Why didn't the Ottomans besiege Malta after 1565?
score:9
Suleiman the Magnificent died a year after the Great Siege and was succeeded by Selim II. The change in leadership also brought a change of focus. Selim decided to move against the equally strategically positioned Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
The War of Cyprus started only five years after the Great Siege, and although the Ottomans ultimately prevailed, the bulk of their fleet was destroyed in the Battle of Lepanto. This was the first naval defeat for the Ottomans since the 15th century, and although they quickly replaced their lost ships, the ~20,000 experienced seamen lost in the battle weren't as easy to replace.
Despite this, the Ottomans captured Tunis with relative ease only three years later, and only a year after they secured Cyprus. Their attention turned away from the Mediterranean, and towards Austria (Long War) and Poland (First & Second Polish-Ottoman War) in the West and Safavid Persia in the East (1578–90 & 1603–18). The following years, a very long series of minor internal and external conflicts demanded immediate attention and resources; the Empire had already entered its stagnation phase.
It could be argued that the main reason the Ottomans never tried to besiege Malta again was that after 1565 they never actually stopped being engaged in one war or another. At the same time though, up until the 1630s their dominance in the Mediterranean was undeniable, even with the bulk of their fleet engaged elsewhere (or rotting in Istanbul). They managed to capture Madeira (1617), raid western England and reach as far as the shores of Sweden, with little - if any - resistance. Malta's position turned out to be quite less significant than both the Europeans and the Ottomans thought in 1565.
Furthermore, sympathy - and gold - poured into Malta from all over Europe after the Hospitallers' sensational stand against the Ottomans. Fort Saint Elmo was not only rebuilt, but integrated to a fortified city; Valletta. If it had taken a month for the fort to fall in 1565, with the new fortifications it would be a nearly impossible task for any assailant. The Ottomans had already suffered two humbling defeats, in Malta and in Lepanto, besieging the reinforced island that was proving in practice to be tactically insignificant simply didn't make sense.
More post
- 📝 General Sherman's March to the Sea
- 📝 Did Romans create dictionaries?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that the book of Isaiah was written before Cyrus?
- 📝 What really happened to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel?
- 📝 When was this picture of Ostend taken?
- 📝 Could you please simplify "Carrying capacity" meaning in the following paragraph?
- 📝 Does the leather strap often depicted on a Pith helmets serve a purpose, or is it purely cosmetic?
- 📝 Why hire Hessian troops?
- 📝 Is Makarios III's harsh quote on Turkish Cypriots accurate?
- 📝 Is there a definition of history separate from the definition of politics?
- 📝 Organisation of mercenaries
- 📝 Why is it called the War of Knives?
- 📝 Is there a student of Arnold J Toynbee with an opinion about the state and fate of Western Civilization?
- 📝 Is the Sandracottus genus of beetles named after Chandragupta Maurya?
- 📝 Did British measures cause starvation in Norway during WWI?
- 📝 Bretton Woods System : The Meaning as International Monetary System
- 📝 Did Abraham Lincoln kill the man who murdered his mother?
- 📝 When did chairs with arms and backs develop in Europe?
- 📝 WW 2 US Army Discharge Papers -- Codes
- 📝 Polytheism and war
- 📝 How did Sweden come out so unscathed physically and morally from WW2?
- 📝 Did ancient peoples ever hide their treasure behind puzzles?
- 📝 Did Jefferson and Washington smoke weed?
- 📝 What's this coin? IMP CAES M IVL PHILPPVS OVBOVS; Rev: IOMH COL HEL
- 📝 Who are the WWII German Officers in this picture?
- 📝 What are the tabs/spaces for in the Beowulf text
- 📝 Why was Ernst Röhm murdered?
- 📝 How did Islamic finance under the early Caliphates profit or take loans if charging interest wasn't legal?
- 📝 Have revolutions been won without the military establishment?
- 📝 Military training in the Hijaz during early Islamic era
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why didn't the Ottomans besiege Malta after 1565?
- 📝 Why did the British scuttle the u-boats surrendered after WWII?
- 📝 Why did stock brokers go bankrupt after the crash of 1929?
- 📝 Why didn't the USA move to the left after WWII?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 Why could China keep most of the lands it conquered after 17th century but European powers could not?
- 📝 Why didn't Hannibal attack Rome after the Battle of Cannae?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union not "grant" Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
- 📝 Why did the Germans not encircle and besiege Stalingrad?
- 📝 Why did the Turks adopt the Latin alphabet after WWI?
- 📝 Why did Latin disappear so completely in Britain after the Romans left?
- 📝 Why was the British army so short of rifles after Dunkirk?
- 📝 Why didn't mercenary combat after the middle ages lead to the collapse of the ruling class?
- 📝 Why was the last battle of the War of 1812 fought fully half a year after the official end of the war?
- 📝 Why did the French insist on reclaiming Indo-China after WWII?
- 📝 Why did the Ottomans not change their capital to an Arab city?
- 📝 Why did Germany decide not to restore the Hohenzollern dynasty to the throne of a German Empire after the defeat of Hitler in World War Two?
- 📝 Why did the Germans fall behind the Americans in the development of the atomic bomb after an initial lead?
- 📝 Why do all my history books divide Chinese history after the Han dynasty?
- 📝 Why did monarchy become common practice after the fall of Rome?
- 📝 After the USS Reuben James was sunk (1941 Oct 31) by Germany, why didn't the USA join the war?
- 📝 Why were fragments of the Mongol empire named after colors?
- 📝 Why aren't the Americas named after Christopher Columbus
- 📝 Why didn't the Ottomans conquer (what is now known as) Morocco?
- 📝 Why are some Pharaohs depicted wearing the red or the white crowns even after the unification of Egypt?
- 📝 Why did Gorbachev go to see "Prince Igor" after the August 1991 coup attempt?
- 📝 Why didn't the Japanese develop air defenses after the bombing of Tokyo?
- 📝 Why did the attempts to keep Africa colonized after World War II fail?
- 📝 Why did United Kingdom not keep the colonies after Napoleon's defeat?
- 📝 Why did Britain object to the Ottomans bringing its ships-of-the-line against Russia in the beginning of the Crimean War?