Today, Bodrum Castle discloses only two of its personalities; the third is thankfully not in evidence.

Its massive, battlemented walls, five towers and  seven gates shows that it was once a fortress of note.  Numerous inscriptions and coats-of-arms seen embedded at various points in the structure testify to its medieval, multi-national origins - there are no visible traces left of previous Carian, Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk construction.   Even though their proprietorship of the castle lasted only some 120 years, the prevailing aura today is still of its former Crusader occupants, the Knights Hospitaller of St. John.  This is due to a large extent to the castle’s restoration and accentuation with period furnishings, all done by Turkish authorities after its transformation into a museum.

This period of the Bodrum Castle may be of particular interest to the western visitor due to associations with historical events which have made lasting impressions on European heritage and culture, but such interest presupposes a modicum of knowledge of the past or, at least, some familiarity with Sheakespeare.  Why Sheakespeare?  Because, in the play “Henry IV”, the Bard mentions by name a number of the English knights who fought in the battle of Agincourt - the roll-call of honor includes Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, Salisbury and Gloucester - whose coats-of-arms can be seen today above the portal of the English Tower.

Very appropriately there are many reminders of French presence here since a Frenchman, Philibert de Naillac, was the Grand Master of the Order when the castle was founded.  When we look at the royal arms of France in the north wall perhaps some will remember that the inscribed date, 1460, was near the end of the reign of Charles VII whose coronation was made possible by Jeanne d’Arc’s victory over the English at Orleans.  It is interesting to speculate how French and English knights coexisted in Bodrum when their native lands were at war with each other...

German visitors can admire the handiwork of their countryman Henrik Schlegelholdt. the chief architect of the fortress.  The restored German Tower bears the escutcheon of the German Langue or “Tongue”.  This designation identified chapters of knights within the Order by their linguistic groups, language being the primary indicator of their nationality.  By the 1400s there were few German knights in the Hospitaller Order, most preferring to enlist in the Order of Teutonic Knights active in Prussia.
   Spaniards and Italians can also find traces left by their countrymen in the Bodrum Castle, associations that fill out the tapestry of the fifteenth century in western Europe.  This aspect of the castle blends with its second face, reflected by its current status as one of the world’s finest museums of underwater archaeology.  Amphoras strewn around castle grounds set the atmosphere for visits to exhibits of superb artifacts recovered from ancient shipwrecks, a reconstructed wreck and displays of the underwater excavation process.  The harmony between the ancient maritime exhibits and the medieval setting is noteworthy.

The third, mostly forgotten face of the Bodrum Castle is that of a prison, established as such in 1893 in the reign of Abdulhamid II.   This sultan, known for phobia of plots against his absolute rule and his suppression of civil liberties, had many champions of freedom sent into exile or imprisoned, some in the Bodrum Castle.  But not only supporters of liberty were jailed here.  When reactionary fanatics tried to have Islamic religious law (Seriat) re-imposed in1909, two of their foremost rabble-rousers were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Bodrum Castle when the rebellion was defeated.

Some captured mountain robbers also spent time behind the castle walls.  After the turn of the century bands of outlaws infested the mountains and forests robbing the rich and, sometimes, helping the poor.  Some of their leaders, known as “Efe”, have been immortalized in folk songs and their dignified, deliberate demeanor and colorful costumes can be readily seen in Aegean regional dances.

The last to be sent here for incarceration in the fortress was Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, a writer who gained fame under the pen-name of “The Fisherman of Halicarnassus”.  His persecutors apparently didn’t know that the prison was closed a decade earlier, and the local governor was a person of culture, so the new “convict” was assisted in renting a house looking out on the sea.  His infatuation with Bodrum and its heritage poured out of the pages of his many books and brought renown to this formerly laid-back fishing village, today’s resort town of Bodrum.   
              

Not even this courage, however was of no avail against the Moslem forces united and

inspired by the leadership of the great Saladin who inflicted a crushing defeat on the Christian army at the Horns of Hattin and went on to retake Jerusalem in 1187. After its fall, notwithstanding some respite brought about by the following Crusades, the Christian position in the Holy Land steadily deteriorated, with the Hospitallers playing a major role as an offensive and defensive rearguard until the loss of the last stronghold, Acre, in 1291. The Knights now moved to their possessions in Cyprus where they were additionally awarded the land holdings of the Templars, a rival Order suppressed and practically exterminated by the pope and the French king in 1307-1312. In the meantime the Hospitallers were starting on a new enterprise: lured by a hypothetical claim of a Genoese adventurer to the islands of Cos and Rhodes, the Knights conquered Rhodes, theoretically on his behalf (1309), and then persuaded the pope to grant them title to this strategic island. By these ethically shady maneuvers Grand Master Foulques de Villaret acquired for the Order a sovereign state, and the Hospitallers, now known as the Knights of Rhodes, were launched on their new course of naval power and expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean.

