If you’re stuck for gifts for the men in your life you might consider some E-Reads books that our surveys tells us are popular among males. Included are:

Sunday In Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute by Bill McWilliams
Using long established historical records and contemporary journals as well as recently-released war-time documents, Bill McWilliams has created a brand-new minute-by-minute narrative of the Day that Will Live in Infamy. Told from the point-of-view of dozens of characters from Generals and Admirals and politicians and diplomats down to deckhands and private soldiers and also innocent civilians at all levels, this panoramic overview of one of the most traumatizing and shocking events in American history puts the reader in a spot where they can understand the big picture of strategy and tactics as well as the intimate detail of what the chaos, violence and sudden death felt like to people immersed in the surprise of an armed attack on American soil.

The Great Siege by Ernle Bradford
Suleiman the Magnificent, the most powerful ruler in the world, was determined to conquer Europe. Only one thing stood in his way: a dot of an island in the Mediterranean called Malta, occupied by the Knights of St. John, the cream of the warriors of the Holy Roman Empire. A clash of civilizations was shaping up the likes of which had not been seen since Persia invaded Greece.

Determined to capture Malta and use its port to launch operations against Europe, Suleiman sent an armada and an overwhelming army. A few thousand defenders in Fort St. Elmo fought to the last man, enduring cruel hardships. When they captured the fort the Turks took no prisoners and mutilated the defenders’ bodies. Grand Master La Vallette of the Knights reciprocated by decapitating his Turkish prisoners and using their heads to cannonade the enemy. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked; none given.

The Siege of Malta is not merely a gripping tale of brutality, courage, and tenacity, but the saga of two mighty civilizations struggling for domination of the known world.

The Blood We Shed by William Christie

The United States Marine Corps is a legendary fighting force. Literally thousands of books and movies have glorified its history. But now a Marine veteran has written a novel that opens up the curtain and provides a look deep inside the modern Corps: the good, the bad, and the sometimes just plain embarrassing.

Lieutenant Mike Galway takes command of his first platoon and it is not at all what he bargained for. What he anticipated was the challenge of training a unit of disciplined Marine infantrymen to go to war. Instead he finds himself responsible for a group of unruly American teenagers, for whom he has to become a combination of surrogate father, psychologist, high school principal, marriage counselor, financial advisor, conflict mediator, and drug and alcohol therapist. The results are frequently hilarious, always frustrating, and sometimes heartbreakingly tragic.

Maneater by Jack Warner
Most hunts end in a death. This hunt begins with one–Lanelle Jackson’s. A wild tiger has escaped its cargo truck and now roams the dense forests of the Appalachian Mountains. When deer and wild boar run out, the tiger turns its growing hunger towards man. Now it has a taste for easy prey. With a body-count on the rise and the media coming in, Sheriff Grady Brickhouse calls upon Jim Graham, a tiger hunter trained in India to end the man-eater’s killing spree.

In Maneater, author Jack Warner crafts a tightly suspenseful adventure novel, where death hides in the shadows of small town life. It will have you straining to hear the low growl of the wild before it’s too late…

Out of the Ashes by William C. Johnson
Ben Raines is searching for his family in the chaos that remains after devastation hits America. Thieves and gangsters take the streets in the aftermath of nuclear apocalypse. Fearful American citizens band together searching for a leader. Luckily, there is Ben Raines, a rebel mercenary, soldier and patriot. Ben forges together the remains of the cities to join with the Resistance forces and create a new future for America. During their struggles, the final battle arises with an attack by government forces. Will they be able to rebuild America? And will Ben Raines find his family?
Out of the Ashes is the first novel of a gripping series that takes you further than you dare to imagine into a post-Apocalypse world

Meds by Ray Garton
One hot summer day, a man in a business suit running wildly down a busy street attacks a woman and her toddler, neither of whom have ever seen him before.

… As he waits in his pickup truck for his wife to finish shopping, a man decides to take the shotgun off its rack, go inside the mall and open fire on total strangers.

… While waiting to see her doctor, a woman takes a knife from her purse and begins stabbing others in the waiting room.

