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1Hotel The Hilton Malta
St. Julian's
2Hotel Juliani
St. Julian's
3Grand Hotel
Ghajnsielem
4Hotel The Waterfront
Sliema
5Hotel Calypso
Marsalforn
6Hotel The Westin Dragonara Resort
St. Julian's
7Hotel Cornucopia
Xaghra
8Hotel Phoenicia
Valletta
9Hotel Rocca Nettuno Suites
Sliema
10Ta Cenc Hotel
Sannat
11Hotel The George
St. Julian's
12Hotel San Andrea
Xlendi
Facts and information about Malta
General facts
Trip Preparation
General
Malta The group is composed of the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino all of which are inhabited, and the smaller uninhabited islands of Cominotto, Filfla and St Paul. The longest distance in Malta in a south-east/north-west axis is about 27 km and the widest distance is 14 km. The corresponding figures for Gozo are 14 km and 7 km. Comino, the smallest of the inhabited islands is 2.6 km2. The length of the shoreline around Malta is 136 km and that of Gozo, 43 km. The indentations around the coast form bays, sandy beaches and rocky coves and, more importantly, deep natural harbours. With a population of around 400,000 crowding an area of 320 km2, the Maltese Islands can claim to form the most densely populated country in Europe. The Phoenicians The Maltese islands with their fine natural harbours provided an outpost which the Phoenicians founded around 800 B.C. As it was in other countries, so it was in Malta: having gained a foothold as traders, they gradually intermarried and integrated with the bronze-age farmers. In the case of the Maltese Islands the Phoenicians did venture inland because their artefacts have been found in several places, even as far as Rabat in the centre of the island of Malta. The weaving industry that flourished before the arrival of the Phoenicians probably received an added boost and a wider export market. Pottery was now thrown on a wheel instead of being coiled as was previously the case. The links between the Phoenician colonies and their central state were never very strong and when the Phoenician homeland was overrun it was the colony of Carthage that assumed the role of mother country. In many sectors of the Mediterranean the Phoenicians of Carthage strove to establish a sphere of influence, their chief rivals in this respect being the Greeks. Surprisingly, in the Maltese Islands these differences did not seem to exist: it is not known how many Greeks lived, co-existed rather, with the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians on the island, but some undoubtedly did - civic institutions resembled their Greek counterparts and Greek coins and pottery have been found on the islands. The Romans Apparently the Roman invasion did not present great difficulties and it has been suggested that the Phoenicians on the Island turned against their Carthaginian cousins and handed over the garrison to the invading Romans. The Maltese were treated more like allies than as a conquered people: they kept their Punic traditions and language, and their gods. The Romans built the city of Melita, which took the same name as that of the island, over an older, Punic settlement in what is now the Rabat/Mdina area in Malta, as well as another town in Gozo where Victoria (Rabat) now is. Saint Paul The shipwreck of St Paul in 60 A.D. is recorded in some detail in the Acts of the Apostles, and a Pauline tradition of long standing, supported by archaeological excavations carried out at San Pawl Milqgħi, proves beyond doubt that his arrival in Malta is a historical fact and also that during his three-month stay on the Island he sowed the first seeds of the Christian religion to which the Maltese people overwhelmingly belong. The Apostle Paul was, at the time, being taken to Rome under arrest to be judged before Caesar as was his right as a Roman Citizen. Amongst the other prisoners was the physician St Luke who recorded the account of that eventful journey.The nearest habitation to the place of shipwreck was the villa of Publius, the chief official of the Island. All those who had been shipwrecked spent three days there and after regaining their strength they moved on to Melita, the main town of the island. In the city Paul cured Publius’ father of a fever after which the Roman official converted to Christianity and was later ordained Bishop by St Paul. St. Publius was the first bishop of Malta. After three months, by which time the sea was once more deemed safe for navigation, St Paul sailed to Rome and to his subsequent martyrdom. Tradition has it that a church was built on the site of the palace of Publius, where St Paul had cured his father. Many times rebuilt, the site is now occupied by the Cathedral Church dedicated to St Paul at Mdina. The Arabs The Arab attacks on the islands started around the year 836 during which time Malta and its islands were still under Byzantine rule, but the islands were only conquered in the year 870 by Aglabid Arabs originating