Maltese corps in the British Army (1800-1970)

Abstract

It may not be generally known that long before Malta became part of the British Empire, and notably during the fateful days of Ferdinand Hompesch, the last Grandmaster to rule in these Islands, Maltese seamen were serving on board British men-of-war in the Mediterranean, while at one time two companies of Maltese Artillerymen formed part of the British Army in Portugal under the command of General Charles Stuart. These facts provided the excuse for General Bonaparte, who, on his way to Egypt in June, 1798, while in command of the French Army of the Orient, succeeded in wresting the Maltese Islands from the weak hands of the Knights Hospitallers in the name of the French Directory. Napoleon held that, in allowing the Maltese to serve under the British flag, the Order had broken its neutrality, as Great Britain was then at war with France.