Fortress Malta

Author: James Holland
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1780225970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
The extraordinary drama of Malta's WWII victory against impossible odds told through the eyes of the people who were there. In March and April 1942, more explosives were dropped on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta - smaller than the Isle of Wight - than on the whole of Britain during the first year of the Blitz. Malta had become one of the most strategically important places in the world. From there, the Allies could attack Axis supply lines to North Africa; without it, Rommel would be able to march unchecked into Egypt, Suez and the Middle East. For the Allies this would have been catastrophic. As Churchill said, Malta had to be held 'at all costs'. FORTRESS MALTA follows the story through the eyes of those who were there: young men such as twenty-year-old fighter pilot Raoul Daddo-Langlois, anti-aircraft gunner Ken Griffiths, American Art Roscoe and submariner Tubby Crawford - who served on the most successful Allied submarine of the Second World War; cabaret dancer-turned RAF plotter Christina Ratcliffe, and her lover, the brilliant and irrepressible reconnaissance pilot, Adrian Warburton. Their stories and others provide extraordinary first-hand accounts of heroism, resilience, love, and loss, highlighting one of the most remarkable stories of World War II.

The Great Siege, Malta 1565

Author: Ernle Bradford
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497617308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Book Description
The indispensable account of the Ottoman Empire’s Siege of Malta from the author of Hannibal and Gibraltar. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was thought to be invincible. Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, had expanded his empire from western Asia to southeastern Europe and North Africa. To secure control of the Mediterranean between these territories and launch an offensive into western Europe, Suleiman needed the small but strategically crucial island of Malta. But Suleiman’s attempt to take the island from the Holy Roman Empire’s Knights of St. John would emerge as one of the most famous and brutal military defeats in history. Forty-two years earlier, Suleiman had been victorious against the Knights of St. John when he drove them out of their island fortress at Rhodes. Believing he would repeat this victory, the sultan sent an armada to Malta. When they captured Fort St. Elmo, the Ottoman forces ruthlessly took no prisoners. The Roman grand master La Vallette responded by having his Ottoman captives beheaded. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked, none given. Ernle Bradford’s compelling and thoroughly researched account of the Great Siege of Malta recalls not just an epic battle, but a clash of civilizations unlike anything since the time of Alexander the Great. It is “a superior, readable treatment of an important but little-discussed epic from the Renaissance past . . . An astonishing tale” (Kirkus Reviews).

Empires of the Sea

Author: Roger Crowley
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588367339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Book Description
In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world. In Empires of the Sea, acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date–a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, “The King of Evil,” the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria. This struggle’s brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepanto–one of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away “because of the countless corpses floating in the sea.” Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today. Roger Crowley conjures up a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its best–a story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.

The Fortifications of Malta 1530–1945

Author: Charles Stephenson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1849080151
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Book Description
The Island of Malta occupies a pivotal position in the Mediterranean, forming an outpost between North Africa and the soft underbelly of Europe. Such has been its strategic importance throughout the years that it has become one of the most fortified places in the world. Following the successful defence of the island during the Great Siege of 1565, the Knights Hospitaller built new walls and fortifications. These defences failed when Napoleon occupied Malta in 1798, and the island was retaken by the British in 1800. From this point onwards, Malta's defences were modernised throughout the 19th century and the island's final test came during World War II. This book examines all these different styles of fortification from the 16th to the 20th century.

