The Salter Album

THE

SALTER ALBUM

Encounters in Malta’s Prisoner of War Camps 1914-1920

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF MALTA

arlusic – Ali Riza – Yehya Yahia – Alois Sucic – Alfred Schulter – Max Pollak – Ludwig Niederhammer – Ge allus – George Scharl – Eduardo Pleimes – John Baricevich – Emil Lang – Heinrich Zeiten – Hermann Cruys – Mustapha Hussein Oglu – Mustapha Bairam – Hussein Murad el Girietly – Bruno Lother – Otto G Wilhelm – Ri Georg Hess – Adolf Theo Hess – Heinrich Kroger – Giuseppe Cuckdau – Albert Fischbeck – Elia Velekoff – onstantine Yania Blagus – Mohammed Sabri Mansour – Sadik Effendi Abdullah – Karl Grünewald – Reinhardt hlmann – Ahmed Bey Talaat – Adold O Werber – Peter Duns – Hugo Wohlgemuth – Johann Wagner – Fritz Haenegen Abdulla Talaat – Suliman Riffat Ibaar – Max CF Strauss – Emil Adal A Zarnott – Anastasis Dimitroff – Wa leiber – Martino della Stua – Hermann D Ahe – Nicolas Denobile – Jean Schneider – John Kreul – Ahmed Hus Franz Reinsperger – Max Bering – Otto Truchese – Ewald Stiassny – Marian Krzelry – Mattaus Kovacic – The Franz Maire – Franz Adolf Haan – Adam Fassott – Hubert Schonen – Franz Dreja – Christian Meincke – Stefa Heinrich Lutkat – Vedon Papadhakis – Karl Strenhschneider – Godfred Nexhen – Anton Minutti – Paul Unterd einrich C Reimer – Sabri bin Selim Ali – Harry Mentzel – Hussein Salim – Ahmed Santina – Ludwig Itterheim brahim – Albert Mix – Gerhard Visser – Leopold Pollak – Aurelius Doncich – Freidrich E Finger – Karl Fre in Hakki – Eugenio Trevisan – Mohammed Awad Gibril – Julius Ernst Granzow – Paul Bolus – Arturo Roghe – Khalil Assaf Arif – Karl Kurz – Wolfgang Dreiss – Panayot Grigoriades – Ernest A Katz – Johann Dudinszk arl Reche – Eduard Rehkopf – Ferdinand Haeberle – Franz Voll – Bension Issachar – George Kollmeyer – Cons ohann H Watfen – Giovanni Novello – August KW Rautenberg – Hercules George Yamalee – Andreas Bergine – Pa Mehmed Osman – Fritz Lehnhardt – Mehmed Izzat – Khizr Shafik – Otto Kemze – Theodor Dehorn – Ali Kolji O elim Hussein – Geza Stolz – Abdullah M Azizoglou – Richard Buchholz – Wilhelm Lacay – Abdullah Mohamed Ta ey – Joseph Hilbich – Anton Kucera – Hugo Kiehr – Denya Lotocki – Rudolf Leo Solk – Freiderich Rieper – Chri Paul Bayer – Franz Rudolf Lind – Mohammed Said Haffuda – Joseph Guzy – Otto Wecke – Arthur Jungman – enz – Osman Mustafa – Egon Spielmann – Walter Maskolat – Joseph Kahlert – Abd-el-Wahab Samad – Robert Frede Djafer Redjeb – Gustav H Rogalski – Ali Mohammed el Boss – Georg Keller – Giuseppe Pagliaga – Bruno Fran ügel – Karl Miazzi – Theodor Demel – Hilmi Tchimpi – Ernst M Falschlunger – Alexander S Osretich – Wilhel asim Abdullah – Bernhard Romer – Husni Bey Hussein – Albert Liebe – Christian Jaüss – Gustav Jahrmaker – C ohne – Giorgio Lukacevic – Peter Wehler – Emil Boehme – Joseph Beer – Paul – Kubeile – Andreas Manolios – Stefano Laccos – Karl Blümel – Ernst Püschel – Ibrahim Assaf – Karl Graul – Paul Rippert – Hans Haussner abit – Freidrich W Nischan – Yousef Karam – Carl Bauer – Ahmed Alyoglou – Robert W Nehrkorm – Anton Bern halil Iboush – Michel Schachter – Christoph Schleeschuss – Franz Kuhlmann – Jakob Wallenstein – Aril Lieb ockloglou – Franz J Rohrmoser – Romeo Sponzia – Friedrich Adolf Wunn – Max Guldentopf – Erich Reich – Ottma Hermann Paulus – Johannes Prayer – Armin Wetsel – Felix Modern – Oscar Draeger – Max Thiele – Adam Loose Karl HH Hoffmann – Emil Sack – Otto Bode – Prinz Franz Joseph von Hohenzollern – Muheddin Neami – Mohamed Robert Kohn – Heinrich Hamper – Stoyan Koyoutsouki – Johann Scalamera – Maurice Alfred Meyer – Wilhelm G Emmanuel Henke – Paul Mayer – William Hatfield – Christian F Ecker – Alexander Aleco Tourtoglou – Michael Ab Willebad Wagner – Walter Nordhorn – Arno Altermann – Engelbert Klugkist – Wielder Gehimann – Hans KH Soh ohamed Gamil el Habashi – Johannes Ferber – Karl Kemmler – Karl Moecker – Albert Julius Andrees – Johs W eduvilal – Joseph Deutsch – Franz P Kook – Charles Crass – Adolf Seimann – Walter Bruno – Bruhn – Karl D

THE SALTER ALBUM Encounters in Malta’s Prisoner of War Camps 1914-1920

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF MALTA 2014

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Published by THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF MALTA

The National Archives of Malta thank Marylyn Peringer for sharing her father’s album and her parents’ story; Giovanni Bonello, Alan Green and Stephen C. Spiteri for their contributions; Tony Camilleri for enriching this book with his photographic collection; the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany for sponsoring the printing of this book; Milena Dobreva, Helga Hyde, Anita Millman and Martin Zammit for their assistance in the translations from Bulgarian, German, Arabic, Greek and Turkish; Heritage Malta; the Malta Study Circle; and the National Library of Malta.

Copyright © 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing of the rights’ holder.

All photos, unless otherwise indicated, are from Tony Camilleri’s collection.

First published, Malta 2014

Cataloguing in Publication The Salter Album: encounters in Malta’s prisoner of war camps, 1914-1920 edited by Leonard Callus. – Rabat : National Archives of Malta, 2014 p. : col. ill. ; cm.

ISBN: 978-99932-20-05-3 1. Salter, George H., 1878-1942. 2. Autograph albums. 3. World War, 1914-1918 – Prisoners and prisons - Sources.

4. Prisoner-of-war camps – Malta – Sources. 4. World War, 1914-1918 – Malta – Sources. I. Callus, Leonard, 1964LOC: D627.M35S25 2014 DDC: 940.472’458’5-ddc23 Melitensia: MZM

Contents

Foreword by Charles J. Farrugia, National Archivist ............................................................................................................................................................

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Message by Klaus- Peter Brandes, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Malta ...................................................................................

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Fortifications as Prisoner of War Camps Stephen C. Spiteri.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Prisoners of War in Malta during World War 1 Giovanni Bonello......................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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The German Army arrives in Malta Alan Green ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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The Salter Album from World War 1 Giovanni Bonello......................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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My mother’s story Marylyn Peringer.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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The Salter Album...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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CONTRIBUTORS GIOVANNI BONELLO Giovanni Bonello was judge at the European Court of Human Rights for twelve years.

Before that he had been a lawyer specializing in human rights litigation, defending 170 human rights lawsuits before local and international courts. He headed the National Commission for the Reform of the Administration of Justice. He is the author of twenty-two books on art and history, four of which won the Best Book of the Year award. Three books, a special edition of a law journal and a doctoral thesis have been published about his legal and cultural achievements. He is presently President of the Malta Historical Society, general editor of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti publications, Superintendent of the Palace Regeneration Project, and Chairman of the university ethics and disciplinary board.

ALAN GREEN Alan Green had a successful and interesting career in aircraft design and development and is now retired. An early hobby of stamp collecting, combined with his career choice, evolved into airmail philately and research. Alan contributed to a study paper on the Air Mails of Malta, produced by the Malta Study Circle. Latterly, this passion resulted in the publication of books devoted to Malta postal history in both World Wars. This interest was complemented in recent years with several visits to Malta and other locations, which enabled detailed research on Prisoners of War held in Malta during WW1.

MARYLYN PERINGER A working storyteller based in Toronto, Canada, Marylyn Peringer has spent over 35 years sharing folk tales with audiences of all ages across the country and abroad.

Her most recent storytelling interests include studying the legends and folklore of the Maltese people, and researching the true story of her British Army father, George Salter, and his experiences 100 years ago at the World War 1 Prisoner of War camp in Malta.

STEPHEN C. SPITERI Born in Malta, educated at St Aloysius College, and later at the University of Malta.

Stephen C. Spiteri is a historian of military architecture and the author of a number of published studies, books, and papers on the fortifications and military organization of the Knights of St John in Malta and Rhodes, as well as British Colonial defences. Dr Spiteri is also a part-time lecturer at the International Institute of Baroque Studies at the University of Malta, where he lectures on the on the art and science of fortification.

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“… meminisse iuvabit” “… you will rejoice to recall”

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uring World War I (1914-1918), an unknown prisoner of war, detained in Malta, wrote these two words on an album kept by his warder, George Salter (see page 130). Quoting this phrase from Virgil’s Aeneid, he tried to express his experience in a detention camp.

Following a violent tempest and shipwreck on the North African shores, after defeat at the Trojan War, Aeneas tried to encourage his exhausted fellow travellers by invoking memory and future. Virgil places these words on Aeneas’s lips: “Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit”, “Maybe someday you will rejoice to recall even this.” (Aeneid, Book 1, Line 203).

Is this unknown prisoner of war identifying himself with Aeneas as the turn of events ‘shipwrecked’ him on Malta, away from his home?

Is he recalling an earlier shipwreck in the island where he was detained, that was annually remembered and celebrated? For sure, he envisaged the possibility that the memory of his trauma may be a positive one.

These same words were pondered upon by Neil Macrae, the protagonist of Hugh MacLennan’s novel Barometer Rising, an allegory of Canada’s journey away from Britain’s political and cultural influences towards independence and national consciousness. (Incidentally Canada is the home of George Salter’s daughter!) Returning to Nova Scotia from the battlefields of WW1 Europe, with a devastated body, mind and reputation, Macrae muses “only one who had experienced ultimate things could comprehend the greatness of that line.”

Memory and future mark an archives’ theatre of operation. Our basic duty, as national archives, is to remember and to preserve memory for the future. Memory gives us identity and freedom. In preserving the past for the future, we may transcend the limitations of the present.

This is what has inspired us at the National Archives of Malta to publish this monograph about the Salter Album on the centenary since the outbreak of World War 1.

We would like to remember, hopefully realistically and positively (why not?), these people and their encounters. While their fellow countrymen faced and killed each other at the trenches, these people were forced to share the confined space of a detention camp. They faced a common longing for home, a shared boredom, a collective depravation of freedom. In this encounter some discovered that, although enemies, they also shared a common humanity. Isn’t recalling this a joy?

As National Archives we hope that, rather than a commemoration of war, this book serves as a celebration of this human, and humanising, encounter that took place one hundred years ago in Malta.

Charles J Farrugia National Archivist v

George H. Salter 1878–1942

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Message by His Excellency Klaus-Peter Brandes, Ambassador of the federal republic of Germany to Malta

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he 20th century was shattered, formed and irreversibly shaped by the course and outcome of two World Wars which took place within less than 50 years. Even though Malta was not directly involved in military actions during World War I it was as much affected as other European nations. Due to their strategically important geographical location the Maltese Islands were used as headquarters by the British Royal Navy and served as a resupply base for British troops as well as a place for the treatment of the wounded for which Malta was often called the “Nurse of the Mediterranean”. Moreover, Malta was used as a camp for prisoners of war. Many German soldiers, among them some very wellknown German military officers such as Karl Fredrick Max von Mueller who served on the German battleship Emden, were held in Malta after they had been taken prisoner by the British military.

The formation of the first Maltese union during this period of history and the first strike by Maltese workers are often considered the initial point for Malta’s independence. World War I thereby had a tremendous impact on Malta. Today, many of the former military installations such as camps for prisoners of war as Fort Verdala for example or hospitals are still visible and are important landmarks on the Maltese Islands.

In 2014, Germany, Malta and the world commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. This Great War has claimed millions of lives and has brought upon Europe and the world unmeasurable destruction on all levels of life at that time and for many years to come.

At the end of World War II it was barely imaginable that Europe would be united one day and Europe’s nations would thrive and struggle for joint goals rather than against each other.

It is the achievement of this monograph to show how even at the time of World War I, the enemies of Europe’s battlefields realized during their time in Malta that they were not so different as they were made to believe by their leaders. They all had the same fears, struggles, wishes and hopes. As it becomes clear through this monograph most of the prisoners were hoping for one thing: peace. Many of them, however, did not wish for peace out of political conviction or for any abstract goals and aims but for simply being allowed to go home and reunite with their families again. This human aspect that all people have in common not withstanding their origin, belief, race or culture is well documented in the pictures and letters collected by Captain George H. Salter.

I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to the National Archives of Malta and the family of Captain George H. Salter for having taken up this initiative and making this important scientific work possible.

Klaus-Peter Brandes, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany vii

FORTIFICATIONS AS PRISONER OF WAR CAMPS Stephen C. Spiteri 2

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ortifications are structures designed primarily to keep people out. The high walls, solid enclosures, deep ditches, and a sparsity of entrance points and gateways, were all purposely intended to keep the enemy at bay as was physically possible through static obstacles and defences. Ironically, the very same characteristics of ramparts and fortified enceintes were equally effective in keeping people hemmed inside an enclosure, unable to break out. Little wonder, then, that many works of fortification were often put to use as prisons when they were not being utilized for defence. Indeed, the history of military architecture contains many an example where fortifications were employed for the incarceration of both military personnel and civilians. The Spanish sixteenth-century citadels, for example, built to rule and dominate alienated populations, acquired a rather fearsome kind of reputation as oppressive prisons with their dungeons and torture chambers.

The fortifications of the Maltese islands do not, in general, subscribe to this adaptation of their prime military purpose. The exceptions where local fortifications were used as prisons are indeed few and the evidence for this is also rather scarce for the earlier historical periods. We do know, for example, that the ditch of the Gozo castle was used for the incarceration of the Jewish community living there in 147576,1 while throughout most of the Hospitaller period itself, especially during the more troubled sixteenth century, some strongholds like Fort St. Angelo, Gozo’s Gran Castello, and the fortress of Tripoli in North Africa (a Hospitaller outpost between 1530 and 1551) doubled up as a place of incarceration for recalcitrant knights. Even the renowned Grand Master Jean de Valette himself, hero of the Great Siege of 1565, in his younger and impetuous days as a knight, was once imprisoned in Gozo’s castle for four months to atone for his aggressive behaviour.2 The guve (old, dried up wells) in Fort St. Angelo were often put to use as prison cells in such cases.3 Caravaggio, the famous artist, escaped from one of these when he was imprisoned at Fort St Angelo in 1608

after having seriously wounded a fellow knight in a brawl. The Order’s Turkish slaves, likewise, were often chained down for the night in the underground galleries of Fort St. Angelo and in the vaults of the nearby fortress of Birgu. In the late eighteenth century, Fort St. Elmo was used for the imprisonment of Dun Gaetano Mannarino, a priest who had led an unsuccessful insurrection against the Knights. His name and initials can be seen carved on its dark damp walls.4 The first mention of fortifications housing large numbers of prisoners of war, albeit momentarily, is encountered relatively very late in the history of the Island. This followed the surrender of the French garrison to the Anglo-Maltese forces in 1800 after a two-year blockade.

At the time of the capitulation, the French garrison, including noncombatants, amounted to some 3,200 persons and many of these troops were sent temporarily to Fort St Elmo and Fort Manoel to await their repatriation back to France.5 It is only during the course of the First World War, however, that one can really speak of Maltese fortifications serving as veritable prisoner of war camps. By this late date, many of the Islands’ defences, particularly those dating back to the Hospitaller period and the early nineteenth century, had lost their frontline defensive value and were only useful in providing barrack accomodation or as storage facilities.

Some of the local fortifications, as matter of fact, with their barracks and esplanades, adapted themselves very quickly to the purpose of incarcerating and controlling large numbers of men and women. These defensive works already containing barrack quarters and facilities, in particular, were easily converted to fulfil such a role.

Others, with enclosed wide open esplanades, likewise allowed for the establishment of sizeable encampments capable of absorbing large quantities of people.

The sites that were chosen to fulfil this role as centres of detention following the outbreak of the First World War were Fort

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Illustration by Stephen 4 C. Spiteri

Verdala, Fort San Salvatore, St. Clement’s Retrenchment, and a section of the Cottonera enceinte that centred around St. Nicholas Bastion and the adjoining curtain, together with a neighbouring section of the glacis in front of St. Helen Curtain (Sta. Margherita Enceinte).