from what is now Tunisia, who used Sicily to launch their invasion, as the island had been occupied by them some thirty years previously. To better protect their new territories, the Muslims sectioned off a part of the old Roman town of Melita and defended it with a ditch, calling this citadel Mdina, and the capital of the sister island, Gozo was also divided in the same way; the elite of the small number of Arabs then on the islands probably dwelt in these towns but Arab villages were scattered on both islands. The Arabs introduced the water-wheel, the sienja, an animal-driven device for raising water, now practically obsolete, and, much more importantly, the cultivation of the cotton plant, the mainstay of the Maltese economy for several centuries. The Middle Ages The Arabs in Sicily were divided, and taking advantage of the situation, Count Roger the Norman, after a series of campaigns, brought the island under Norman Rule. Count Roger had invaded the islands to make sure his southern flank was secure from a possible Arab attack. In the same year (1090) Count Roger also occupied the Maltese Islands. Having reduced the Arabs to a state of vassalage and released the foreign Christian slaves, he returned to Sicily without even bothering to garrison his prize. In Malta the Normans followed the same enlightened policy and although the Christian faith was regarded as the official religion there, nobody was persecuted for their race or religious beliefs. In 1127 Roger II, the son of Count Roger, led a second invasion of Malta; having overrun the island he placed it under the charge of a Norman governor and also garrisoned the three castles then on the islands with Norman soldiers. The last Norman king died without a male heir however, and the new masters of the Maltese islands came, in turn, from the ruling houses of Germany, France and Spain: the Swabians (1194); the Angevins (1268); the Aragonese (1283) and finally, the Castilians (1410). When the Norman Period came to an end, the Fief of Malta was granted to loyal servants of the Sicilian Crown; these Counts, or Marquises of Malta as these nobles were styled, looked on the fief simply as an investment - a source for the collection of taxes and something to be bartered or sold when no longer viable. The last feudal lord of Malta, Don Gonsalvo Monroy, was expelled from the island following a revolt. By this time, the Maltese were thoroughly Christianized and the houses of the great Religious Orders were being established in the Island: the Franciscans (1370); the Carmelites (1418); the Augustinians (1450); the Dominicans (1466); and the Minor Observants (1492), while the Benedictine Sisters arrived in 1418. The Knights of the Order of St John As a military order, the Knights took part in the Crusades, but when Acre fell in 1291, they were driven off from their last stronghold in the Holy Land. After a short stay in Cyprus, the Knights, with the assistance of the Genoese, occupied Rhodes. This was to be their home for the next two hundred years until they were forced to leave the island by the Sultan Suleiman. After wandering for seven years, the Knights and the refugees from Rhodes who had attached themselves to them, were offered the Island of Malta as a home by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. To the relief of the Maltese Nobles, the Knights decided that Mdina, the capital city, was too far inland and they set about establishing themselves in the small village that had grown up behind the old Castell’a Mare. In Birgu the Knights organized themselves along the lines they had evolved during their stay in Rhodes. The Order could be described as a multi-national force divided into Langues according to the nationality of its members. These langues, or tongues, were: Auvergne, Provence, France, Aragon, Castile, England, Germany and Italy. Each langue had its own Auberge, or headquarters, as well as a specific duty traditionally assigned to it, and each langue was also responsible for the defence of a particular post, such as a section of a bastion or tower. As if to prove the inadequacy of the defences of the islands, in 1547, and again in 1551, the Turks launched two attacks against them, the latter being particularly calamitous. Ravaging the Maltese countryside and ignoring the fortified towns, the Turks then turned their attention to the island of Gozo and carried away the entire population into slavery. These attacks pushed the Knights into feverish activity to improve the islands’ defences in anticipation of another, and possibly bigger, attack. The Great Siege “Nothing is better known than the siege of Malta” wrote Voltaire two hundred years after the event and for the Maltese people today the statement still rings true. The bare bones of the narrative are as follows: On the 18th May 1565, the Ottoman Turks and their allies pitted 48,000 of their best troops against the islands with the intention