Page 155 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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porary sources report a five hour battle. More importantly, the arrival of both, and the naval
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combat, seem to have hurried Mehmed’s plans, and on 21 July the Sultan decided to attack
the walls. Led by their crack troops, the janissaries, the Ottoman Turks were able to break
through the outer walls in several places but they could not enter the city proper. Standing in
their way were the citizens of Belgrade and their motley Crusader allies. For several hours
throughout the night fighting raged on. Finally, at dawn it looked as if the janissaries might
gain victory, until the were stopped by a desperate countercharge led by John of Capistrano
himself – quite a feat at his advanced age. The Turks were broken and rushed back out
through the breaches in the wall only to meet Hunyadi’s cavalry, who, finding themselves fi-
nally able to be useful, descended onto them, sending all, including the janissaries, into flight.
Mehmed, who may have been wounded in the fighting, and his personal guard only had time
to spike their cannons before they, too, were swept up in the rout. The exhausted citizens
and Crusaders who chased after the fleeing Ottomans pillaged what was left behind. as one
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astute modern historian, Norman Housley, has concluded, the siege of Belgrade in 1456 was
“the greatest crusading victory over the Turks in the fifteenth century . . . [it was] one of the
most extraordinary episodes in military history.” 13
While it is hard to differ with Housley’s conclusion, one might also say the same about
the siege of Rhodes in 1480. By that date Mehmed II had rebuilt his army and gunpowder
artillery arsenal; he had also recovered his prestige. Although he would not take on Belgrade
again, he was prepared to advance against another, closer foe, the Knights Hospitaller who
were headquartered on the island of Rhodes in the walled town that was called the same. The
Knights had first come to Rhodes in 1308, having failed to hold onto their Crusading holdings
in the Holy Land. Since the fall of Constantinople they had built up the city’s defenses, replac-
ing the Byzantine walls which provided little protection for a city which had long outgrown
them with their own much larger circuit of strong stone walls and numerous towers. 14
Their long anticipated invasion came in May 1480. While the Knights Hospitallers long
suspected an attack of their island headquarters, so close to Turkey that the mainland can
be seen at all times unless the sun is shining so brightly that the reflection from the Eastern
Mediterranean obscures the view, but they became absolutely certain of an invasion early
in 1480. Their leader, Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson, who had held that position for less
than a year, did not panic but quickly began making repairs to the city walls – like Belgrade,
Rhodes was girded by strong city walls, along both the sea and landward sides – and gather-
ing supplies, gunpowder, arms, and victuals. One eyewitness, d’Aubusson’s secretary, Guil-
laume Caoursin, writes “that all the ripe and some of the unripe crops (for the harvest had
not yet been gathered) be collected and the people to pick everything and take it into their
homes so that there be nothing left around the town.” Already the people of the city had re-
15

11 Babinger, pp. 140-41; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, II:178; and Andrič, p. 27.
12 Babinger, pp. 141-43; Setton, Papacy and the Levant, II:179; Andrič, p. 27; and Turnbull, pp. 38-39.
13 Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274-1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992), pp. 103-04. See also Andrič, p. 27.
14 The largest building of fortifications had taken place under the leadership of Grand Masters Antonio Fluvian
de Rivière (1421-37) and Jean de Lastic (1437-54).
15 Guillaume Caoursin, Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio (Venice, 1480), p. 4.