These forts and positions varied considerably in their architectural and physical characteristics and were mainly chosen because they formed, together, a nucleus of enclosed structures situated along the periphery of the urban settlement bordering the southern reaches of the Grand Harbour – as far away from the core of the urban settlement as was possible, yet still confined within the safety of the protective perimeter formed by the massive envelope of the Cottonera line of fortifications.

Together, these ‘camps’ came to house thousands of men and women and were clustered together within a radius of less than a mile.

The various facilities were so arranged in such a way to keep the officers, non-commissioned officers, sailors and soldiers, as well as women and aliens of different nationalities separate from each other. The detention centres were organized in the following manner:6 Fort Verdala: Fort San Salvatore:

St. Clement’s Retrenchment:

St. Nicholas Bastion and Glacis of Sta. Margherita Lines Polverista Barracks:

Fort Verdala The Verdala POW camp was housed in Fort Verdala. This small fort, a hybrid structure set in the Sta. Margherita (Firenzuola) Lines, consisted of bastioned outer enceinte built by the Knights of St. John in the seventeenth century, and was closed off to the rear by a British-built enclosure, the whole fitted with a casemated barrack accommodation.

Fort Verdala was actually one of the first British works of fortification erected in the Maltese islands and owes its existence to the complex defensive problems and the unresolved issues that had accompanied the construction of the massive Cottonera enceinte by the Order in 1670. Designed to command the high ground overlooking the Grand Harbour, this massive perimeter of monumental bastions and curtains only really served to encumber the Order’s financial resources and proved impossible to complete, making the colossal enceinte also very difficult to properly man and defend.

When the British military took over its defence in 1800, they found themselves heavily burdened with a vast and unfinished

officers non-commissioned officers, soldiers and sailors non-commissioned officers soldiers, sailors and men

women, children

Fort Verdala Illustration by Stephen C. Spiteri

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defensive work that was considered difficult to defend and easy to breach. The problem was in part due to the vast and open esplanade enclosed between the Cottonera enceinte and the inner set of walls known as the Sta. Margherita Lines, a second bastioned enceinte. This inherent weakness could only be remedied with the construction of some form of new defensive work which could somehow command that large open space and link the two bastioned enceintes together.

It was not until nearly half a century after the British took possession of the Island, however, that they finally decided to tackle the problem.

Colonel Harding’s proposal, in 1844, for a retrenchment cutting across the barren esplanade, backed up a strong fort to rear of the new position, was approved and work on the new fortifications began in 1844. This involved the conversion of the central part of the Sta. Margherita Lines into a new stronghold called Fort Verdala.7 The design of this new British work relied for most of its plan on the outer enceinte of the Knights’ defensive line itself, incorporating the two bastions of the old perimeter (Firenzuola Bastion and part of St. Helen’s Bastion) and enclosing them along the gorge within a new wall. In plan, the new inner front facing the town of Bormla was made up of two casemated demi-bastions connected by a long curtain wall and protected by a shallow ditch. The old outer curtain wall was later pierced with large windows when Fort Verdala was eventually adapted for barrack accommodation.

Internally, the fort’s enclosure was ringed by two floors of casemates which served as bombproof barrack accommodation for the garrison. The only free standing buildings within the enclosure were an ablution room, a cook house and a block of urinals. A powder magazine was built low into the terreplein at the gorge of that part of St. Helen’s Bastion incorporated within the enceinte of the fort. Fort Verdala was completed in 1852, and by 1886 it was armed mainly with 24pdr smooth-bore carronades and 10-inch smooth­bore howitzers. The

Prisoners at Verdala – café and orchestra

armament plan of 1864 shows that Fort Verdala was to be defended with twenty five 24-pdr guns and two 10-inch howitzers. The fort’s armament was eventually removed during the 1890s and, thereafter, the its main role was relegated to that of a barracks and, later, a naval store.

Initially, Fort Verdala was chosen to detain those ‘enemy aliens’ that were stranded in Malta at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 but was given over to house prisoners of war once these began to arrive in Malta in ever increasing numbers, particularly those captured from sunken ships. Later, it was retained solely for the use of officers. The barracks inside the fort were originally planned to house only 350 soldiers but the fort eventually came to hold around 650 prisoners.8 This overcrowding inevitably created considerable pressure on the fort’s limited infrastructure, which lacked adequate latrines and ablutions. Similarly, the fort had no space available for reading rooms, gymnastics or religious services. As the situation within the fort grew crowded, the British authorities appear to have levelled out an area of the glacis enveloping the fort for use as a ‘skittles alley’ for the prisoners’ recreational activities but this was eventually substituted by a garden tended by the prisoners themselves, while additional tented accommodation camp eventually overflowed into the ditch (of the Sta. Margherita Enceinte) just outside Fort Verdala and its adjoining curtain.

Fort San Salvatore.

The San Salvatore POW Camp was located inside Fort San Salvatore.

This was a very small eighteenth-century fort built in the form of a retrenchment inside San Salvatore Bastion, one of the main bastions making up the massive Cottonera enceinte. This fort was built in 1724

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the adjoining curtain, and the second, more of a sally-port, opened into the small land front ditch.11

St. Clement’s Retrenchment

Fort San Salvatore Illustration by Stephen C. Spiteri

and consisted of a small enclosure, a piazza d’armi, flanked to the south by two small casemated demi-bastion and interlinking curtain wall, the vaulted casemates inside of which provided for the main accomodation.

The fort also had a small ditch which separated it from the remainder of the main bastion.9 As a result, Fort San Salvatore had two enclosures - the main courtyard of the fort, and the ditch of the retrenchment itself. Contemporary photographs show the prisoners of war holding their physical exercises within this part of the ditch.10 Given that Fort San Salvatore could provide little accommodation except for the vaulted casemated set within the land front of the work, it was reserved for non-commissioned officers. The windows of the rooms overlooking the harbour were boarded up. The fort had two small entrances or gates, the main one opening out onto

The prisoners of war levelling a section of the ditch of Sta Margherita Lines, outside the left of St Helen Bastion, to create a garden and a skittles alley.

St. Clement’s Prisoner of War Camp was housed within the large open esplanade of a work of fortification that the British called St. Clement’s Retrenchment. This was a large and powerful casemated and flanked work that divided the large stretch of ground enclosed behind the Cottonera enceinte into two areas that could be swept by batteries of guns.

In plan, St. Clement’s Retrenchment consisted of two parallel demi-bastioned fronts, placed back to back. Each front was made up of a long curtain wall, pierced with a continuous row of musketry loopholes, flanked at both ends by casemated demi-bastions. Internally, the enclosure was terrepleined up to the ground level of the walkway of St. Clement’s Bastion (one of the main hollow bastions on the Cottonera enceinte) and the whole compound was provided with a large fighting platform for the deployment of cannon and troops. The masonry casemates and musketry loopholes inside the ramparts on each of the two fronts were connected together internally by means of a continuous vaulted passageway. In all, the retrenchment contained twenty-eight gun casemates, all fitted with racers and large enough

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National Archives of Malta

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St Clement’s Retrenchment Illustration by Stephen C. Spiteri

to mount heavy muzzle loading guns on traversing carriages. Each front was also protected by a wide and sufficiently deep ditch and its accompanying glacis.

Within the retrenchment itself, the British engineers cut out another small ‘Intrenchment’ at the gorge of St. Clement’s Bastion, in order to isolate the latter from the main body of the work. This entrenchment consisted of two small demi-­bastions connected by a curtain wall and fitted with musketry loopholes, in front of which, and connected by a bridge, was a large powerful blockhouse pierced for musketry fire. This was small pentagon-shaped blockhouse was designed to house 52 men and was used as a barracks. Begun around 1844, St. Clement’s Retrenchment was completed in 1860. By 1878 it is documented as being armed with twelve 64-pdr RML guns, twelve 24-pdr smooth-bore guns, seven 8-inch smooth-bore guns, four 24-

pdr SB carronades and six 13-inch mortars. The guns were served by two large expense magazines capable of holding 624 and 468 barrels of gunpowder respectively, seven shell-filling rooms, and a number of sidearm sheds. Throughout the following decades, as the range and power of artillery increased rapidly, St. Clement’s Retrenchment eventually lost it frontline military value as an important defensive position and by the turn of the twentieth century, this work of fortification was already being relegated to serve as a naval school.12 When WW1 broke out and the need for housing prisoners began to surface, the retrenchment’s large open esplanade made it an ideal and obvious location for the establishment of a controlled encampment although there were few structures above ground that could be used to provide facilities. The encampment was established within the southern half of the fortified enclosure and separated from the rest of the work by a temporary wall made of a thick band of barbed wire entanglement. This barrier is often shown in the photographs of the period and contained a heavily guarded gate. Contemporary photographs also show various wooden huts, roofed latrines, and many neatly laid out rows of tents. The enclosed area was itself divided into

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smaller camps intended to segragate the different groups of prisoner nationalities. The tents were typical British army field tents which came into two main sizes - the standard 8-man tent, over four yards in diameter, and the smaller 3-man tents. The earthen ground on which these tents were set up, however, was poorly drained and often resulted in many of the tents becoming waterlogged in winter. As the population inside the camp grew, some of the prisoners were located inside the ditch of the retrenchment.

St. Clement’s POW Camp was the largest of the camps and housed some 850 men in all. The records speak of a large masonry building within the enclosure which was made available for these men during the long freezing winter evenings. The compound, nevertheless, lacked various facilities for the entertainment of the prisoners but eventually a large tent was secured for instruction purposes. This was furnished at the prisoners’ own expense.13

Polverista Barracks Not all the camps were confined within enclosures formed by ramparts.

Two of the camps were not located within any particular work of fortification other than that they were placed within the Cottonera Lines. The Polverista POW Camp, for example, was located inside St Nicholas Married Quarters, a large barrack-block type of edifice which was built by the British military along the open gorge of St Nicholas Bastion. This camp was hemmed in by the steep ramparts on the bastion side of the barracks, while the northern end was cordoned off with a barbed wire barrier. Another barrack edifice, formerly a married quarters which was built by the British military on the earthen glacis of the Sta. Margherita Enceinte immediately outside St. Helen Curtain, was also used for this purpose. Polverista Barracks was specially reserved

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for women internees and female prisoners who could not be detained in the ordinary camps.

Initially, the discipline inside these the camp was not strictly enforced, but after a successful escape by two prisoners on April 10, 1916, security measures were tightened and extra sentries were posted to stand guard from the roofs of the barracks.14 The second battalion of the King’s Own Malta Regiment of Militia provided the sentries for Fort Verdala and Fort Salvatore but in January 1919, these duties were taken over by the Royal Malta Artillery. 15 There is little evidence today to show that all the above mentioned fortifications and military buildings, all of which are still standing and not much changed from the way thesy stood in 1914-1919 (with the exception of the barrack edifice on the glacis of the Sta. Margherita enceinte, now Cospicua Gardens which was demolished) - ever served as prisoner of war camps. The Island was to undergo a dramatic experience during the World War II and many these military places were again put to a different in those difficult years, with some of the structures also suffering damage by aerial bombing in the course of the war. A different fate, though not less punishing, awaited the structures in the post war period when they were eventually devolved to the civil government. Fort Verdala and Polverista Barracks, for example, were given over to serve as a social housing complexes. Two large breaches were made in the ramparts of Fort Verdala to accommodate the flow of vehicular traffic. St. Clement’s Retrenchment was developed into a public school, and the esplanade which once housed the POW encampments was turned into a football ground for the recreational and sports activities of school children. Fort San Salvatore, on the other hand, was employed for many years as a concrete factory, and has remained unutilized ever since this industrial activity was discontinued in the 1990s.

Polverista Barracks Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

S.C. Spiteri, The Great Siege, Knights vs Turks, mdlxv -Anatomy of a Hospitaller Victory (Malta, 2005), 623.

Ibid., 44; National Library of Malta, Archives of the Order (AOM) vol. 86, f.73.

G. Wettinger, ‘The Castrum Maris and its Suburb of Birgu during the Middle Ages’ in Birgu,: A Maltese Maritme City (Malta, 1993) I, 35, 55-58, Spiteri, op.cit, 199.

Carmelo Testa, The French in Malta (Malta, 1998), 825 Giovanni Bonello, ‘POWs in Malta during World War One’ in Histories of Malta - Closures and Disclosures, Vol. 7, (Malta, 2006).

For a detailed and illustrated explanation of Fort Verdala see S.C. Spiteri, British

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Military Architecture in Malta (Malta, 1996), 225-232 G. Bonello, op.cit.

S.C. Spiteri, Fortresses of the Knights (Malta, 1994), 422.

See online article In maltesischer Gefangenschaft at http://www.fregatte-emden. de/dieschiffe/emdeni/emdenmannschafteninmaltesischergefangenschaft.html.

G. Bonello, op.cit.

For a detailed and illustrated explanation of St Clement’s Retrenchment see S.C. Spiteri, British Military Architecture in Malta (Malta, 1996), 233-238 G. Bonello, op. cit.; See also The Verdala Story at http://weavefx.com/smcboys/ premises/verdala-history/ .

G. Bonello, op.cit.

G. Bonello, op.cit.

13

PRISONERS OF WAR IN MALTA DURING WORLD WAR 1 Giovanni Bonello 14

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ery differently from the Second World War in which Malta found itself on the frontier of hostilities, the Great War of 1914 – 1918 spared the island any whiff of active belligerence.

In that conflict Italy joined the allied powers, so British Malta avoided being in the line of fire. In WW1 the island played a decisive part too, but in different, less high-profile roles.

Three call to be listed among others: hospital and convalescence post to the British forces; main operational station for the French Mediterranean fleet; and prisoner of war camp for captives belonging to the Central Powers, mainly, though not exclusively, German and Austro-Hungarian. It is with this third role I propose to deal today.

WW1 saw huge deployments of men, with trench warfare involving hundreds of thousands, endless battles for the realignment of the front by a few metres of land, at the price of grimly expendable human life. And, of course, appalling losses on both sides – deaths, woundings, prisoners. The British War Office destined Malta as an ideal site for dumping a couple of thousand mostly German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners and other undesireables with allegiance to the Central Powers.

On the outbreak of hostilities on August 4, 1914, the security services speedily rounded up and interned all “enemy aliens” who were still in Malta, and seamen on ships of the Central Powers in Maltese territorial waters. Lewis Vernon Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent a coded telegram to the Governor on August 7, 1914 “Arrest and detain all German officers or reservists as prisoners of war.

Watch Austrian officers and reserves pending further instructions.”

That telegram arrived simultaneously with another cable in cipher: “You should request any German consul who is a German subject to leave forthwith, but a consulate clerk or other unofficial representative may be left to arrange their personal affairs.”1 Similarly, the British authorities issued a proclamation in Egypt requiring all

Report by J. Frendo Azzopardi, for Superintendent of Police, to the Lieutenant Governor about the arrest of German subjects in Malta following the outbreak of war.

(National Archives of Malta CSG01 3336, 1914)

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Germans and Austro-Hungarians, including diplomatic consuls and their staff, to register.

In Egypt, males under 48 fit for military service were first sent to Alexandria, but, in November, came over to Malta. These included the crews of enemy ships trapped as war prizes in Egyptian ports at the outbreak of hostilities. Between November 1 and December 17, as many as 1651 enemy subjects, including Turks, were deported from Egypt to Malta.

So the earliest, and very consistent, nucleus of prisoners of war (POWs) in Malta did not come from the armed services, but from civilian internees. It would seem that the first armed forces personnel to end in the Maltese compounds were the crew of the German cruiser Emden.

The inmates kept increasing. By the middle of 1916 the figure had gone up to 1670.2 Each detainee received a separate identity number, presumably progressive. The highest I have come across during the hostilities is 2340 on a letter written on August 19, 1918,

by Dr L. Bruhl to his mother in Berlin. Apparently, as appears from a German prisoners arriving in Malta

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handwritten note on top, the commandant posted it after Bruhl had already left the camp for England.

The armistice concluded hostilities with Germany on November 11, 1918. But, as explained later, the authorities used Polverista again, just after the War, to intern Turkish dissidents and alleged war criminals.3 “An original register of prisoners of war in Malta survives in a private collection.”4 One historian mentions 4000 POWs, but this figure could be rather inflated.5 Verdala camp in the Cottonera at first housed those ‘enemy aliens’ that the outbreak of war had detained in Malta, like the painter and photographer Geo Fürst, employed at the German consulate.6 When other prisoners started arriving (the later ones from ships captured or sunk) the authorities destined Verdala Camp for the use of officers, St Clement, and San Salvatore for non-commissioned officers and men, and Polverista for women internees – though it is unlikely the latter was ever used for this purpose.

Most of the captives remained detained for years, but only one I know of published memoirs of his Malta experiences as prisoner of war, later “after an enormous sale in Germany” translated into English – Prince Franz Joseph of Hohenzollern (1891–1964). Leutnent Erich Fickentscher-Emden wrote the story of his escape from Verdala and Malta. I cannot, however, vouch for memoirs in other languages of the Central Powers.

