The outbreak of World War I in 1914 had cataclysmic repercussions worldwide. Among its minor effects was the disturbance of the traditional balances of power in the Mediterranean. The French and the British, together with Russia (the Entente Powers) fought on the same side of the lethal divide, against the Germans, the Austro-Hungarians and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers). The Mediterranean had, over the years, grown to be the barely-contested domain of the British fleet, the most powerful naval power in the world. All that was to change drastically with the outbreak of hostilities. Agreeing to a plea by the French naval high command, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, told the French “use Malta as if it were Toulon”.

The British and the French admiralties assented to a unified command of the joint fleets. The two navies intended to cooperate closely, and to achieve this, they deemed a joint command indispensable. A British admiral was to be supremo of the two navies in the North Sea, but a French admiral was to be commander-in-chief of the British and French fleets in the Mediterranean. The two great navies first sailed under the orders of Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, later under Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet, and finally under Admiral Dominique-Marie Gauchet.

WWI postcard showing French and British seamen waving their national banner.WWI postcard showing French and British seamen waving their national banner.

How this arrangement worked, or failed to, is not the subject of this article. The joint fleets became the symbol of public unity and of private discord. The British navy, though under French command, could not and did not, overnight, forget its traditions, its pride, its prejudices and its achievements. Collaboration turned into awkward cohabitation, perhaps better marked by mutual distrust than by reciprocal respect.

The French Mediterranean fleet destined Grand Harbour as its base for the duration of the war, though it frequently repaired to Corfu and other venues too. It made its spectacular entrance in Malta on August 11, 1914 – as magnificent as Napoleon’s sally into Malta in 1798. The Maltese harbour was where its great battleships, its cruisers, its destroyers and flotillas mostly berthed when not engaged in action. Thousands of French officers and sailors swarmed all over the harbour towns – a boon for business – lodging, taverns, eateries, entertainment, whoring, theatres, clubs – and for postcard publishers too: hundreds of new cards were circulated, targeting specifically the French naval forces.

But the massive French presence also raised problems of discipline and control. Going through official documents one gets the impression that overall the French crews in Malta behaved reasonably well, and that by far the majority were not trouble-makers – noticeably less than British sailors, anyway.

I have written elsewhere about the broader lines of policies and the effects of the French stay in Malta during WW1, and I need not repeat my findings and observations. Hosting the navies of France and of Japan became one of the principal functions thrust on Malta during the hostilities. Here I am concerned with some smaller fragments of history arising from the French presence in Malta, episodes that hardly changed the course of mankind, but equally left faint traces in the records. The National Archives in Santu Spirtu, Rabat, preserve plenty of the documents that help make up the larger picture, but also those lesser incidents that somehow managed to find minor immortality between the covers of yellowing files.

Special poster stamp issued for use by the French forces stationed in Malta in WWI.Special poster stamp issued for use by the French forces stationed in Malta in WWI.

It is with these that I am concerned today. Keep in mind that those who behave – the great majority – fail to leave imprints in the chronicles. Scoundrels usually have more strident claims to fame – or infamy. Considering the thousands of French matelots who daily roamed the streets of Valletta and the Three Cities when their navy was in Malta, I would say that their behaviour on land was almost exemplary and hence unremarkable. The opposite would have been quite appropriate: much of the boozing, pimping and whoring in Valletta centred around Triq il-Franċiżi, so called because it abutted on that section of the fortifications called French Curtain by the Knights of Malta. But French naval personnel hardly figure, if at all, in what went on in the sleazier red light districts.

With a few exceptions. Some scuffled among themselves, some with the locals, others still, with their British colleagues, though French and British servicemen often posed for joint souvenir photographs in Malta, waving the Union Jack and the Tricolore – I’ve seen dozens of them.

On March 19, 1916, a Maltese boatman and his son came to blows with French seamen they were ferrying across Grand Harbour to the torpedo ship Temeraire. Samwel and Spiru Zammit of Cospicua were taking some French sailors back to their vessel. The seamen offered French coins to pay their fare, but the boatmen wanted British currency “whereupon one of the Frenchmen assaulted him and commenced to strike him”.

When a deportation order is made against an alien, the alien was entitled to proceed to any country he wished

They called out for help, and two other boatmen, Pietru Miranda and Rafel Busuttil, both from Vittoriosa, approached. The latter’s passenger, Jules la Galliotte, jumped into the other boat and the three Frenchmen started hitting Zammit, causing him some injuries. Meanwhile, a patrol boat belonging to the battleship Paris approached and witnessed la Galliotte knocking Zammit into the sea, where he chose the safer option of swimming ashore as fast as he could.

