BRISTLING WITH GUNS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 263, 4 October 1940, Page 7

BRISTLING WITH GUNS

IMPORTANCE OF MALTA,

Malta, like Gibraltar, has long been, a centre of history-making. Hannibal was horn there and Cicero chose it as the place of liis banishment. St. Paul was shipwrecked there and was said to have been the first Christian Bishop of Malta. The Arabs, the Normans and the Turks, in turn invaded and ruled there, and then the Spaniards, and the Knights of St. John were its governors, the latter order bringing fame to the island with their defence of Malta against the Turks in the great siege of 1565.

Napoleon seized it, but an uprising of the Maltese, together with a blockade by Nelson, secured its relief, and by the Treaty of Paris (1814) Malta was added to the Empire. “Malta is a geographical and national continue tion of Italy,” declared Signor Gayda, Mussolini’s mouthpiece, some time ago —but Malta has never been Italian. “The island has greatly strengthened its defences; out-of-date forts have been removed and new ones built,” wrote an English commentator earlier this year. “Bristling with anti-air-craft guns, it possesses immense labyrinths able to defy attack from the air. Valetta, the capital, has one of the finest natural harbours in the world, and large warehips can moor alongside the quays. “Though it has lost some of its old value because of its exposed position between Italy’s powerful, air bases in Sicily. Pantelleria and Libya, and its dockyard might be put out of action in a prolonged attack, Malta would still have enormous nuisance value for air raids and to counter air offensives in the Middle Mediterranean. Surprise attacks to seize it would be extremelv difficult to carry through.”