At the time the German POWs languished in Verdala, the colonial authorities forced a prominent Maltese politician to keep them company there. On May 7, 1917, Dr Enrico Mizzi, later an iconic Prime Minister, entered the dreaded gates of the fortress, and remained in detention up to the end of his court martial for treason, on August 13. Dr Mizzi had to answer for his pro-Italian politics – seditious aspiration in the eyes of Britain, then fighting a war partnered by Italy as its political and military ally.7 I am illustrating a historical curio – the hand-made calendar prepared by Mizzi, and stuck to a wall of his cell, to keep count of the days of his imprisonment. Mizzi cancelled painfully each slowly-passing day spent in his Verdala jail. This historical calendar was removed by my father the day Mizzi obtained his freedom, and kept by him as a memento of his fond closeness with Nerik.

Enrico Mizzi’s hand-made calendar during his imprisonment at Verdala (Giovanni Bonello)

A postcard addressed to Geo Fürst from his Maltese wife Helen, during his detention as prisoner of war at Verdala.

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The National Archives at Santu Spirtu, Rabat, preserve vast amounts of official documents, some confidential, relating to POWs in Malta. I have sifted through them and kept notes, maybe for future use. I will only make very selective dippings into them for the purpose of this feature. Up to June 1915, correspondence on the POWs was conducted by the Governor with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but then London instructed Methuen that his interlocutor would henceforth be the War Office.8 These archives also reveal that some Maltese nationals had ended in POW camps of the Central Powers – Paolo Giordimaina, Angelo Camenzuli and Joseph Muscat. Did they ever tell their stories?9 Innumerable letters and postcards from Verdala and other camps survive, but they represent little other than iconographic and philatelic curios, with their content shaped by unrelenting censorship.

The prisoners could only write about everyday personal matters, and Sorting of mail by prisoners of war

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this self-censorship makes the contents of POW mail historically rather irrelevant and often a monumental bore.

Verdala and San Salvatore housed prisoners from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, each nationality having its own compound. “The prisoners” states a Maltese historian “gave very little trouble, the Austrians, particularly were very easy to handle. They did not look on England as their enemy, but particularly hated Italy.”

When once POWs discovered that two Germans and four Austrians had applied for Italian citizenship, trouble erupted. Other prisoners tried to lynch them, and only the appearance of the second in command brandishing a revolver saved the six faint-hearted ‘traitors’, transferring them to the relative safety of the ladies’ camp of Polverista.10 The Commandant of the camps, a cousin of Dr Herbert Ganado, was Captain Willie Gatt (himself a manic philatelist), whose signature appears on envelopes forwarded under his authority.11

A group of Bulgarian prisoners of war celebrating their king’s birthday. The note (in Bulgarian) reads “The birthday of HRH King Ferdinand I. Malta, 14 F[ebruary] 1917”. King Ferdinand I’s birthday fell on 26 February; the discrepancy may be the result of the transition by Bulgaria from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1916 when 14 days were skipped, and the fact that 14 February 1917 fell on a Sunday, thus making it easier for the Bulgarian prisoners of war to organise the King’s birthday festivities on that day.

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With hindsight, perhaps the most notable German prisoner of war in Malta remains Karl Doenitz (or Dönitz, 1891-1980) who, with the rank of Grand Admiral succeeded Hitler as Chancellor of the Third Reich after the dictator’s suicide. The Allies tried Doenitz and condemned him to ten years imprisonment as a war criminal in the Nuremburg trials. Doenitz ended in Malta after the U-boat he commanded, the UB 68, sank on October 3, 1918, to the south-east of Sicily in unclear circumstances. He and the survivors of the submarine crew (seven died) were captured and interned in Malta.

Doenitz wrote his memoirs, a hefty, apologetic, at times mendacious, autobiography of an almost great man firmly in denial after positioning himself on a losing side, weighted by the most unspeakable atrocities – of which, as number two of the Third Reich, he claims he knew absolutely nothing. Is innocence not knowing, or rejecting the evidence of knowing?

Though Doenitz spent up to November 4 in Verdala, he experienced a suitable mental block when it came to admitting to his imprisonment in Malta. He does not even say where the British detained him as POW: “I entered a British prisoners-of-war camp.” That’s all.12 Doenitz’s biographer, Peter Padfield, proves much more loquacious about the U-boat commander’s capture and stay in Malta.

The survivors of the UB 68, he says, were rescued by the boats of one of the escorts, HMS Snapdragon. They picked up Doenitz, who had divested himself of his heavy leather gear and boots in the water, wearing a shirt, underclothes and one sock.

The commander of the Snapdragon shook his hand when he came aboard “Now, captain, we are quits. You have sunk one of my steamers, now I have sunk you.” He sent a sailor to fetch a bathrobe from his cabin and placed it round Doenitz’s shoulders.

The signatures of the crew of SMS Breslau, including Doenitz’s (centre, second from bottom), on the German Consul’s visitors book during the vessel’s visit to Malta on 17 May 1914 (Heritage Malta)

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Naturally, adds Padfield, Doenitz spiralled into a deep depression.

He and the rest of his crew were put ashore at Malta and marched off to old Verdala fortress, used to hold prisoners of war. The British officer who tried, vainly, to question him, describes his mood at the time.

At first, he says, Doenitz refused to answer my questions, and even had to be persuaded to write his name. He was very moody and almost violent and at times it was very hard to make him talk at all.

This frame of mind, it appears, had been partly caused by the incidents connected with the loss of the boat, and it seems he was not very cordial even with his fellow countrymen as he had previously said he was done with the sea and ships. It seems probable that the loss of the UB 68 was due to a direct fault of the commander.13 Doenitz appears so offensively defensive about what actually caused the sinking of his U-boat that a suspicion he blamed himself cannot be ruled out.

“The days at the fortress (Verdala) passed dully” with Doenitz still obsessed by the loss of his boat. His despair deepened following what the Commandant of the camp permitted the prisoners to glean from the Allied newspapers: Germany was losing the war. On November 4, 1918, exactly one week before the armistice that ended the conflict in Europe, Doenitz was taken to the waterfront in Grand Harbour and transferred to England on a British cruiser.14 Doenitz had already been in Malta twice before the outbreak of war, not a prisoner but an honoured guest, on a German ship that visited Malta. The first visit was on November 11, 1912. He had been appointed signals officer to the light cruiser SMS Breslau, another vessel that was to become legendary. When war broke out in the Balkans the ship was dispatched to the Mediterranean and, in May 1914 SMS Breslau and Doenitz visited Malta again, berthing in Grand Harbour.

“What, one wonders, were Doenitz’s thoughts as from his mooring station aft he gazed at the formidable stone walls and

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bulwarks sparkling in the clear air and saw inside the basin the white ensigns blowing from the jacks of the lines of warships of the British Mediterranean fleet?15 On the visitors’ book held by the German consul in Malta on the latter visit, still preserved in the Maritime Museum, he signed with an imperious ‘DÖnitz’ – no name or initials.

Glory already beckoned in his spirit.

And after his release from POW camps, he had plenty of occasions to let his thoughts revert to the little island, especially during the Second World War. He never forgave the Italians for not ‘eliminating’ Malta at the very outset of the conflict, accusing them of having “no strategic conception” of Mediterranean warfare. Malta also figures in his memoirs with the convoys and the handing over of the Italian fleet to the allies after the armistice.16 Some have claimed that another POW who eventually achieved international fame and infamy, Rudolph Hess (1894–1987), also resided in Verdala. Hess, later Hitler’s deputy as head of the Nazi party and a close friend of the dictator, on the eve of Germany’s invasion of Russia flew solo to Scotland, ostensibly to negotiate a separate peace with the UK. But very likely this could be a case of mistaken identity.

Verdala housed an Adolf Hess who was brought over from Cairo and who may have been Rudolph’s father.

Reticent as Doenitz persisted in being about his Malta POW experience, the opposite can be said about another illustrious inmate of Verdala barracks, Franz Joseph Prince of Hohenzollern, who left a long, detailed and at times bitter memoir of his extended stay – the one that gives the most complete, if not the most flattering, image of life in the camp.

Hohenzollern, a brother of the Queen of Portugal, nephew of the King of Romania and cousin of the Kaiser, served as naval officer on board the unforgettable SMS Emden, which, under the inspirational command of captain Karl von Müller (1873–1923), wrecked enormous

havoc on the British lines of trade and communication in the Far East.

The Emden, (completed 1912, a main armament of twelve 4.1 inch guns and a top speed of 27.5 knots) left the Pacific fleet for service in the Indian Ocean.

In a fortnight she sunk thirteen allied ships, 70,000 tons in all in seven weeks. At Madras, India, she set fire to half a million tons of petroleum. For three months, all efforts by the allied navies to catch up with the charmed warship, failed. She eventually ran aground on North Keeling Island after being hit by the Australian cruiser Sydney on November 9, 1914.

The allies took the survivors prisoners of war and interned them in Verdala and Fort San Salvatore, where they remained for the whole duration of the war, Müller the most lionised, young Hohenzollern the most vocal. King George V of England personally ordered the gallant officers to be allowed to retain their swords, a sign of refined chivalry in a war that murdered relentlessly and excruciatingly tens of thousands by chlorine and mustard gas. The officers had no swords left to retain.

So great was the reputation of the crew that a later German government authorised them to add ‘Emden’ to their surnames, and rewarded them with grants of immoveable property.

As Franz Joseph’s represents the only extended memoir of life in the POW Maltese camps I know of, I intend to rely quite heavily on it, also because the English translation of that book has been out of print for well over seventy years.17 Hohenzollern hoped to be detained in England, but then it dawned on him that the War Office had another destination in mind.

He and his companions travelled comfortably on the British cruiser HMS Hampshire, sunk shortly later by German mines off the Orkenys.

On Sunday, December 6, 1914 “the worse day of my life” he wrote, “we reached Malta. During the entrance to the grand harbour,

Franz Joseph Price of Hohenzollern

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we had to stay below so that we should not learn the position of the mine barrier and of the entrance. In the afternoon we were taken ashore. We officers were taken in a cart to the Verdala Barracks, where we were to spend the next long period. The men and the subordinate officers were separated from us and taken to Fort Salvatore.”

The prisoners had been treated kindly by their navy captors, but that all changed after their handing over to the army: “Coldness and harshness were already noticeable in the tone of the army officers … the huge, heavy gates of Verdala Barracks shut behind us and our captivity proper began.”

Then some very Teutonic statistics follow: the barracks were 218 to 240 yards long and 44 yards wide. On the west front the building continued at right angle a block 76 yards broad and 55 yards long. “Our quarters were in the buildings opening on to the court thus formed.”

Müller got a room to himself on an upper storey, and three rooms on the ground floor, next to each other housed the other officers.

The British also offered Hohenzollern a room on his own, but he refused, as he did not want to appear better lodged than his companions, and anyway he then believed war would end very shortly with a German victory. He also suspected the British would use that concession as war propaganda to flaunt how well they treated prisoners.

The Emden crew had hoped to be by themselves, but they soon realised the futility of that desire. A number of detainees immediately set upon them and, discovering them to be the Emden officers “called forth a storm of greetings.” The shopkeepers and employees of hotels and big firms in Egypt and Malta interned at the outbreak of hostilities welcomed heartily their dauntless companions from a legendary warship.

Imprisoned in Verdala the prince also found captains, officers and men of German and Austrian ships that had been taken as war

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Verdala front entrance gate

Arrival of prisoners of war at Verdala

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SMS Emden Choir performing in the camp

prizes, together with nationalist Egyptians, Arabs and pro-German Greeks. “The English seized all without consideration”. He claims that Germany and Austria had not behaved that way.

The Emden captives became the heroes of the other prisoners who formed a chorus and performed in the grounds under Müller’s room, ending with the German National Anthem “many people having

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tears in their eyes ... the bitter feeling that one was a prisoner, and could no longer devote one’s life and blood to the service of the Fatherland was unspeakably painful. It was especially so for those who had not had an opportunity of fighting for the Fatherland.”

Hohenzollern soon noticed rotten apples in the group. Some prisoners expressed sympathy for the English, perhaps in the hope of

buying their freedom. “The English despised such creatures, but made use of them as spies in the camp.”

Adjoining Verdala stood St Clement’s camp: “The men there were, with few exceptions, accommodated in tents, an example of ‘humanity’ of the English. In fine weather it was possible to endure the tents, but during rain or wind storms – the latter were very frequent – these wretched prisoners had a miserable existence.” At night they often had to go outside to secure the tents, which always broke loose in a storm.

In the tropical Maltese rain “the whole tent was a foot deep in water.”

St Clement’s herded 850 men. For all the years of their detention they lived in tents just over four yards in diameter. Ten of the tents had their openings very close to the latrines used by 850 men. Only one

room built of solid masonry was made available for these men, usually so crowded that it could not house all those who would rather be there.

During the long freezing winter evenings when it was impossible to stay in the tents, the inmates tried to huddle in this room, lit by five or six weak electric lamps.

Each man received a thin candle weekly, which burnt out in a few hours. There was no room that could be used for undisturbed study or reading; eventually they obtained the use of a somewhat larger tent for instruction purposes, but had to furnish it at their own expense.

Lack of water proved a terrible problem. In summer, the supply cut off at nine o’clock. Four baths served 850 men, and only a single hot one, which they had to pay sixpence to use. “The state of the latrines

Overall view of St Clement’s Camp

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Views of St Clement’s Camp: interior of a tent (left); in winter after a storm (top); in summer with small gardens tended by the prisoners (above); and the latrines used by 850 men (opposite)

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Prisoners working in the wash-house.

is scandalous.” It is a matter for wonder, Franz Joseph concludes, that almost a thousand educated men, penned together like animals, and unable to be alone even for a few minutes, should have endured this martyrdom with so few regrettable consequences.

Of Polverista barracks, Hohenzollern said that at first it housed very few inmates: “these barracks were specially reserved for female prisoners who could not be put into the ordinary camps.” Space again

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proved a problem here; no adequate area for exercise, “more fitted for beasts then men. It is surprising that the great British empire could not find more room for its prisoners.”

Finally, the prince referred to Fort San Salvatore, reserved for non-commissioned officers and men. Only the personal servants of the officers were allowed to reside in Verdala. 150 men of the Emden spent three hopeless years, says Hohenzollern, in a fortified building

The gate between St Clement’s and Polverista

surrounded and shut off from the world by high walls, without sufficient room for bodily exercise.

They suffered severely and most of the inmates were in a condition of irritability through illness. My father, and Herbert Ganado, cousin of the camp’s Commandant during Franz Joseph’s time, later experienced the amenities of San Salvatore in the earlier stage of their imprisonment at the outbreak of the Second World War.

Of Verdala barracks where he spent his whole term of imprisonment, Hohenzollern paints a pretty grim picture. Differently from San Salvatore Fort, a part of the fortifications of the knights, the British built Verdala in the 19th century. The windows of rooms looking outwards, ended boarded up during their whole stay (to prevent the prisoners witnessing the movements of allied ships in Grand Harbour).

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Polverista Barracks

Fort St Salvatore

The Commandant closed the courtyard used for exercise one hour before sunset, so no opportunity remained of taking some air during the cooler times of the day. The prospects of a fourth summer in those conditions, he describes as “hopeless – a number of cases of madness and attempted suicide bear witness to those conditions.” In fact, the Emden prisoners spent five full years there.

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Prisoners of war at Verdala courtyard

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On windy days, he added, it proved impossible to stay in the yard, because of the unbearable dust clouds. Epidemics of ear infections apparently arose from this nuisance. The camp had no space available for reading, study, gymnastics or Divine Service. The padres held these in their bedrooms.

A barracks planned for 350 soldiers hosted 650 prisoners, not counting the innumerable bugs. Again, the water problem. Inadequate bathrooms, with only four warm baths for 650 men. As the hot ablutions cost sixpence, the poorer prisoners could not use them. The number could not exceed ninety baths a week.

Life in the prisoners’ camps could be described as quiet, with only sporadic incidents disturbing the boredom of the quotidian. One such was the murder of a Turkish prisoner by another, a direct result of the enmity between the fossilised Ottoman establishment and the revolutionary Young Turks of Kemal Ataturk.

A Young Turk, Dr Nejdet Saadi, met his end at the hand of a sympathiser of the old regime, Major Hagi Ali Issa. The ordinary criminal court tried Ali, with Arturo Mercieca, later Chief Justice and Sir, prosecuting. The jury unanimously found him guilty and the court condemned him to death.

This sentence raised quite an outcry in Malta. A leading lawyer and politician, Carlo Mallia and others, wrote in the press about the unjustifiable verdict, as Ali Issa had acted under provocation and killed his victim the same day the victim had attempted to kill him. Many expected a reprieve by the Governor, also because Ali had earned points by collaborating with the British cause. Nonetheless his life ended by hanging in Corradino prison on April 24, 1917.18 He is buried in the Marsa Moslem cemetery, the only executed convict laid to rest outside the prison graveyard.

Governor’s warrant for the execution of prisoner of war Haj Ali Issa (National Archives of Malta, CSG01 1797, 1917)

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In his memoirs, Sir Arturo Mercieca recounts how, after the death penalty had been passed on Ali Issa, he visited the prisoner in Corradino the day before the hanging. He found Issa calm and wrapped in prayer. The people spread the rumour that the condemned man had invoked a curse on those who had been hostile to him in his trial.

