Naval, military and civilian supply and consumption in Malta during the First World War

Abstract

The impetus for this dissertation on ‘Naval, Military, and Civilian Supply and Consumption in Malta during the First World War’ came unexpectedly while preparing for an essay for an elective study-unit on Maltese demographics. In said essay a decline in soldier numbers on Malta from 1911 to 1921 was traced – a decline that continued even through the upheaval of the Sette Giugno riots which the researcher of this dissertation initially was made aware of by the lecturer of this elective study-unit in one of his lectures. Intrigued by this fact occurring in the midst of social turmoil, the researcher following the creation of the aforementioned essay resolved to expand on this theme and to explore how wartime provisioning and consumption dynamics might have shaped Malta’s military and civilian populations during the preceding period of warfare in a full dissertation. The first chapter draws primarily from information and data obtained from the Daily Malta Chronicle and Garrison Gazette – (referred to frequently as the Daily Malta Chronicle for the sake of brevity) – with a special focus on their weekly coverage of the Valletta Market. By systematically tracing reported prices for staple and secondary food items – ranging from meat, sugar, and bread to items like asparagus, olives, and paste for instance – this chapter reconstructs the evolving marketplace and the pressures exerted on food supply and consumption in Malta due to the First World War. Sections concerning the Charitable Institutions, which impacted consumption and expenditure, are also discussed with sourcing for this discussion stemming mostly from the aforementioned Daily Malta Chronicle. The second chapter utilises the rich statistical detail found in the Blue Books – annual compendia of Maltese socio-economic data published during the British period – to determine certain patterns in importation, exportation and shipping. An analysis of how these three were impacted by the First World War centres on statistics taken from both before and during the aforementioned conflict, with issues of primary importance to the title of this very dissertation being discussed at length from a more top-down perspective than the prior chapter. The third chapter is based on extensive archival documentation obtained from the National Archives of Malta, primarily using the Chief Secretary to Government fond files. Special focus went towards Departmental records contained in Series 01, which related to shipping, in order to help explain and accentuate the nature of maritime traffic coming to and from Malta during wartime.