MALTA

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4833, 14 April 1936, Page 3

MALTA

AN IMPORTANT OUTPOST OF EMPIRE. No outpost of the British Empire is clothed with greater and more vivid romance than Malta, the Melita of Holy Writ. No island in the whole world so small as Malta has had so great a history. It comes to us with all those habiliments of civilisation, the contests of awakening of civilisation, the contests of rival religious faiths and struggles associated with political trends when the Empire of tc-day was in a . nascent stage. As during the world war years 1914-1918 the approach to Malta by night was revealed fifty to seventy miles away by "bright daggers of light piercing the sky" from powerful searchlights mounted on shore so, glancing down the vista of the long centuries of the past there may be observed in the firmament bright flashes of light emanating from this "drop of land in the Mediterranean," destined by an all-wise Providence to play an important part'in moulding the civilisation of the West, and preserving Occidental lands from coming under the sway of the teaching of the Prophet of Medina. This singular and over-sterile island, owing a great portion of its very soil to importation, is literally an exceedingly important pars pro toto of that great element of romance running through human history. The shipwreck of the Apostle of the Gentiles was a romance most superlative, his life work and its results considered. Malta was the centre of some congregation of human kind long before the rise of the British race, now its master. In 1851, Hall, Virtue and Co., Ltd., of London, published "Gleanings Pictorial and Antiquarian on the Overland Ptoute," by Mr R. Bartlett, an unpretending writer, whose work, characterised by ease and confidence as' well as modesty, and freed from all pretensions to a special originality, possessed a roundness and completeness highly satisfactory to the reader even of to-day. Some of the romance of remotest antiquity presented by this "stepping stone to Egypt, India and Australia" was forcibly impressed upon him, as, indeed, it has been on all who have visited the island. Those of us who can claim a somewhat close and intimate personal connection with Malta confess, in the present years of grace, that the ruins of what is called the temple of Hajear Chem still present a baffling mystery; their origin yet successfully defy conjecture. These relics of an unknown past fascinated Mr Bartlett, as they have thousands since his day, and his remarks and speculations, despite the lapse of 85 years, are pre-eminently apropos:—

"Was anything ever seen so strange and inexplicable—so unaccountably intricate and eccentric —so unlike any known monument, from the rude Druidical circle up to the consummate proportion of the Grecian temple? Or to form a somewhat cleaer idea, let the visitor clamber upon one of the highest blocks and cast a glance over the interior of the enclosure. Even then he will not be much' the wiser. These strange, irregular circles, formed of upright stones surmounted, Stonehenge-like, with transverse ones, these doorways and passages, and flights of steps, these rude taltars, this odd jumble of nooks and niches, this enormous enclosure of colossal stones, battered and disintegrated by time and tempest, till all trace of the shaping hammer is gone, what are they and who reared them? The mind instinctively associates them with some religious purpose, with the rites of some dark and debasing creed. These weird looking circles once resounded perhaps with the orgies of extinct superstitions and upon those altars the blood of innocent victims may have poured forth in sacrifice; or, as some suppose, the structure may have been intended as a burial place, since in this edifice and another (El Mneidra) ... are chambers evidently sepulchral, and bodies, urns and pottery have been dug up within. Perhaps they may have served for both purposes, have been at once temples and tombs. But whatever they were, no one can look •upon them, in the profound stillness of a summer moon, or wander about their grey avenues of stones, without a feeling of intense curiosity and almost of awe, which, perhaps, no other description of edifice is, in an equal degree, calculated to call forth." Coming to what are definitely historical records, the history of Malta, at least to within what may be taken as "almost modern times," may be epitomised in a few lines. It was owned by the Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthagenians respectively, and during the second Punic war it was attached to Rome. After the fall of the empire of the Caesars it was seized at various times by the Vandals, Goths and Saracens. From the last named it passed to Sicily until 1522, when Charles V. granted it to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. It was during the days. of the knights that Malta, in the opinion of many, passed through its most romantic stage, all of which is understandable enough when the romantic character of the Order of St. John is remem-

bered. Originating in the days of the' Crusades, Gibbon, in a famous passage wrote: "The firmest bulwark of Jerusalem, founded on the strange association of a monastic and a military life, which fanaticism might suggest, but which policy must approve. The flower of the nobility of Europe aspired to wear the cross and propose the vows, their spirit and discipline were immortal, and the speedy donation of 28,000 farms or manors enabled them to support a regular force, cavalry and infantry, for the defence of Palestine. Tbe austerity of the convent soon evaporated in the exercise of arms. In their fearless and fanatic character they were prepared to die in the service of Christ; and the spirit of chivalry, the* parent and offspring of the Crusaders, has been transplanted by this institution from the Holy Sepulchre to the Isle.