As ‘proof ’ of the curse the judge who had presided over the trial died within a year, the other two judges losing a son and a daughter respectively. What Sir Arturo does not add is that he, too, could be counted among the victims of the malediction – the only

chief justice ever forced to resign, arrested, imprisoned and exiled.

Sir Arturo himself was later to spend time jailed in San Salvatore.19 The murdered man’s monkey ‘Jonney’ which played a minor part in the events leading to the murder features in various camp photos as well as caricatures and is mentioned in the in-house prisoners’ journal.

At first the authorities prohibited contacts between the four camps, but eventually relaxed the ban. At Christmas and other major occasions, the officers of Verdala could visit San Salvatore. An

Christmas card sent from the camp to Egypt

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A card by Daniel Hiesinger depicting an outing of the prisoners of war.

agreement had been reached by the belligerents for POWs on both sides to be allowed to take walks outside prison camps.20 The British authorities, however, insisted that those who wanted to leave the camp should give their word of honour they would not escape or make any preparation for escape, and the imprisoned officers refused to give this pledge. Eventually, with the authority of their superiors, they did.

They took good advantage of their rambles, although Malta ‘is stony and ugly.’ What a change from staring at the prison walls. Some POWs, claims the prince, had completely ruined their eyesight by just doing that. The walks, lasting two hours, took place twice weekly. An English or Maltese officer accompanied the officers, and an unarmed soldier. Fully armed gangs of 20 to 30 soldiers under an English officer escorted those from other camps, who did not have to give their word of honour. They walked in groups of 100-150 men.

Prince Franz Joseph refers to the commander and the officers as ‘English’, though it is known that all the guards were Maltese. The

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Commandant always replied to any complaints with a friendly “Well! I will do my best!” The emptiest of phrases, as rarely anything happened to mitigate the impossible conditions.

“A very evil characteristic of the English was that of corruptibility, the officers excepted.” Much could be achieved by bribes of money or a bottle of whisky. Using these as passes, prisoners were allowed to leave the camp, even go to Valletta. This scandalised Hohenzollern. “We officers regarded such practices as corrupt” and never succumbed to the temptation.

At first discipline in the camp was not strict, but after a successful escape on April 10, 1916 by two prisoners, rigid control became routine “all privileges were withdrawn, as the English commandant regarded the escape as a personal affront”. From then onwards, sentries guarded from the roofs of the barracks. Franz Joseph appears convinced the British did not notice the escape until reported by a POW spy.

Leutnant Erich Fikentscher, as Fikentscher-Emden, later published an account of his escape from Verdala and from Malta,

which is being researched and translated by Stephen A. Petroni. This German officer from S.M.S. Emden managed to escape together with Ernst Pleuth, an Austrian internee who had been brought over from Cairo in 1915. They were the only prisoners who managed to escape successfully, but hardly the only ones who tried. “There were several

attempts by the prisoners to escape, most of which ended in failure.”

Another two Germans jumped from a window in Fort Salvatore, some 60 feet high. One landed safely, but the other broke a leg in the fall.

The survivor had to pick him up from the ditch and carry him back to the fort.21

Notices issued following the escape of Erich Fikentscher and Ernst Pleuth (erroneously called Plentl) (National Archives of Malta NAM CSG01 1536, 1916)

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Censoring of mail at St Clement’s Camp

The second battalion of the Kings Own Malta Regiment of Militia furnished guards for Verdala and Salvatore.22 In January 1919, the Royal Malta Artillery took over the guard duties: “certainly no easy task keeping those men calm and fully disciplined for, amidst the traditional hostility towards one another on the national level, there flowed the even more insistent hatred between compatriots of rival political and class factions.”23 Censorship of correspondence, of course, added other anxieties.

A letter home by the Prince was so delayed that he only received an answer three and a half months later; the same with a letter to his sister the Queen of Portugal. What secrets were the British afraid they would be revealing? What could they have said about Malta if for the first two years they never left the camp, with all its windows overlooking Valletta and the harbour boarded up?

On the outbreak of World War One, postal censorship hit the whole of Malta. Obviously more stringently targeted were POWs. Their

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correspondence, limited and assiduously read, ensured that nothing of military relevance left Malta or reached the prisoners.

Special handstamps, square, oval and round certified the contents had been examined, and, where necessary, sanitized, and the letter, card or postal packet could travel for free. Philatelic historians have studied them thoroughly. They all have a large PC on them, which probably meant ‘passed by censor’. One rare handstamp used to Malta has “stamp removed by censor” to advertise the examiner’s paranoia in finding secret messages written under the adhesive.

The British postal censor took care of POW correspondence until March 20, 1916. As from that date, the military authorities of the camp assumed full responsibility for the task. London warned them of the need for the utmost vigilance “he should exercise still greater care before allowing the correspondence to proceed.”24 Censored letters were not the only victims of the post.

Remittances of money from home or the Red Cross suffered hefty curtailments in the rate of exchange. A Christmas present of 2,000 marks from the Swedish legation on behalf of the Red Cross in 1917, ended discounted at £60, instead of £81.

The oppressive controls did not stop the officers from boring holes in the planks boarding up their windows and seeing “some very interesting things”, like a hospital ship being loaded with ammunition boxes. They also noticed her far below the loading mark in the water, by which they knew that other heavy war material certainly stowed in her holds. As experienced naval officers, they had no doubts about the contraband hospital ship.

Proof strikes of various cachets

These spy-holes proved a great pastime, especially during the Dardanelles campaign. Transports filled with soldiers came in daily, and warships of all sizes berthed in the harbour to coal or take on provisions.

Eventually Verdala grew by the incorporation of what Hohenzollern, or his translator, calls Fort Glacis.25 The POWs erected a skittles alley there “which provided us with much pleasure and amusement.” Later the authorities levelled out the glacis, and gardens substituted it. The prisoners enjoyed themselves working to create the gardens.

A football match between the prisoners of war at St Clement’s (below) and a game of skittles at the camp (right)

Overleaf: General cleaning at St Clement’s and arrival of bread at St Clement’s

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The Commandant allowed the POWs to celebrate in style the birthdays of the Kaiser and the Austrian emperor, decorating the barracks with ‘enemy’ flags. I have a large set of postcards related to the festivities organised by the Austro-Hungarians in Verdala; these included an extensive exhibition of many paintings, sculptures and artefacts crafted by the prisoners, many with inscriptions showing they had been manufactured in the Malta POW camps, though I have come across very few of these mementos.

Exhibition of artifacts made by prisoners of war

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Illness put the resources of the compounds to the test. A doctor visited the camp daily. Some of the doctors proved very friendly, but there were also the aggressive ones who hoped to camouflage lack of skill by brutal manners. In case prisoners needed in-patient treatment, they went to Cottonera hospital, in a former store that had been adapted as prisoners ward, and nursed by the Sisters of the Red Cross.

The prince appears very critical that other ranks had only one room available in the hospital, in a way that contagious cases lay next

to other patients. Especially the fact that sick persons had to share tin plates with those who suffered from venereal diseases, distressed him.

This later changed.

Hohenzollern himself ended in hospital three times, twice in Cottonera and once in Mtarfa. The accommodation and care for officers he describes as excellent. He always got a room to himself, and the Red Cross sisters did everything possible, and so did some of the doctors, especially one Scotsman who had studied in Germany.

He accompanied Hohenzollern on walks, “and did not too anxiously observe the marching orders.”

The third time, at Mtarfa, he went suffering from influenza, then raging in Malta. 80% of the POWs caught it in 1918. The epidemic “presented a colossal task to the English Red Cross, which was, however, well carried out.”

For his book Hohenzollern relied extensively on a ‘manifesto’ drawn up in the camp on March 21, 1918, listing in detail all the grievances of the POWs, relating to a wide spectrum of affairs. Of food the manifesto says that the vegetables supplied were of extremely poor quality – three quarters had to be thrown away ‘The potatoes are largely refuse’. Those who could not afford to buy food had to make do with very little. The British soldiers appropriated themselves of most of the food destined for the crew of the Breslau in San Salvatore.

The Cottonera Hospital comes in for some negative comments too – that part reserved for other ranks. Only one room ‘for all sorts and stages of illness’ was allocated to the prisoners – altogether unsuited for severe cases. Battered enamel vessels served for eating and drinking.

Convalescents had, for a long time, no space to exercise. The room was not watertight “and, every time it rains, the patients’ beds get wet through.”

The authorities provided no treatment by specialists, even if the prisoner was prepared to pay for it. The manifesto lists by name

St Clement’s Camp doctor and his aide

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a number of patients, so grievously ill that they were entitled to be sent home in exchange for prisoners from the other side in the same condition. The British disregarded this, and those on the list for exchange were left waiting for so long that many died either before leaving the camp or before they reached home, 32 in all.

Tuberculosis was treated at Imtarfa, in a ‘particularly unsatisfactory’ fashion. Any attempt to visit the patients ‘met the impenetrable armour of military medical bureaucracy’.

The canteen the prisoners considered a major rip-off. Exorbitant prices resulted from the monopoly of supplies enjoyed by the canteen staff, though the regulations prohibited sales other than at retail market

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Cottonera Hospital (above) and Mtarfa Hospital (below)

The Camp’s orchestra led by Aurelio Doncich

prices. Those charged bore no relation to the ones current in Malta.

Repairs needed in the camp were deducted from the canteen fund.

Medicines sent from home, even when allowed by the doctor and certified necessary, were kept back from the POWs, resulting in a chronic lack of necessary medicaments and medical supplies. Dentistry services were practically non existent, and relied exclusively on two very young POWs who had little if any experience in the profession, and no instruments available.

Overleaf: The Emden’s string band performing during a play in the camp and theatre by the prisoners of war at St Clements’

It seems strange that, notwithstanding all these complaints, Hohenzollern starts by saying that “At Malta, on the whole, our treatment was tolerable.”

One leisure activity remembered by the Prince was music making. “The camp orchestra led by a very capable conductor (Aurelio Doncich), gave pleasure by its performances.” Not to the detainees only.

“The Germans had a band and it used to play to the enjoyment of all those within earshot.”26 In fact the prisoners had both a brass band and

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Cards produced by the prisoners of war.

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a string orchestra, under Joseph Berggrun. Another musician, Albert Holzel, led the choir.

Hohenzollern overlooks the lively printing activities that went on in the POW camps. The presses, however small and rudimentary, must have been in-house, as it would be difficult to imagine regular free access to jobbers outside the compounds. Whoever the printers were, they produced competent jobbing work, sometimes in colour, like bespoke postcards with fancy postage stamps and letterheads, many of which survive, and of which Mr Tony Camilleri has an outstanding collection.

The artwork, quite proficient, seems executed by the prisoners themselves. They probably used some lithographic or photolithographic process, as it is unlikely the camp possessed professional block-making machinery to produce clichés. Catalogues often describe these postcards and fancy postage stamps as hand painted. I disagree.

Having examined a number, I rather believe the images are produced by lithography from designs hand drawn on stone. Some look like lino-cuts, prints from drawings hand-engraved on linoleum.

Ten of these fancy postcard stamps have been recorded by the Malta Study Circle based in the UK, and a considerable number of greetings cards too.27 The prisoners made constant efforts to while away the time usefully and to keep up their morale. The camp orchestra, band and choir have already been mentioned; the ‘literati’ among the prisoners started publishing periodically an in-house bulletin or broadsheet, the Camp Nachrichten.28 No complete collection is known of this rare publication, but between the copies held in the National Library and those in the Albert Ganado archive, it is possible to reconstruct an almost integral run of this POW journal. I know of another Maltese private collector having a set, but am unaware if complete.

Pages from the Camp Nachrichten, the camp’s journal.

(National Library of Malta)

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The Camp Nachrichten, in lithography, often contains illustrations, sketches and caricatures; the contents appear mostly light-hearted and satirical. Unfortunately my elementally challenged German does not allow me to examine its contents properly. The artists portrayed the features of many prisoners, in affectionate and humorous vignettes, among them those of the two interned Franciscans, Fr Francis Bechshafer and Fr Johan (also Adolph) Cadez.

Postcard commemorating Kaiser Franz Joseph’s 86th birthday, 18 August 1916

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The text may be as enlightening as the illustrations, but remains a closed box for me.

Responsible for its publication was a committee of POWs. Angelus Swoboda and Paul Dittrich were the main contributors, with most illustrations being the work of the latter together with F. von Hackfinger, Wilhelm Burmann, J. Nagy, B. Lattner and a certain Keimeri29 who served on the publications committee.

Photographers also appear to have kept themselves busy in the camps. I know of the signed work of several POWs who must have earned at least part of a living by the camera in the camps: Ch. Schutz, Kofler, Leitcher, Kugel, Scholer and B. Heisinger, between them responsible for a consistent output.30 Geo Fürst who, on his release from Verdala, became an outstanding professional photographer, does not figure among those who worked with the POWs. These in-house photographers also produced a considerable number of photographic postcards and greetings cards, mostly centred round life in the compounds.

Artists and craftsmen whiled away their interminable days resorting to their hobbies, though we know very little about them.

From photographs of the exhibition of patriotic nostalgia held on the birthday of the Austrian Kaiser on August 18,1915, we learn from the many items on display that a relevant number indulged in painting, drawing, model making (B. Landau, K. Possl, Sime Rudic, R. Perna, A. Minutti), wood and stone turning (R. Feldhaus), woodwork and inlay (K. Moser, K. Frey), carving (Ric. Voss), stonework (R. Scavina), casting (R. Muller) and modelling (G. Vicevic).

The artwork of the cards etc carries signatures by initials: Ki, B&S, vom, except for one signed B. Hiesinger.

Recently an album of fine drawings showing several scenes of the POW camps, made in 1919 by F. L. Hennig came on the market31 and was snapped up by a discerning collector who intends to research and publish it. I guess it represents a presentation copy from one of the inmates to the Maltese commandant, Captain Gatt.

According to international law, a representative from a neutral state saw to the wellbeing of POWs. At first this was the consul of the USA, Mr Wilbur Keblinger, who did nothing at all as ‘his interests came first.’ Later the responsibility passed to a Maltese gentleman, Chev. Gustav Gollcher, the consul for Sweden. “I, personally, had much

to do with this man, and in the course of time achieved much, but he also was not completely free in his dealings, for he was a merchant and dependent on the favour of the English authorities.”

The USA ambassador to the UK, in 1916, reminded the Secretary of State of the authority of US consuls to visit and inspect POW detention camps.32 Hohenzollern accuses the War Office of breach of international law according to which doctors, paramedics and priests, unless they have actually carried arms, cannot be interned. This notwithstanding several doctors from merchant ships and Dr Luther from the Emden, remained in the camp for very long, until finally the British bowed to their treaty obligations. That is what the prince claims. A document in the archives provides evidence that on August 27, 1915, over a year after the beginning of hostilities, a number of named POWs – doctors, chemists, painters and musicians left Malta on the Braemar Castle for England for repatriation.33 Two Franciscan fathers convalescing in Alexandria when war broke out, were arrested allegedly under suspicion of espionage and interned in Malta, where they remained for the whole duration of hostilities, notwithstanding diplomatic pressures and ecclesiastical pleading. Their stay proved most welcome to the other prisoners as it made possible the celebration of mass on days of obligation “but one was sorry for the two worthy gentlemen who were not in their first youth.”

The War Office refused repeated requests for the friars to be accommodated in some Maltese monastery, or at least, for furnishing a room for divine worship. Up to the very end, they could only conduct religious services in their bedrooms. Hohenzollern brought this to the attention of the archbishop of Malta, Dom Maurus Caruana, who promised to do what he could, at the same time sounding sceptical whether the War Office would cooperate. “I am firmly convinced that the Archbishop did his utmost, but without result.”

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Mass at Verdala celebrated by one of the Franciscans held as a prisoners of war

Very likely Hohenzollern never saw the secret correspondence now preserved in the National Archives relating to the two Franciscans.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Foreign Office concurred “that the persons should continue to be detained in Malta.”34 POWs without an income found themselves in straightened situations. The camps formed voluntary societies to provide underclothes and small comforts for these men. Captain Müller became the president of the German-Austro-Hungarian Charitable Union, later joined by the Turks too. The Union got in touch with various national

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Red Cross associations and strove for more remittances of gifts and money. They came across problems with those who, although already supplied with income, wanted handouts from the Red Cross too.

Captain Müller seems to have turned into a pain for the local authorities, who summarily removed him to England in 1917. The Governor sent for him, as had frequently been the case. But hours passed and he did not return to the camp. The other officers, suspecting something improper, went to his room and cleared it of compromising or confidential documents.

Imam providing for the spiritual needs of the Muslim prisoners of war at Polverista

Clothing shop at Verdala

Overleaf: Prisoners of War at Clements’. One may note the presence of a child (left bottom corner) Is this the child referred to in the Salter Album (see page 145)? Right:An Arab prisoner of war with his bird and smoking the pipe

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And in good time too, as shortly afterwards, an officer came to conduct a search, finding nothing of interest. The Governor, Field Marshal Lord Methuen, informed Müller he would be sent to England that very day. The captain then asked to return to his room to collect his belongings, but Methuen refused. Hohenzollern afterwards replaced him as president of the charitable Union and remained in that capacity till the end.

