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On 24 May 1565 the Ottoman artillery opened fire on Fort St. Elmo, one of the fortresses of the Knights hospitaller. This was the beginning of the great siege of Malta. Behind the artillery, an army of 40,000 soldiers was waiting to conquer the island, sent there by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who wanted to strengthen the position of the Ottoman Empire in the struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean and wipe out the Order of St. John, also known as Knights Hospitaller once and for all. But the Knights together with Maltese militia and a number of mercenaries, put up a fierce fight. Europe was trembling as the siege developed into a war of attrition of epic proportions. The possibility of an Ottoman bridgehead so close to Italy had never been more real.

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Bibliography
Allen, B. W., The Great Siege of Malta: The Epic Battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Knights of St. John, New England 2015
Bradford, E., The Great Siege: Malta 1565, London 19992.
Crowley, R., Empires of the Sea, New York 2008.
Desportes, Ch., Le siège de Malte : la grande défaite de Soliman le magnifique, 1565, Paris 1999.
Setton, K. M., The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, vol. 4 The Sixteenth Century from Julius III to Pius V, Philadelphia 1984.
Seward, D., Les chevaliers de Dieu: Les ordres religieux militaires du Moyen Âge à nos jours, trad. Claude-Christine Farny, Paris 2008.

Reading list:
Warfare:
Duffy, C., Siege Warfare: The Fortress in the Early Modern World 1494-1660, Vol. 1, 1979. https://amzn.to/32dvvwM
Devries, K., Douglas, R., Medieval Military Technology, 1992, https://amzn.to/3IazYoC.
Rogers, C.J., The military revolution debate. Readings on the military transformation of early modern Europe, 1995. https://amzn.to/3geVDMM
Rogers, C.J., Soldiers' Lives through History - The Middle Ages, 2006. https://amzn.to/3j2kQvG
Parker, C., The Cambridge History of Warfare, 2005. https://amzn.to/32ggn1L
Van Nimwegen, O., The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688, 2010. https://amzn.to/2E3Fc95

Fiction related to the Early modern period:
Alexandre Dumas,The Three Musketeers https://amzn.to/2CJVAuu
Alexandre Dumas, 20 Years After https://amzn.to/32g82Lv
Alexandre Dumas, The Vicomte de Bragelonne https://amzn.to/2EnIOCB
Markus Heitz, The Dark Lands https://amzn.to/3ntZgEu

Military Si-Fi recommendations:
Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe (Series of 22 books on the Napoleonic Wars), https://amzn.to/3RZyty0
Dan Abnett, The Founding: A Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus (Gaunt’s Ghosts) https://amzn.to/3vdGxkZ
Dan Abnett, The Lost: A Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus (Gaunt’s Ghosts) https://amzn.to/3osvFvA
Dan Abnett, The Saint A Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus (Gaunt’s Ghosts) https://amzn.to/3orikUk
Glen Cook, Chronicles of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company Series Book 1) https://amzn.to/3PVgyGV

Historiography:
Neville Morley, Writing Ancient History 1999. https://amzn.to/3NCyoNl
Albeit focused on ancient history, it's a brilliant book for anybody who is interested in what history actually is. Is it a story? How does it work in practise? Can writing history be objective? Is it "scientific"? What makes it a proper discipline at university?