The Leader’s Exile: Searching for Saad Zaghloul in Malta

We need a calamity.
Four words that Saad Zaghloul would often repeat just a few days before his exile. He believed that a calamity—a shocking event—was necessary for the people to revolt against the British occupation. The calamity came in the form of his exile to Malta, after which the 1919 Revolution erupted. And then he returned to Egypt. And what happened happened, and what was told was told, and the 1919 Revolution became a history that everyone wanted to read.
And after a long time (100 years) had passed, a folded-up page remained, one that no one had opened, perhaps because of the distance to that place—the site of his exile.
I thought the precise location of his exile was known, and I believed I could find out about it through a quick online search, and then go visit it.
But my thoughts were off the mark. Saad Zaghloul Syndrome was ringing in my ears (it’s no use fighting it!). I tried to inform myself about Malta, but no one could answer my questions—there were no documents, no sources, no information.
A small story, which turned into a difficult, indeed almost impossible task that ended with access to information, chronicling the history, and writing a new page in the volume of the 1919 Revolution and one of the most important advocates for change in Egypt: the revolutionary leader Saad Zaghloul.
From ignorance to knowledge and information, I invite you to accompany me on a journey to search for the site of the leader’s exile.

No One knows Saad Zaghloul in Malta!

The land of God is vast, so do not confine your happiness to any single part of it! Wherever you settle, make that place your home, and assume you will be staying there if you are unable to return to your original home...

Saad Zaghloul

Malta

April 8, 1919

In contrast to Saad Zaghloul’s assumption that he would remain in exile in Malta forever, right now I have only five days on the European island—which was formerly under the dominion of multiple nations and empires—to find him.

 

March 8, 1919…

Two days before this date, General Watson, the commander of the British forces in Egypt, called Saad Zaghloul and other members of the Wafd Party to his headquarters at the Savoy Hotel, where they had a short but heated discussion which ended with the threat of punishment against members of the party.... And that is exactly what came to pass.

On Friday, March 8, 1919, at precisely 5 p.m., Saad Zaghloul, Muhammad Mahmoud, and Ismail Sidqi were arrested. “The thought of exile never crossed my mind, but rather a period in prison,” the leader said, and the next day the order came from one of the officers: “Prepare to travel.”

From the automobiles to the train to the port of Port Said, Saad Zaghloul found himself on board a ship named “Caledonia,” not knowing where he was heading.

**

A hundred years after these events, I thought my task would be easy. Before traveling to Malta, I started to search online for the site of the leader’s exile: “Where was Saad Zaghloul exiled in Malta?” I entered the search words in Google in all the languages at my disposal—Arabic, English, and even French—but I couldn’t find a single result referring to a site or a specific place name where Saad Zaghloul and his companions from the Wafd Party had been exiled in Malta.

Knocking on the doors of the Wafd Party was my first option. I called the Party Secretary Tareq al-Tuhamy. At first, he was surprised by my inquiry, and then he answered briefly, “I don’t know.”

I had no choice but to return to the past, and to consult its experts. I called Mohamed Afifi, a history professor at Cairo University who had worked as a historical adviser for a recent documentary film about the 1919 Revolution, and his response was: “No, this is a topic that needs more research… Call me again in a few days.” As for Dr. Emanuel Buttigieg, a senior lecturer in the History Department at the University of Malta, he responded by email: “Unfortunately, I can’t help you, but I’ve forwarded your inquiry to my colleagues.”

Dr. Mohamed Afifi advised me one evening to consult the leader’s memoirs at the Saad Zaghloul Museum, which is known as the Bayt al-Umma—the House of the Nation. I didn’t wait until the morning. Instead, I obtained an electronic copy of the memoirs that same evening, and after hours of reading, I reached Volume 9.

**

March 13, 1919

On the morning of Thursday, March 13, 1919, the steamship Caledonia stopped a good distance from the coast. Malta was not its final destination. The exiled Wafd Party members disembarked on a small steam-powered boat, and the Caledonia continued on its way. “The boat was so small, only two people could sit abreast. So we were transported in rows of two, and we made it to the marina in about half an hour,” Saad narrated.

The port was deserted. The officer accompanying them spoke on the port’s telephone—an old round metal one—and the carriages came: “We were taken in very small covered carriages, which brought us up to the Polverista Fort.”