of invading them, and afterwards to make a thrust into Southern Europe by way of Sicily and Italy. Against them some 8,000 men were drawn up: 540 Knights; 4000 Maltese; and the rest made up of Spanish and Italian mercenaries. Landing unopposed, the first objective of the Turks was to secure a safe anchorage for their large fleet, and with that in mind, they launched their attack on St. Elmo. After a heroic resistance of thirty-one days the fort succumbed to the massive bombardment and continuous attacks of the Turks. After the fort had been seized, the Ottomans turned their attention to the two badly fortified towns overlooking the harbour, Birgu and Senglea. Subjected to a ceaseless bombardment, and repulsing attack after attack behind the crumbling walls, against all odds the Christian forces kept the enemy at bay until a small relief force of some 8,000 troops arrived from Sicily. The Maltese people were able to drive back the Turks and so to save themselves. The Foundation of Valletta The idea of fortifying the rocky and steep-sided Mount Sciberras had occurred to the Knights on their arrival in 1530, but because time was not on their side, they limited themselves to building a fort at its furthest tip instead. If other Grand Masters studied the possibilities of such a project, La Valette was obsessed with the idea. As soon as he had been elected Grand Master in 1557 he invited foreign military engineers to prepare the plans, but the Great Siege put a stop to that. No sooner was the siege lifted than the plans for the fortress city were again revived, but as a first step the ill-fated Fort St Elmo was at once rebuilt. Pope Pius IV sent his military engineer, Francesco Laparelli, and the planning of the new town started in earnest. When Laparelli departed from the Island he left his Maltese assistant, Gerolamo Cassar, to continue the work he had started. La Valette died in 1568 and was buried in the Church of Our Lady of Victories, the first building to be erected. The Fall of the Order When the Order made Malta its home, for the first time the rulers of the Maltese lived on the Island itself, and wealth was brought to the Island, rather than extracted from it. The finances of the Order were now in a precarious situation. Unemployment was rife and poverty was widespread. Towards the end of the 18th century matters for the Order were going from bad to worse: in France, where most of her overseas property lay, the possessions of the Order were taken over by the Republican Government and French refugees, fleeing to Malta from the Revolution, were an added drain on the treasury of the Order. At the time the last Grand Master of Malta, Ferdinand von Hompesch, was being elected, Napoleon was making his plans to take over the island. The French Napoleon’s capture of Malta in June 1798 cannot be counted as one of his military triumphs. The Grand Master capitulated without offering any resistance and Napoleon made his grand entry into Valletta while within a week Von Hompesch, accompanied by a few knights, left the Island. The Maltese felt that they had been let down by the Order, but before they could attempt any resistance they were talked into submission by the Bishop. Maltese that had served in the Order’s army and navy were recruited into the French Republican forces, and other regiments were raised for garrison duties on the island itself. After stripping the palaces, Auberges and other buildings of everything of value, Napoleon, conveniently forgetting his promises, next turned his attention to the churches; only such articles that were indispensable for the “exercise of the cult” were left while all other valuables were removed and priceless works of art in gold and silver were melted down into ingots. Nominally the Order had held the Island of Malta in fief from the King of Sicily (since 1735 Sicily had been amalgamated with the State of Naples and was then known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), and it was to the King of the Two Sicilies that the Maltese now turned for aid and protection. At the same time deputies were despatched to seek aid from the allies of the King, the British. A small number of British troops were landed and the French in Gozo surrendered in October 1798, the Sicilian flag being hoist on the ramparts. As the siege wore on, the French who were penned in the fortifications, were prevented from receiving aid due to the British blockade, though the Maltese, by this time aided by Italian and British troops, did not have the means to assault the formidable bastions. The French, by now exhausted, were ready to capitulate but Napoleon’s troops proudly refused to submit to the Maltese rebels. The British, on the other hand, anxious to deploy their troops and warships in other theatres of war, were eager to speed up the surrender of the French in Malta, which took place in 1800. The British Once the French were expelled from the