Something is making people become violent and murderous…something they all have in common. When Eli Dunbar discovers what it is, he becomes afraid, because it’s something he has in common with them–a drug prescribed to him by his psychiatrist. And now Eli is a ticking time bomb.

Do you know all of the risks your prescription drugs might pose? Does your doctor? Or has the manufacturer hidden them from the public in the interest of profits?

Meds…a thriller with deadly side effects.

On this the 70th anniversary of the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor E-Reads commemorates the fallen men and women of that national trauma with publication, in e-book and print, of Sunday in Hell: Pearl Harbor Minute by Minute, an excruciating, stunningly detailed account by Bill McWilliams.

Meticulously researched and written for all audiences, the book provides fresh information, a trove of photographs and previously untold stories by the men, women, children and families who lived, worked and fought on the day of the Japanese surprise attack on America’s most important naval base in the Pacific.

Author McWilliams, in his third major book work, places the attack in historical context, summarizing the ten-year lead-up to America’s first and most disastrous battle of World War II. Then, in the words of the people who lived the events, he brings readers deep inside the stark, vividly remembered hell of Pearl Harbor. The story takes you moment by moment, airfield by airfield, ship by ship through the tragedies, sacrifices, inspirational heroism and valor and the desperation of that day – and the first 24 days of the aftermath – when an entire nation, outraged and inspired by the Japanese Empire’s treachery, was jolted into a massive mobilization and forever changed.

******************************************

Praise for SUNDAY IN HELL: PEARL HARBOR MINUTE BY MINUTE

“The attack on Pearl Harbor was a profoundly bitter surprise for an unprepared America. It was an earth shaking event in a chain of devastating events perpetrated by the twentieth century’s new totalitarians – the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and militarist Japan. This work revitalizes the cry, ‘Remember Pearl Harbor!’ and records anew America’s entry into World War II, the deadly, never-to-be-ignored lessons totalitarians leave in the archives of history’s darkest hours.” – Gordon R. Sullivan – General, US Army, Retired – 32nd Chief of Staff

“Bill McWilliams delivers a most readable history that immerses us in the depths of our Nation’s darkest hour. Feel the shock and anger, the humiliation and devastation that roused the ‘Sleeping Giant’ and inspired the greatest mobilization of spirit, and pride our nation has ever seen. This is the story of real people whose shattered lives became the stuff of the ‘Greatest Generation.’” – General John P. Jumper – US Air Force (Ret) – Chief of Staff 2001-05

“A memorable history should read like an exciting true story, create clear visual images, and cause readers to feel they are among the people living the events. This work does. Bill McWilliams pulls us into the story, where we experience the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of war, while feeling the powerful crosscurrents of emotion war provokes.” – General Thomas R. Morgan – USMC (Retired) – Assistant Commandant – Marine Corps, 1986-88

“Masterfully told; a powerful true story of the devastating events surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that propelled America into the most destructive war in human history. McWilliams’ third major work after A RETURN TO GLORY and ON HALLOWED GROUND wrings inspiration and remembrance from sacrifice, valor and tragedy. Reading like an action-packed novel, this is truly history at its best.” – Colin Burgess – Award-winning Australian military and spaceflight historian and author

To purchase Sunday in Hell in Kindle, click here. To purchase it in Nook, click here. To buy the print edition, click here.

Though World War II ended over sixty years ago, to all who served or simply followed it from the Allied viewpoint, books sympathetic to the Axis viewpoint make us uneasy to say the least. Such a book is Grey Wolf, Grey Sea by E. B. Gasaway, which chronicles one of the war’s most successful U-Boats and its captain in savage confrontations on and beneath the sea. The U-124 was both predator and prey, and much as we hate to admire Kapitanleutnant Jochen Mohr, his courage and determination are impossible to deny.

Suleiman the Magnificent, Grand Sultan of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the most powerful ruler in the world, was determined to conquer Europe. Only one thing stood in his way: a dot of an island in the Mediterranean called Malta occupied by the Knights of St. John, the cream of the warriors of the Holy Roman Empire. A clash of civilizations was shaping up the likes of which had not been seen since Persia invaded Greece.

