadership of the Muslim world. Eventually, the Turks laid siege to Rhodes in hopes of dislodging the Order, but this first attempt of 1480 ended in a decisive defeat for Islam.
The second Turkish attempt on Rhodes was on a different scale. By 1522, the Turks had perfected their military system, which was based on the Janissary Corps, white soldiers who had been raised in the Janissary system after being taken from their Christian parents as boys as a form of blood tax. The Janissaries, ideologically hardened by fanatical Sufi Islam and paid in booty and plunder, were justly feared by Europeans. It was these men who would form the spearhead of Suleiman the Magnificent, the brilliant Sultan who personally directed the siege, evidence of how important the Knights Hospitallers had become as an obstacle to Ottoman expansion.
Turkish marines and naval infantry set up a beach head at the end of June, and soon Ottoman guns, among the best artillery system in the world, were pounding Crusader positions. Ottoman galleys choked the harbor in a successful effort to forestall European reinforcements which had lifted the first siege in 1480. The Turks weren’t going to repeat any mistakes.
Turkish siege technology was also highly advanced. As their artillery blasted the Crusader fortifications and suicidal human wave attacks of Janissaries swarmed Christian lines, Ottoman sappers laid down tunnels beneath the Hospitallers’ walls. Finally, early in September, Ottoman engineers set off a brace of mines beneath the walls, collapsing part of the Hospitaller position held by the English brethren. (The Knights were organized in “langues” from each European region). Led by Nicholas Hussey, English and German knights beat back three Ottoman attacks on the breach, setting off a series of huge Ottoman offensives that lasted for a month. The harsh facts of life under siege began to take a toll on both the Knights and the civilians of Rhodes: hunger and sickness. On December 17 the bastion held by the Spanish brethren fell to the Turks, sealing the fate of the Knights.
On December 22, the civilian population agreed to Ottoman terms. In exchange for the surrender of the Hospitallers, they would be allowed off the island, while the civilians would be allowed to live. Their churches would not be made into mosques, and the civilians also had the option of leaving if they so desired. Thousands took the last option, and on January 1, 1523 left with the surviving Knights for Crete. Ottoman terms were quickly violated, with the Christian survivors driven out by the Muslims and their Jewish camp followers.
The Knights Hospitallers finally gained possession of the island of Malta in 1530, which they ruled as a base to continue their own Crusade to the days of Napoleon. Their rent to the Holy Roman Emperor was the annual gift of one Maltese falcon.
Image: Matchlock wielding Janissaries attack Hospitaller positions. From an Ottoman source
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