BOOKS
The Orginal Redcoats of the Sea
Image Credit: Frà Giovanni Battista Tommasi (1731 – 1805), Grand Master of the Order of Malta (oil on canvas, 18th century)
This exceptional study into the Order’s navy in the eighteenth century reveals a good deal of information about the actual vessels – the galleys, the third-rates and the frigates with their uses, advantages, shortcomings, replacements, costs and the actual ‘muscle’ of the Order’s warships – the personnel serving on board who include the Officer-Knights, technical and deck officers, all crewmen, oarsmen, and officials together with the religious and material considerations including discipline, health and the social aspect of the fleet, writes Frà Richard Divall AO OBE CCM.
The Fleet of the Knights of Malta by Joseph F. Grima. 448 pages, $69.30
T
he fortunes of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta has ebbed and flowed dramatically over the thousand years of its existence, particularly during its Maltese period, when it was enjoying its highest profile ever on the world stage. Even when international criticism over its very raison d’etre, its politics and its achievements started gathering momentum, its small, dashing, thieving fleet held the respect of most observers of the maritime scene. Over the years, everything else changed, mostly in the direction of decline, but the ships of the Order remained a model of beautifully-honed
organisational skills throughout the Mediterranean. We know that, in seamanship, Tuscany under the Medici Grand Dukes copied the Maltese schemes and constitutions, and that when the French under Cardinal Richelieu decided to invest in a powerful navy, they did it with an observant eye on the Malta blueprint. A Frenchman who had undergone his naval training on the ships of the Order had a guaranteed career spread out for him, and many of the great French naval heroes had learnt the tricks of navigation on the vessels of the Knights of Malta. The fleet of Malta has been doubly fortunate, in so far as it retained its prestige and ascendency even when most of the other institutions of the Order had started collapsing, and also because it has attracted plenty
of well-informed historical attention. There has been no dearth of historians who concentrated on researching and publicising its history and its achievements. All have all contributed validly to overviews or specialised publications on the navy of the Order, or on some of its aspects or activities. It is one subject in our history which cannot lament being under-researched. But one area of interest had not been systematically explored so far: the internal workings of the Order’s fleet. The chains of command and hierarchies, the supplies and suppliers, the medical services, salaries and remuneration, legal regulation, ship building and repairing, tactical prowess and manoeuvring, staffing, signalling and communications, the bureaucracy, discipline, training,
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