Maltese

One of the Mediterranean’s epitomes of a melting pot, early modern Malta, though initially under the rule of the Aragonese crown, was home to a diverse population of Muslims, Christians, and Jews of Maltese, North African, mainland European, and eastern Mediterranean heritages. Enjoying a prime position at a crossroads of Mediterranean trade, Malta was strategically and financially important, and thus most of the surrounding powers coveted it. Sensing its importance, the Holy Roman Empire leased the island in 1530 to the Knights Hospitaller, which had been rapidly losing its eastern Mediterranean territories and needed a new stronghold. The Knights wasted no time in making use of their new possession. Perpetually at war with the Ottoman Empire, they used Malta as a base to raid Ottoman trade routes and turned it into a formidable fortified bastion. These renovations were to prove crucial, as the Ottomans launched a campaign in 1565 to conquer the island and expel the Knights. This battle, known to posterity as the Siege of Malta, became one of the most storied in early modern history. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the Knights, under the steadfast leadership of Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, repelled the Ottomans. The battle saw the use of innovative tactics on the part of the defense: on one occasion, the Knights hid artillery in their walls and then used it to blast apart a siege tower that Ottoman Janissaries were using to take potshots at defenders; on others, the Knights hurled incendiary wooden hoops at advancing Janissaries, starting wildfires that halted their advance. The rushing Ottoman tide, formerly deemed nigh-invincible, had been halted. Six years later, in 1571, a coalition of European states known as the Holy League annihilated the Ottoman navy at Lepanto, ending Ottoman thrusts into the western Mediterranean for a time. The Knights, redubbed the Knights of Malta, had reached the apex of their power, and went into swift decline as the rise of powerful modernizing nation-states rendered archaic military orders obsolete. Although the Knights retained control of Malta, its strategic and economic importance waned during the age of exploration and settlement abroad. By 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte, driven by Alexandrian delusions of grandeur, had embarked on a campaign east towards Egypt, it took a mere ruse to topple the once-mighty Knights and seize Malta. Seized soon thereafter by the British navy, it remained in British hands well into the 20th century.

From the game's History encyclopedia.