From 1917 onwards, in summer, the authorities allowed the officers to bathe, if only for half an hour, in Marsaskala bay. Much depended on the English officer who accompanied them. Most of them were friendly and companionable, and patient enough to talk politics.

In 1918 officers and men of the SMS Breslau arrived in Malta, together with combatants from East Africa, and a special camp near Polverista hosted them; they kept in good contact with Verdala.

Apart from the Emden, Maltese camps housed the crews of this legendary German ship, (built 1911, twelve 4.1 inch guns, speed 27.5 knots) whose exploits, together with SMS Goeben, particularly in eluding the overwhelming British fleet in the Mediterranean and joining the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea. Two British admirals, Sir Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge and Sir Archibald Berkley Milne were court-martialled for failing to intercept the German warships; scapegoats, according to many historians, for Winston Churchill’s bungling. Troubridge had a poor opinion of the Maltese “they are excitable and unreliable in war.”35 His second wife, for reasons other than the war, became better known than him in the international literary world.

The Breslau, renamed Midili, served as a Turkish vessel in the Great War. On January 20, 1918, making its way out of the Dardanelles she hit five mines and sank, south of the island of Imbro. About 330 officers and men, including her captain, lost their lives. The 133 survivors, some in grave condition, ended in Verdala and St Clement’s, together with the crews of the Emden.

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A statement by Goffredo Caruana about the behaviour of the prisoners of war at Marsaskala. (National Archives of Malta CSG 01 3910, 1917)

SMS Breslau crew at the Camp

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News of the socialist uprising in Munich crashed the spirit of the prisoners, except for a few who embraced Communism and who “short-sightedly rejoiced at the revolution.” The only comfort to countenance the sadness that Germany had lost the war, lay in the hope that soon they would be returned home. Or so they believed.

The armistice came, and still the authorities did not release the POWs, blaming a peace treaty still to be settled. Which was signed, but again not a hint of freedom. “Rage possessed us.” They tried hunger strikes, “which did not impress the English.” As a last resort, they staged nightly ‘concerts’.

At midnight, as agreed, every man in the various camps got hold of metal tins and pails and drummed on them to raise the most infernal din, accompanying this by the loudest howls. The noise, states the prince, was so frightful that there can be no conception of it. It defied description and reminded one of madness. The inhabitants of Valletta heard it, leading to furious complaints against their interrupted slumbers.

Even the concerts of rage failed to work. In November 1919, one full year after the armistice, some prisoners received permission to sail for Germany, at their own expense, though the authorities promised a ship for the others. Meanwhile the troops under General Otto Liman von Sanders (1855–1929) arrived in Malta from Constantinople, on their way home.

The general, renowned for modernising the Turkish army, had, on surrendering, been guaranteed a safe conduct to Germany. When his ship berthed in harbour, he was asked to meet the Governor. Which he never did, as on landing the security officers arrested and threw him in the camp with the East African soldiers. He only obtained his freedom after many and indignant protests.

The new republican government in Germany proved too weak to take a stand on the long overdue repatriation of the POWs in Malta.

Bulgarian and Turkish prisoners of war at Polverista Barracks.

The British allowed anyone who wanted to return at his own expense, to do so, and many raked up the last pennies of their savings to purchase a ticket back home.

Hohenzollern embarked on November 12, 1919, giving his solemn word he would do everything in his power to ensure that the remaining POWs returned to their countries forthwith. All the German, Austrian and Hungarian POWs enjoyed Christmas with their families.

The end of the war and the repatriation of the prisoners did not signify the end of POW camps in Malta. With the Young Turks uprisings in protest against the post-war division of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk drove the Greeks from Anatolia and established a provisional government in Ankara in 1921. Many pre-eminent nationalists ended in British custody and eventually locked up in Polverista and Verdala.

Among them was the famous writer and ideologue Ziya Gokalp (1876 – 1924), a leading figure in Turkey. His letters from Polverista and Verdala have become classics in his native land.36 A Turkish film on his life was partly shot in the Maltese POW camps.

The British, in 1919, managed to remove 119 persons suspected of war crimes from Turkey to Malta with the intention of arraigning them before the criminal courts. These trials never took place, as the British were unable to obtain from the new rulers in Turkey the incriminating evidence that had been gathered by the commissions of enquiry. With Ataturk in power, the British traded the Turkish prisoners awaiting trial in Malta for British hostages illegally detained in Turkey. That meant the end of the island as an extended POW camp.37 In 2013 the Malta Study Circle based in London published two important books, Malta in World War 1, which contain the best and most detailed accounts of POWs in the Malta detention camps in the First World War.38

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Egyptian prisoners with Saad Zagloul (seated fifth from left), a prominent Egyptian political leader of the early 20th century. Zagloul led the Egyptian nationalist Wafd Party and was deported to Malta together with some of his colleagues in March 1919. Their deportation led to the Egyptian revolution of 1919. Together with Zagloul there are three key leaders of the Wafd Party, Mohammed Mahmoud, Ismail Sidky and Hamad al Bassal. Zagloul and Mahmoud eventually served as Prime Ministers of Egypt. (see page 162)

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

NAM, S of S, Telegrams, August 7, 1914.

Malta, ed. R.E. Martin, London, 1980, p. 173.

For the post-war Turkish detainees, see Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol IX, Malta, 2008, pp. 180 – 228.

Robert Attard, Malta, a collection of tales and narratives, Malta, 2001, p. 7.

Joseph M. Wismayer, The History of the KOMR, Malta, 1989, p. 156.

Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. IV, pp. 220 – 232.

Austin Sammut, The Court Martial of Enrico Mizzi, Malta, 2005, p. 42, 94.

NAM, Dispatches from S of S, July 5, 1915.

Ibid., April 7, 1915, June 19, 1915.

Albert V. Laferla, British Malta, Malta, 1977, Vol. 2, pp. 212 – 213.

Herbert Ganado, Rajt Malta Tinbidel, Vol. I, Malta, 1974, p. 163.

Karl Doenitz, Memoirs, Da Capo, 1977, pp. 4 – 5.

Puiblic Records Office, ADM 137 3900, Interrogation of UB 68 prisoners.

Peter Padfield, Donitz, the Last Fuhrer, Panther, 1985, pp. 109 – 111.

Ibid., p. 46.

Doenitz, op. cit., pp. 156 -158, 277, 364 – 366, 369.

Franz Joseph, Prince of Hohenzollern, Emden, New York, 1928, pp. 266 – 292.

Laferla, op. cit., p. 213; Arturo Mercieca, Le Mie Vicende, Malta, 1947, p. 113.

Mercieca, op. cit., pp. 113 – 114.

NAM, Circulars from S of S, June 21and October 8, 1916.

Wismayer, op. cit., p. 156.

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Joseph M. Wismayer, A Miscellanea, Malta, 2003, p. 263 A. Sammut Tagliaferro, History of the RMA, Malta, 1970, pp. 368 – 370.

NAM, Dispatches from S of S, March 15, 1916.

A glacis is the sloping ground in front of a fortress, cleared of all obstacles, to expose an advancing enemy to a clear line of fire.

Wismayer, op. cit., p. 263.

Ed. Martin, Malta, op. cit., pp. 178 – 181.

National Library, BM 5 ; 18.

Some of these names may be a misreading.

I am preparing a study dedicated exclusively to the photographers in the Malta POW camps for publication by the University of Milan Vassallo auctions, October 31, 2004.

NAM, Dispatch from S of S, April 8, 1916.

NAM, Cablegram from Governor to S of S, August 8, 1915.

NAM, S of S, February 20, March 19, 1915.

Peter Elliot, The Cross and the Ensign, Granada, 1982, p. 87.

Ziya Gokalp, Limni ve Malta Mektuplari, 1965.

See footnote No. 3.

Alan Green, David Ball, Rodger G. Evans, Malta in World War 1, Postal History, 2013, pp. 221 – 458; Rodger G. Evans, Alan Green, David Ball, Malta in World War 1, Photographic Postcards, 2013, pp. 60 – 260.

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the german army arrives in malta Alan Green 62

I

t is quite surprising to realise the variety and diverse origins of the circa-2800 individuals who were interned as Prisoners of War in Malta during World War 1. Up to mid-1916, most of the internees in the Malta Camps were civilians or crews of Austrian or German merchant ships taken as War Prizes, apart from the 150 survivors of SMS Emden who arrived on 6th December 1914. Progressively from August 1916, arrivals for the Malta PoW Camps included a higher proportion of ex-combatants from various theatres of war. Researching the origins of these ex-combatants reveals some interesting facts, with which Malta has an intrinsic relationship. A significant proportion of these later arrivals were officers and men from the Imperial German Army. Their origins and reasons for internment in Malta make for interesting reading!

Sinai and Palestine In 1916, the Turkish Army advanced through Palestine with the intention of taking control of the Suez Canal. The German Army had created a 16,000-strong expedition called Pascha I in March 1916 to support the 4th Ottoman Army. This support consisted mainly of machine gun units, artillery and associated troops, under overall command of General von Kressenstein. The officers and NCO’s were German, with mainly Ottoman troops. Summer of 1916 saw the confrontation start between British and ANZAC troops defending the Suez Canal and the attacking Ottoman and German forces. The first major battle of the Sinai Campaign took place on 3rd-5th August at Romani, an Egyptian town on the Sinai peninsula, close to the Mediterranean and some 35km east of the Canal. The attacking forces failed to break through and in the process, about 4,000 German and Ottoman troops were taken prisoner.

Franz Adolf Haan, 24 yrs Diedenhofen-West, Alsace-Lorraine Unteroffizier with MaschinengewehrKompanie 605 (MGK.605), although pictured in the uniform of 55th Infantry Regiment (6th Westphalian)

Adam Ruhwedel, 25 yrs Marburg, Hessen Vize-feldwebel with MaschinengewehrKompanie 605 (MGK.605)

24 German Officer and NCO’s were among those captured and were rapidly transported to Malta, arriving there on 22nd August 1916.1 These were mainly Machine Gun troops from units MGK.605 and MGK.606.2 On arrival in Malta, these 24 German Army personnel were allocated Malta PoW numbers 1980-2002 and 2004.3 As these numbers were allocated sequentially to all personnel arriving in Malta for internment, they give a good indication of the numbers interned up to that time. The German Army personnel arriving in August 1916 were split between Verdala and St. Clement’s, with officers allocated barrack accommodation in Verdala.

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Obviously posed, but a photograph that could only have been taken in Malta!

The signatures in conjunction with archive records reveal the following (L>R): Karl Moschko – one of General Liman von Sanders staff officers in Turkey – arrived Malta 24 February 1919; Peter Hutsch – Torpedo-Oberheizer from the celebrated SMS Emden – arrived Malta 6 December 1914; Friedrich Peterek – Machine-gunner from MGK.605, 4th Ottoman Army – arrived Malta 22 August 1916; 64 Josef Salbert – Oberheizer from SMS Breslau – arrived at Malta via Mudros 13 February 1918.

These left Malta on 6 December 1919, except Peterek (17 September 1919)

A photo-postcard taken at Malta of eight of the 24 German officers and NCO’s captured in Sinai in August 1916. Note the collar braiding and khaki uniform style that shows them to be regular German Army personnel.4 A number of those pictured are wearing the Iron Cross braid on their tunics (2nd buttonhole). Adolf Haan is marked with X.

The Sinai and Palestine Campaigns continued until 1918, with most prisoners held in Egypt, although a further 13 arrived in Malta in November 19175. This group included ten NCO’s captured during the First Battle of Gaza on 26th March 1917 with seven of these being Austro-Hungarians. They were held in the Egyptian PoW Camp at Sidi Bishr, Alexandria, for several months before transfer to Malta.

and observer of the Imperial German Air Service and as far as is known, they are the only German aircrew to have been interned in Malta during WW1.

On 14th January 1917, Count Otto Martin von Schwerin, observer/gunner, and his pilot Christian Bohnensick were on a reconnaissance mission over enemy lines when their two-seater Albatros C.VII was spotted by a pair of Royal Flying Corps BE.12 fighters from No.17 Squadron.7 In the ensuring aerial combat, von Schwerin’s guns jammed and they were forced to land by the British fighters near the airfield of Lahana. The forced landing was uneventful, but was very close to British troops, who quickly surrounded the German aircraft. German crews were briefed in the event of a forced landing to destroy their papers and then set fire to the aircraft. The proximity of the British troops prevented the German crew torching the aircraft, which was captured intact and the two crew, both uninjured, were taken prisoner8.

Salonika and the Macedonian Campaign Support by the Allies to Serbia against Bulgaria and the Central Powers resulted in the Salonika (or Macedonian) Front. The Allied Forces were led by the French who established the Front in late-1915, but no progress was made outside the Salonika area until 1918. Few prisoners from Salonika were interned at Malta, with only five recorded from there6. However, two of these are most interesting as they are a pilot

A contemporary newspaper photo from January 1917, showing Count von Schwerin’s Albatros C.VII at Lahana, surrounded by British troops after the forced landing.

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After a period in Salonika PoW camp, the two aircrew were transferred to Egypt where they were held at Sidi Bishr. Their Albatros C.VII aircraft C.1302/16 was still serviceable and was flown from Lahana to Salonika by the Royal Flying Corps and then transferred to Egypt, where it was initially flown from the airfield at Aboukir. The aircraft was subsequently placed on display in Egypt and then sent to New Zealand in 1919 as a war trophy.

Meanwhile, the two aircrew, along with three German Army personnel captured on the Doiran Front, were transferred to Malta in November 1917 as part of a much larger group of ex-combatant PoWs from Egypt. Contemporary Allied Lists9 record these individuals and their transfers to Malta, with Count Otto Martin von Schwerin and Christian Bohnensick allocated Malta PoW numbers 2297 and 2316 respectively. The Allied records also provide additional information on their ranks (Leutnant and Unteroffizier) and unit (Flieger Abteilung 66). After arrival in Malta, the aircrew stayed together with both being provided barrack accommodation in Verdala. Little is known about them during their internment and neither appear on the various lists of minor disciplinary sanctions during 1918 and 1919. Maybe they considered a temporary loss of freedom in the relatively safe environment of Malta to be better prospect than being shot down in flames and accordingly, behaved like gentlemen? Notwithstanding the lack of information, it is known they remained for the rest of the war and are recordediii departing Malta along with many of their compatriots in December 1919.

Schutztruppe from German East Africa One of the major colonial conflicts during World War 1 occurred in German East Africa (the present-day Tanzania), where contrary to the

Von Schwerin’s Albatros C.VII C.1302/16 features in many contemporary photos (French Military Archives)

desires of the civilian governor, Dr. Heinrich Schnee, who proposed that a peace agreement would serve the best long-term interests of Germany, the local military commander Lt.Col. Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck commenced a campaign of guerrilla actions against British Empire forces. He commanded the German colonial forces in East Africa, known as Schutztruppe, or protectorate force, consisting of German officers and NCO’s and well-trained local Askari troops.

Many German colonial reservists were also called up for duty during this conflict which lasted throughout World War 1. The conflict was characterised by small-scale battles occurring across a very large area, typical of guerrilla-type warfare. In this way, von Lettow-Vorbeck succeeded with his small contingent tying down much larger opposing forces for a very long time.

Over the whole period many of the Schutztruppe were killed or taken prisoner, but generally only in small numbers at any one time.

The prisoners were consolidated in PoW camps in several locations in East Africa and a decision was taken during 1917 to move several hundred of the German PoWs to Egypt. This decision created a slight problem with regard to the type of accommodation required by the Hague Convention10, which states …. prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them.

The large number of officers captured in German East Africa exceeded suitable accommodation available in Egypt and as a result, Malta was requested11 to take them. Locally in Malta, additional arrangements had to be made to provide this type of accommodation, resulting in the former British Army Married Quarters at New Verdala being converted during 1917 to provide an additional PoW Camp with sufficient capacity to cater for the influx from Egypt.

Whilst the requirements for accommodation were being addressed in Egypt and Malta, the British military authorities in East

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Africa were busy organising the necessary transfer arrangements12. These started with the progressive transfer of PoWs held at Dar-es-Salaam to the PoW Camp at Tanga. These were held there awaiting a suitable ship for the voyage to Egypt and on 24th May 1917, H.T. Huntsgreen arrived at Tanga, already with a contingent of PoWs from Kilindini (in British East Africa, the present-day Kenya). Simultaneously, H.M.T. Trent arrived from Beira, Mozambique and transferred a further 200 PoWs,

Former Red Star Line S.S. Manitou, hired by the British Admiralty for transport duties during World War 1 Pratique No.1361 referring to the arrival of SS Manitou in Malta from Alexandria on 10 November 1917, carrying 152 German and Austrian prisoners of war. (National Archives of Malta CUS 18/1167)

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mostly from Blantyre, Nyasaland, to Huntsgreen. When Huntsgreen set sail for Suez on 25th May, her complement of German PoWs totalled 48 Officers, 65 NCO’s and 537 Other Ranks. Arriving at Suez on 11th June, the PoW Officers were disembarked and proceeded to Alexandria by train, to be held temporarily at Sidi Bishr PoW Camp. The other PoWs remained on board Huntsgreen for the journey through the Suez Canal, after which the NCO’s and some OR’s were also transferred to Sidi Bishr, where they joined ex-combatants from Palestine and Salonika.