**

The Polverista Fort… I had finally found it. I went back to Google, and looked the place up in Arabic, and in English, but I was surprised: there was no trace of it.

I decided to look up Malta’s forts in general. I found three major forts, dozens of fortifications and towers, but nothing by the name of Polverista or anything similar. But that would certainly change on the ground… Or so I thought.

 

** Map of Malta and its Three Major Forts **

St. Angelo

Birgu

Called Castrum Maris, this fort was built in the 13th century, and was controlled by Sicilian rulers, and was then used by the Knights of Malta to store fuel from the 1830s to the 1890s, when it became known as St. Angelo.

The Gran Castello (Cittadella)

Gozo

This was built in the Middle Ages, in the 13th century, as an elevated city, and was later turned into a great fort, and was used by occupation forces throughout the ages as a gunpowder fortress.

The Fortifications of Mdina (Castellu di la Chitati)

Mdina

 

In the Middle Ages, part of the Mdina fortifications was demolished by a royal decree in 1453, though its exterior walls were kept intact. The remaining exterior walls were demolished in the 1720s.

 

March 13, 1919

We went up to a castle called Polverista, and the officer brought us into a three-story section of it in the shape of a barracks. Two dwelling units had been reserved for us, each consisting of three tiled rooms, with no carpets, no prayer mats, and no furnishings except for some chairs and tables!

The cold was harsh and the weather was stormy...

We saw, as we entered, an Egyptian named Mohammad Ibrahim with a turban on his head—a worker from the khedivial entourage—and he welcomed us cheerfully, as if he already knew us! I had doubts about him at first, because I suspected he was a spy, but this was unfounded, and he is now in our service, and is quick to help us with whatever we need.

- Saad Zaghloul

**

From the airplane window, the island, whose total area is no more than 316 square kilometers, looked the same as it did on the maps: three adjacent islands rising out of the sea, full of buildings, walls, their edges appearing clearly on all sides in the form of high plateaus, interspersed with coastal headlands separated by slender bays within the Mediterranean Sea, which have become natural harbors for luxury yachts... and a few green spaces too.

On the ground, exile was no longer exile, and the tourist island was brimming with people; everyone who passed through it had left a sign attesting to their time there, and sometimes one even lost oneself among the similarities and differences between it and all the many countries in all corners of the globe.

“These have passed through Malta”

800 BC

Phoenician colonization

480 BC

Carthaginian rule

218 BC

Roman rule

395 AD

Byzantine rule

870 AD

Arab rule

1090 AD

The Norman occupation

1530 AD

The arrival of the Knights of Saint John in Malta

1798 AD

The French occupation

1814 AD

The British occupation

1964 AD

Independence within the British Commonwealth

2004 AD

Malta becomes part of the European Union

 

Luqa International Airport

From my first moment inside Luqa International Airport, which is in the center of Malta, I started using English, because the island is part of the Schengen Area, and English and Maltese are equals within it, and are both official languages. From time to time, my ears picked up a word in Arabic. I didn’t pay much attention to this at first, until I asked a man from airport security how to get to the exit, and then heard him explaining what I had said to his colleague in comprehensible Arabic words.

The Maltese language is very similar to Arabic, and especially to the Libyan dialect. But the Maltese don’t like this comparison, and they stick to anything that proves they are Europeans.

Although their streets are similar to those of the Levant, rising and falling in the same way, and with similar walls of ancient stones, their cars are distinctly European, with the driver’s seat on the right-hand side.

And although the names of the districts there are purely Arabic, like Mdina, Marsa, Hamrun, and Sliema, those names are written in foreign letters on European-style colored street signs.

 

Sliema

Half an hour later, I reached Sliema, a coastal city on one of the hundreds of headlands, on whose two sides ships of all kinds were anchored, from small boats to luxury yachts.

They call it “the wealthy zone,” because it’s packed with tourists of all nationalities, and because of the shops and nightclubs overlooking the sea, but its random modern buildings were not particularly notable, neither for their beauty nor for their class.

After a receptionist at the St. Azur Hotel had finished checking us in, I immediately asked her about the Polverista Fort. A look of surprise appeared on her round white face, with its delicate features. I said to her by way of explanation, “An old fort... it was once used as a political prison.” From underneath the marble reception counter she pulled out a red piece of paper with a tourist map of Malta on it, including bus routes. She said there was a castle similar to that on the island of Gozo. “Take bus number 222; and at the end of the line, take the ferry. The trip takes about two hours.” She paused a little before adding, “It’s better to make the journey during the day.”