This, at least, was what the Maltese reported to the police. Superintendent Ruggier Lapira did not appear at all convinced. He minuted that criminal action should be taken – against the Maltese boatman – and that the French sailors be invited to the police station to record their versions of the events.

Another police file refers vaguely to a “disturbance caused by a French sailor at Cospicua” on March 22, 1916. The inspector minuted that “an agreement has lately been entered into between the British and French government that sailors of their respective navies committing a civil offence, whether on British or French soil, are to be dealt with by their respective authorities”. This had always been an area of contention for British and French commanders and politicians. Some were eager to hold on to their own nationals, virtuous or delinquents; exceptionally, others went to the other extreme – shove the rotten apples to your ally.

British and French sailors in Malta pose together for a souvenir photo in WWI.British and French sailors in Malta pose together for a souvenir photo in WWI.

A case in point happened early on in the war. The captain of the French man-of-war Musqueton had two bluejackets who had committed crimes when the ship was in Malta. He formally requested permission for them to serve their prison term in the Corradino facility – 90 days detention with hard labour. This request gave rise to a bureaucratic quandary: could Malta’s civil prisons house people who had not been condemned by the Maltese courts? The relative file shows that no one really knew the answer. The problem solved itself when the offenders joined the French fleet on active service – file thankfully put away.

Another problem not envisaged in the early agreements between Britain and France regarded deserters – more specifically, French military deserters in Malta. Joseph Jules Jonquet had grabbed the first occasion to abandon armed service without permission and was awaiting his fate in Malta. The French consul requested the government “that steps be taken for the expulsion from these islands of Joseph Jules Jonquet, a French subject, guilty of military desertion”. The consul quoted in support the fact that the British government had consented to expel from the United Kingdom, at the request of the French authorities, French deserters found in the UK, with a view of their being placed at the disposal of the French government. If French deserters could be expelled from the UK, why not from Malta?

This prised open a legal Pandora’s box. Was this the equivalent to a request for extradition? Was military desertion an extraditable offence? Some fine lateral thinking by the Crown Advocate went into the solution. Military desertion, in present times (in war, and against an ally), was such an offence as to render the presence in these islands of the alien deserter absolutely undesirable. “Besides revealing the contemptible spirit of one who refuses his services to the mother country at a time when his fellow countrymen have shown to the world what a state and a people can do when their country is in danger”, desertion is in contravention of the laws of the deserter’s country. And a person who is in contempt of the laws of his own country cannot give any guarantee that he will respect those of a foreign one. Such an unreliable person “renders the presence of such an alien deserter in a fortress like Malta altogether objectionable from a defence point of view”. Therefore there was no doubt that Jacquot could be expelled from Malta as an undesirable alien.

But the French consul had asked for more than that: not only expulsion, but that Jacquot be handed over to the French authorities – to take all the steps necessary for him to be embarked and whisked off to France.

The French battleship Paris in Grand Harbour in WWI.The French battleship Paris in Grand Harbour in WWI.

At this, Governor Paul Methuen drew a very firm line. He unquestionably had the power to deport the deserter from the island, but had no authority to send an alien from Malta to another country where he had no wish to go. “When a deportation order is made against an alien, the alien was entitled to proceed to any country he wished”. Enlightened thinking based on quoted British case law prevalent 100 years ago, and today rather overlooked in the forced repatriation of asylum seekers.

This is not the only instance in which disloyalty, spying and treason feature. On February 14, 1917, Edgar Bonavia, Chief Secretary to Government and Acting Lieutenant Governor, issued an Ordonnance du Gouvernement in French in which he referred to the Malta Defence Regulations in virtue of which it was forbidden to give information to the enemy or convey intelligence regarding shipping movements, or naval or military matters.

The Governor, Bonavia added, wished to draw attention to the fact that strangers should not be trusted in conversation or correspondence and that a chance word thoughtlessly spoken or a scrap of paper carelessly mislaid “pouvant servir la cause ennemie et avoir des suites désastreuses”. Bonavia ordered the ordonnance be put up in “hotels, canteens, bars, Customs House, lift, trams, trains and ships”. The government issued the same ordonnance in English, Italian and Maltese.

Shortly before all this, the police had to deal with another report of a non-violent crime. Wigi Cassar, ta’ Nune, of Żejtun, reported that some French officers and sailors had trespassed through his fields in ta’ Qajjenza, limits of Birżebbugia, damaging his crops of green clover. The police investigated and established that the culprits served on the French warships Paris and Vérité. Cassar, very moderately, claimed £1 compensation.