Determined to capture Malta and use its port to launch operations against Europe, Suleiman sent an armada and an overwhelming army in 1565. A few thousand defenders in Fort St. Elmo fought to the last man, enduring unimaginably cruel hardships. When they captured the fort the Turks took no prisoners and mutilated the defenders’ bodies. Seventy year old Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette of the Knights reciprocated by decapitating his Turkish prisoners and using their heads to cannonade the enemy. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked; none given.

The Siege of Malta was not merely a gripping tale of brutality, courage, and tenacity, but the saga of two mighty civilizations struggling for domination of the known world. In the ebb and flow of the battle on this scrap of land the destiny of Europe teetered in the balance. Though the conflict took place some 450 years ago, it resonates to this very day.

Some years ago, after visiting Malta I came across The Great Siege, Ernle Bradford’s account of this pivotal event, and it left me stunned. I had never read a more gripping work of military history. When I began inquiring about its status I discovered that it was out of print. A visit to Amazon.com revealed almost universally five-star reviews and numerous pleas for someone to bring it back into print. Now that I was a publisher I asked – why not me? I made some inquiries and located the owners of the rights.

The happy upshot is that E-Reads is thrilled to bring back The Great Siege. Click here for the Kindle Buy Link. Below are excerpts from some of the 21 five-star reviews on Amazon.com, and here is the first chapter.

I know that when you read The Great Siege you’ll share the high opinion of one reader who said “This is truly a great book.”

Richard Curtis

***********************

Stunning read, brilliant story, absolutely compelling!
I just don’t know how this story has escaped the clutches of Hollywood. The Great Siege of Malta has to be one of the most amazing conflicts of military history.
*************
Probably the best book of all time related to the Knights of Saint John and the Ottomans.
*****************
…a cliffhanger up to the last pages
*****************
The siege of Malta is one of those great episodes of history where almost super-human courage and bravery triumph against overwhelming odds.

If you like adventure read this book: besides reading like a fascinating adventure story it happens to describe real-life actual facts. Beats any Hollywood epic, IMHO.
*****************

For anyone who claims history is ‘boring’ this book is the remedy – an absolute page-turning account of a desperate battle. The account, though historically informative, reads like a novel. It is concisely written, expressive, and utterly captivating; I could not put it down.

**********************

This is a truly great book. Mr Bradford is so passionate about his subject, so vivid in his detail, that it’s all you can do not to book a plane ticket to go and see for yourself. The detail is staggering – he recreates the past with the love and care of an artist. It is a book about the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and their struggle against the Turks of the Ottoman empire – and it’s a ripping good read.

**********************

An amazingly heroic defense of the knights and the Maltese against an amazing siege of the navy of the Magnificent and his generals. When I read in my middle school history class, this siege just was an unsuccessful one-sentence event in the hundreds of pages of the Ottoman Empire, but, while reading this book, I felt like I watched and lived the siege minute by minute. And I felt like this was the most important siege of all times (it truly might be!).

*******************

What an epic film this would make as some of the events ring true to this day.
A must read for anyone interested in the advent of gunpowder, heroic and defiant stands, massive battles and some incredible characters like the leader of the knights, La Valette who was seventy years old while leading the defense himself! Most enjoyable book of this nature that I have ever read. Powerful stuff.

Of the thousands of books I have represented, there are very few about which I can say it was an honor to be associated with them. On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is one of a handful that occupies a very privileged place in my heart. That it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize validates my contention that it is an extraordinarily significant work. It is currently E-Reads’ bestselling e-book.

By the time Col. Grossman submitted his manuscript to me in the mid 1990s, the Viet Nam War, from which he had drawn so many poignant lessons for his research, had been ostensibly over for two decades. I say “ostensibly” because, for the traumatized veterans that he worked with as a combat psychologist, the war raged on in their tormented memories. Even as he comforted and helped heal countless men in veterans’ facilities, he was also asking questions of them that few had had the courage to ask, and formulating insights that enabled him to understand the experience of killing in ways that historians and social scientists had seldom grasped. I remember his telling me that killing was the last intimate act between humans that had not been explored scientifically. How odd, that an evil to which humankind has forever been exposed, should be a black hole in our understanding.