Going to Gozo, one of Malta’s three islands, was the only option, and there would be no other opportunity in the five days I had there to travel during the day. Bus 222 took an hour and a half, and the round-trip ticket cost 2 euros. The port was like a train station, and on the ticket counter the following was written in English: “Pay the fare on your return journey.”

After 20 minutes of plowing through the Mediterranean, the ferry reached Gozo.

**

The housing units are, in general, tidy, and are cleaned by a group of Turkish prisoners.

There are kitchens in the building. Each group has their own kitchen, of which the government is responsible for a certain amount of the cost for all the supplies needed for each prisoner.

There’s a shop in the building, which they call a “canteen,” that sells most basic supplies. The prices are all pre-set, and the place has a special reserve of soldiers.

The location is elevated, and overlooks the sea, and the view there is beautiful and good.

**

Gozo

The taxi driver took us up a hill in Victoria, the ancient capital of Gozo. “The only fort in Gozo is the one in Victoria,” the driver says.

We drove through the narrow streets of Victoria, past the old European buildings, then went up the last hill to the fort on foot.

The name of the fort, carved in the Maltese language on a large marble wall, seemed like a modern one: “CITTADDELA… CENTRINO GHALL VISITURI… VISITORS CENTRE.” It means “large fort,” and the words were there to welcome visitors to the center.

I started by asking the security officer, “Was this fort called ‘Polverista?’ Is it the only one in Gozo? Was it used as a prison in the old days? Do you know about an old Egyptian politician named Saad Zaghloul who was exiled here?” His answer to all my questions was, “I don’t know.”

The fort was a gigantic three-story stone building topped by a clocktower, in front of which was a glass sign, in both English and Maltese, containing some information about the changes that had taken place over the ages. The following was written on the sign: “People originally went from the city to the fort by stairs, during Arab rule. Later, these were replaced by a stone bridge called the link… Part of it still remains on the roof of the castle. And finally, a ramp was built leading up toward the entrance with a painted panel.”

The ramp led us to the fort’s entrance, where there was a glass panel divided into two halves, behind which the fort’s painted panel appeared. We went through the exposed corridors, which had some closed rooms on either side. We continued to climb, and found two two-story buildings with old shuttered wooden windows. The Catholic Church of Gozo stood between these two buildings, and was built on the ruins of a Greek temple in the thirteenth century.

There was an entrance on one side, with a stone corridor leading to the rooms on the other side, and to one of the two buildings. The corridor had smaller metal windows that looked like the windows of prison cells, and locked metal doors that shut me off from the lives that were once lived inside them, and other rooms with metal doors revealing large church bells within.

The fort’s museum was at the beginning of the corridor. The employee inside quickly answered, “Yes, this was used as a prison in the old days, from the sixteenth century until 1962.” But he didn’t know who Saad Zaghloul was, or whether Egyptian detainees had passed through the place. And he replied in the negative when asked about whether there were records or testimonies that could point to who had been imprisoned in the fort in the old days.

The answers of dozens of people who were visiting the castle were also the same. Most of them were Italians or Russians—how would they know about the history of Egypt or Malta?

The roof of the castle revealed more rooms, with shuttered windows and closed doors, and a single cannon resembling the one at Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi’s citadel in Cairo.

From on high you could see the entire island, and the sea on all sides.

**

Everyone in the place where I was staying was allowed to visit—at certain times of the week—prisoners from other places.

Upon our arrival, the prince—cousin of the Romanian king—who was being held at Camp Firola, sent us a friendly letter, and we responded in accord with the rules of courtesy.… But we don’t want to continue the correspondence.

**

Firola... or Floriana

A year ago, the Times of Malta newspaper published a story about the grandson of a Turkish painter. The painter was arrested in the nineteenth century in Floriana, so his grandson decided to travel the many miles to Malta by steamship every year, and spent his summer vacations on that land, in search of his grandfather’s memory.

I returned to the question again about “Firola,” and the Maltese corrected me: It’s called “Floriana.” Fortunately, daily business was still being conducted in Floriana, a town that had been fortified since 1636. There are no forts there, but it is full of ancient towers overlooking the sea, which still have their old names, and which are currently being used for various purposes—for example as restaurants and shopping centers. One of them is the EU’s European Asylum Support Office (EASO), which I went to each day that I was in Malta.

