FORT ST ELMO - NATIONAL WAR MUSEUM

Located at the northern end of the city of Valletta, Fort Saint-Elme is one of the must-see sites when visiting Valletta. Today, it houses the National War Museum. Like similar fortifications of the same age in continental Europe, the fort was defended by a cavalryman on the seaward side and by bastions on the landward side. Around 1552, following an Ottoman attack in 1551, the Order of St. John decided to build the fort to protect the entrance to Valletta's two ports, and named it Fort Saint-Elme, in honor of the patron saint of sailors. They entrusted military engineer Pietro Pardo with the design and construction of the fort on the tip of Mount Sceberras, the peninsula where Valletta would later be built. When the dreaded Ottoman invasion took place in 1565, the stage was set for one of the most tragic moments in Malta's military history. The Ottomans realized that, in order to ensure safe anchorage for their fleet in one of the two ports on either side of the peninsula, they first had to neutralize Fort Saint-Elme. They launched a massive and desperate attack against this outpost, carrying out an uninterrupted siege lasting thirty days until the final surrender. By June 23, 1565, some 1,100 defenders of the fort had been slaughtered to the last man. The Ottomans lost a further 8,000 men. But while the Ottomans never turned the fort into a Turkish prison, the Americans did: the barracks were, in fact, used as the setting for the 1978 film Midnight Express. At the end of the Great Siege, Fort Saint-Elme was restored and, in 1687, a wall was built around it, linking it to the new town of Valletta. The fort again fell prey to destruction during the Second World War: the first casualties were reported during a bombardment on June 11, 1940, the day after Italy declared war. In July 1941, the fort was again in the firing line when its Maltese defenders bravely repelled an attack by 9 Italian assault boats. Fort Saint-Elme occasionally hosts the great In Guardia parade, a military parade retracing the inspection that the great commander carried out in his garrisons in the ^17th century, with over 80 actors in period costumes.