Out of his intensive studies, observations and interviews Grossman formulated a science he calls “Killology.” It’s a disturbing term but it pins us to his topic like a bayonet and forces us to gaze, eyes wide open, at an act that is both obscene and profane. Yet at the heart of his thesis is the contention that humans have an innate aversion to taking life. Given the sad history of our race that’s a large pill to swallow, but if you suspend skepticism and grant him this assumption your journey into the heart of darkness will be rewarded with a note of hope. Whether you are willing to extend to perpetrators a fraction of the sympathy that you extend to victims is a question only you will answer when you finish the book, but you will certainly appreciate the torment of men in war and war’s aftermath better than you do now.

What makes On Killing doubly significant is its extension of the experience of war to that of peace. Are children who are exposed to violent movies and video death-games more susceptible to murderous hostility? Are they stimulated to killing rage? Do they become more tolerant of mayhem?

Read On Killing and judge.

–Richard Curtis

Interview with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman by E-Reads

E-Reads: As you’ve grown older and wiser, have you modified your views about the nature of killing? About human nature?

DG: No, not really. I’ve expanded the model a little, and have placed that in my latest book, On Combat.

E-Reads: In your dealings with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, is there a material difference between the nature of their stress and the stresses suffered by Vietnam veterans?

DG: Today we are rotating units into combat (as opposed to individual replacements in Vietnam) and they are all wartime volunteers. They enlisted or reenlisted in time of war. This makes for a significant reduction in psychological trauma and incidence of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

E-Reads: You tour extensively. Who is your main audience? What are some of the most often-asked questions?

DG: Roughly 50% of my audiences are law enforcement. Another 30% are military units, and 20% educators.

The most commonly asked questions revolve around the incidence of PTSD in Iraq and Afghanistan. My best answer to that is in the 2nd edition to On Combat, which was released just this year. I’ve included a clip from On Combat (below) that addresses this issue.

“Sadly, it is not difficult to find people in the mental health community to support the thesis that anyone who kills, experiences combat, or witnesses violence (or any other fill-in-the-blank ‘victim du jour’) is doomed to lifelong PTSD and, consequently, needs lifelong mental health care. Too few mental health professionals communicate to their patients that 1) they can recover quickly from PTSD and that 2) they will become stronger from the experience. Yet that expectation must be there if there is to be hope of anything other than a lifetime of expensive counseling.

[ ... ]

PTSD is like being overweight. Many people carry around 10, 20, or 30 pounds of excess weight. Although it influences the individual every minute of every day, it might not be a big deal health wise. But for those people who are 500 pounds overweight, it will likely kill them any day now. There was a time when we could only identify people who had “500 pounds” of PTSD. Today we are better at spotting folks who carry lesser loads, 30, 40 or 50 pounds of PTSD.

I have read statistics that say 15 percent of our military is coming home with “some manifestation of psychological problems.” Others claim it is 20 percent and still others report 30 percent. Well, depending on how you want to measure it, 30 percent of all college freshmen have some manifestation of psychological problems. Mostly what is being reported on today are people with low levels of PTSD (30, 40 or 50 pounds of PTSD) who in previous wars would not have been detected. We are getting damned good at identifying and treating PTSD and, when the treatment is done, most people are better for the experience.

PTSD is not like frostbite. Frostbite causes permanent damage to your body. If you get frostbite, for the rest of your life you will be more vulnerable to it. PTSD is not like that.

PTSD can be more like the flu. The flu can seriously kick your tail for a while. But once you shake it off, you probably are not going to get it again for the rest of the year. You have been inoculated. PTSD can kick your tail for a while (months and even years). But once you have dealt with it, next time it will take a lot more to knock you off your feet because you have been stress inoculated.”

E-Reads: Do you feel your approach to killing has had a positive effect on our understanding of human behavior? Do you think human nature can be changed for the better?

DG: I don’t think that our basic, underlying, innate nature can change much, but we can do a better job of warning and preparing people. And my books, On Killing and On Combat have proven themselves to be very valuable resources to help warn and prepare or GIs and their families.