Once accommodation was available, the Officers and NCO’s temporarily held at Sidi Bishr were transferred from Egypt to Malta.

On 6th November 1917, Hired Transport (H.T.) Manitou departed Alexandria with 152 German and Austrian PoWs on board, consisting of mainly ex-combatants from German East Africa, Gaza and Salonika.

After an uneventful voyage, Manitou is recorded arriving in Malta13 on 10th November 1917. The arrivals comprised 72 1st Class, 55 2nd Class and 25 3rd Class prisoners. To comply with the Hague Convention, 1st and 2nd Class PoWs were provided with barrack accommodation, with most of those from German East Africa allocated to New Verdala Camp.

A number of the arrivals from German East Africa feature on contemporary photographic postcards produced by the PoW Camp photographers, mainly Köfler and Hiesinger. Undoubtedly, their interesting history and origins, together with their photogenic uniforms and characteristic ‘slouch’ hats made them a popular subject.

Some of these have been linked to the individual’s archive records to provide a background for the photograph.

Selection of Malta and its high-quality accommodation as the location for internment of German prisoners from East Africa resulted in a high proportion of the captured military leaders appearing on the island. In total, about 130 personnel were moved to Malta from East

A group of ex-German East Africa Schutztruppe officers in Malta

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Held at Dar-es-Salaam from February 1917 until transfer to Malta Major Gideon von Grawert: Schutztruppe detachment commander – surrendered with most of his men at Likuju January 1917.

Held at Blantyre, Nyasaland from February 1917 until transfer to Malta Mention should be made of a small contingent of NCO’s who originated from the German light cruiser SMS Königsberg. This ship was blockaded by British ships in the Rufiji River, near Dar-esSalaam, but initially they lacked to necessary firepower to put the

Peter Heinrich Baltes, 37 yrs.

German East Africa, originally from Düsseldorf. Vize-feldwebel, Wangoni Kp., Schutztruppe. Captured during battles for Rufiji River and held at Tanga PoW Camp 8 January 1917. Arrived Malta via Egypt 10 November 1917 (Malta Study Circle, Malta in World War 1 - Photographic Postcards, 2013)

Paul Heinrich Brachmann, 30 yrs.

German East Africa, originally from Ibbenbüren. Vize-feldwebel, 1st Kompanie, Schutztruppe. Captured during battles for Rufiji River and held at Tanga PoW Camp 8 January 1917.

Arrived Malta via Egypt 10 November 1917 (Malta Study Circle, Malta in World War 1 - Photographic Postcards, 2013)

Africa; they were mainly military but also included some Government officials. A selection of those interned at Malta gives a indication of their seniority: Lt.Col. Franz Hübener: Schutztruppe detachment commander – surrendered with the whole detachment (500 men) at Ilembule Mission Station in November 1916. Held at Blantyre, Nyasaland from December 1916 until transfer to Malta Major Julius von Boemcken: Schutztruppe detachment commander – captured during battles around Kibata in January 1917.

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Draft letter regarding lack of mail to and from German East Africa (UK National Archives FO 383/435)

German soldiers captured in Sinai, pictured in the ‘ditch’ alongside St Clement’s Camp.

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Königsberg out of action. Ultimately, the ship was damaged beyond repair, whence Lt.Col. von Lettow-Vorbeck decided to remove ten 4-inch naval guns and with some improvisation, converted them for land use. The remaining naval crew were drafted into the Schutztruppe, some operating guns originally from the ship. At least sixteen of the NCO’s who were ultimately transferred to Malta originated from the Königsberg. Rudolf Viehweg was a leading seaman (obermatrose) prior to his induction into the Schutztruppe and after the war, he wrote of his experiences in East Africa14. Interestingly, he included a small section about Malta, where he was interned between November 1917 and December 1919.

Sometimes in wider conflicts, individuals get caught in situations over which they have absolutely no control and this occurred in Malta, affecting those recently arrived from German East Africa. There are several letters15 from Lt.Col. Hübener, on behalf of those affected, complaining about the lack of mail to or from their families in Africa.

Lord Methuen, Governor of Malta, took up the case and established on behalf of the PoWs that there was a retaliatory embargo on mail to or from German East Africa, due to a similar situation having been applied by Germany to civilians in occupied Belgium.

There were no further arrivals of ex-combatants from the Imperial German Army, until February 1919, a number of months after the Armistice, when a significant arrival made the headlines! The Malta correspondent for the Daily Telegraph sent the following report: “The censor has released news that General Liman von Sanders made a dramatic arrival at Malta on February 4th with 2000 troops aboard the German vessel Etha Rickmers flying the British Ensign. The Maltese authorities would not allow von Sanders’ troops to land. After a month’s stay, the vessel went to Sicily.

One can only imagine the conditions on-board after a month confined to the ship! The ship was held pending legal discussions on

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Record Cards for General Liman von Sanders produced by the International Red Cross, Geneva. Note that the General was classed as a prisoner and allocated Malta number 2657 on 25 February 1919.

potential prosecution of General Liman von Sanders for war crimes during his time in Turkey. Whilst this was happening, the General was removed from the ship on 25th February and accommodated in Fort Ricasoli.

After much discussion, General Liman von Sanders was released and transported on HMS Ivy to Venice on 21.8.19, along with Lt. Alfred Korbling, (from German East Africa) acting as his aide-decamp and another former PoW, Pte. William Hoffmann as his servant.

Departure of German Internees from Malta A number of internees were released during the war, either on compassionate grounds or resulting from agreements on mutual releases (e.g. Austro-Hungarian merchant navy crews). Generally, this

guarding the internees. …on the day the Germans left, they broke most of the crockery they were using. In fact, on several occasions, it was with the greatest difficulty the P/W Staff were able to prevent the whole of the Camp being burned down as it was known it was their intention to do.

The breaking of crockery is probably explained by the German tradition of Krachen-Machen, but it must have been with the greatest relief of all parties that nearly 1150 German internees left Malta on 6 December 1919iii without further incident. The departure of Semiramis to Venice with the German PoWs closed an interesting chapter in Maltese history!

German soldiers captured in East Africa at the New Verdala Camp.

Notes

did not apply to ex-combatants and as a result all were held in Malta until after the Armistice. The terms of the Armistice dictated that PoWs held by the Allies would only be released once the respective Peace Treaties had been signed and that the responsibility for repatriation lay with the respective nation. For German PoWs, this dragged on into the following year as the Treaty of Versailles was not signed until 28th June 1919. Even then, releases from Malta did not take effect straightaway, with increasing frustration on the part of the internees, as no suitable ship was available until December 1919. However, once the arrangements had been confirmed, celebrations ensued, as Rudolf Viehweg, a German PoW from East Africa, recounts in his book, …

Steamer “Semiramis” allocated as your transport. Red Indian whooping followed, the Emden band played in celebration. Many still did not believe it, because we had been fooled too many times. The 6th of December, the day of the Lord. The day of freedom, it was. It was high time.

In comparison, extracts from the diary of Col. Strachan,16 PoW Camp Commandant, show a level of concern from the troops

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

UK National Archives file reference FO 383/240 International Red Cross, Geneva (CICR/ICRC) WW1 records – file C G1 D05-1 List 104 Malta National Archives file reference CUS 20/441 Chris Dale’s website ‘German Colonial Uniforms’ http://www. germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/ International Red Cross, Geneva (CICR/ICRC) WW1 records – Lists V37 and D175 International Red Cross, Geneva (CICR/ICRC) WW1 records – Lists D125 and D139 UK National Archives file reference AIR 27/233 Flight magazine, 18th January 1917 edition International Red Cross, Geneva (CICR/ICRC) WW1 records – Lists D125, D126 and D175 Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, Annex to the Convention, Chapter II – Prisoners-of-War UK National Archives file reference WO 95/4376 UK National Archives file references WO 95/4352, /5356 and /5357 Malta National Archives file reference CUS 18/1167 Erlebnisse eines Matrosen auf dem Kreuzer Königsberg und im Feldzug 19141918 in Ostafrika (Adventures of a sailor on the cruiser Königsberg and in the campaign in East Africa 1914-1918) Rudolf Viehweg (Leipzig 1933) UK National Archives FO 383/(various) Imperial War Museum file reference 6797 – Personal Papers of Lt.Col H.A.Strachan

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THE SALTER ALBUM FROM WORLD WAR 1 Giovanni Bonello 74

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ot long ago a senior citizen residing in Canada allowed the National Archives in Rabat to make copies of a ‘Maltese’ album that had once been her father’s. Mrs Marylyn Peringer quite generously believed that this souvenir of her father’s service in Malta belonged naturally to Malta. And with perfect timing too: this year marks the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War (1914 – 1918).

The donor’s father, George H. Salter, had served in Malta for the duration of that atrocious conflict, and his job put him in daily contact with the many hundreds of prisoners-of-war then held in Malta. At one time they peaked the 2000 limit. Mostly Germans and Austrians, but with sizeable contingents of Turks, Hungarians, Egyptians and Bulgarians thrown in too. Civilian detainees predominated, but a good number were military prisoners of war. Their camps spread around the Cottonera area: Verdala Barracks, New Verdala, St Clement’s, Polverista and San Salvatore. Generally, the camps distributed prisoners by nationality, though at some time Polverista was said to be destined to house women enemy aliens. It may never have been used for this purpose as female detainees were not kept long on the island.

Malta did not see any active service during WW1. Its usefulness to the war effort of the Allies lay in other directions – as a huge military hospital and convalescence station, as a base to the French, British and Japanese fleets in the Mediterranean, as a victualling and supplies entrepot and as the major prisoner-of-war camp for those who fought for the Central Powers, their nationals and those deemed to be their supporters.

This latter function has lately started receiving concerted scholarly attention1 – particularly through the highly focussed interest of the Malta Study Circle based in London. Only last year Dr Rodger G. Evans, Mr Alan Green and Dr David Ball published in the UK two truly splendid volumes dealing with different aspects of the role

of Malta in WW1,2 one with a marked accent on postal history. Both books have strong sections on PoWs. George Salter was born in England in 1878, the son of a British non-commissioned officer who died fairly young, leaving his widow with five children, one of whom, William, also died at an early age.

George and his younger brother Ernest registered as pupils in the Duke of York military school in Chelsea. That school made special arrangements for their fees in view of the fact that their late father had been in the army.

Towards the turn of the century, George Salter graduated from the Chelsea school to join the Army Corps of Schoolmasters. This special unit of the British Army had been formed in 1846 with a view of providing trained personnel to improve the skills of young recruits. It was reorganized in 1920. Salter’s postings included Aldershot, Ireland and eventually North India – now Pakistan, and his teaching subjects covered maths and possibly music. Part of the ‘Schoolmasters’ responsibility in peacetime included organizing entertainment for the troops.

But at some unspecified time, Salter joined the Military Provost Staff Corps, as evident from the badge of the forage cap he is wearing in his portrait taken just before or during WW1. This corps was specifically responsible for the running of prisoner-of-war camps. His next posting, at the beginning of the war, brought him to Malta.

Salter’s functions in the prisoners’ camps included that of recording and distributing to prisoners the monies sent to them from abroad. Prince von Hohenzollern, a Malta PoW, had very strong words against some of the officers entrusted with this role – they cheated on the rates of exchange and charged exorbitant commissions. Whatever Salter’s official role, he seems to have been highly respected and loved by the ‘enemies’ in his charge.

As was common up to the 1970s, many then kept what were called ‘autograph books’, small albums in which friends or

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acquaintances wrote personal messages or short poems, drew sketches, left mementos. If one had to judge George Salter by his Malta PoW autograph book, he must have been deemed the guardian angel of the prisoners. Messages and hundreds of signatures testify how kind, helpful, considerate he was to the enemy, imprisoned and deprived of their liberty for no other reason than fighting a cruel war on the other side of the power divide. These testimonials to a compassionate man come from all nationalities: Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Turks, and Italians from those parts of Italy still under Austro-Hungarian dominion. Regrettably, I can only read those messages written in English, French or Italian.

Two groups of German prisoners of war who left Malta, eighteen on February 20 and twenty on March 7, 1916, recorded a short attestation on the album. They “beg to thank Mr Salter for all kindness shown to them”. Another PoW wrote in French that “the mission that you have accomplished in our regard is the most difficult

Salter doing the rounds of the camp

and thankless that can exist: to reconcile an adversary through goodness and generosity! I will forever keep a grateful memory of it”. (See photo below.)

A message by Demetrios Theodosiou, resident in Constantinople, reads “Paradox: to be held prisoner and to love the ones who hold you captive”.

Perhaps Abdel Fattah Nauvar, the personal secretary of His Highness Mahmoud Hamzi Pasha wrote the most touching testimonial, in Arabic script. Translated into English it says: “The best days of my unfortunate days were the days of my imprisonment. One meets with all types of people, but the British know how to treat people. Yes, they have made me a prisoner for 4½ months and they have deprived me from seeing my people, but their treatment has made this burden very light and their justice has made me forget everything”.

This album is where the jailer meets the prisoner, the vanquished fraternize with the victor. It is the neutral ground where they establish

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a dialogue, a cordial one, where empathy was forged, where the need for compassion met the urge to compassion. The brutalizing fallout of war seems to have been neutralized in Verdala. Salter and his enemy wards found a common language, prompted by the inane monstrosity of a monstrous war. If Salter’s album was the only document available by which to profile WW1, we would say that war was a chivalric tournament fought by gentlemen on both sides of the fence. Sadly reality was different – and that is what makes the Salters of the world so exceptional. They nourished the illusion of goodness.

The prisoners seemed, in general, to respect the British officers in charge, but if Prince von Hohenzollern is to be believed, they held the (Maltese) guards in contempt – their ‘humanity’ depended on how far you were prepared to bribe them; most of them made sure the inmates knew they were corruptible. A lot was possible for the prisoners, so long as they greased the Maltese guards with money or gifts. Sometimes even one bottle of whisky was enough to make them derelict their duties and look the other way.

The German, Austrian, Hungarian, Egyptian, Bulgarian and Turkish camps in Malta housed some rather remarkable prisoners, like Karl Doenitz, who later, as Grand Admiral of the German navy, succeeded Hitler as the last Nazi Chancellor of Germany at the very end of WW2 and was condemned to ten years imprisonment for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials. Among other legendary inmates were Karl von Müller, captain of the murderous and mythical light cruiser SMS Emden which had wreaked enormous havoc on the sea routes of the Allies, and Prince Franz Joseph von Hohenzollern, brother of the queen of Portugal and cousin of the Kaiser, who wrote the most comprehensive insider memoir of life in Maltese PoW camps in WW1.3 The German General Otto Liman von Sanders, who had commanded the Ottoman forces in the war, also ended in Malta, where he whiled the time away writing his memoirs. The urban legend that the top Nazi Rudolf Hess (who defected

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from Germany to the United Kingdom by air during WW2) had also been detained in Verdala finds no historical support, though an Adolph Hess imprisoned in Malta may have been the Nazi’s father.

On a different plane, Geo Fürst who married a Maltese lady and became the island’s leading photographer in the 1930s was in Verdala too4, as was Maestro Aurelio Doncich the acclaimed leader of the King’s Own Band in Valletta who had been trapped in Malta by the outbreak of the war and then returned to his old band after the British released him from imprisonment at the end of the war.

Aurelio Doncich was born 1867 in Trieste and had, between 1899 and 1908, directed the band of Acireale and occasionally the orchestra of the Teatro Bellini of Catania, after which he had been engaged by the King’s Own Band. Doncich hogged a whole page of the album for himself. He wrote a short musical composition (tempo di vilotta - an Italian 16th century dance) for Salter, and painted in watercolour, not incompetently, the picture of a rustic musician lying languorously on the branch of a large tree, playing his violin. As a musician himself, Salter would have appreciated this. Hohenzollern referred to Doncich in his memoirs as “a very capable conductor”.

On the Turkish side there was General Esref Kuscubasi, the highly controversial hero or villain of the campaign, patriot or traitor, suspected of having been involved in the massacre of the Armenians, and later branded as a conspirator in an attempted assassination of Kemal Ataturk. He too wrote his war memoirs, but these stop short the moment he was imprisoned in Malta (though he records his encounter with Manwel Dimech in an Egyptian jail5). Just after the end of the war, the Egyptian camp in Cottonera housed the four most vocal nationalist anti-British personalities, the Pachas Hamad El Bassal, Ismail Sidky, Mohamed Mahmoud and Saad Zaghloul. A second large Turkish contingent, this time round made up of the highest-profile political and military prisoners, also reached Malta after the end of the war, awaiting trials for war crimes which never came to pass. Salter seems to have still been around at that time.