The Great Siege of Malta

Author: Bruce Ware Allen
Publisher: University Press of New England
ISBN: 1611688434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
In the spring of 1565, a massive fleet of Ottoman ships descended on Malta, a small island centrally located between North Africa and Sicily, home and headquarters of the crusading Knights of St. John and their charismatic Grand Master, Jean de Valette. The Knights had been expelled from Rhodes by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and now stood as the last bastion against a Muslim invasion of Sicily, southern Italy, and beyond. The siege force of Turks, Arabs, and Barbary corsairs from across the Muslim world outnumbered the defenders of Malta many times over, and its arrival began a long hot summer of bloody combat, often hand to hand, embroiling knights and mercenaries, civilians and slaves, in a desperate struggle for this pivotal point in the Mediterranean. Bruce Ware Allen's The Great Siege of Malta describes the siege's geopolitical context, explains its strategies and tactics, and reveals how the all-too-human personalities of both Muslim and Christian leaders shaped the course of events. The siege of Malta was the Ottoman empire's high-water mark in the war between the Christian West and the Muslim East for control of the Mediterranean. Drawing on copious research and new source material, Allen stirringly recreates the two factions' heroism and chivalry, while simultaneously tracing the barbarism, severity, and indifference to suffering of sixteenth-century warfare. The Great Siege of Malta is a fresh, vivid retelling of one of the most famous battles of the early modern world - a battle whose echoes are still felt today.

Fortress: Architecture and Military History in Malta

Author: Quentin Hughes
Publisher: Ben Uri Gallery & Museum
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description

Fortress Malta

Author: James Holland
Publisher: Miramax
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

Book Description
A riveting account of one of the great, little-known stories of World War II--the siege of Malta. 16-page photo insert.

Fortress Europe

Author: Matthew Carr
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1620972336
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Singled out by Foreign Affairs for its reporting on “the brutal frontiers of new Europe,” Fortress Europe is the story of how the world's most affluent region—and history's greatest experiment with globalization—has become an immigration war zone, where tens of thousands have died in a humanitarian crisis that has galvanized the world's attention. Journalist Matthew Carr brings to life remarkable human dramas, based on ex- tensive interviews and firsthand reporting from the hot zones of Europe's immigration battles, in a narrative that moves from the desperate immigrant camps at the mouth of the Channel Tunnel in Calais, France, to the chaotic Mediterranean sea, where African migrants have drowned by the thousands. Speaking with key European policy makers, police, soldiers on the front lines, immigrant rights activists, and an astonishing range of migrants themselves, Carr offers a lucid account both of the broad issues at stake in the crisis and its exorbitant human costs. The paperback edition includes a new afterword by the author, which offers an up-to-the-minute assessment of the 2015 crisis and a searing critique of Europe's response to the new waves of refugees.

Coleridge's Laws

Author: Barry Hough
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1906924120
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is best known as a great poet and literary theorist, but for one, quite short, period of his life he held real political power - acting as Public Secretary to the British Civil Commissioner in Malta in 1805. This was a formative experience for Coleridge which he later identified as being one of the most instructive in his entire life. In this volume Barry Hough and Howard Davis show how Coleridge's actions whilst in a position of power differ markedly from the idealism he had advocated before taking office - shedding new light on Coleridge's sense of political and legal morality.

Siege Malta 1940-1943

Author: Ernie Bradford
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1848845847
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
Situated midway between Europe and Africa, Malta played a central role in the battles for the mastery of North Africa. The island was the vital supply base for British and Imperial troops in the to-and-fro desert campaigns against, first, Italy and then Germany and Rommels Afrika Korps. The three-year siege of Malta was one of the longest in history. In this thrilling account the author, who first came to know and love Malta whilst serving with the Royal Navy during the Second World War, paints a vivid picture of the suffering of the island and its population. He draws on personal accounts and reminiscences of the participants; he tells of the occasional despair that turned to joy when the convoys got through with much-needed supplies and of the bravery of both the civilians and the armed forces stationed there that uniquely won for Malta the George Cross. Ernle Bradford was born in Norfolk in 1922 and joined the Royal Navy at eighteen. He served with distinction throughout the Second World War. After the war he based himself in Malta, sailing the Mediterranean in a number of small boats and writing prolifically about its history. Among his other books are The Great Siege: Malta 1565, Ulysses Found, Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea, Cleopatra, Hannibal, The Shield and the Sword and Christopher Columbus. He died in 1986.