The Saint Peter Castle in Bodrum at Night - the Mausoleum was four Fingers to the Right
… you better visit the Bodrum Castle. When I came to Bodrum 40 years ago, my Turkish friend told me that I had to visit the Saint Peter Castle in the harbor if I wanted to see the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. I did not get her point. She had to explain that the Knights of Saint John (Maltese Knights) used marbles from the Mausoleum to build their castle. What were the Maltese Knights doing in Rhodes? Were they not supposed to be in Malte?
The Knights of Saint John with their Maltese Cross as they looked in the 13th Century
My confusion was easy to address. I had my time line wrong. The Knights of Saint John lived on Rhodes before they were expelled and had to find a new home in Malte. Their order was established in the 11th century to take care of the sick and wounded during the crusades. But over time they morphed into a military brotherhood and became Christianity's most uncompromising warriors. Whilst few in numbers, they fought to the last man. Surrender was not part of their vocabulary. Recognized in 1’113 AD by Pope Pascal II, the order had 3 chapters: military brothers, brothers infirmarians and brothers chaplains. Famous for their engineering skills, they had 7 great castles in the Holy Land. The Knights built Krak des Chevaliers and Margat, both impressive medieval fortresses which still stand in Syria. In 1291, the Knights also defended Acre, the last Christian stronghold in Palestine. None survived.
Krak des Chevaliers between Tartus and Homs in Syria was abandoned in 1271
Despite their crushing defeat, the Knights were far from being finished. Drawing on a large support network from all over Western Europe, they re-organized in Cyprus. But the Cypriot Kings did not like them. They feared the Knights as potential rivals and "suggested" that they found another home. At this point a little timeline is necessary to provide context for this chaotic century when borders were fluid and rulers constantly changed .
1255 - the Mongols establish a garrison in Ankara to control the Turks in Anatolia
1260 - the Mamluks (Egypt) stop the Mongol invasion of the Levant and Egypt
1261 - the Byzantine Emperor wins Constantinople back from the Crusaders
1265 – Byzantium is now in a quasi-alliance with the Mongols
1282 - the Pope reopens the schism with Byzantium & declares it up for grab
1285 – Genoa holds dubious claims on Rhodes, a Byzantine territory.
1291 – Acre falls. The Knights of Saint John need a new home.
1305 - Genoa cedes the island to the Maltese Knights for trade privileges.
1306 – the Knights invade Rhodes. Byzantium resists and fights back
1310 – the Byzantine forces are defeated; the city of Rhodes is taken.
1312 – Pope Clemens V dissolves the Templers, another hospitaller order – their vast fortunes are given to the Knights of Saint John – now rich beyond imagination
1315 – The Knights enlarge the City of Rhodes 4 x and fortify the entire perimeter
1334 – Byzantine Emperor Andronius tries to re-conquer Rhodes with Ottoman mercenaries but his campaign is unsuccessful
1335 – the Mongols pull out of Anatolia. The Ottomans become dominant.
1453 – Constantinople falls to Mehmed the Conqueror.
The Mongol Advance into Anatolia made the Knights Push for Rhodes possible
In a nutshell, the Knights of Saint John benefited from the turmoil caused by the Mongol invasion of the Middle East. The Seljuk were gone. Byzantium was reunited but weak.
The Knights came to Rhodes because they could. They had nowhere else to go. The Pope sanctioned their land grab. He wanted them to stop trading between Christians and Muslims. Rhodes was ideally located - all ships sailing from east to west had to cross here.
Ports of the Maltese Knights in red, Ports of Venice in Green
Without further ado the Knights fortified the surrounding harbors. Nobody could pass unnoticed. They stopped and raided vessels even from Genoa, their erstwhile ally. Not surprisingly, frustrations in Genoa and Cairo boiled over. In 1444, the Mamluk Sultan from Cairo invaded the island but could not breach the fortified walls. The Knights were master builders and engineers and simply too good for the unprepared Egyptian Mamluks. With 30 war galleys and many fortresses, the tiny order was now a military power house.
In 1319, 30 Galleys of the Knights of Saint John defeated an Ottoman Fleet near Chios (albeit this gravure is from a fleet engagement in 1652)
When the Mongols retreated, the Ottomans (a dynasty founded in 1299) became a key player in Anatolia. The Knights felt it was necessary to fortify their port in Bodrum. The site of the former royal palace on the promontory was chosen. The castle of Saint Peter was built with stones of Mausolus’ tomb up hill. Construction began in 1404. A papal decree from 1409 guaranteed all workers immediate ascent to heaven. By 1437 the castle’s walls were finished. They still stand today. But the Ottoman Sultans never attacked. They went straight for Rhodes, the Knights’ center of gravity.
The Knights surrounded Rhodes with Bastions and Bulwarks to neutralise Ottoman artillery
The Knights of Saint John were not only master builders and engineers, they were also very efficient plunderers. To speed up constructing of their castles and towns, they demolished ancient sites systematically to get stones and mortar (by burning lime stone). Quarrying big stone blocks was time consuming. Why not using the material of ancient cities like Knidos? Nobody lived there anyway and these sites had temples to pagan Gods. Am sure the Knights believed the end justified the means and that they did God’s work.
Always wondered who dismantled Knidos - i guess the Knights were here & used it as Quarry
We won’t be able to visit castles other than Bodrum this summer since Kastellorizo, Symi, Kos and Rhodes are part of Greece. Crossing the border from Turkey to Greece is always time consuming and takes a full day – not worth it. We will see Kastellorizo from the boat when passing by at a stone throw distance – we simply cannot land. Rhodes will be the starting point of next year’s sailing trip anyway. It will take us from there to Crete and then the Peloponnese. Plenty of time to see Knights’ castles on the Greek side.
The Knights Castle (a Museum today) still towers over Kastellorizo
Back to Rhodes. Annoyed by the Knights’ continued harassment of Ottoman shipping (read pirating, confiscation of cargo and taking hostages), Mehmet the Conqueror, the sultan who had taken Constantinople 27 years earlier, sailed with a force of 70’000 men and 160 ships to kick them off the island. But he had underestimated the Knights’ skills in building forts and their fighting prowess. They were fanatic and would not yield even when a situation looked hopeless. Their fortifications were state of the art. After two months of heavy fighting, Mehmet realized that his force was too small and lacked the necessary artillery. He fumingly withdrew but swore to return.
The Ottoman Fleet surrounding Rhodes in 1522 - 100'000 Turks landed on the Island
Due to his death in 1481, this task was left to his successors. Rhodes eventually fell in 1522 to Suleyman the Great after an epic months long battle. For the first time, siege engines faced bastions and bulwarks – the result was a draw – but the Knights run out of supplies. With nothing to eat, they had to surrender. Suleyman was happy he got the town and allowed the surviving Knights to sail. He or another sultan would fight them another day – it was 45 years later in the epic siege of Malta.
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and his Knigts arriving in their new Home in Birgu, Malta, in 1530