The Knights Hospitaller had quickly assumed military action in the waters of the Aegean Sea following their conquest of Rhodes, which they have made their base of operations.
Their targets are not only Turkish ships, but also a Genoese vessel carrying out trade with Mamluk Egypt in defiance of an embargo on such activities by the Pope, even though the Genoese had assisted the Hospitallers in their capture of Rhodes.
The Genoese had sent an envoy to Rhodes to demand the ships' release in 1311, but the Knights refused.
In retaliation, the Genoese have given fifty thousand gold florins to Mesut, Bey of Menteshe, to attack the Knights.
Mesut had seized several Rhodian merchants in the mainland, and Genoese and Turkish galleys had begun attacking Hospitaller shipping.
The Hospitaller fleet managed in 1312, however, to intercept the fleet of Menteshe at the island of Amorgos.
The Turks having landed on the island, the Hospitallers burn all twenty-three Turkish ships, and proceed to attack the Turks.
Over eight hundred Turks are killed, according to a fifteenth-century chronicle, but the Hospitallers too have heavy losses, with fifty-seven Knights and three hundred foot soldiers being killed.
A contemporary letter by an Aragonese ambassador to the Council of Vienne, however, mentions fifteen hundred Turks and seventy-five Knights killed.
