History[edit]
By 1417, the local militia had already established a permanent watch post on the tip of the Sciberras Peninsula.
[1] In 1488, the
Aragonese built a watchtower on Saint Elmo Point, and it was dedicated to
Erasmus of Formia, better known as Saint Elmo. In 1533, the
Order of Saint John reinforced the tower due to its
strategiclocation.
[2] In 1551, an
Ottoman raid occurred in which the Turkish fleet sailed into
Marsamxett Harbourunopposed. Due to this, it was decided that a major expansion was necessary, and in 1552 the tower was demolished and a new
star fort began to be built. It was designed by four Italian architects and had a cavalier, a covertway and a tenaille. A ravelin was hastily constructed months before the 1565 siege.
In 1565, the
Ottomans invaded Malta once again with much more force than in 1551, in the
Great Siege of Malta. Fort Saint Elmo was the scene of some of the most intense fighting of this siege, and it withstood massive
bombardment from Turkish
cannon deployed on Mount Sciberras that overlooked the fort and from batteries on the north arm of Marsamextt Harbour, the present site of
Fort Tigné. The initial garrison of the fort was around one hundred and fifty knights and six hundred soldiers, the majority of which were
Spanish, and sixty armed galley slaves. The garrison could be reinforced by boat from the forts across the
Grand Harbour at
Birgu and
Senglea.
During the bombardment of the fort, a cannon misfired and hit the top of its parapet, sending shards in all directions. Debris from the impact killed the gunner and mortally injured the
corsair and Ottoman admiral
Turgut Reis, one of the most competent of the Ottoman commanders. The fort withstood the siege for 28 days, falling to the Turks on 23 June 1565. None of the defending knights survived, and only nine of the Maltese defenders survived by swimming across to Fort St. Angelo on the other side of the Grand Harbour after Fort St Elmo fell. The long siege bought much needed time for the preparation of the other two fortresses and the arrival of reinforcements from Spain, which drove the Ottomans off of Malta in a bloody massacre.
After the siege, Grandmaster
Jean Parisot de Valette decided to build a new city on the peninsula. Construction started in 1566, and
Francesco Laparelli was sent by the Pope to design the fortifications. The ruined Fort Saint Elmo was rebuilt and integrated within the city walls.
The Carafa Enceinte. The towers on top of the bastions are concrete coastal defences built in World War II.
The fort was modified a number of times in the 17th century. The Vendome Bastion was built in 1614, and in 1687 the Carafa Enceinte was built on the foreshore surrounding the entire fort. In the late 17th century, the fort was directly linked to the cavalier and part of the ditch was filled in burying some of the original ramparts in the process.
[3] In the 18th century, a new polverista was built in the Vendome Bastion,
[1] and stores were built in the area between the main fort and the Carafa Enceinte. These are known as Pinto Stores and they and the surrounding area form what is known as Lower Saint Elmo.
[4]
On 8 September 1775, Fort Saint Elmo was captured by 13 rebel priests along with
Saint James Cavalier in what became known as the
Revolt of the Priests. The Order's flag was lowered and a banner of Saint Paul was raised instead. The Order managed to recapture St Elmo so the rebels in control of St James surrendered as well. Eventually the rebels were tried and three were executed while the others were exiled or imprisoned. The heads of the three executed men were displayed on the corners of St James Cavalier, but were removed soon after
Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc was elected Grandmaster in November of the same year.
[5]
The fort was once again modified in the early 19th century by the British, when a musketry parapet was built. In 1855, the polverista at Vendome Bastion was converted into an armoury, and some small arms from the
Palace Armoury were transferred there. In the 1870s, more works were done on Abercrombie's Bastion. In 1917, the first heart operation to be performed on a soldier was done at St Elmo.
[6] In the interwar period gun emplacements were built to house new twin 6-pounder QF guns.
[1]
The fort was the site of the first aerial bombardment of Malta on 11 June 1940. Among the people that were in the fort during the air raid was the military doctor
Ċensu Tabone, who later became President of Malta. He survived the attack, but six others were killed in the same air raid.
[7]
On 26 July 1941, the Italians launched a seaborne attack on the Grand Harbour with two
human torpedoes, four
MAS boats and six
MT boats. The force was detected early on by a British radar facility, and the coastal artillery at Saint Elmo opened fire when the Italians approached to close range. In the attack, 15 men were killed and 18 captured, and all the human torpedoes and MT boats, along with two of the MAS boats were lost. One of the MT boats hit Saint Elmo Bridge, which linked the breakwater with the tip of the peninsula near the fort, and the bridge collapsed. The bridge was never restored, and it was only in 2012 that a new one was built in its place with a similar but different design.
[8]
Parts of the fort were severely damaged during the war and some scars of the bombing can still be seen to this day. The
Royal Malta Artillery left the fort on 26 March 1972, ending its long military history. Parts of the fort subsequently fell in disuse.
Present day[edit]
Main entrance to the fort.
In Guardia parade at St Elmo
The
World Monuments Fund placed the fort on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world because of its significant deterioration due to factors such as lack of maintenance and security, natural aging, and exposure to the elements. Since 2009 major restoration works began,
[9] and as of 2014 the restoration of Upper Saint Elmo and the Carafa Enciente was nearly complete.
[10][11] Restoration work was completed in 2015.
[12] Lower Saint Elmo has not yet been restored, but it is being cleaned from the waste that accumulated over the years.
[13]
From 1975, part of the fort housed the
National War Museum, which contained military equipment and other things related to World War I and II. A replica of the
George Cross that was
awarded to
Malta by King
George VI in April 1942, was also on display in this museum.
[14] The museum closed in September 2014, and its collections are to be integrated into the new Military History Museum, which will be located in another part of Fort Saint Elmo.
[15]
Since the mid-20th century, Fort Saint Elmo has also housed Malta's police academy. Other parts of the fort are used for
In Guardia and
Alarme military reenactments.
[16]
While the fort was being restored, some archaeological excavations were made and various elements of the original pre-1565 fort were uncovered. This was an important find because very little remains of the original fort exist, mainly since most of it was rebuilt by Laparelli in 1566 and it underwent a lot of renovation between the 17th and 19th centuries.
[3]
In popular culture[edit]
- Lower Saint Elmo was used as a film location for the Turkish jail in the 1978 film Midnight Express.[17]
- The fort is mentioned in the 1980 thriller novel Man on Fire by A. J. Quinnell. The main character Creasy trained with the AFM inside the fort.
- Fort Saint Elmo was featured on Maltese stamps in 1980 and 2003, and on a UNESCO stamp in 1981.
- Popular Maltese folk band Etnika gave three concerts on 31 July, 1 and 2 August 2003 named Bumbum, that drew thousands of revellers to listen to modern Maltese folk music.
- In the popular real time strategy game released in 2005, Age of Empires III, the first level's task is defend a fort on Malta against the Ottomans, which appears to be Fort St. Elmo.
- The first part of the music video of the 2008 song Vodka by the Gozitan singer Morena was filmed at Lower Saint Elmo (the same part of the fort that was used for Midnight Express).
- The fort is also mentioned in the 2014 Honorverse novel Cauldron of Ghosts by David Weber and Eric Flint, as part of a list of 'last stands' throughout history.
References[edit]
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