I asked one of the Arab employees at the EASO about what had happened—“Fort Polverista, the old prison, Saad Zaghloul”—and she advised me to ask one of her Maltese colleagues, Alexis McLean. He was a young man in his thirties, with European features and formal clothes. He said that there was no one in Malta who could answer my questions, and that the Maltese people aren’t interested in history. All kinds of forces had occupied Malta, one after the other, and all kinds of prisoners from all over the world had come here, so the people certainly would not have been concerned with the name of an Egyptian politician who was imprisoned here a hundred years ago.

He fell silent for a moment, then said, as if trying to help me, “There are a few Egyptians in Malta, and a lot of Arabs… Maybe they know.” Then he suggested I send an email to the Egyptian Embassy in Malta.

**

April 7, 1919

Two days ago, a third housing unit was cleared for us, so Muhammad Pasha Mahmoud took it, and now each of us have a separate residence consisting of three rooms.

This has relieved us of the cramped quarters we were in at first. We now have a dining room, and a sitting room where we gather most days, and some nights, and where we play cards and receive visitors. And each of us has a room to sleep in and another to work in, but there are still not enough furnishings.

At about eight o’clock, while we were at the playing table, Fayzi Bek Hosni came in cheering: “Today the officer was waiting for the arrival of Egyptians who were deported from Egypt.”

We were astonished at his delight about this news, and at his haste to inform us of it….

**

I didn’t hesitate to follow Alexis’s advice. I immediately sent an email to the Egyptian embassy in Malta—that was on Tuesday, July 2, 2019—hoping to receive an answer, of any kind, before I left the island on July 5, but I have yet to receive one.

At a bus stop, I met one of the few Egyptians in Malta. His name was Hani, and he worked in a restaurant, but he too knew nothing about the site of Saad Zaghloul’s exile in Malta... Of course, this wasn’t enough for me.

 

Hamrun

I tried to contact the Egyptian community in Malta, but no one showed any interest, so I knocked on the doors of the Arab community center. The secretary of the community, Saeed Zeno, invited me, on my third evening in Malta, to his Syrian restaurant, “Damascus,” which was located in the Hamrun district—a humble neighborhood near the capital where most of the Syrians in Malta live.

It was there that I met the deputy head of the Arab community, Mazen Daadoush, a computer engineer who came to Malta 30 years ago. “Malta is the only country that gave us a visa. I came here by chance, and started from scratch. I worked in construction, and in restaurants and hotels.”

Like everyone else, he didn’t know the exact location of Saad Zaghloul’s exile. He hinted that he thought my chances of success were slim, saying: “There are many places that were destroyed and then built upon… You might not find it… Like the Bastille prison in France... Because it’s a symbol of injustice and oppression.” But he told me there was another castle, in Birgu, and that I would be missing out if I didn’t visit it.

 

Marsa

The clock was striking ten in the evening when the head of the Arab community escorted me to Birgu. On the way, we passed several places, the first of which was Marsa, where the “center” was located—i.e., the shelter for African asylum seekers in Malta. It was a large white building that looked like a school, around which dark-skinned people were scattered, but we couldn’t go in or talk to anyone because the doors were closed for the night.

The Syrian refugees don’t go to this “center.” Their numbers always hover between 1500 and 2000, most of whom consider Malta a temporary transit point on the way to Europe, according to Mazen.

**

We woke up, and the sun was shining brightly, the sky was clear, and the weather was calm.

Last night I slept better than any previous night, and the sad thoughts began to fade away and be replaced with happy ones.

And the reason for this, I feel, is that the virtuous demonstrations that took place following our departure were in anger at our deportation, demanding that we be brought back. We found great reward and satisfaction in this.

**

Paola

The call to prayer doesn’t go out in Malta, not even from the mosque in Paola, which was our next stop, and which was built by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in the late 1990s. Beside it there’s a large garden called the “Gaddafi Garden,” which has been closed for years.

The Libyan diaspora is the largest Arab community in Malta. Government statistics estimate that there are 20,000 Libyans there. They are not refugees, but rather people who have lived in Malta a long time, and who have Maltese citizenship. “Gaddafi had hopes that the Libyans would marry the Maltese, and that a new Libyan generation would be born and would come to rule Malta,” Mazen said with a laugh.

