FORT ST ELMO - MALTA. A BRIEF HISTORY

Author: Michael Ellul

Publisher: Progress Press Malta

Year published: 1988

Pagination: 71pp illustrations

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Good. Cover creased with a small graze. Fort St Elmo lies on the Valletta peninsula. The present fort, built in 1552 by the Knights of the Order of St John, played an important part in the Great Siege of 1565. It was continuously strengthened by the Knights, but fell to Napoleon's troops, after the surrender of Malta to the French in 1798. After the French withdrawal, the Fort became one of the main outpost of the harbour fortifications becoming the headquarters of the Royal Malta Artillery, and in July 1941 it's guns completely repulsed an attack by Italian E-boats and midget submarines against a newly-arrived convoy in harbour. The fort is now, partly, a Police Academy and houses also the Malta War Museum.