Siege of Tripoli (1551)

Siege of Tripoli
	Part of the Ottoman-Habsburg wars and the Italian War of 1551–1559 and the Ottoman-Maltese wars
	;
Date	15 August 1551
Location	Tripoli, Libya
Result	Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Order of Saint John	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Gaspard de Vallier	Sinan Pasha; Turgut Rais
Strength
~30; ~630 mercenaries	~10,000
Casualties and losses
630 enslaved	Unknown

The siege of Tripoli occurred in 1551 when the Ottoman Turks and Barbary pirates besieged and vanquished the Knights of Malta in the Red Castle of Tripoli, modern Libya.^[1] The Spanish had established an outpost in Tripoli in 1510, and Charles V remitted it to the Knights in 1530.^[2]^[3] The siege culminated in a six-day bombardment and the surrender of the city on 15 August.

The siege of Tripoli was successive to an earlier attack on Malta in July, which was repelled, and the successful invasion of Gozo, in which 5,000 Christian captives were taken and brought on galleys to the location of Tripoli.

^ Cervantes in Algiers: a captive's tale by María Antonia Garcés p. 25 [1]
^ A history of Islamic societies Ira Marvin Lapidus p. 255 [2]
^ The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel pp. 920– [3]

[1] Cervantes in Algiers: a captive's tale by María Antonia Garcés p. 25 [1]

[2] A history of Islamic societies Ira Marvin Lapidus p. 255 [2]

[Braudel-3] The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II by Fernand Braudel pp. 920– [3]

[1]

[2]

[3]