**

April 8, 1919

Today is the one-month anniversary of our arrest, and, at our insistence, the barber came by yesterday. He was accompanied by a soldier, who stayed while our hair was being cut, to prevent us from talking amongst ourselves.

The barber was a German prisoner. I brought him in from another camp. He cut my hair, which was long and becoming a nuisance, and then cut Ismail Sidqi’s hair.

**

Birgu

We finally arrived in Birgu, an ancient capital of Malta which is located on its southern coast and which has witnessed many fierce battles throughout history. “This is my and my children’s favorite spot,” Mazen said. On the right there was a natural harbor where luxury yachts were anchored, and on the left a long walkway flanked by old houses and tourist restaurants. At the end of the road, there was a row of old cannons, and Fort St. Angelo.

We climbed up to the fort through dark and narrow corridors and stairways, until we reached the summit. The whole sea could be seen from there, as well as the yacht harbor with all its open lanes. There was a large church beside the castle, but it had no closed rooms to suggest that an old prison had once been inside.

We walked into the fort through the rear entrance, then passed through very narrow hallways until we reached the alleyways of Birgu. There, Mazen let out a sigh of nostalgia and said: “I feel like I’m in old Damascus here.”

**

April 11, 1919

Yesterday after dinner, at around eight o’clock, while we were gathered around the playing table, Muhammad Ibrahim came in with a telegram from Reuters in his hand, saying that General Allenby had announced that all Egyptians were now permitted to leave the country!

We were almost flying with joy at this good news.

Ten o’clock—our time for sleep—had come, so I went to relieve myself, and I heard Muhammad Mahmoud Pasha’s voice, which was very loud and overcome with joy: “We didn’t read the rest of the telegraph! It has even more important news, which is permission for us to leave as well!” So we embraced and kissed one another in front of the lavatory!

**

Valletta

A musician in his fifties leaned against a wall, adjusting and tuning the strings of his electric guitar. Some passers-by asked to take a photograph with him, but he pointed to his old—yet elegant—clothes, and to his slick and unkept hair, and apologized, “I’m not photogenic today,” and went back to examining the strings of his guitar.

The streets of Valletta never sleep, they’re filled with open nightclubs and gambling parlors, and tourists dancing under the lights of the large fountain at the city’s entrance, with the sounds of clarinets and guitars all around. Tourists take pictures of the 320 monuments there, and of the dozens of churches and palaces dating back to the Baroque era, and of the European houses with their old wooden balconies, whose owners, according to Mazen, are paid by the Maltese government to preserve them.

 

The Fifth Day...

My return to Egypt was not the end of the story. The German geologist Johann Friedrich Breithaupt drew a map of Malta in 1632, in which the name “Polverista” appeared… After some more searching, I obtained a clear copy of it.

By comparing the “Polverista” site against modern maps, I found that it was very close to Luqa International Airport, but there’s no trace of it now.

I also obtained old photos showing the devastation that befell Malta after World War II.

Latifa Salem, a professor of modern history, said, “It may have been an old fortress that collapsed, perhaps as a result of the war. Malta has always been in the crosshairs of wars... Maybe it no longer exists... We have no choice but to say ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’...”

Dr. Amal Hamid Zayan, a specialist in the history of Europe in the Middle Ages, continued the thread: “Forts are nothing but means of defense and of repelling attacks, and it is likely that this fort was destroyed in an attack... It is very likely that the fortress and the entire town [it protected] is gone.”

 

The Bayt al-Umma

Everything was as it used to be here. Even the calendars on the wall still showed the twenty-third of August, the day of Saad Zaghloul’s death, at the behest of the lady of the palace… This was the last stop.

I had gone to follow the path of exile in the Saad Zaghloul Museum: the Bayt al-Umma.

“We don’t know anything about the place of exile other than Malta and Seychelles,” agreed Hamid al-Sayyed and Suzanne Farouq, the museum’s curators. Then Suzanne continued: “We only have two pictures that are said to be from the days of exile... But we don’t know whether they really are or not, and we don’t know if they’re from Malta or the Seychelles.”

I was glued to the spot in front of the pictures. I knew for certain that Muhammad Mahmoud Pasha and Ismail Sidqi Pasha were the two Wafd Party members who were with Saad Zaghloul in Malta, but these two pictures had other party members in them.