On Killing and On Combat are both on the USMC Commandant’s Required Reading list. (I think I’m the only author to have two books on the list.) Both books are also required reading at West Point and many other military and law enforcement academies. We have been at war for 6 years now, and we have learned a lot. All nonessential ideas and material have been jettisoned in the unforgiving ‘acid test’ of war. For these books to still be held up as required reading indicates that that they have something valuable and timeless to contribute, and it is a good feeling to be of service.

Perhaps most important of all, On Killing‘s final section (on media violence) has been supported with important new research. Sadly, that section has been validated by many tragic incidents of juvenile mass murders in the school.

———

Lt. Col. Grossman continues the research that let to the writing of On Killing, does regular public speaking engagements on the subject and maintains a website, Killology Research Group, which constantly adds new information on the topic.

Australian historian and novelist Stephen Dando-Collins has dedicated his career to chronicling the mighty legions of ancient Rome with such highly acclaimed works as Cleopatra’s Kidnappers, Nero’s Killing Machine, Mark Antony’s Heroes, Caesar’s Legion and, most recently, Blood of the Caesars. Now, in his just-published masterpiece Legions of Rome, he goes far beyond military history by describing in exquisite detail the food, clothing, arms and countless other quotidian aspects of life in the legions.

Here’s the book description from his publisher Quercus:

No book on Roman history has attempted to do what Stephen Dando-Collins does in Legions of Rome: to provide a complete history of every Imperial Roman legion and what it achieved as a fighting force. The author has spent the last thirty years collecting every scrap of available evidence from numerous sources: stone and bronze inscriptions, coins, papyrus and literary accounts in a remarkable feat of historical detective work.

The book is divided into three parts: Part 1 provides a detailed account of what the legionaries wore and ate, what camp life was like, what they were paid and how they were motivated and punished. The section also contains numerous personal histories of individual soldiers. Part 2 offers brief unit histories of all the legions that served Rome for 300 years from 30BC. Part 3 is a sweeping chronological survey of the campaigns in which the armies were involved, told from the point of view of particular legions. Lavish, authoritative and beautifully produced, Legions of Rome will appeal to ancient history enthusiasts and military history buffs alike.

This is a must-have book for lovers of Roman history, military history, or just plain history.

For more about the author, you may click on his Amazon author page or visit his website.

Suleiman the Magnificent, Grand Sultan of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the most powerful ruler in the world, was determined to conquer Europe. Only one thing stood in his way: a dot of an island in the Mediterranean called Malta occupied by the Knights of St. John, the cream of the warriors of the Holy Roman Empire. A clash of civilizations was shaping up the likes of which had not been seen since Persia invaded Greece.

Determined to capture Malta and use its port to launch operations against Europe, Suleiman sent an armada and an overwhelming army in 1565. A few thousand defenders in Fort St. Elmo fought to the last man, enduring unimaginably cruel hardships. When they captured the fort the Turks took no prisoners and mutilated the defenders’ bodies. Seventy year old Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette of the Knights reciprocated by decapitating his Turkish prisoners and using their heads to cannonade the enemy. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked; none given.

The Siege of Malta was not merely a gripping tale of brutality, courage, and tenacity, but the saga of two mighty civilizations struggling for domination of the known world. In the ebb and flow of the battle on this scrap of land the destiny of Europe teetered in the balance. Though the conflict took place some 450 years ago, it resonates to this very day.

Some years ago, after visiting Malta I came across The Great Siege, Ernle Bradford’s  account of this pivotal event, and it left me stunned. I had never read a more gripping work of military history. When I began inquiring about its status I discovered that it was out of print. A visit to Amazon.com revealed almost universally five-star reviews and numerous pleas for someone to bring it back into print. Now that I was a publisher I asked – why not me? I made some inquiries and located the owners of the rights.

The happy upshot is that E-Reads is thrilled to bring back The Great Siege. Below are excerpts from some of the 21 five-star reviews on Amazon.com, and here is the first chapter.

I know that when you read The Great Siege you’ll share the high opinion of one reader who said “This is truly a great book.”

