Knights Hospitallers
 

Mohoender 08-29-2008, 01:12 AM This order has members in about 120 countries today and they are all dedicated people as a friend of mine is one of them. they operate much like the red cross but they retain some military tradition and, as a religious order, they can operate more or less on their own. That is even more true as some of them still are very wealthy. I put them back to action in my own game.


Here is what I wrote on them for my game.

"Again, Malta is playing a major role as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta moved to the island early in the war and Grand Master Andrew Bertie is rulling again from Valetta. Knight Hosptiallers are slowly founding small hospitals everywhere and they have gathered what ship they could to fight the growing piracy in the Mediterranean. So far they have met with little success in both actions."


In the middle of the general chaos I wouldn't be surprise to have them around. More surprising, Protestants are part of this order (I recently discovered that) and they have links with the British Order of St. John of Jerusalem. That gives them even more reason to have survived. I talked of the Red Cross but I see more reason for these knights to still be around providing relief to almost everyone. What are you thinking?

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dvyws 08-29-2008, 12:24 PM Co-incidentally, Im re-reading "The Great Siege", by Ernle Bradford, on the Knights defence of Malta in 1565. They say history repeats itself...


They weren't just hospitallers, they were also reckoned as being the best seagoing warriors around. The Turks themselves believed that "there has never been an occasion when they have attacked one of our ships that they have not captured or sunk it". That was a slight exaggeration, as the records of the Knights themselves proves, but with a perception like that they must have more than half won their sea battles before the first shot was fired.


I can just imagine the successors to these guys taking on the Mediterranean pirates - I would assume fast patrol boats (gun & missiles), based in the two superb harbours of Malta. Scope for some good games/encounters/characters there!

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Rainbow Six 08-29-2008, 12:32 PM This order has members in about 120 countries today and they are all dedicated people as a friend of mine is one of them. they operate much like the red cross but they retain some military tradition and, as a religious order, they can operate more or less on their own. That is even more true as some of them still are very wealthy. I put them back to action in my own game.


Here is what I wrote on them for my game.

"Again, Malta is playing a major role as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta moved to the island early in the war and Grand Master Andrew Bertie is rulling again from Valetta. Knight Hosptiallers are slowly founding small hospitals everywhere and they have gathered what ship they could to fight the growing piracy in the Mediterranean. So far they have met with little success in both actions."


In the middle of the general chaos I wouldn't be surprise to have them around. More surprising, Protestants are part of this order (I recently discovered that) and they have links with the British Order of St. John of Jerusalem. That gives them even more reason to have survived. I talked of the Red Cross but I see more reason for these knights to still be around providing relief to almost everyone. What are you thinking?


There was an article about the Knights in one of the UK newspapers not so long ago. If I remember correctly, Grand Master Bertie is a Scotsman (had to get that one in!).

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