I almost continued writing the chapter of his journey, to include him meeting one of his relatives, perhaps one of his grandchildren, but Medhat cut the thread before it had even begun: “Saad and Safiya didn’t have children... They adopted Ratiba, the daughter of Saad’s sister, and she had two children, Mustafa and Ali Amin, who lived with Saad for 13 years in the same house.”

Safiya Zaghloul didn’t leave behind any memoirs, but she left a house, a museum, and a mausoleum, which documented their life story.

Mustafa Amin didn’t have any more details about Fort Polverista than those Saad had narrated in his memoirs, but he had Saad’s secret correspondence with the field commander of the revolution, Abdul Rahman Fahmi, which he had included in a book entitled The Forbidden Book: Secrets of the 1919 Revolution.

We had no other sources about the location of Fort Polverista, only possibilities. Perhaps it had been destroyed in the war; perhaps it no longer looked the way it used to; and perhaps its name had changed, just as Malta had changed over the course of time.…

But then I received a message!

 

(Part Two)

Letters from Exile

I know about Saad Zaghloul, and I’m conducting some research on the whole matter.

If you come to Malta again, please let me know, so I can take you to the site and show it to you properly.

Best wishes,

Professor John

July 31, 2019

 

An email revived the story.

It was from Professor John Chircop, who told me that the Polverista is not a fort, but rather a gunpowder depot in one of Malta’s old fortifications, without providing any further details. I responded with a series of questions: “Where is the fortification, what is its name, and how it is being used now? Do you have pictures of it, or evidence that Saad Zaghloul and his companions were there?”

I asked him to schedule an online meeting with me, so I could find out more about the story.

He promised me a proper reply, then disappeared.

Professor John’s message came as a result of my having previously written to the professors of the History Department at the University of Malta, who slowly began to respond to me, one after the other—sometimes in the negative, and other times and with claims that could not be documented.

Among them was Dr. Simon Mercieca, who wrote the following to me:

** Message **

It is located in Cospicua, and it has now been turned into a public school.

It is now known as St. Margaret College Secondary School, Verdala.

Regards,

Dr. Simon Mercieca

July 2019

 

Verdala Gate

The story of the Verdala secondary school began a long time ago, specifically in December 1638, when the construction of the Margherita defense lines was started. These took 98 years to build, and Verdala was their oldest gate.

In 1853, after Malta had become a British colony, the British decided to build the Verdala barracks, as well as a fort and storehouses, water storage units, and the Saint Clement prison, on whose land the school was built.

Dr. Simon did not provide any evidence confirming Saad Zaghloul spent his period of exile inside the school—formerly the Saint Clement prison—so I had to write to the school administration to verify the matter.

 

 

August 6, 2019

 

This was the date of the first message I received from Joseph Ellul, head of the St. Margaret College Secondary School, Verdala.

 

** Message **

 

Unfortunately, I have never encountered the name Saad Zaghloul during my tenure at the school. I am not an expert in history, and the only small archive we have goes back to the 1950s, when the building served as a school for the Royal Navy.

 

However, if you try to contact the National Archives in Malta, they may be able to help. They have records dating back to the time of the First World War, when our school was a camp for prisoners of war.

 

I hope this helps you.

 

Best regards,

Joseph Ellul

School Head

 

 

This message represented the beginning of a new thread, one that coexisted with the previous threads, whose ends I had not yet arrived at.

 

 

August 16, 2019

 

I immediately wrote to the National Archives, and their response came ten days later, in mid-August.

 

** Message **

 

With reference to your e-mail, please note that the term “Polverista” was used for gunpowder depots.

 

You can find information related to the exile of the Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul in Malta, in the files of the Council of Ministers Secretary’s library, and in government mail.

 

If you are unable to visit the library, we can do the search on your behalf, for € 18 per hour.

 

Please note that the search results are not guaranteed.

 

Regards,

Stephanie Schembri

Assistant to the National Archives

 

**

 

I was not enthusiastic about that offer, so I decided to write to the Council of Ministers Secretary’s office myself, and did so.

 

 

August 19, 2019

 

At first, I only received a short reply.

 

** Message **

 

The Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Malta has advised me that Professor Raymond Mangion, a historian at the University of Malta Law School, should be contacted. He will be able to advise you on your investigation.

 

I hope this helps you.

 

Do not hesitate to contact me again if you encounter any difficulties.

