A considerable number of Maltese nationals were stranded, or opted to remain, in Italy when war with the UK broke out at midnight of June 10-11, 1940.

That was my fourth birthday, embellished by air raids, bombs, fires, explosions and searchlights. I was scared. My mother cuddled me in her arms. “Afraid? Those are fireworks for your birthday,” she fibbed maternally.

The fate, often the tragedy, of the Maltese caught up in Italy has received some attention, but I am not aware of a major work dedicated exclusively to those complex human vicissitudes. After the end of the war, 17 of the Maltese in Italy were arrested for conspiracy and treason against the British Crown and brought over to face trial in Malta.

For 12, the prosecution demanded the death penalty. Had it been successful, Malta would have witnessed the greatest mass executions since the revolt of the slaves in 1749 when over a hundred conspirators suffered the extreme punishment.

Relations between Malta and Italy had not, before the Victorian era, generally been problematic. Sicily, geographically closest, had for centuries ensured the survival of Malta through its massive export of food. Culturally, all that influenced the cores of Maltese lives had been effortlessly Italian, be it law, literature, art, music, religion, theatre, medicine, cuisine, entertainment or commerce. The inhabitants spoke Maltese, but those who could, wrote Italian – not through any forced political dictat, but because history then offered no alternative.

This started changing halfway through the British occupation. The majority of Maltese were rejecting any coerced British influence – few cared to use the language, fewer cared for the monarch’s religion, British currency was boycotted, interaction between the Maltese and the British settlers was generally nil – indifference on both sides, verging on hostility.

The rulers could resort to no well-tried template to deal with that. Malta was about the only colony that enjoyed a superior European and Christian culture well before the empire-builders set foot on it. The British power-structures that found it easy to control Africa, Asia and Australia, where the colonisers had not come across any vibrant European culture to resist their impositions, failed to export properly to a vassal State that had thrived in a robust Western civilisation long before the colonisers themselves.

British politicians started perceiving the historical Maltese immersion in Italianate culture as the major obstacle to the ‘anglicisation’ of the islands. So long as the Maltese identified and hung on to another major culture, they would find the strength to resist. Deculture them, sever their traditional roots and the progress of a stifling colonisation would turn far easier.

This challenge, together with the nascent spirit of nationalism sweeping Europe in the 19th century, explains the splits in Maltese feelings towards Italy and the Italian language from the late 19th century to the outbreak of World War II. The British eventually erased Italian, but only by imposed colonial legislation. Italian was banned from the educational system, from official communication and from the courts.

By the beginning of the 20th century, those Maltese who had a political opinion at all, subdivided into at least three groupings. There was the ardently pro-colonial faction, who identified with its leaders Sir Gerald Strickland and Augustus Bartolo. These supported the anglicisation, and the cultural de-Italianisation of Malta.

Their opponents, the Mizzi Nationalists, the Panzavecchia moderates and the Dimechians, again subdivided. They all opposed the anglicisation of Malta, but with different nuances and finalities. By far the majority, in favour of the preservation of Italian culture, had no interest at all in a change of flag. But there were also fringe extremists who believed that Malta was Italian and should form part of the kingdom of Italy – the irredentisti.

With the advent of fascism in 1922, the majority of the Maltese irredentisti, though not all, supported fascism, but they were marginal in numbers. The opposite was not necessarily true: the official Maltese fascist party, for instance, was not pro-Italian. It launched the motto: Malta first and foremost, later lifted by the Labour Party.

Malta then lacked infrastructure, industries, entrepreneurial initiative, but had no dearth of rabid extremists on either side of the divide. The pro-British-empire Maltese diehards and the pro-Italian-culture Maltese fanatics confronted each other, no quarters asked or given.

With the outbreak of World War II, when fascist Italy joined Nazi Germany in its assault on western democracies, then represented by the UK, the political panorama in Malta changed drastically. Few still bothered to draw a distinction between attachment to Italian cultural traditions and the Italian bombers now raining death and dynamite on the Maltese. That resulted, throughout Malta, in an irreversible divorce from any pro-Italian sympathies.

Not so among the Maltese who found themselves, willingly or unwillingly, trapped in Italy when war broke out. These were mostly students in Italian universities or academies, persons of mixed parentage, those with a job in Italy, Maltese in religious orders posted in Italian convents and others. Some bravely refused to cooperate with the fascists and ended in internment camps for the duration of the war. Others tried to survive, willingly or reluctantly contributing to the Italian war effort.

Before the war, the Italian fascist government had set up a Deputazione per la storia di Malta, an eminently cultural organisation to promote research into Maltese history. Although never straying far from its political premise that Malta was historically part of Italy, the Deputazione came up with some superb work, the very first consistently serious historical studies of the highest professional standards focused on the Maltese islands. Its journal, the Archivio Storico di Malta, set high standards for future historical research.

Just before the outbreak of war, on June 7, 1940, the Deputazione morphed into the far more overtly political Comitato d’azione maltese, whose aims were to foster unity among the pro-Italian Maltese in Italy and assist them in any needs and spread the ideal of irredentismo through culture and propaganda. The majority of the Maltese caught up in Italy joined, not without some arm-twisting or outright financial bribery.

