Talk:Siege of Rhodes (1522)

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Numbers
When the Turkish invasion force arrived on Rhodes on 26 June 1522, the defenders may have numbered about 500 knights and another 3-5,000 soldiers and armed locals.

Eric Brockman author of the "The two sieges of rhodes 1480 and 1522" puts this figure at 2,000 to 2,500 men fighting for the Knights of St. John.

Numbers

Could someone please update the numbers and the causalties!? It was impossible for the Ottoman army to gather such forces during that time, and it is completely impossible that they suffered such causalties during the war.


 * 120,000 warriors including janissaries and 60,000 slaves?! What the heck "slaves" means? Everybody in the Ottoman Army was the servant of the Sultan. I didn't hear anything about slaves in the imperial army, at least like a slave army of ancient Persian Empire. Also, what do you think the Ottoman Empire was? Nearly two hundred thousand men to capture an island! Even the army that surrounded the city of Vienna was consisted of 100,000 to 120,000 troops. There are two possible answers. First one is that Rhodes is way more important than Vienna or Constantinople. The second answer is that the author of the article is, how can I say, a funny guy. Deliogul 19:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Janissaries were technically SLAVES of the Sultan.
 * Read about the Devsirme - Blood Tax 104.158.48.195 (talk) 19:44, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

The janissaries where in fact a kind of slaves,children robbed from there parents and pressed into military slave-a-like service in the ottoman armys. The ottoman empire was depended on slave working and slavery first stopped when ottoman empire fell apart.It is funny to observe how turkish people have a history perception which completely differs from others view.The movie Fatherland is a good clue of why it is so.

Jewish involvement
With regards to "The End" section:

However shortly after the Knights`departure there started bloody hostilities of the armless civilians.The Greeks and rest of Latins were expeled from the Castle town which was newly inhabited by the Turkish and the Jews.

I found no sources to support the fact that Jews were resettled in the Castle town, however another wikipedia articles that quotes sources states that :

''plague in 1498–1500, the Knights Hospitaller, who ruled the island at that time, expelled those of the remaining Jews who would not be baptized. In the next two decades, the Hospitallers brought to the island between 2,000 and 3,000 captured Jews who were kept as slaves to work on fortifications.''

From "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_blood_libel"

I think including this information in the article would present a more balanced picture of the Jews' involvement.

89.139.81.99 (talk) 21:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC) A

Numbers (again)
The new number of 200,000 has again been inserted. This is not justified by the text. And was done over the previous footnote! Where did this quantity come from? Why does it keep appearing? Supplying 100,000 people besiging and island must be tough enough, but 200,000? In those days, soldiers were supposed to forage for themselves. When you have a large number in so small an area, this does not seem credible. Nor does it seem credible that the force could have held out against such an army. They could have just stood on each others backs to get into the fortress! :) Student7 (talk) 23:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Numbers (Yet again)
I'm just someone who just saw a documentary about weapons-technology, but the battle of Rhodes came in it, and it was said there that "The Ottoman commander admitted to have lost 103 000 soldiers, and would've gladly sacrificed 103 000 more." (Or something like that) Just throwing this in, don't know if it's actualy true. [Placed here on 13:35 +1GMT, 19 May 2010] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.119.204.66 (talk) 11:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I, too, saw the documentary on American PBS television. It was called "Ground War"  and the name of the episode was "Command and Control"  I rewound the tape to listen again, and I heard the same reference to a quote by the Turkish Sulton admitting to  a loss of 103,000 Ottoman soldiers.  The documentary employed Dr. Kelly DeVries, Prof. of History from Loyola University as its expert commentator.  Dr. DeVries described the 6 month Ottoman assault as never being more than 20,000 strong, and that huge losses were replaced by continual reinforcements from Turkey.  He credits the fortress with its newly installed innovations (bastions, outerworks, and caponier)) for the success of the Knights Hospitallers in holding out for so long.  The success of the fortress of Rhodes inspired an "explosion" of innovative fortress construction throughout Europe.  Or so the documentary claims.
 * My calculator tells me that 103000 losses over a 6 month period amounts to 585 deaths per day. Since the Turks had 400 ships available to sail, and assuming a 14 day turnaround period, with each ship containing, say, 30 soldiers, I'd say, yes, it's possible to supply that many troops.   Danglingdiagnosis (talk) 02:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

60,000 defenders of Rhodes according to Stanford J. Shaw — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.73.220 (talk) 06:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Siege or conquest?
Since the siege had ended with the conquest of Rhodes, shouldn't the article be called Conquest of Rhodes?Ertly (talk) 12:29, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. --E4024 (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. -78.171.140.252 (talk) 11:07, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Best sources
The brevity of this story does not present a true impression of what happened.

The full story can be found here Original French "Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jerusalem" By René Aubert “de” Vertot https://books.google.ca/books?id=ueVlAAAAcAAJ&pg=418

Translation to English "The History of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem" By Vertot (abbé de) https://books.google.ca/books?id=acINAAAAQAAJ&pg=165

"Greate Events described by distinguished historians, chroniclers, and other writers" collected by Francis Lieber https://books.google.ca/books?id=sXw4AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA158

"Histoire des chevaliers de Malte" Barbou frères, 1842 https://books.google.ca/books?id=BXcOAAAAQAAJ

I would add details but I am tired of invisible people deleting the time and effort I put into improving articles. 104.158.48.195 (talk) 19:55, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Someone writing false information!
Hey i am no wikipedia editor. I just read this article and wanted to verify some numbers (they looked of) and find out if those books are interesting since i am quite interested in the period. I controlled two different sources and the information written in the infobox didnt match the information that the cited sources revealed.1 number of men 50k cited source actualy writes 180k. 2 number of men 70k cited source actualy writes 100k. Wont wikipedia bann these people making false edits? How is this allowed to continue? AalRK (talk) 15:07, 11 March 2024 (UTC)