Fort Verdala ( mt, Il-Fortizza Verdala), also known as Verdala Barracks, is a fortified

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

in Cospicua, Malta. It was built by the British in the 1850s within part of the bastions of the 17th century

Santa Margherita Lines The Santa Margherita Lines ( mt, Is-Swar ta' Santa Margerita), also known as the Firenzuola Lines ( mt, Is-Swar ta' Firenzuola), are a line of fortifications in Cospicua, Malta. They were built in the 17th and 18th centuries to protect the la ...

. The fort was used as a prisoner-of-war camp in both World Wars, and was later known as HMS ''Euroclydon''. It remained in use by the British military until 1977.

History

Fort Verdala entrance gate, June 2018 (1)

Fort Verdala was built by the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

between 1852 and 1856. It was built on the central part of the

, incorporating St. Margherita Bastion and St. Helen Bastion. The fort was named after the Verdala Curtain, the curtain wall linking the two bastions. The fort itself consists of a barrack block surrounded by

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...

d walls, which are surrounded by a shallow ditch. By 1886, the fort was armed with 24-pounder smooth-bore built by Frans il-Ħamallu, howitzers. These armaments were removed in the 1890s, when it was converted into a barrack complex. In World War I, it became a prisoner-of-war camp, housing captured German prisoners including Franz Joseph, Prince of Hohenzollern-Emden,

Karl von Müller Karl Friedrich Max von Müller (16 June 1873 – 11 March 1923) was a German naval officer who was the captain of a commerce raider, the light cruiser SMS ''Emden'' during the First World War. Early life and career The son of a colonel in t ...

and

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...

. Mahmud Hasan Deobandi was interned here after the unsuccessful

Silk Letter Movement The Silk Letter Movement ('Tehreek-e-Reshmi Rumal') refers to a movement organised by Deobandi leaders between 1913 and 1920, aimed at gaining Indian independence from British Raj, British rule by forming an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, the ...

against the British Raj. In the interwar period, Fort Verdala housed the

Royal Marines The Corps of Royal Marines (RM), also known as the Royal Marines Commandos, are the UK's special operations capable commando force, amphibious light infantry and also one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy. The Corps of Royal Marine ...

, before being converted into a naval store. In 1940, it was commissioned as a stone frigate with the name HMS ''Euroclydon'', and was used as a school for children of Royal Navy personnel. The school was closed in 1943 due to the threat of aerial bombardment, and the fort became a POW camp once again. In 1945 it briefly served as a demobilisation centre, but was converted back into a naval school in 1947. Although it was a school, the fort continued to house navy personnel and Maltese servicemen, and occasionally members of other Commonwealth navies such as the Royal Pakistan Navy. The fort was decommissioned and handed to the Government of Malta in 1977. It is now divided into government housing as well as a school.

References

External links

National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands

The Verdala Story
Cospicua Verdala Barracks in Malta Verdala Buildings and structures completed in 1856 World War I prisoner-of-war camps World War II prisoner of war camps Schools in Malta Royal Navy shore establishments Limestone buildings in Malta Military installations closed in 1977 National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands 19th-century fortifications {{Malta-geo-stub