Richard Curtis

***********************

Stunning read, brilliant story, absolutely compelling!
I just don’t know how this story has escaped the clutches of Hollywood. The Great Siege of Malta has to be one of the most amazing conflicts of military history.
*************
Probably the best book of all time related to the Knights of Saint John and the Ottomans.
*****************
…a cliffhanger up to the last pages
*****************
The siege of Malta is one of those great episodes of history where almost super-human courage and bravery triumph against overwhelming odds.

If you like adventure read this book: besides reading like a fascinating adventure story it happens to describe real-life actual facts. Beats any Hollywood epic, IMHO.
*****************

For anyone who claims history is ‘boring’ this book is the remedy – an absolute page-turning account of a desperate battle. The account, though historically informative, reads like a novel. It is concisely written, expressive, and utterly captivating; I could not put it down.

**********************

This is a truly great book. Mr Bradford is so passionate about his subject, so vivid in his detail, that it’s all you can do not to book a plane ticket to go and see for yourself. The detail is staggering – he recreates the past with the love and care of an artist. It is a book about the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and their struggle against the Turks of the Ottoman empire – and it’s a ripping good read.

**********************

An amazingly heroic defense of the knights and the Maltese against an amazing siege of the navy of the Magnificent and his generals. When I read in my middle school history class, this siege just was an unsuccessful one-sentence event in the hundreds of pages of the Ottoman Empire, but, while reading this book, I felt like I watched and lived the siege minute by minute. And I felt like this was the most important siege of all times (it truly might be!).

*******************

What an epic film this would make as some of the events ring true to this day.
A must read for anyone interested in the advent of gunpowder, heroic and defiant stands, massive battles and some incredible characters like the leader of the knights, La Valette who was seventy years old while leading the defense himself! Most enjoyable book of this nature that I have ever read. Powerful stuff.

Chapter 1

The Sultan of the Ottomans

Soleyman’s titles resounded through the high Council chamber like a roll of drums:

Sultan of the Ottomans, Allah’s deputy on Earth, Lord of the Lords of this World, Possessor of Men’s Necks, King of Believers and Unbelievers, King of Kings, Emperor of the East and West, Emperor of the Chakans of Great Authority, Prince and Lord of the most happy Constellation, Majestic Caesar, Seal of Victory, Refuge of all the People in the whole World, the Shadow of the Almighty dispensing Quiet in the Earth.

His ministers, admirals, and generals prostrated themselves and withdrew. It was the year 1564, and Soleyman the First, Sultan of Turkey, was seventy years old. He had just taken the decision to attack the island of Malta in the spring of the following year.

His had been a life of unparalleled distinction from the moment when he had succeeded his father, Selim, at the age of twenty-six. Known in his own country as the Lawgiver, and throughout Europe as Soleyman the Magnificent, he had truly earned these appellations. He had reformed and improved the government and administration of Turkey, and had made her the greatest military state in the world. He was unequalled as a statesman, and was a poet in his own right.

If the Turkish people for these reasons called him ‘The Lawgiver’, the people of Europe for their part had good reasons for conceding to him the respectful title of ‘The Magnificent’. His conquests alone justified it, and Europeans have always lavished more respect upon conquerors than upon lawgivers. In the course of his Sultanate, Soleyman had added to his dominions, Aden, Algiers, Baghdad, Belgrade, Budapest, Nakshivan, Rhodes, Rivan, Tabriz, and Temesvar. Under him the Ottoman Empire had attained the peak of its glory. His galleys swept the seas from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and his kingdom stretched from Austria to the Persian Gulf, and the shores of the Arabian Sea. Only at the walls of Vienna in 1529 had his armies faltered.

At the age of seventy, with so many resounding triumphs behind him, it might have been expected that the Sultan would wish to take his ease and watch the decline of day over the Golden Horn. But to Soleyman in his old age there remained only the desire for power, the ambition to extend his conquests. Even if he had not been ambitious himself, those who surrounded him would never have allowed him to rest.

‘So long as Malta remains in the hands of the Knights,’ wrote one of his advisers, ‘so long will every relief from Constantinople to Tripoli run the danger of being taken or destroyed…’ ‘This cursed rock,’ wrote another, ‘is like a barrier interposed between us and your possessions. If you will not decide to take it quickly, it will in a short time interrupt all communications between Africa and Asia and the islands of the Archipelago.’