As long as history remains will the ! knights of St. John or Hospitallers of St. John, later known as the Knights of Rhodes and finally as the Knights of Malta, be associated with this tiny but immeasurably important outpost of the Empire. Gibbon, having sketched the genesis of the order, very briefly its record may be glanced at from the time it became imperishably associated with the island. The knights granted Malta and the adjacent islands of Gozo and Comino on condition they waged war perpetually against the Infidels (Mahomedans and pirates). Not until'after 1530 was the brotherhood commonly termed Knights of Malta. In 1565 they repelled a violent attack from their old enemy, Sultan Suliman 11., with enormous loss to the Moslems. Thence onwards they continued their naval battles with the Turks, until almost recent years, saving themselves from ruin or annihilation in their long drawn out struggles only by their unyielding courage. In 1760, nevertheless, they would have been compelled to surrender to force majeure had not French intervention prevented this catastrophe. From this event their prowess began to wane, and their naval expeditions became little other than mere spectacular happenings. The order had great possessions in almost every country in Europe, and its chiefs bore their "tremendous

title," Grand Master of the Holy Hospital of St.. John of Jerusalem and Guardian of the Army of Jesus Christ. He was selected by vote and resided at Valetta, the chief tOAvn and port of Malta. In 1798, the then Grand

Master, Hompesch, surrendered the island without defence to Napoleon. Two years later, following a siege of about the same duration, Malta became a part of the British Empire. At the Peace of Amiens (1802) it was stipulated that Malta should be restored to the knights under the guarantee of a neutral power, but as the Government in London continued to entertain apprehensions as to its again passing under French dominion, and thereby gravely threatening, if not actually destroying, British > naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, the old proverb concerning nine points of the law received practical illustration. At this time the number of knights was estimated at 3000. > Australian travellers calling at Malta should not fail to visit the far from extremely imposing cathedral of St. John. Inside the word "superb" must be used to describe the marbies and tapestries." The relics, as may be surmised, are of great historical value. Some of the monuments to the Grand Masters rightly excite enthusiasm. More direct and immediate interest in Malta to-day is bound up with that scheme of Imperial defence with which Australia i's so vitally concerned. Malta is one of the indispensable pillars necessary for preserving intact the Imperial fabric. It, as has only within the past few weeks been demonstrated, also constitutes a vital factor in the strategic sphere, sometimes referred to as "the Mediterranean, Egypt and the Near East." Nelson declared Malta to be a most important outwork to the defence of India. During the Napoleonic wars Malta was the main obstacle to the French seizure, and retention, of Egypt. The late Admiral A. T. Mahon, U.S.N., in that classic, which goes to the root of Avhat can- be called "naval philosophy," "Influence of Sea Power Upon History," stated: "Malta is, perhaps, the greatest of Mediterranean strategic positions, Egypt being rather inteo-oceanic than Mediterranean," also, "Malta . - . being but

a short thousand miles from Gibraltar, the circles of military command exercised by these two places intersect. . The present day has seen the stretch from Malta to the Isthmus of Suez, formerly without a station . . . guided by Cyprus." The late General Homer Lea (U.S.A.), in "The Day of the Saxon" (ed. June, 1912) declared: "Only because India is British are the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, Malta, Syprus, Egypt, the Suez Canal and coasts of Asia Minor under Saxon sovereignty. For the same reason Africa is principally British, as well as Mauritius, Seychelles and other islands in the Indian Ocean, together with Burma, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia."

At Malta one is practically in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, which circumstances have caused to play a greater part in the history of the world, from commercial, military and religious standpoints than any sheet of water on the face of the globe. i