At this time, in the words of H.J.A.Sire, author of a new history sympathetic to the Order: "the Knights of Rhodes rapidly formed a coherent strategy of territorial acquisition"..."seized the small island of Simie (sic), in the very jaws of the Gulf of Doris" and "by 1319 the knights held all the Southern Sporades as far north as Lerro". About the year 1337 the Hospitallers reconquered Lango (Cos), and Smyrna (Izmir) was taken in 1344 by a combined papal, Venetian, Cypriot and Hospitaller force, with a Knight of Rhodes appointed commander. This policy of acquisitive expansion, based on military and naval power - not to mention skill in diplomatic intrigue - brought the Order into rivalry with all of the states, large and small, that were contending over the spoils of the crumbling Byzantine Empire. The first of these spoils was, of course, the island of Rhodes, a titular property of the Byzantines.

Having become masters of an island empire the Knights needed a naval force to defend it, to maintain lines of communication between their far-flung possessions and, according to one source, to protect Christian trade with Turkey. The latter is not as preposterous as it may appear, even considering that the Knights were a militant religious Order, because throughout the ages trade and profit have usually tended to obscure ideological considerations. At the same time galleys flying the flag of the Hospital were also preying on the shipping lanes, justified by a papal ban on trade with Moslem powers. In this fluid and complex state of affairs the Knights of Rhodes prospered, until even a pope complained about their conspicuous consumption. The growing power of the Ottoman Turks that could have threatened the Order's possessions received a serious blow from Tamerlane who crushed the Turkish armies at Ankara in 1402, and the ensuing eleven years of wars of succession weakened Ottoman power further giving the Knights years of respite and time to fortify Rhodes till it was regarded as impregnable.

The sense of security was shattered when news reached Rhodes in 1453 of the conquest of Constantinople. The new sultan, henceforth known as Mehmet the Conqueror, was not one to suffer the stranglehold that the Knights' island empire was exercising on the coasts of Turkey, but his priorities were elsewhere and it was not until 1480 that his forces besieged the city. The Conqueror was not with his men and Rhodes avoided capture, but only just. The sultan's death in 1481, followed by events that placed Prince Jem in the hands of the Order, delayed the fall of Rhodes for nearly a half century and during that period the Knights of Rhodes engaged in conduct that brought dishonor to their knighthood and faith.

Prince Jem, one of the two sons of Mehmet the Conqueror, losing the fight for succession to his brother Beyazit, applied to the Knights of Rhodes for temporary refuge and transportation to Europe. The Order agreed and Jem landed in Rhodes where he was handsomely treated at first and induced to sign a treaty that would give great concessions to the Hospital should he ever regain the Ottoman throne. Then he was transferred to France and detained, then imprisoned and made the subject of barter and trade. Eventually turned over to the pope and then to the French king, the prince was finally poisoned. During the thirteen years of Jem's detention the Order received an annual stipend of 45,000 ducats from the reigning sultan for keeping the unfortunate prince from pressing his claim to the throne. Grand Master Pierre D'Aubusson also managed to extract 25,000 ducats from Jem's wife and mother, resident in Cairo, on the false pretense that the sum was needed to set him free and transport to Egypt. These machiavellian intrigues certainly kept Rhodes safe from invasion while Prince Jem was alive, but upon his death and the death of Beyazit the next sultan was free to deal with the Order and, in the end, the reputedly impregnable fortress was taken by the armies of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in December, 1522.

The terms of surrender - presumably also requiring the evacuation of the other Hospitaller castles - allowed the knights to depart with honor and they sailed to the castle of Candia in Crete. Shortly thereafter (1530) they were given possession of the island of Malta by Emperor Charles V and there, now as Knights of Malta, they built another fortress, one that successfully withstood the Great Siege of the Ottomans in 1565. Sultan Suleiman, then seventy years old, did not command the attacking force in person but entrusted it to a veteran of Rhodes, Mustafa Pasha, a soldier in his seventies, while the naval element sailed under Piale Pasha and was reinforced by Turgut Reis, the Dragut of western lore. In command of Malta was Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, also a veteran of the siege of Rhodes, whose stubborn, valiant defense won the day. His name lives on in the capital of Malta, Valletta.

The power of the Ottomans was dealt another blow in 1571 when an allied Christian naval force that included ships of the Knights of Malta defeated the Turkish fleet in the battle of Lepanto. After this the Ottoman Turks ceased to be a threat to the Maltese Knights who now devoted themselves to the harassment of the nominally Ottoman possessions on the North African coast from where, in turn, Barbary corsairs harassed the Mediterranean trade of Europe. The Order also became embroiled in European conflicts and its importance steadily declined until it was unceremoniously dissolved by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.

The Sovereign Order of Malta was eventually revived, but not as a fighting force. It still exists in many countries as a religious and a charitable institution mostly engaged in works associated with the provision of hospital and medical assistance and, through its aristocratic members, it continues to exercise power in the affairs of the Vatican and, in the affairs of the world.