Island, the British were not so much interested in possessing Malta, as keeping the French out. In fact, with the Treaty of Amiens (1802) that brought hostilities between Britain and France to an end, it was decided that Malta should be returned to a reformed Order of St John under the protection of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and that her neutrality would be guaranteed by all the Great Powers. With the British in command of the sea, all mercantile shipping was obliged to call at the harbour of Valletta and before long, the Maltese Islands became the most important centre of trade in the Mediterranean. Under the Treaty of Paris (1814) the island was confirmed as a British possession. Agriculture was encouraged to make the Island Fortress as self-sufficient as possible and potato cultivation, now a major agricultural export, was introduced. The ever present problem of the water supply also received urgent attention. Prosperity brought about a rapid rise in the population and emigration was actively encouraged to ease the burden on the Fortress economy. Italian political refugees of the Risorgimento sought refuge in Malta and the example of these Italian patriots had the effect of further fanning the flames of Maltese nationalism. At the insistence of the Maltese population, a Council of Government was set up in 1835. The military worth of Malta and its islands was to be demonstrated during the Crimean War (1854-56) when the Island Fortress became a rear base for the departure of troops and a receiving station for casualties. Imperial policy dictated that Britain take Malta under full protection and anglicize, as far as possible, the local population. The First World War placed Malta on a war footing and, as had happened in the Crimean War sixty years earlier, Malta was to provide harbour and dockyard facilities to the Allied Navies, while her contribution in the cause of sick and wounded soldiers hospitalized on the island earned Malta the title “Nurse of the Mediterranean”. A National Assembly was set up to make proposals for a new constitution. During one of the public meetings of this Assembly, held on the 7th June 1919, the crowd grew hostile and troops were called out to restore order. With the new Constitution approved in 1921, Malta was, at last, to be granted self government with responsibility for all internal affairs. The British Government retained control over Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Immigration. The Path to Independence For the Maltese people the path to independence was neither smooth nor straight. By the time Malta was granted self government in 1921, the political factions could be classified into three main groups: the pro-British group that broadly opted for the advancement of the English language and culture, as well as the dissemination of the Maltese language. The pro-Italian group stood for the use of Italian and English but also for the propagation of Italian culture. The newcomer to the political scene was the Labour Party, then in its infancy, its programme being compulsory education, the promotion of the English and Maltese languages and, as is to be expected, the improvement of working and social conditions. In the troubles that followed, elections were suspended and in 1930 the Constitution was withdrawn. In the subsequent election the pro-Italian party, with the support of the Church, won at the polls with a great majority. In the political storm that followed, the Constitution was again suspended and one year later Malta reverted to colonial rule. The British Government, now in sole control of the island and unfettered by local political opinion, made Maltese and English the two official languages of the Island, which, in fact, they still are, while the use of Italian was eliminated from administrative circles. By the time the next constitution was granted, World War II was under way. When Italy allied herself to Germany, Malta was thrown into the front line. The first attack, by Italian bombers, took place on 11th June 1940. War in the Mediterranean theatre was predictable, yet when it did come the island was poorly equipped to defend itself: the only fighter planes were four antiquated Gloucester Gladiators. These planes were augmented with a few Hurricanes some weeks later. Against these, the Italian Regia Aeronautica could count on two hundred aircraft stationed in Sicily, a mere hundred kilometres from Malta. In June 1941 Hitler attacked Russia and the Luftwaffe in Sicily diverted most of its planes to that front. The air-raids on Malta eased, but did not cease entirely; at the same time, having received reinforcements, Malta took to the offensive and submarines and aircraft based on the Island attacked Axis shipping as well as ground targets in Sardinia, Sicily and even Tripoli; furthermore, by intercepting supplies from Sicily to North Africa, Rommel was deprived of many essential supplies. On 