The Malta PoW camps teemed with competent artists, musicians, men of letters and photographers, and many of them left their mark in the Salter album. Some of the sketches it contains reach high professional standards – graphic art of quite impressive quality. Others are less so – the amateur water-colourist who produces a pretty and wholly forgettable vignette, with no creativity and little personality to it.

Geo Fürst, in white trousers, at Verdala

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Theodore Kofler, photo and self-portrait

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Daniel Hiesinger, self-portrait

Giovanni Battista della Stua, self-portrait

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I believe the portraits are the best things the Salter album contains – anything between straight likenesses and the more caricaturised ones.

I cannot illustrate them all, but have made a selection of some of the more salient ones. I see in some the hand of those caricature artists who so enriched the Camp Nachrichten, the inhouse magazine of the Malta prisoners of war in WW1.

Perhaps the most valuable painted likenesses are the self-portraits of two professional photographers of the PoW camps. Among the prisoners were some highly trained photographers: Theodore Kofler, probably from Sud-Tyrol, before the outbreak of war ran a photographic studio in Cairo and is remembered today for his spectacular first-time aerial views of the Egyptian tombs and temples. He had been detained at the outbreak of hostilities and sent as a PoW to Verdala in Malta.

A second German photographer, Daniel Hiesinger from Greding in Bavaria, also ended in St Clement’s Camp. Both worked very actively as professional photographers inside the camps, and are responsible for a massive output of images which document minutely the people in the camps and their activities. Besides being photographers by profession, they also appear to have been quite self-assured artists.

Both painted their self-portrait for George Salter: Kofler preferred a close-up in hard edged, luminous colour realism, probably in gouache. Hiesinger opted to depict himself full figure in watercolour, lush cigar in hand, with his large camera on a high tripod prominent behind him. Both images betray the confident hand of a trained artist.

No other image of Hiesinger is known so far.

Other German photographers, like Heinz Leichter, Christophe Schultz and Ernst Scholer also worked in the Maltese PoW camps, but they do not seem to have contributed to the Salter album.6 Of them all, Leichter is the most famous, having been a leading photographer in Cairo before the war. He returned there after the end of hostilities and gained further international acclaim by his work for the archaeologists

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Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon in the discovery of the fabled tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922.

Two prisoners actually portrayed Salter himself. One, a likeness in profile dated February 15, 1915, was sketched in ink by Heinz von Fachbach, an early editor of the Camp Nachrichten who in September 1916 obtained his release from Malta on compassionate grounds (tuberculosis threatened his life). It shows the British officer in gala jacket with its rich braided epaulettes. The other one, unsigned, has Salter facing an attractive young lady dolled up in chic 1915s fashions, arguing or, hopefully, flirting with him. Salter has the inevitable cigarette in his hand, his military cap on and the cane of authority under his arm.

Both figures are in profile and again, the drawing has a professional stamp to it. The artist and Salter knew what that mischievous scene portrayed. We don’t.

Perhaps the most striking among the portraits is the frontal self-depiction of a man from St Clement’s camp, executed in a free, impressionist technique in loud, aggressive watercolour, by someone who made it a point to appear as bohémienne and Mephistophelian as possible – pointed face, long bobbed hair, musketeer moustache and goatee, open shirt, intense, rather wild looks. The artist signs himself ‘Titta’, and Dr Alan Green has identified him as Giovanni Battista della Stua, a PoW arrested in Cairo. Titta stands as a diminutive of Battista, and the della Stua hailed from Udine, then still under AustroHungarian domination – quite possibly a professional painter of the post-scapigliatura. Several other vignettes in the album are signed ‘Titta’, and he designed the rather pretentious front page of the first issue of the Camp Nachrichten magazine.

Some images also evidence life in the compounds, like a minutely detailed sketch of rows of tents in St Clements’s camp, drawn

by Lt-Colonel Jos. Hübner, from Cairo and Groz, on March 16, 1916.

Hohenzollern comments on these awful PoW tents: in fine weather it

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was possible to endure them but during rain or wind storms – the latter were very frequent - the wretched prisoners had a miserable existence.

At night they often had to go out to secure the tents which always broke loose in a storm. In the tropical Maltese rain, the whole tent would be a foot deep in water.

An unexplained sketch in pencil signed Djewad, 1920, shows an unusual close-up of a door, M.Q. 30 (Married Quarters 30?) in the Polverista camp. The artist must have been one of the Islamic political deportees, Turkish or Egyptian, who were arrested and conveyed to Malta just after the end of WW1. This drawing also confirms that Salter was still working in the Maltese camps as late as 1920. This is the last dated entry in the album.

Some of the illustrations appear pretty generic, like a walled North African village, a red-thatched cottage or a view of the Grand Canal in Venice, again by ‘Titta’. One is a highly detailed drawing of an elaborate art nouveau mansion ‘Villa Bessie’, together with its ground-floor plan executed in 1917 by a professional draughtsman, whose signature could be ‘R(obert) Krumbholz, architekt’. This fantasy house was not an exercise in escapism by a prisoner craving to distance himself from the humiliating routine of detention by the enemy. Bessie was then Salter’s wife (she did not join him in Malta) and a grateful Krumbholz gave the British officer the only piece of his creativity his state of bondage allowed. Perhaps only coincidentally, Krumbholz is today a leading architectural firm in Frankfurt, Germany.

A few vignettes painted by prisoners tried to capture some humorous sides in an existence as intrinsically devoid of humour as that of persons in captivity. We could read in this a compensating mechanism aimed at softening the contours of the eminently tragic life of the detainee who depends on the crumbs of his jailer for his survival.

One watercolour shows the panicked Maltese guards shooting at someone trying to escape at night over the camp’s boundary wall – only

to discover that the freedom-seeker was actually a very scared black cat. A waste of heroics. There are other cartoon-like caricatures. The inhouse journal published by the Malta PoWs, the Camp Nachtrichten, thrived on high quality caricaturists from among the inmates of the camps.

George H. Salter left Malta sometime after 1920, and went to India. His wife Bessie died of cancer in the early 1930s. By coincidence he then re-established contact with Mary Camilleri (née Tabone) a young widow who in her youth had worked for him as a secretary at the camp, and they were married in 1933.7 By this time, Salter had risen to the rank of Captain. In 1940, after seven happy years of married life, Salter’s wife and daughter went to the USA to avoid the London blitz, planning to return later. Captain Salter stayed behind, to give his contribution to the war effort, as a teacher and later at the Admiralty.

He died in 1942 of tuberculosis. His widow and daughter, Mrs Marylyn Peringer, moved to Canada in 1954.

The spirit of a good man lives on in the National Archives of Malta.

Notes 1 Giovanni Bonello, Histories of Malta, Vol. VII, Malta, 2006, pp. 164 – 198.

2 See particularly Malta in World War 1 (two volumes), Malta Study Circle, 2013.

3 Franz Joseph Prince of Hohenzollern, Emden, New York, 1928.

4 On Geo Fürst see: Giovanni Bonello, Nostalgias of Malta, Images by Geo Fürst, Malta, 2006.

5 Giovanni Bonello “More Memories of Manwel Dimech” in The Sunday Times, April 24, 2011.

6 Hohenzollern, op. cit., pp. 64 – 66.

7 Thomas Borg “A Storyteller’s Visit” in Times of Malta, Junior News Section, November 13, 2013.

My mother’s story Marylyn Peringer 86

This is my mother’s story, the story of her first job. She had many jobs throughout her life, but this one turned out to be the most significant of all, and in a way she never dreamed of at the time.

I

t was 1917 when Mary Tabone applied for the job at the Prisoners of War Camp at Verdala. She was seventeen years old, a resident of Valletta, pretty and a bit flirtatious, but her two great loves were playing piano—especially Chopin—and singing Italian opera. Many an afternoon had she spent in her aunt’s box at the Teatru Rjal, thrilling to the romance and tragedy brought to the stage by Puccini, Verdi or Donizetti…and reproducing the arias with friends around the family piano.

Though music played such a large part in her life, her hopes of earning a living lay elsewhere. A graduate of the Valletta School for Girls, she was fluent in English, French and Italian besides her native Maltese, and had taken a bookkeeping course after leaving school.

So when the clerical position at Verdala was advertised, she sat the required Civil Service exam and eagerly awaited the results. Soon she found to her delight that she and another young woman had scored the top marks and would both be hired.

This news provoked an outcry from her male competitors.

Jobs, said they, should not be given to women, when men were the breadwinners in the family! Their complaint caused enough controversy that Mary wondered whether she would lose her job before she had even started work. Fortunately for her, the problem was resolved; the camp administration agreed to hire only males in future, but retained the services of the two women.

And so Mary began her life as a Verdala employee. Every day she left her home at Strada San Domenico and walked the short distance down to the wharf to meet Josie Borg, the other successful applicant.

Mary and her beloved piano.

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Together they took the ferry across the Grand Harbour to the Senglea pier and then began the long uphill climb to the Prisoners of War camp.

After showing their passes to the guard at the entrance, they continued uphill past the prisoners’ garden, where many internees worked and could spend their leisure time; then the girls hurried to their respective offices. Josie worked for the Quartermaster and went to the Stores; Mary was in the Accounts office. At midday Mary would take her sandwich and visit the Stores to have lunch with Josie and make tea.

Mary liked her job. She was paid an amount that to her was a fortune, the work was interesting and Josie was a pleasant companion to travel and have lunch with. But the best thing about her job was her immediate boss, Mr. Salter. He was a British Army Schoolmaster in his late thirties, who had been at the camp since it was established in 1914.

Before the war he had worked in his native England, in Ireland and in India, teaching math and sometimes music to the young recruits.

His present duties at Verdala included the keeping and distribution of monies sent to the hundreds of prisoners by their relatives, and Mary began learning the bookkeeping associated with this task.

She enjoyed the instruction; Mr. Salter was thorough, gentle, and patient with her initial mistakes. Soon they discovered their mutual love of song and piano music. Mr.Salter appreciated opera, but loved singing Gilbert and Sullivan even more, especially the challenging rapid patter songs from operettas like The Pirates of Penzance and Iolanthe.

From their daily conversations, Mary began to notice that her boss was lonely. His wife had not accompanied him to Malta. While he got on well with his colleagues, he did not drink and took no part in the bar-hopping which was a common evening activity among his fellow soldiers. So she invited him to come home with her for dinner and meet her family. They took a great liking to him, as Mary knew they would, and he returned the feeling. In no time at all he became a regular visitor to the flat on Strada San Domenico, bringing treats of all

My mother’s parents, Salvatore and Georgina (nee Lanfranco) Tabone

Mary in Carnival costume, 1921

kinds to Salvatore and Georgia Tabone and to Mary’s six brothers and sisters. He loved playing games with the younger children, especially three-year old Elsie, the baby of the family.

At Carnival time the Tabones found him a domino and mask and brought him along to the Veglioni balls. Mary enjoyed dancing with him

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to the strains of “Dardanella” and “Over There” and burst out laughing every time they bumped into another couple on the crowded dance floor, as he would apologize to them in the only Maltese word he knew: imħakka (cheese grater). At Christmas he brought a huge turkey along with Yuletide streamers and garlands which he helped to install in the dining room. And every visit included time around the piano, Mary singing an aria from Tosca or Traviata, Mr. Salter responding with one of his G & S specialties.

Mary loved flowers; when on her eighteenth birthday her boss presented her with a bouquet of sweet peas—her favourite—she ran to the photographer’s after work to have her picture taken with them. One morning, when she happened to arrive at camp without Josie, she saw a handsome young German prisoner behind the fence which separated the garden from the main road. She recognized him; he was often near the fence in the morning and they had more than once exchanged smiles.

Through the barbed wire he was holding out to her a mass of blooms, all flowers from the garden. She was charmed! Over she went and accepted his gift with a smile, then hurried on her way. She couldn’t wait to get to the office and tell her boss what had happened. “Where did you get those flowers?” he asked as soon as she walked in. All smiles, she told him.

His reaction left her in shock. It was the closest he had ever come to showing anger. “Mary, don’t you know what you’ve done? It’s wartime, you’ve been communicating privately with the enemy, you could lose your job. Or worse, be charged with treason!” When she burst into tears, he softened. “Please don’t do this again. We’ll forget it if you promise not to have anything more to do with the prisoners.”

And Mary promised.

Two days later, a guard handed her a note. Although it was unsigned, she knew who had written it. “My dear young lady,” it read, “you are the only joy in my imprisonment. I love to watch you going by Christmas somewhere between 1917 and 1919 in the Tabone dining room, decorations courtesy of my father. L to R: Georgina, Mary, George Salter, my grandparents, Salvino, Evelyn (?) Elsie.

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every morning, giving me a smile, making my stay here less unbearable” and so on. Obviously the guard had been bribed to pass along the message. But Mary had learned her lesson; from then on she kept her eyes straight ahead as she walked past the garden, and eventually her admirer stopped appearing at the fence.

Although contact with the prisoners was forbidden to Mary, it was demanded of Mr. Salter. One of his jobs was to associate with the men, listen to their complaints and detect any signs of escape plans. This he did in the same friendly manner with which he treated her family. She was surprised to learn that since the beginning of the war he had been keeping an autograph album for the prisoners to write in. He had already collected hundreds of names and many messages thanking him for his services. They were written in a variety of languages; Mary could read the odd inscription in French or Italian, but she knew no German , Greek or Turkish. At that time the Turks were writing in Arabic script, so even the characters were completely unfamiliar. And besides the writing, there was extraordinary art work: water-colour portraits of great beauty and intensity, cartoons, pen and ink sketches, drawings of the camp. Best of all, a German prisoner had executed a detailed portrait in profile of Mr. Salter on the very first page of the album. It was so well done that she recognized him at once.

Sometimes a staff person would come into Mary’s office, looking for her boss. “Mr. Salter, could you come? They listen to you.” And off he would go to speak to the Turkish prisoners who refused to obey orders. Mary never knew exactly what words he used, but she suspected it was his respectful, firm but friendly manner which accounted for his usual success with the Turks.

But violence sometimes did break out. In the Turkish quarter of the camp one prisoner had killed another in a vicious fight and the survivor was to be tried for murder. Since no one on staff spoke both Turkish and English, a multilingual interpreter, Mr. Yousuf Bey, was Mary, with the bouquet my father bought for her on her 18th birthday (26 November 1917)

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Lieutenant Governer being informed of the arrival of Yusef Bey to serve as interpretor in Hadj Ali Issa’s trial (National Archives of Malta, CSG01 1185, 1917)

brought over from Egypt to assist at the trial. He was given rooms in Valletta, so Mary and Josie used to meet him every morning at the ferry dock and travel with him to the camp. He was an older man, quite dignified in his ways, and always insisted on paying the girls’ boat fare. When they arrived on the opposite side of the Grand Harbour he invited them to share his karrozin up to Verdala. Mary and Josie found him a charming companion and enjoyed practicing their French with

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him. At the conclusion of the trial the British kept him on to censor the prisoners’ letters. Mary was truly sorry when his duties came to an end; she felt that she was losing an old friend. He gave her a tiny gold filigree brooch and three guineas as a parting gift and asked for a kiss in return.

She gave it, gladly.

It was now 1919. The Armistice had been signed but Verdala Camp was still in operation, as many prisoners, especially Turks, had not yet been repatriated. Mary continued with her usual duties but was conscious that this episode in her life would soon be coming to a close. While everyone else in the world seemed to be celebrating the end of “the war to end all wars”, she contemplated not merely losing her job, but the eventual departure of Mr. Salter. Oh, yes! Admiration and friendship had for her evolved into something much deeper, though she was careful not to express it to anyone. The word “forbidden” was ever in her thoughts.

On Sunday, June 1, Mr. Salter rented a touring car and chauffeur and took all the Tabones for a day’s drive in the countryside. He had done this several times before, but riding in an automobile was always a thrill for the whole family—and such a big car! He told them that there were only two cars on the island roomy enough to hold them all. Mary’s father was a chemist but never could have afforded such a luxury from his salary at the pharmacy on Strada Rjali. They drove to the west coast of the island, where there was a beautiful beach, and Mr. Salter treated them to lunch at a first-class hotel overlooking the sea.

After the meal, Mary strolled out by herself to the hotel terrace and started swinging in one of the hammocks. She sat up when she saw her boss coming over to her. In his hand was a single red rose.

He offered it, she took it, and an unmistakable look passed between them. Now she knew that he loved her as she loved him. But they said nothing. What was there to say? He was already married.

My grandparents with the rented car and driver. I can’t identify the Tabone girls but Tony is sitting next to the driver.

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The day ended in the traditional way, with songs around the family piano. Mr. Salter sang “My Name is John Wellington Wells” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer; Mary sang one of their mutual favourites, the “Indian Love Lyrics” by Amy Woodforde-Finden. “Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,” she sang with tears in her eyes, remembering what had happened earlier in the day. Finally the evening ended. “We’ll never forget the first of June, will we?” he whispered to her before he left. Mary knew she would never forget, even though the situation was obviously so hopeless!

The final goodbye came when the camp closed in March of 1920. On the day her beloved left Malta, Mary cried without reserve, since her parents and most of her sisters were crying too.