It was forty-two years since Soleyman, in the prime of his life and at the head of a vast fleet and army, had driven the Knights of St John from their island fortress of Rhodes. He had felt for them, then, an unwilling but respectful admiration. Had he not said in the presence of his advisers, ‘It is not without some pain that I oblige this Christian at his age to leave his home’? It was the sight of the seventy-year-old Grand Master, Villiers de l’Isle Adam, preparing to embark with his Knights from the captured island that had prompted this reflection. Now, at the same age himself, the Sultan was less moved by chivalry, and more by a desire for vengeance.

The sandstone rock of Malta had proved an even greater irritant than Rhodes. Rhodes had been so close to the shores of Turkey that, in the last years of their residence there, the Knights’ sallies had been almost neutralized. The movement of the Order’s galleys had been quickly made known to the captains of the Sultan’s warships and merchantmen. Yet, even so, they had still managed to harry the trade of the Levant, and interrupt the shipping between Alexandria and Constantinople. Malta, however, was worse, because it was so far distant from Constantinople that it was less easy to spy upon the Order’s movements. Furthermore, the island’s position in the very heart of the Mediterranean gave it the command of the east–west trade routes. Everything passing through the channel between Sicily, Malta, and North Africa was at the mercy of the Maltese galleys. They let few opportunities slip through their fingers.

To a ruler who had added thousands of square miles to his empire, the possession of an almost barren island might seem unimportant. To a ruler whose daily bread was adulation, who had grown weary of the title, ‘Conqueror of the East and West’, the island and its Knights were an irritation hardly to be borne.

It seemed as if the Knights, like gadflies, were determined to provoke the anger of the lion. Soleyman might mistrust the advice of his ministers. He could hardly, however, ignore the words of the greatest Mohammedan seaman of his time, the corsair Dragut.

Dragut, although a pirate, was allied to the Porte and in recent years had been careful to pay his duties and respects to the Sultan. He was, like Soleyman himself, a fighter and an opportunist. Soleyman heeded him more perhaps than his own Admiral Piali. When Dragut said: ‘Until you have smoked out this nest of vipers you can do no good anywhere,’ the Sultan was prepared to listen.

Recent events had confirmed Dragut’s opinion. When the Spanish Emperor, Philip II, had mounted an armada against the port of Penon de la Gomera, the Knights of Malta had assisted him with their galleys, and had added the weight of their experience, seamanship, and military ability, to the Spanish forces. Penon de la Gomera, which lay on the North African coast due south of Malaga, had long been a favourite port and anchorage for the corsairs of the Barbary coast. Its capture by the Christians was as much a blow to Moslem pride as its economic loss was important. The Knights had successfully attacked one of the Sultan’s ports on the Greek coastline. Ranging south of Malta, they had also captured a number of Turkish merchantmen. Soleyman was reminded that, ‘The island of Malta is swollen with slaves, true believers, and that among the distinguished men and women held there to ransom are the venerable Sanjak of Alexandria, and the old nurse of your daughter Mihrmah.’

Soleyman’s daughter, Mihrmah, was one of the chief advocates of an attack on Malta. The child of his favourite wife, the Russian-born Roxellane, Mihrmah never ceased to remind Soleyman of the account that still had to be settled with the Knights.

The capture of a great merchant ship belonging to Kustir-Aga, chief eunuch of the seraglio of the Sultan, was the ultimate provocation. It was an act which led Mihrmah and all the other members of the harem to raise their voices in protest. This merchantman, whose freight was estimated by the contemporary Spanish writer Balbi as being worth 80,000 ducats, was seized between the islands of Zante and Cephallonia by three Maltese galleys led by the greatest sailor that the Order of St John possessed, the Chevalier Romegas. The ship was bringing valuable luxuries and merchandise from Venice to Constantinople and, in the manner of the time, the principal ladies of the Imperial harem had taken shares in the venture. Captured and towed back intact to Malta, together with all its cargo, its loss mocked the Sultan’s favourites. Kustir-Aga, the chief eunuch, a personage of great power in the ‘boudoir politics’ of imperial Turkey, was not likely to lose any opportunity of reminding his lord and master of the constant depredations of the Knights.

