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Author: Roger Crowley
Reviewed by: John Mulholland, retired manufacturing executive
Author Roger Crowley is a Cambridge-educated English historian who has concentrated his studies and writings on the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire.
His numerous books have been bestsellers for the last two decades. I have read all of them, and can attest that they are exceedingly well-researched.
No armchair historian, Crowley has pursued history first hand by tramping across Anatolia and Greece and enjoying a long residency in Istanbul. He speaks Greek, Turkish and other languages.
But his depth doesn’t keep Crowley from producing page-turners from beginning to end, including Empires of the Sea.
By 1565 the Ottomans controlled the Eastern Mediterranean and nearly all of North Africa. A quick look at the map reveals why Malta was so crucial to expansion and control of the sea and why it was equally essential to Europe, especially Spain and Italy. If the Ottomans were to expand further, they would need to seize this strategic island.
The Knights Hospitaller, an order of Catholic knights founded in Jerusalem by Italians in the 11th century, had been run out of their home base in Rhodes and assigned to Malta by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.
After a defeat of the Spanish navy in 1560 in Tripoli, it was obvious that the next conflict would be in Malta. Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, had attempted to conquer Malta in 1530 and failed. He returned in 1565 with an armada of nearly 200 ships carrying perhaps 48,000 soldiers. Defending Malta was a combined force of 6,000 led by the Knights Hospitaller. Malta had been heavily fortified and was protected by three main forts. The battle lasted from May 18-Sept. 8, 1565. It was epic, with no quarter asked nor given. The participants all knew that it was victory or death.
Determined defense, summer heat, supply problems and a high rate of killed slowly undermined the Turkish resolve to continue the fight. The Ottomans left and would never attack Malta again.
The book finishes with an exciting and detailed description of perhaps the more famous naval confrontation between the Venetians and Ottomans in the Bay of Leponto in Greece. in 1571 This would prove to be the last major sea battle between Ottomans and Europeans. In the battle, the Ottomans lost over half their fleet, versus about 5 percent for the Venetians.
Students of history of any kind will be enthralled by the riveting accounts of these epic battles. More importantly, Crowley makes us better informed about major events that allowed Europe to remain European and, eventually, enabled what we call Western Civilization to flourish.
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