With separation, the secret part of their relationship began. Mary sent letters to an address he gave her; she picked up his at the house of a friend. They corresponded in a form of shorthand he had taught her at the camp. He now asked her to call him by his Christian name, George, and he called her “Ducks” which she discovered was a common English term of endearment.. He was back in India, arranging entertainment for the troops, tutoring a young Punjabi princess in English and giving her piano lessons. Meanwhile Mary, despite her proficiency in languages and office experience, could not find a job other than the occasional chance to sing at a wedding or other social function. The unwritten “breadwinner law” still prevailed in Malta. She felt herself sinking into a rut; the exchange of letters gradually dwindled and died.

A dozen years passed, during which time Mary married a Maltese-American who had returned to Malta to find a wife, and was unexpectedly widowed shortly afterwards. She was living in New York City and working in Manhattan when she happened to glance at the office calendar. It was the first of June. In her ear she heard the Indian The Tabone parents and children at Għar Ħasan. From left to right: Anthony (Tony), Georgina, my grandmother Georgina (Georgia) Tabone holding Elsie, Mary, Evelyn, Carmelina, Salvino, my grandfather Salvatore Tabone.

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Love Lyrics again. “I wonder what George is doing,” she thought. By this time she had no idea where to locate him, but she did keep his mother’s address in England and wrote, asking for news of her son.

When a letter came, her heart leaped; it was in his dear, familiar handwriting. He was now at home in England, having retired from the army to deal with a serious personal problem; his wife was dying of cancer. A regular correspondence began again, and continued for many months after he became a widower. In 1933 there came a very special letter: a marriage proposal.

Even though she had not seen him for thirteen years, Mary never hesitated. She resigned her job, packed up her music, bought some pretty new clothes, and sailed for London. George was waiting for her at the Southampton pier, as slim and fit as she remembered him, though looking a bit older; he was now 55. And at 34, Mary was no longer a young girl. A long look; then his arms were around her, his kisses covering her face. They exchanged vows three days later. Their marriage was extremely happy, especially when Mary gave birth to a little girl that her father loved to play with, just as he had played long ago with the Tabone children. And in their home there was always music.

Was it too good to last? The threat of Nazi invasion and the imminent bombing of London in 1940 changed Mary’s life again.

She fled to relatives in the States with her young daughter hours after the first bombardment, hoping for a speedy Allied victory so that she could reunite with her husband once again. It was not to be. George Salter developed pulmonary tuberculosis and died in 1942. His effects, including the autograph album, were sent to her in New York when the war ended.

The Tabone children, Christmas 1922 from a photo sent to my paternal grandmother, Emma Salter. Clockwise from lower left: Salvino, Georgina, Evelyn, Carmelina, Mary, Elsie. Anthony is missing, as he left Malta in 1920 to find work in the United States.

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the salter album 96

Pencil portrait of George Salter by Heinz von Fachbach, one of the editors of the inhouse magazine Kamp Nachrichten dated February 15, 1915.

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Several signatures of PoWs in Latin and Ottoman script.

The name Osman Mouhamed Lokakis is noteworthy.

This Turkish name has -akis as suffix, generally encountered in Greek surnames originating in Crete.

Up to its unification with Greece in1908, Crete was part of the Ottoman Empire.

This unification was recognized internationally in 1913.

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The name Mustafas Nassirakis, a Turkish name and surname in Greek form (Mustafa Nassir akis), points towards Cretan origins, similar to Osman Mouhamed Lokakis on the previous page.

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Hand-drawn vignette of a serviceman (probably Salter) talking to a young lady.

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Reinhardt Paul Schmidt was a prisoner of war from Alexandria

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Leafing through, you remember room 53 of Verdala Barracks, 1 December 1914

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Caricature in pen, probably of a prisoner of war, signed Romano Perna.

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Two sketches of heads, G. Gejer(?) and Abel. There were three Abel prisoners of war: Bruno, Heinrich and Willy.

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Three postal vignettes, handdrawn or stamped, showing the PoW camps in philatelic stamps also used on external correspondence.

Even if our countries are at war, we as mankind can still be friends.

Malta, on 18/9 1915 Alois Kirchlecher

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The sweetest moment has arrived today. I am departing to my fatherland, to my beloved children.

Evangelos Karagiannidis 26-7-17

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In lasting memory of Malta, 18 March 1919 Three undistinguishable names

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With fond memories of Verdala Hotabach Malta, Sep 1st , 1916

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Only those earn their freedom and their life who have to conquer them every day!

(Goethe) Malta, 1/IX.1916

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A note in the Ottoman alphabet under the silhouette: Mısır'da ticaret meşgul 'Engaged in trade in Egypt'.

The Ottoman alphabet remained in use up to 1928 when the Latin alphabet was adopted.

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Two portraits, lower one Rosenbergh.

There were three Rosenbergh prisoners of war: Aril Lieb, Otto and Sigmunde.

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Hand-drawn portrait in profile of Römer(?). Bernhard Römer was a prisoner of war detined in Cairo.

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Full face portrait under ‘probità, onestà’ depicting the prisoner of war Giorgio Vicevic from Croatia.

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Verses in Friulian.

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Watercolour of violinist playing on the branch of a tree, and a musical score, signed by the musician and conductor Aurelio Doncich in 1915.

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To Mr G.H. Salter In remembrance of my internment in Malta Mollack 1914-17

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With fond memories of several autographs by prisoners of war

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To the best and most highly esteemed person from your ever thankful admirer Alfred Neu prisoner of war St Clements camp, Malta, 13 September 1916.

Alfred Neu was a German prisoner of war from Besigheim, Wurttenburg,

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View of the Grand Canal in Venice in watercolour, with verses in Italian, signed ‘Titta’, whose full name was Battista della Stua.

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Meminisse juvabit (it will be pleasing to remember) is part of a sentence from the Virgil’s Aeneid: “forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit” “sometime in the future it will be pleasing to remember these things” Here, (Aeneid, Book 1, line 203), Aeneas is addressing his men after the shipwreck that landed them on the shores of Africa. and encouraging them to recover their courage.

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Turkish in Ottoman alphabet: Among the Ottoman prisoners in Malta.

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Self-portrait in gouache by the photographer and painter Theodore Kofler.

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Detailed view of St. Clement’s Camp drawn in pencil by PoW Lt. Colonel Jos. Hübner from the German East African Army.

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Watercolour showing a real incident of guards shooting at a cat on the perimeter wall of a camp believing it to be a prisoner escaping.

Dated 12 February, 1915.

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Self-portrait of the artist Battista della Stua (‘Titta’), dated in Italian.

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Self-portrait in watercolour of the photographer and artist Daniel Hiesinger.

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The sweetest moment in the life of a family man is the moment when he sees once again his wife and children after a long absence.

16-29-7-916 E. Stephanopoulos P of W Malta

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'This will also pass.' Polverista 30/7/1916.

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Prisoner of the English for two years in Malta; two years my family was, unprotected in the hands of the Turks. Captain ....... (illegible) I came with ten fingers and I am leaving with nine, since I have also lost my wife in Turkey due to ....- signature Sooner or later justice will triumph. (undistinguishable signature) Whatever I didn’t suffer at sea, I suffered in Malta where my great-grandfather was also imprisoned by the Venetians. I came by ship with merchandise and, I am leaving without a boat.

Dionysos D. Mortezos

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We have gotten to know you, and closely as well!

Christos Karakos Hitherto unseen and unheard to be imprisoned in Malta, a child of only 10 years to be pulled into here Theodore Malteζos (“of Malta”) See photo on page 54 The οne responsible for burning me (meaning 'putting me in here').

Let him answer to God. Because he made me walk amongst men.

Without my senses.

Ach, Vach (expression like Oi Vey!) Health to the imprisoned! - Christos Thermistakos Greetings to the English! - D. Servou Pasalimani (area around Piraeus, Athens. Comes from the verb “to pass” in Italian and “limani” meaning “harbour” in Greek) Priconissus (location name) Au revoir in Smyrna and Constantinople! Κ. Drakos, “Meraklis” (“the devotee”) of Smyrna

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The mission you have accomplaished in our regard is the most difficult and thankless that can exist: to reconcile an adversary through goodness and generousity! I will for ever keep a grateful memory of it.

Max Stross, Verdala Barracks, October 1916 Ach, Vach, what has happened to me, Vach! Vasilios Kyriako Greetings to England! D. Aftallas Greetings to England and France! - Ilias Atailis I hope that the English will rule over all the world. Constantine Thasitis, from Moschonisi (a Greek island)

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Good luck! M. Vayianis.

Justice shone,iIt shines, and It will continue to shine through eternity.

Seraphim Kontogiannis Au revoir! Nikos N. Kokos Kromidas (last names mean “chicken” and “onion”) Vourla (a Greek city) I thank you for our liberation /release.

Zacharis Ksidatos, Molyvos (town in Lesbos, a Greek island) Greetings to you, English and French, and with my best wishes may you go to “the city” (Constantinople).

Panayis Avgoulas (egg seller) from Moschonisi (a Greek island)

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What you don’t want to do, don’t expect someone else to do.

With fond memories, Malta, 28 Febr. 1917 Friedrich Marx I am young and if I live to a ripe old age, I will never forget the English.

K. Grammatas

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To the eminent Mr. Salter: May no one have a bad conscience For every man’s fate is the same And every man’s future is unforeseen.

George Kralidis Long live Eleftherios Venizelos (then Prime Minister) Future president of the Greek republic.

Long live France, long live England!

Gregorios Anagnozidis Long live England, long live France Long live Venizelos He will bring a resolution / conclusion.

Ioannis Angelis

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Paradox: To be held prisoner and love the ones who hold you captive.

Demetrios Theodosiou, Prikonisson (Pasaliman) Constantinople Long live the Allies, And may they occupy the … of the Turks.

Constantine Andreas Kalafatis from ConstantinopleBosphorus Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Chimon Kokkinos, Constantinople, Turkey I thank you my English friends And with my best wishes May you take all of Turkey And free us from the Turks.

Ioannis Choryiatis Mehmed Madjid Tahmidjakis, from Chania (Crete).

Although Mehmed Madjid Tahmidjakis is a Turkish name, the Greek suffix ‘-akis’ confirms a Cretan origin.

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Elevation and floorplan of ‘Villa Bessie’ by architect Robert Krumbholz. Bessie was the name of Salter’s first wife.

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Portrait in pencil of Dr Fasil Berki. He is not so far listed as a prisoner of war.

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Poem in remembrance of Edward Walters, signed D.H.(Daniel Hiesinger?).

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That I became so sick Who did this?

Not the cool breeze from the North And no star power.

That I have to endure fatal wounds This is the doing of mankind.

Nature, let me heal again, They will not let me rest.

The days have gone by No herbs of meadows helped me And from the fearful dream Only freedom will awake me.

With sad memories from your prisoner of war Theodolinda Pastes Theodolinda Pastes was a German-Greek lady, and was eventually transferred to the UK for internment there.

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The signature, in Latin characters of two future Prime Ministers of Egypt.

Saad Zagloul (1859 - 1927) served as Prime Minister between January and November 1924. Mohammed Mahmoud (1877 -1941) served as Prime Minister between June 1928 and October 1929 and between December 1937 and August 1939.

Zagloul, a prominent Egyptian political leader of the early 20th century led the Egyptian nationalist Wafd Party and was deported to Malta in March 1919 together with some of his foremost colleagues, including Mahmoud, Ismail Sidky (signature in Latin characters) and Hamad al Bassal (signature in Arabic).

Their deportation led to the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution of 1919.

See photo on page 60

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Pencil portrait of prisone of war by Battista della Stua.

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The best days of my unfortunate days were the days of my imprisonment.

One meets with all kinds of people but the British know how to treat people.

Yes, they have made me a prisoner for four months and a half and they have deprived me from seeing my people, but their treatment made this burden very light and their justice has made me forget everything.

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ehr William – Karel Joros – Karl Kraft – Joseph Hermansdorfer – Albert Stadie – Abraham Boghosian – Jaco – Theodore Hamlep – Renere Karl Curtius – George Muck – Husni Hussain – Wilhelm W Ohlsen – Marco Antoncic ichard Gierloff – Gideon von Grawert – Franz Brandt – Otto Fleccher – Yanni Dyamadopoulos – Theodore Hass Angelidos Wassil – Alfred Petry – Heinrich Heering – August Janecke – Hugo Charwarte – Youssef Elias Paul Schmidt – Panayotis Litses – Walter Busch – Georg Estlinbauer – Ahmed Djemal Salahi – Arthur Alber n – Heinrich K Lorey – Osman Santina – Elias Aristidi – Adalis – Simo Tane – Yani Hadji – Wilhelm E Schült aldemar Robert Worm – George Abarietis – Paul von Schapringer – Max Dietz – Mustafa Djemal Eddin – Micha ssein Oglu- Albrecht Leitler – Abdul Rahman Mustafa – Hassan Yesseinoglou – August Handel – Hassan Alioglo eodore Johann Rudolph – Wilhelm Vester – Stratis Kadardjis – Louis Ortali – Edward Pollak – Johan Buria an M Poe – Jemel bin Ibrahim – Walter Müller – Salim Razian – Hermann Keil – Anno Weber – Wilhelm C. Breu dörfer – Mohammed Abdel Hamid el Nahas – Theodor Thorgersen – Omar Isham el Din – Hans Vohs – Yahia Ali – Adam Lockemann – Robert Blattner – Carlo Tuchtan – Ludwig Dahl – Emil Walter – Hans F Hansen – Mohamm eisinger – Roland Otto – Ali Atif Khalil – Josef P Kosec – Anton Sigovic – Friedrich Kelle – Khalil Wah Osman Ibrahim – Martin Marc – Simeone Hromic – Ibn Hassan Effendi Bekir – Enrico Lein – Kornelius Nagel ky – Arthur JH Foeke – Khalil Iboush – Antonio Drazevich – Henry Poessl – Mohammed Tewfik Haggiar stantine Angelou Malu – Paul Vollmann – Franz J Mühr – Gibril Mohammed Awad – Hans Imboden – Karl Lange aul Beihls – MirkoHabulinovich – Amerigo Stebel – Mario Spengler – Matteo I Glavan – Ali bin Ismail Mehm Oman – Giovanni Picenich – Johann Kloppel – Venzislav Spazapa – Thabet Farag el Girgawi – Anton Lelonnek ahar – Mehmed bin Jemil – Heinrich Siekermann – Richard Fischer – Ernest Melville Singer – Kemak bin Kaim istos D Maltéryos – Reinhold Lindner – Sherif Eddin bin Shewkat – Ismail Hakki Eff bin Mousa – Adolf Krugg Abbas Hilmi – Arthur Friedrich – Mari Flacruner – Konrad Feihle – Rudolf Johann Slomka – Carl Frederi erick Bohn – Ralph Wahle – Carl Krumbholz – Ernest A Nolkmann – Joanis Mideltses Tchirou – Antonio Pelliz nke – Fritz Meinke – Halil Patychakis – Alexander Bergamasco – Bernard Henschke – Ernst Wagemann – Wilhel lm M Paulat – Alfred Burkart – Abdi bin Ali – Emil Michel Bechir – Rudolf Bartz – Bekir Oglu –Mohamm Christian Bleibler – Toofan Shabaan – Marie Weis – Vincent Franko – Shaueh Zia – Alfonso Pleimes – Freidric – Stamatz Toyan – Rudolf E Heilig – Fritz Backhouse – Erwin Kettmer – John Steckwell – Ohawish Ahmed Khali – Henri Pollak – Otto R Bohm – Karl Hackmayer – August Knittel – Franz Wilhelm Wurst – Carl Acker – Moham ndt – Fritz Lochau – Edward Kumpmann – Tomaso Govercin – Ahmed Ziaeddin – Otto Werner – Hermann W Rahn b Rosenberg – Hans Hermanus – Franz Pröll – Robert Ruhmer – Fritz Wagner – Wilhelm Albright – Hadji Hussei ar Kreichgauer – Alexander Paul – Hans Gappa – Saadi Nejdet – Mohammed Shavki Ibrahim – Gotz F von Rabena emann – Franz Egeren – Otto Alex Busch – Hussein Beikam – Richard Giersch – Hassan el Siss – Muheiddin A Said Edhem – Ernst Friedericks – Alfred Korbling – Joseph Augsten – Ahmed Hamdi Sherrif – Johannes Steinbor G Kuhl – Fritz Schultz – Johann Köhler – Yorgui Kandilar – Ivan Adolf Cadez – Franz R Luck – August Gar bid – Hermann H Heide – Ruggero Mazzalore – Walter Klaar – Lothar Audli – Joseph Bosh – Freidrich Krutzfel hs – Paul Regnann – Hermann EK Ohlberg – Walter CW Ising – Karl F Metze – Karl Eichorn – Friedrich Rölle Woller – Ghulan Mohamed – Ahmed Karamedin – Mohammed Tahir Hussein – Karl Berner – Georg Ratzmann – Rin Doenitz – Moustafa Tsaous Alioglou – Richard Wilke – Karl Koppitz – Heinrich Jurmel – Dourmoush Osmanoglo

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