 

With my regards,

Felix Attard

Information Officer at the Prime Minister’s Office

 

**

 

 

23 August 2019

 

Professor Raymond Mangion had not responded to my message yet, but the Images Department of the National Archives wrote me again, at the request of the Council of Ministers.

 

 

** Message **

 

The name “Polverista” literally means “gunpowder depot.” There were many of them scattered across the different cities.

 

During our search to accommodate your inquiry, we learned that there is a “Polverista” located in our capital city, Valletta, which at the present time is the Central Bank of Malta.

 

There is another “Polverista” located in Cospicua, and another in Mdina. Did he mention any city / town / region where he was detained?

 

Regarding the late Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul, I regret to inform you that no, we did not know about him before.

 

With my regards

Lawrence Attard Glivaux

Head of the Images Department of the National Archives

 

 

At that time, I remembered Saad Zaghloul’s description of the three-story building in the shape of a barracks—and also of the area around it, from when he was permitted to go out.

 

**

 

We went out yesterday in carriages, but the scenery of the side we were on was desolate!

 

We had imagined, with the many stone walls in it, and all the buildings it contained, that it was like a forest.

 

We decided not to go back out there again, preferring to stay in our homes.

 

**

 

I responded to Lawrence—the official in charge of images at the National Archives—with that description, and he replied, “It’s the Polverista located in Cospicua, near the sea.”

 

 

August 26, 2019

 

About a month after his first message, I received another email from Professor John Chircop of the University of Malta.

 

 

** Message **

 

Please find the following information about Saad Zaghloul in Malta—as per your request.

 

This comprises some of the main points of my research, which is ongoing... and which may continue in Egypt!

 

Best wishes,

Professor John

 

**

 

 

A hundred years ago, when the 1919 Revolution broke out in Egypt after the exile of Saad Zaghloul, the Sette Giugno uprising also erupted, in which the Maltese leader Manwel Dimech’s followers, who had been exiled to Egypt, played an important role. Dimech was an exile in Egypt too, and he was transferred about among the various prisons and detention camps, including a mental hospital, in harsh humanitarian conditions. At the same time that the demands to end Saad Zaghloul’s exile were being given, and the latter was returning to Egypt, Dimech died in exile alone, and became a national hero.

 

This aroused Professor John’s interest, and led him to Saad Zaghloul, and he devoted a large part of his research to parties and national movements that worked against British colonialism in the Mediterranean region.

 

During the First World War, Malta—the British colony—was transformed into a strategic fortification, and the small island became a large prison for all those who had openly declared themselves hostile to Great Britain, and a place of exile for those expelled from their countries.

 

In August 1914, warrants were issued for the arrest and detention of all foreigners, including the crews of captured ships. Malta received 1,651 of them in November 1914, among them politicians and intellectuals... anti-British figures who were of concern to the authorities.

 

Simple detainees were stationed in camps in the forts of Verdala and Salvatore. As for the Polverista, which in the beginning was a gunpowder depot next to the British soldiers’ barracks, the plan was to turn it into a detention center for female prisoners and children. But with the increase in the number of prisoners of war and prominent foreign dignitaries, that plan changed.

 

The Polverista was turned into a full-fledged concentration camp, with senior prisoners, very cramped spaces, small rooms with thin rays of sunlight penetrating between metal bars called windows, and even more cramped spaces for recreation and exercise.

 

The place was very cold in winter, and very hot in the summer months, surrounded by fences and barbed wire, with cannons and soldiers circling it on all sides. Everyone was subject to strict controls and surveillance.… This is what the manuscripts of the old prisoners tell us, which remain a century later.

 

Now the Polverista is part of the Cottonera Lines of fortifications, formerly called the Santa Margherita Lines, located in Cospicua. It is part of Malta’s historical colonial heritage, and was closed permanently in 1920, according to Dr. John.

 

He was also able to obtain photos of the Polverista and of Saad Zaghloul in Malta, from the Toni Camilleri collection in the National Archives of Malta.

 

 

August 29, 2019

 

I thought that was all I would be able to obtain. The tangled threads had begun to untangle, along the lines of what Saad Zaghloul had narrated in his diary. But one source is often not enough....

 

Lawrence Attard, the head of the Images Department at the National Archives in Malta, surprised me with a message confirming all this information.

 

 

** Message **

 

I’ve made some inquiries about the Polverista in Cospicua, and it seems to be the right site, because it has three stories.

