Commemorations are being held in Gallipoli, Turkey, today, to mark the centenary since the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula, which saw Malta earn its reputation as the 'Nurse of the Mediterranean'.
The ultimate aim of the campaign was the occupation of Constantinople (Istanbul) forcing Turkey out of the war. But the campaign was poorly planned and executed, becoming a spectacular failure for the allies.
The allied landings were carried out mostly by Australians and New Zealand troops (since known as Anzacs) along with British and French soldiers. They landed on a narrow stretch of land right into a hail of machinegun fire by a prepared enemy.
The campaign continued for more than nine months before the allies withdrew. As the casualties mounted, thousands were brought to Malta in a fleet of hospital ships.
At the outset of the war Malta had four military hospitals - in Valletta, St Julian's Mtarfa and Cottonera, along with facilities at Bighi and Fort Chambray in Gozo.
The first batch of 600 injured soldiers were brought here on May 4, 1915 and hundreds more followed within days. A number of doctors and nurses were also brought in from the UK but they could hardly cope as schools and other buildings were taken over by the military and hastily converted into hospitals. New buildings were also erected - including Australia Hall.
There were over 30 medical establishments dotted across Malta by the time the campaign was over.
Emergency facilities in Floriana.58,000 injured soldiers were brought to Malta in less than a year. Some 1,500 died and are buried here - Australians, New Zealanders, Britons, French, Indians, Egyptians and Turks.
Some 800 Maltese labourers also served under Maltese officers in Gallipoli, and a number of them lost their lives there.
Malta played a similar role as that of Gallipoli when the allied forces launched the Salonika campaign, with landings on the northern Greek coast in 1915 in an attempt to relieve Serbian forces fighting the Bulgarian army. Some 78,000 injured soldiers were eventually brought to Malta for medical care.
Maltese veteran said almost nothing to his 14 children about time in Gallipoli
Henry Gatt grew up hearing nothing of his father’s distinguished World War I service because “he didn’t brag”, and so took it upon himself to try and find out something about the part he played.
“He never shared stories with me about the war. He wasn’t pompous. In fact he was very humble. I suppose I would have known nothing if it weren’t for a few military dispatches,” Major Gatt, 92, said.
He was speaking to Times of Malta 100 years after his father, Alfred Gatt, left Malta for Egypt to join the British forces in Gallipoli as part of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Gallipoli.
It was not likely he was on the front lines, but he played an integral part in the supply and running of equipment on the battleground.
He was one of four Maltese to be awarded the Military Cross “for distinguished service in the field” and led a long military career which at one point saw him appointed commander of the fixed defences in Malta, with the rank of Brigadier. Major Gatt, however, said that although his father had eventually been buried with full military honours, he had shared close to nothing of his exploits with him, or any of his 13 siblings, even in the many years after the war.
The Sacra Infermeria - now the Mediterranean Conference Centre.
Australia Hall, a reminder of Malta's involvement in the Gallipoli campaign, left to fall into ruin in a sad indictment of Malta's collective memory.