The Comitato had its headquarters in the Palazzo Antici-Mattei, Via Michelangelo Caetani, no 32, Rome, but eventually also opened branches in Milan, Florence, Ge­noa and Sicily. It started publishing a weekly newspaper, the Malta, which is said to have had a circulation of 30,000 copies throughout Italy. Complete collections of this weekly are today of the ut­most rarity. I am only aware of one!

The leading animators of the Comitato were essentially two: the Italian Umberto Biscottini and the Maltese professor Carlo Mallia. Biscottini (1901-1961), an ardent fascist, secretary of the Fascio di combattimento di Malta ‘VII Giugno 1919’, author of the book Colore di Malta, dedicated his life to promote the cause of irredentism in Corsica and Malta. Mallia (1891-1960), from Gozo, an academic jurist and a dazzling professor of commercial law at the University of Malta, had distinguished himself in extreme nationalist politics, never hiding his strong beliefs in the Italian cultural destiny of Malta, and later, his ardour for fascism and the unification of Malta and Italy.

Mallia and my father Vincenzo were dismissed from their jobs, at the University and the Museum of Fine Arts respectively, on January 5, 1937. Finding himself bereft of any possibility of providing for his family, Mallia left for Italy, where he joined the Fascist Party, became the first Maltese MP in the Italian Parliament and the promoter of the Comitato d’azione. That their dismissal from their jobs resulted from a mix-up was unknown. Immediately after Governor Charles Bonham-Carter, with UK Cabinet clearance, fired them, he received an urgent telegram from the Colonial Office with orders to hold back.

Sever their traditional roots, and the progress of a stifling colonisation would turn far easier

Too late! They had already been dismissed and Bonham-Carter did not see how to back out without losing face. A mistake that changed the whole course of so many lives. It was Prof. Dominic Fenech who discovered this awkward counter-order and kindly showed it to me. Bonham-Carter suppresses this episode in his memoirs, though he does lament his inability to find any evidence to nail Vincenzo Bonello with.

The propaganda activities of the Comitato d’azione included the printing of postcards with a Malta theme and other publicity material. I knew of a series of posters, but had never come across any of them. Recently I managed to acquire eight originals. They must be exceedingly rare – most ephemera are, posters and leaflets particularly so. They generally end ditched after serving their purpose. I am illustrating these eight posters, which I believe have never been shown before. They are printed in black and white, with olive-green embellishments. I am not aware who the graphic designer was – certainly someone well versed in a minimalist modern idiom.

Their contents are invariably anti-British and ‘irredentist’, but in a rather bookish, non-emotional sort of way. The majority reproduce sayings by others confirming Malta’s Italianità – all selected by a historian, not by a skilful manipulator of public opinion who would have emphasised what material advantages for the inhabitants a union with Italy would offer. For those not fluent in Italian, there are translations of the texts under each poster featured with this article.

The Comitato d’azione remains linked to two highly traumatic events which echoed in Malta around the war years. The first was the spy mission undertaken by Carmelo Borg Pisani, an art student in Rome and a dynamic member of the Comitato. He was persuaded to cross over by submarine from Sicily to Malta to radio information back to Italy. The plan, doomed to failure, ended in his almost immediate capture.

Carlo Mallia is generally blamed for having egged on the young fana­tic irredentista to undertake the im­possible mission. A reliable source proves the contrary. It was Biscottini who spurred Borg Pisani. Mal­lia only came to know of the top-secret plan on the very eve of the undertaking. He freaked and did his utmost to dissuade Borg Pisani.

The young painter was a devout Catholic, and Mallia played the religious card – volunteering for a venture that would result in certain death amounted to suicide, a mortal sin for believers. This shook Borg Pisani, who went for spiritual advice to a Maltese priest. Sadly, this priest, who “did not shine with intelligence and courage” ruled out the suicide sanction and strengthened Borg Pisani’s resolution.

The starry-eyed idealist landed in Malta and was executed for treason on November 23, 1942. This episode caused a major rift between Mallia and Biscottini in the Comitato d’azione. The Comitato dissolved in June 1943 and was absorbed by the Institute for Fascist Culture.

The second trauma arose from the treason and conspiracy trials of 17 Maltese adherents to the Comitato, captured in Italy after the end of the war and tried in Malta. They all had families and friends on the island. The prosecution demanded the death penalty for 12 of them. The trials gripped Malta in unprecedented suspense, with the pro-British faction rooting for their execution and the anti-colonialists holding their breath for their acquittal. The jurors, often unanimous, returned verdicts of not guilty and set them all free.

The 17 identified as nationalists, if on the more extreme fringe of the spectrum. An irony of those trials was that the chief prosecutor, Dr William Buhagiar, was the son of the second Nationalist Prime Minister of Malta. And the address to the jury most hostile to the prisoners, was delivered by the Chief Justice, Sir Luigi Camilleri, a former Nationalist Member of Parliament. They both argued strongly for the execution of the accused. It was their fatal duty.