The Great Siege of Malta took place in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire invaded the island, then held by the Knights Hospitaller of St John.

The siege, one of the bloodiest and most fiercely contested in history, was won by the Knights and became one of the most celebrated events in sixteenth century Europe. Voltaire said, “Nothing is more well known than the siege of Malta.”

Queen Elizabeth I of England is said to have remarked: “If the Turks should prevail against the Isle of Malta, it is uncertain what further peril might follow to the rest of Christendom.”

The siege was the climax of an escalating contest between a Christian alliance and Ottoman Empire for control of the Mediterranean. By early 1565, Grand Master Jean Parisot de La Vallette’s network of spies had informed him that an invasion was imminent. Valette set about raising troops in Italy, laying in stores and finishing repairs on Fort Saint Angelo, Fort Saint Michael, and Fort Saint Elmo.

The Turkish armada was, by all accounts, one of the largest assembled since antiquity. The Knights Hospitaller totalled 6100 between knights, Spanish soldiers, Italian soldiers, Greek and Sicilian, galley slaves and the Maltese population - the Ottomans totalled 48,000 in all.

Fort St. Elmo was manned by only 100 or so knights and 500 soldiers, but de Valette had ordered them to fight to the last. Although the Turks did succeed in their objective in capturing St. Elmo, the siege of Fort St. Elmo had cost the Turks over 4,000 men. But Mustafa had no intention of giving up. The bodies of the knights were decapitated and their bodies floated across the bay on mock crucifixes. In response, de Valette, had all his Turkish prisoners decapitated and their heads fired into the Turkish camp.

At the beginning of September, the weather was turning and Mustafa ordered a march on Mdina, intending to winter there. However, his troops by then did not have the stomach for another assault and the attack failed to occur. By 8 September, the Turks had embarked their artillery and were preparing to leave the island, having lost perhaps a third of their men to fighting and disease.

The Turks fled to their ships and from the islands on 11 September. Malta had survived the Turkish assault, and throughout Europe people celebrated what would turn out to be the last epic battle of the Crusader period.

9,000 Christians, most of them Maltese, had managed to withstand a siege for more than four months in the hot summer, suffering some 130,000 cannon shots. The Turks never attempted to besiege Malta again.