The Great Siege of Malta

by Marcus Bull

Even as the great siege began it was understood by both sides to be an epic – a potentially decisive encounter between an uneasy assortment of soldiers, native Maltese, adventurers and Hospitaller Knights on a strategically crucial but near waterless island and a vast, seemingly all-powerful Ottoman armada. With three quarters of the Mediterranean’s coasts already in the hands of the Sultan and his allies, all eyes were now on Malta.

This superb new account of the siege emphasises the crucial importance of the siege while at the same time putting it in a far wider context. While seen as a climactic battle between the West and the East, it was also much more nuanced than that – both sides had many other interests and priorities beyond Malta. Suleiman the Magnificent had conquered and subsumed regions from Hungary to the Persian Gulf; Philip II was building an empire in America and Asia.

Drawing on a wide range of eyewitness stories, Marcus Bull gives a vivid sense of the period’s technologies, values and assumptions. It was a grim world built on the labour of many thousands of disposable galley-slaves, shockingly brutal forms of warfare and religious absolutism. But it was also a world filled with the most extraordinary new discoveries and ideas. Both these worlds come together in the siege and in this book.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook

352 pages, Paperback

Expected publication June 2, 2026

Reviews

[History Today]

In 1942, at the height of the Axis powers’ siege of Malta, a young British first-lieutenant named Ernle Bradford arrived at the island’s Grand Harbour aboard a Hunt-class destroyer. He returned in 1951, this time on his own yacht, and had the leisure to explore Valletta and the three islands that make up the Maltese archipelago. Fascinated and charmed by what he saw, he decided to write a book about an earlier siege of the islands. Published in 1961 as The Great Siege: Malta 1565, it recounts how in May that year the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, sent a fleet of 181 ships to the Grand Harbour with the aim of ejecting the then rulers of the islands, the Knights of St John.

The defenders were hopelessly outnumbered. Between 35,000 and 40,000 Ottoman combatants allegedly manned the fleet and landed on the main island. They were opposed by around 6,000, of whom just 2,500 were trained soldiers or members of the elite military order. It was the ultimate David and Goliath confrontation, and Bradford wove a gripping narrative centred on the Ottoman assault on the fort of St Elmo, which lay on a headland at the mouth of the Grand Harbour. One of the Ottoman leaders, the corsair Dragut (or Turgut), advised against wasting effort on the fort, but he was fatally injured shortly afterwards by a stray shot and his wise counsel went unheard. The fort was, after all, probably garrisoned by fewer than a thousand men, but it turned out not to be the pushover that the Ottomans had anticipated. It resisted for a whole month and only fell when the last of the defenders was dead and after the attackers had sustained over 4,000 casualties of their own and used 19,000 of their cannon balls. The sacrifice at St Elmo held up the Ottoman advance long enough for the resolute Grand Master, Jean de la Valette, to hold the line until a relieving force could arrive from Sicily on 8 September. Bradford’s book is a compelling read, albeit one evidently informed by his 1942 experience, with the outnumbered knights standing in for plucky British fighter pilots, battling in skies darkened by swarms of enemy aircraft.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Jonathan Harris is Professor of the History of Byzantium at Royal Holloway, University of London.

[Marcus Vetrano · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Sleep Of Malta.

Contrived, boring beyond belief.

I read most of this on my Queensland trip and while it started off great with specific accounts and descriptions of the living conditions of the Mediterranean at that time, everything else mentioned was so goddamn boring that I wanted to tear out my eyes from my skull.

The Great Sleep Of Malta

[Stephen Ede-Borrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was both interesting and disappointing... Despite its title the 'Great Siege' itself takes probably less than 20% of the text, the rest being devoted to a multitude of discussions about the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterranean for a half-century before and after the siege itself.

There is a mass of fascinating detail but very little of it relates to the Siege - a lot of the time it felt as if the author had found some interesting snippet and just thought 'I have to include this even if it is totally out of line with the subject of the book'. Either that or the book started out as a study of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean in the 16th Century and the editors said it would be more saleable if the little bit on the Siege was expanded slightly.

As mentioned the little anecdotes were fascinating and very informative, and it is interesting to see a book that has obvious sympathies for the Ottomans and their point of view, but a book about 'the Great Siege' of 1565 this isn't. It also tends to be written in the 'academic' style of 'never use one simple word when an obscure five syllable one will fit and will show the reader how intelligent I am!'

Interesting in parts, but very disappointing.

[Leticia · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much more context about the Ottoman Empire, corsairs, and siege warfare in general than actual information about the Great Siege itself in The Great Siege of Malta, but it turns out that I am much more interested in the wider historical picture than the difficult-to-follow machinations of specific battles, so I didn't mind. I did go in hoping for information about life on Malta for the Maltese in this period, but unfortunately the aristocratic Knights of St John didn't much care about the locals and only seem to record their existence when it’s related to crime and/or prostitutes, so you have to make to with glimpses and extrapolation.

Overall, interesting but not fascinating, and seemed to give a balanced view of both sides of the conflict.

[Milo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive account of the siege and the context in which it sat. A very thoughtful discussion of the outcome and why it turned out in the way that it did, but also what that meant more broadly for 16th century Europe. Another review suggested that there was too little focus on the siege, but I thought sighting it within the bigger picture, particularly on the politics of the Hospitallers and the Sublime Porte respectively, gave a much better overall view.

[Kronk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as detailed about the actual siege as I expected. Lots of historical background to the geographical, economic and humanitarian issues of the time, which was mostly interesting. The chapter on some New World events of the time didn’t really link back well to events in the Mediterranean and the siege itself - felt like it was taken from a different book.

[Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, and very informative. But the downside is that it read like a uni dissertation paper instead of a book. I read most of the book, the last chapter wasn’t about the siege as much

[The Bauchler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mistitled, really.

It spends only about 25% of itself covering the actual Siege.

The rest discusses the period before and then local and world events after 1565.

Some interesting stuff therein, but I really wanted a more focused book that would compliment other accounts of the siege by Ernil Bradford or Francisco Balbi de Correggio.

2.5*