By Order of Napoleon: The Taking of Malta

Bonaparte issued thousands of dispatches directives and orders during the many campaigns of his military career. This e-book is a chronological compilation of his orders concerning the taking of Malta in 1798. They include orders to capture Gozo, Mdina and of course the city of Valletta. Napoleon’s orders were very specific in terms of how the French were to treat the Knights, the Maltese, and the clergy. They included radical health and education reforms intended to align Malta’s administration to the new revolutionary ideology of the French republic. He abolished nobility and slavery. He reorganized the clergy and redefined its sphere of influence. He also ordered the pillaging of the Order’s silver and precious stones from St. John’s Cathedral in Valletta. The goal is not to judge, praise or criticise the French occupation of Malta, but to give the reader access to source documents and hopefully give some perspective to those momentous events that changed the course of Malta’s history.

The documents in this e-book were translated from French by the author.