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Lead book review

For all its fame, the Great Siege of Malta made no difference to the course of history

The victorious Hospitallers soon subsided into genteel irrelevance, while the Ottomans remained a formidable Mediterranean power for centuries to come

25 January 2025

9:00 AM

25 January 2025

9:00 AM

The Great Siege of Malta Marcus Bull

Allen Lane, pp.352, 30

Strategically located in the narrows of the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tripoli, with a fine natural harbour, Malta has attracted the attention of successive conquerors for two millennia: Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Aragonese, French and finally British.

In 1565, the island was occupied by a power that was already beginning to look anachronistic: the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.

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