The odalisques of the harem prostrated themselves before the Sultan, crying for vengeance. The Imam of the great Mosque, prompted no doubt by members of the court, was not slow to remind Soleyman, that True Believers were languishing in the dungeons of the Knights. They were being flogged like dogs at the oars of the very galleys which were raiding the empire’s shipping.

‘It is only thy invincible sword,’ the Imam proclaimed, ‘that can shatter the chains of these unfortunates, whose cries are rising to heaven and afflicting the very ears of the Prophet of God. The son is demanding his father, the wife, her husband and her children. All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy power, for vengeance upon their, and your, implacable enemies!’

It was unlikely that the Sultan, whose prudence and ability had been proved in as many council chambers as battlefields, was swayed entirely–if at all–by this clamour for vengeance. Malta was small, but, as he knew well, it was the keystone of the Mediterranean. Within its magnificent harbours he would be able to shelter his fleets, which would then be free for the conquest of Sicily and Southern Italy. The island was small, but it could be the fulcrum to the lever with which he might make the Mediterranean a Turkish lake. From it he could strike at what a later war-leader called ‘the soft underbelly of Europe’. The capture of Kustir-Aga’s merchantman, the effrontery of the attacks on his merchant shipping and coastal ports were additional factors, but irrelevant to his grand design.

Soleyman was well aware that the Knights of St John were not like other Christians. They were men who had dedicated their lives to an eternal war against his religion, and against everything that Turkey, as the leader of the Moslem world, represented. He had fought them at Rhodes and he knew that death in battle was something they sought as ardently as did his own Janissaries. He knew their reputation as sailors and corsairs. He had questioned his own sea-captains who had been in action against the Knights.

‘Their vessels,’ he had been told, ‘are not like others. They have always aboard them great numbers of arquebusiers and of knights who are dedicated to fight to the death. There has never been an occasion when they have attacked one of our ships that they have not either sunk it, or captured it.’ His sea-captains were in error there, for the records of the Knights show a number of occasions when their attempts on Turkish vessels were unsuccessful. In the main, though, it was true that in skill, seamanship, and fighting ability, there was no single vessel in the Mediterranean that could compare with a galley commanded by one of the Knights from Malta. Soleyman knew enough of their prowess to respect them as adversaries. Even as an old man, he would never have decided to attack their island-base purely on a matter of pique or prestige.

In October 1564 at a formal council, or Divan, presided over by the Sultan, the question of Malta and of a possible siege of the island formed the issue of debate. Not all of those present were in favour. Some envisaged an extension of the empire beyond Hungary and pressed for a large-scale military campaign in Europe. Others were for driving straight at the heart of their chief Christian adversary, and making an attack on the coast of Spain. Others, again, urged the capture of Sicily. Soleyman was reminded of the poverty and insignificance of Malta. ‘Many more difficult victories,’ they said, ‘have fallen to your scimitar than the capture of a handful of men in a little island that is not well fortified.’

It was the Sultan himself who pointed out that Malta was the stepping stone to Sicily, and beyond that, to Italy and southern Europe. He envisaged the day when ‘The Grand Seignior, or his deputies, master of the whole Mediterranean, may dictate laws, as universal lord, from that not unpleasant rock, and look down upon his shipping at anchor in its excellent harbour.’ Piali, admiral of the fleet, and Mustapha, Pasha of the army, were not slow to grasp the sound strategy behind Soleyman’s desire to attack the island. When the Divan concluded, the decision had been taken to invest Malta in the spring of the following year.

The edict went forth. The might of the Ottoman Empire–’that military state par excellence…built upon an ever-extending conquest–’ was to be deployed against the minute island of Malta, and against the Knights of the Order of St John. The Sultan himself had spoken: ‘Those sons of dogs whom I have already conquered and who were spared only by my clemency at Rhodes forty-three years ago–I say now that, for their continual raids and insults, they shall be finally crushed and destroyed!’