Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/11579
Title: Servants of Empire : the Maltese in the Royal Navy
Authors: Vassallo, Carmel
Keywords: Great Britain. Royal Navy -- History -- 19th century
Great Britain.Royal Navy -- History -- 20th century
Sailors, Maltese
Issue Date: 2006
Citation: Vassallo, Carmel. (2006). "Servants of Empire : the Maltese in the Royal Navy". Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 16(1/2), p. 273-289
Abstract: The British Empire was dependent on the collaboration of key sections of the governed. In India, for example, this involved local potentates, the many tiers of bureaucracy below senior British civil servants, and ultimately, the locally-raised sepoys, or Indian soldiers, who outnumbered British troops in India by nearly two to one. Malta does not fit easily into the wider phenomenon of colonialism. It was essentially a fortress colony and Britain was able to muster support from a wide range of sectors including uniformed personnel in local regiments and the Royal Navy but while the British Army had a long established tradition of recruiting locals for service in native regiments, the Royal Navy relied overwhelmingly on British manpower to staff its first line of defence afloat, at least in the Contemporary period. The Maltese were one of the exceptions. At the height of empire, between 1891 and 1931, the Maltese may have constituted between five and ten percent of the Royal Navy's personnel in the Mediterranean at a time when as much as half of its total strength was based in the Inner Sea.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/11579
Appears in Collections:Melitensia Works - ERCWHMlt

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