 

During the last century, it had always been in use by the British Army, and most of the time their soldiers were housed there... in the Polverista of Cospicua.

 

To compare it to the Polveristas in other locations... In Vittoriosa they consist of two stories, while in Valletta they were not used as camps or cells for prisoners.

 

I will try to contact the local council in Cospicua to try to get more information about this particular building.

 

And I will get back to you later.

 

With my regards,

Lawrence Attard Glivaux

Image and archive administrator

 

 

The next day, I was surprised when Kenneth Gambin, a curator at Heritage Malta, the national authority of museums and heritage, confirmed the preceding information for me, for I had not written to him before.

 

 

September 7, 2019

 

I received a message that almost changed the course of the story.

 

It was from Mrs. Rita DeBattista, a retired geography teacher and former archivist at St. Margaret College Secondary School, Verdala. The assistant head of the school, Mr. Joe Sciortino, had asked her to research Saad Zaghloul, and to look for the information I had previously requested.

 

 

** Message **

 

Concerning the Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul, who was exiled in Malta in 1919, and his claim about the Polverista in his memoirs, I called my friends at the Royal Naval School and did a bit of research.

 

I found out that women and children were the ones detained in the Polverista, yet there were Egyptian prisoners in Verdala at Camp St. Clement—our football field.

 

I found Zaghloul Pasha’s photo with Muhammad Mahmoud, Ismail Sidqi, and Muhammad al-Bassel, there, on page 60 of Salter’s album—and I found their signatures on pages 162 and 163 of the same album.

 

Regards,

Rita DeBattista

 

 

** Saad Zaghloul’s photos from Salter’s album and the signatures **

 

 

Thoughts began spinning in my head. I asked Professor John to re-confirm his information, but the mystery was solved by Saad himself.

 

**

 

 

April 12, 1919

 

We visited the Egyptians who were in the other camps, and they received us well.

 

The officer came and informed us of the following: A telegram has come in from Egypt for you to travel to London, along with eighteen other Egyptians. He added the names of Doumani, Badr, Wissa Wasif, and the attorney Aziz Mansi.

 

He said the ship had departed from Port Said yesterday, and would arrive here on Monday morning.

 

 

**

 

It was the same date that was recorded on Saad Zaghloul’s photos in “Saint Clement,” as documented in Salter’s album. Saad Zaghloul had been visiting the lower-rank Egyptian prisoners there before his departure, according to his memoirs.

 

 

25 September 2019

 

 

The story refused to end...

 

A woman named Marlene Beringer wrote me on my personal Facebook account, after learning about my search for the site of Saad Zaghloul’s exile in Malta.

 

She was the daughter of George Salter, the English soldier who was in charge of managing the records of prisoners in the detention camps during the First World War in Malta, and who had collected their photos and signatures. The National Archives in Malta turned these records into a historical reference collection in 2014, on the occasion of the centenary of the First World War.

 

Salter’s album brought together testimonies of Saad Zaghloul’s presence in Malta, and of Hamad al-Bassel—his servant—praying with other Muslims in the Polverista.

 

Salter believed that he was living through an extraordinary period in history, and he wanted it to be remembered in future times; so Marlene, who lives in Canada, was keen to tell his story.

 

“The love story of my father and mother began in the POW camps of the First World War. I helped him in his task vis-à-vis the prisoners, and witnessed his documentation of everything that was going on.”

 

 

2 December 2019

 

In early December, I succeeded in arranging another visit to Malta, during which Professor John took me to the Polverista—the site of exile of Saad Zaghloul and his companions—and Rita took me on a visit to St. Margaret College Secondary School in Verdala, which had formerly been the Saint Clement detention center.

 

At St. Margaret, I met Khouloud, an Egyptian student. Like the others, she did not know about Saad Zaghloul’s exile there long ago, near her school.

 

Finally, I visited the National Archives in Malta. I consulted Salter’s album, whose pages documented everything I had arrived at in my previous correspondences: the Polverista, Saad Zaghloul’s visit to Saint Clement, his signature, and the signatures of those who were with him… A fitting conclusion to a story that had taken up nearly half the year, and that was ending with the inscription of a new line into history—a phrase, even a small one, to complement the biography of the man whose trail, and whose place of exile, we have been seeking, a hundred years after the revolution he led.

 

** Video of the visit **

https://youtu.be/FxZ5erTbZ-A