26th July 1941 the only seaborne attack, directed against the Grand Harbour by Italian E-boats, was brave and dashing, but unsuccessful. When the Luftwaffe returned to Sicily in full complement, the bombing commenced once more and Malta was again thrown on the defensive. A third of the anti-aircraft crews were Maltese and they soon made a name for themselves with their bravery and efficiency. On 15th April 1942 King George VI awarded the George Cross Medal to “... the brave people of the Island Fortress of Malta”. If the morale of Malta’s defenders was high, the material resources of the Island were low; with supply ships being intercepted and destroyed by Axis aircraft and submarines the situation was desperate. By July 1942 the supply of vital provisions was calculated to last two weeks. Although badly mauled, the “Santa Maria Convoy” limped into the Grand Harbour on 15th August of that year and the situation was saved. With replenished stores and the arrival of some hundred Spitfires, the tables, at last, were being turned. In July 1943, using Malta as an advance base, the Allies invaded Sicily and the war moved away from the island. True to their promise made during the War, the British restored self government. Fresh elections were held and the pro-Italian exiles were repatriated. As most of the inhabitants were homeless, re-construction was the first priority of the newly elected Labour Government, but social conditions were also improved. In the area around the docks especially, the trade union movement grew in strength as workers everywhere were becoming conscious of their rights. Three years later, following a split in the Labour Party, the Nationalist Party headed a Coalition Government and this party now strove to obtain Dominion status for the island. Originally the party representing the intelligentsia, it now attracted numerous workers within its ranks. On the return of the Labour Party to office, a request for integration was made to the British Government with Maltese representation at Westminster. When the British began to appear reluctant, after evincing an initial interest, the Labour Party went to the other extreme and insisted on Independence; the acrimonies that followed were to cost the Labour Party many votes. The Constitutional Party, the original pro-British party, died a natural death, its mission having been accomplished. In the wake of fresh elections and confirmed by a referendum, Malta achieved Independence within the Commonwealth on 21st September 1964 with the Queen of England as the nominal Queen of Malta. Under the next Labour Government, Malta was declared a Republic with Sir Anthony Mamo as its first President. On 31st March 1979, on termination of the Military Base Agreement, the last British serviceman left the island and Malta entered into a self-imposed state of neutrality. Tourism remains one of the key pillars of Malta’s earnings although local manufacturing, largely with foreign investors, also plays an important role in the Maltese economy. The Maltese are a proud and independent people but they are realistically aware that financially Malta cannot stand alone. Since 1 May 2004 Malta has been a member of the European Union.
Country and People
History
Around about 4000 B.C. a group of late Stone Age Sicilian farming families left their island home to settle in a small group of islands to the south. They brought with them their domestic animals, pottery, bags of seeds and flint implements. They were the first Maltese. In time, these early Maltese increased and prospered and, over a considerable period of time, they undertook the construction of temples. Around 1800 B.C. the temple builders disappeared. At one time it was believed that they succumbed to an invasion of fresh migrants who exterminated, or enslaved, the original settlers and took over the land. The invasion theory cannot be entirely ruled out and still has its adherents. If there was an invasion, the new arrivals, who originally hailed from the heel of Italy, would have had no difficulty in overcoming the remnants of the original stock who had colonized the islands some 2200 years before. If the first settlers were peaceful farmers, the newcomers were more belligerent. These bronze-age pasture farmers were less civilized than the folk they had supplanted. They built no temples but re-used the older, copper-age, temples as cemeteries. The bronze-age farmers were not allowed to enjoy their islands in peace as some 600 years after their arrival a new wave of bronze-using warriors invaded the land, this time in a definite attack for conquest, and made it their home. This event took place around 1200 B.C. Imitating their war-like predecessors, they established their settlements in easily defensible positions. The last of the three ages of antiquity - the Iron Age - is represented in the Maltese Islands by the remains of a single settlement at Baħrija (circa 900 B.C.).