One of the many surprises Paul gave his contemporaries was his alliance with the Ottomans. This followed Admiral Nelson’s great victory over Napoleon’s fleet at Aboukir Bay, close to Alexandria, in summer 1798 (the Battle of the Nile); after this, the British were able to expel French armies from Egypt, though not before Napoleon had despoiled the country of vast numbers of its antiquities. Nicholas Pocock -1808-The French fleet lies at anchor in Aboukir Bay while local civilians look on. In the background at the head of the French line, dense white smoke rises as the British fleet assaults the van.
It became the task of Nelson and his very capable colleagues – Hood, Collingwood, Troubridge and others – to prise control of the Mediterranean from the French. One important purpose was to block Napoleon’s attempts to establish a French base in Egypt, from which he could interfere with British imperial projects still further to the east, in India, for the British had been building their power out there since the mid-eighteenth century. A French letter intercepted by the British set out the arguments behind an Egyptian campaign:
The Government have turned their eyes towards Egypt and Syria: countries which by their climate, goodness and fertility of soil may become the Granaries of the French Commerce, her magazine of abundance, and by the course of time the depository of the riches of India: it is almost indubitable that when possessed of & regularly organized in these countries we may throw our views still farther, & in the end destroy the English Commerce in the Indies, turn it to our own profit, & render our selves the Sovereigns also of that, of Africa, & Asia. All these considerations united, have induced our Government to attempt the expedition to Egypt.
Nelson was a commander of exceptional brilliance, but it was his opponent, Napoleon, who drew the conflict between Britain and France deep into the Mediterranean and, once again, a good, though unorthodox, way of viewing the course of events is from the Russian and Maltese perspective.
Bonaparte could see from the start that Malta was a prize worth winning. While still an employee of the revolutionary Directory, in 1797, he wrote to his masters that ‘the island of Malta is of major interest for us’, arguing that France needed a sympathetic Grand Master. This could be arranged, in his view, for at least half a million francs: the current Grand Master had never recovered from a stroke, and his successor was expected to be the German von Hompesch:
Valletta has 37,000 inhabitants who are very well disposed towards the French; there are no longer any English in the Mediterranean; why should not our fleet or the Spanish, before going into the Atlantic, sail to Valletta and occupy it? There are only 500 Knights and the regiment of the Order is only 600 strong. If we do not, Malta will fall into the power of the king of Naples. This little island is worth any price to us.
These were very acute comments, even if he overestimated the value of Malta as a supply base, given its shortage of wood and water. The magnificent fortifications of Valletta were a mask behind which sat an inadequate army of defenders, men who were, in any case, often seduced by fine living – the passionate, even fanatical, ideals of the earlier Hospitallers had become greatly diluted, even if the war against the infidel Turk remained the set purpose of the Maltese corsairs.30 Moreover, the danger of a Neapolitan takeover of Malta had more than local significance. The ‘king of the Two Sicilies’ enjoyed close ties to Nelson and to Britain, and his historic claim to be the ultimate suzerain of the Maltese archipelago was recognized in the tribute of a falcon paid each year by the Grand Master.
Von Hompesch was duly elected Grand Master in July 1797. He saw in the Russian tsar an ally who could restore the Order’s fortunes through the Polish-Russian priory, while also hoping for support from the Austrian emperor, in whose lands he had been born, and from the French Knights, who were appalled by what had been happening in France, where the Order held many lands. Von Hompesch rightly assumed that Napoleon’s real concerns lay elsewhere; but Napoleon was convinced that in order to achieve his objectives in the eastern Mediterranean he must control Malta. When a massive French fleet left Toulon in May 1798, bound for Egypt by way of Malta, von Hompesch continued to place his trust in the Russians and the Austrians, as if they were really in a position to offer him any help. Doublet, who had served as secretary to the previous Grand Master, observed that ‘never had Malta seen such a numberless fleet in her waters’, and the leaders of the native Maltese community reflected on the irony that it was a western European and not a Turkish navy that was now poised to take the island from the Order. Once the French fleet reached Malta, von Hompesch cautiously insisted that ships could enter the harbour only four at a time, and Napoleon’s emissary complained: ‘what length of time, indeed, would it not take for 500 to 600 sail to procure in this way the water and other things they urgently need?’ The emissary went on to complain that much better favours had been shown in the recent past to the British. Still, this was the answer Bonaparte had wanted. He now had ample excuse to unload 15,000 men and take charge of the island. Von Hompesch realized that he had no chance of holding out against massively superior forces. He surrendered the island, and on 13 June Napoleon expelled the Knights; he melted down great quantities of silver plate and appropriated their archives, not in order to read the documents, but because ammunition shells were usually packed with paper. Thus the Knights were stripped of their identity and thrown on the mercy of the Christian powers, as they had been after the fall of Acre and after the fall of Rhodes. Once again the survival of the Order was much in doubt.
The capture of Malta only strengthened the determination of Tsar Paul to bring Russian navies back into the Mediterranean. That he overestimated its usefulness as a source of wood and water is undeniable. But he fully expected to move on from Malta to more substantial conquests. His first move was to persuade the Russian priory of the Order to declare von Hompesch deposed, and to elect the tsar as their new Grand Master, in November 1797. He proceeded to appoint a number of Russian Orthodox nobles as Knights of Malta, and he wore his magisterial robes every day, giving the impression that he was as proud of his (contested) position as Grand Master as he was of his position as Russian emperor. He saw himself as a paragon of chivalry. ‘Just now,’ an Austrian minister observed, ‘the Tsar’s sole preoccupation is with Malta.’