On February 22, 1917, a serious brawl (described in the police files as “a collision”) occurred between French sailors and Maltese civilians. Twenty-year-old Carmela Grech, who lived at 103, Strada Stella (Manderaggio?) Valletta, was passing through St Nicholas Street, at 5.30am, when she came across four French sailors of the torpedo ship Mameluck. Edgard Berthelot, the more enterprising of them, put his arm around her. She started calling him names, some not really flattering, like ħanżir and cochon. The sailor made a motion as if to slap her face, but stopped short of hitting her. Some Maltese civilians gathered around him and rained blows on the dysfunctional seducer.

The clueless Tommaso Farrugia got what he deserved: serves him right for neglecting to have the right friends in the right places

Police Constable 380 G. Mifsud intervened and escorted Berthelot towards Strait Street, where they came across another French sailor, Jules Ticidet. The Frenchmen talked between themselves, and then made a concerted rush at the Maltese who had gathered. Berthelot drew a knife and slashed at the constable, “but luckily failed to reach him”. Ġorġ Fiteni, Salvu Borg, ta’ Laudin, and Ġanni Demanuele were not so lucky: they all ended cut up with knife wounds “of a slight nature”.

The Frenchman bolted down Old Bakery Street, still brandishing his knife, but encountered PC 357 Cachia, who “pluckily knocked the man to the ground and held his hand firmly against the said ground” until more people arrived and together they disarmed the culprit. The other seamen ran as fast as they could, with a crowd of Maltese baying at their heels. They headed to the Main Guard for safety. On their way to sanctuary, George Zammit, il-Pisui, fearing he would miss being mentioned in dispatches, punched Ticidet violently in the face.

Since the Mameluck was leaving harbour the following day, the authorities released the other sailors at 8pm, while the police handed over Berthelot to the Naval Patrol as per agreements between the two navies, and forwarded the file to the French naval officials. The police reports use almost impeccable English; Dr G.A. Frendo, the acting District Medical Officer, wrote the medical certificates in Italian, just as perfectly.

Considering the thousands of young Frenchmen let loose on Malta throughout all the years of the war, these delinquencies appear statistically insignificant, both in numbers and in gravity. Those who remember the boisterous, often bellicose behaviour of British servicemen in and around the Gut in Valletta, Balzunetta in Floriana and the Gżira front, will be scandalised by this Gallic restraint and this boring rejection of violence and high spirits.

Postcard printed for the French navy stationed in Malta in WWI. All images from the author’s collection.Postcard printed for the French navy stationed in Malta in WWI. All images from the author’s collection.

Maltese businessmen soon sensed there was some good money waiting to be made off those thousands of French service personnel let loose on the island. Cabaret, theatre and cinemas siezed the occasion – a sudden demand for French artistes. Giuseppe Vella and Michele Saguna, owners of the Alhambra Music Hall and Theatre, at 258, Strada Reale, Valletta (in the old Auberge d’Auvergne now taken over by the law courts) petitioned the Lt Governor to be allowed to bring to Malta two French artistes to perform in their music hall. These foreign xantusi could also be the paragons of impeccable virtue, but one can’t discount exceptions. The government allowed the owners to engage Marie Antoinette Fuilette and Augustine Apiciel, though they had to deposit £20 with the police as pledge for the good behaviour of the ladies.

Frenchmen loved their pint of wine, though little evidence survives that the majority drank to oblivion or made nuisances of themselves. But Tommaso Farrugia, who ran a restaurant in No 143, St Lucia Street, Valletta, met with an absolute prohibition to serve wine or beer to French naval ratings. On February 1, 1917, he petitioned the Secretary to the Government, in very curly handwriting, “to be allowed (if possible) to supply wine or beer to the French navy after dinner or supper supplied by himself”. The latest regulations banned restaurants from serving wine or beer, with the consequence that “his restaurant business is decreasing daily”.

The wretched Farrugia met with no sympathy at all. All the government bureaucrats who handled his file signed “refuse”. They well knew that they had recently allowed an exception to the Hotel d’Angleterre, also in St Lucia Street, corner with Strait Street, open since 1856, where resident French officers were entitled to be served one pint of wine each with their meals. But that was at the request of the French naval authorities, and the exemption targeted named officers. The Superintendent of Police minuted with undisguised gusto that “I do not see any reason why this application should be granted”. The clueless Tommaso Farrugia got what he deserved: serves him right for neglecting to have the right friends in the right places.

Acknowledgement
This feature would not have been possible without the input of Leonard Callus at the National Archives. He has all my gratitude.

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