When World War I broke out in 1914, the British military could count on 278 hospital beds in the whole of Malta.

But the strategic Gallipoli debacle in the summer of 1915 instantly showed up the island’s inadequacy to cope with the thousands of casualties that poured in for treatment and rehabilitation – at the peak of the Salonika crisis, over 20,000 patients were here, victims of the ill-fated battlefields and ships hit or sunk in the Mediterranean.

Floriana hospital, overflowed in encampments on the 'xagħra'.

The authorities requisitioned everywhere capable of being converted for healthcare use – barracks, civilian schools, convents – and set up large encampments of tents for convalescents and less critical cases.

A WWI hospital ward in Malta

An outbuilding of the Mtarfa Military Hospital

Appeals for private households to welcome wounded military personnel under their roofs also met with some response.

Mtarfa Hospital, with an ambulance in waiting

Fort Ricasoli turned into a military hospital.

In April 1916, the number of hospitals and camps hosting casualties had peaked at 27.

Overall, the operation resulted in an unrivalled miracle of organisation, discipline and humanity.

Three wounded servicemen with visitors on February 27, 1916.

The unexpected avalanche of patients requiring medical care also put an unsustainable strain on health personnel – doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, nurses and carers, mostly British and Commonwealth, but with generous inputs from locals, not infrequently volunteers.

A charming picture of WWI nurses having fun in Floriana.

Boy scouts ran errands for the patients, girl guides prepared bandages, the local St John’s Ambulance Association helped in nursing services. Actors, singers, artists and musicians provided entertainment, organising shows, concerts and parties.

An unrivalled miracle of organisation, discipline and humanity

A fundraising postcard of the Malta St John’s Ambulance Association, by Edward Caruana Dingli

The Cottonera hospital in a regimental greetings postcard

The postcard industry went into overdrive.

Those thousands of patients convalesced in hospitals and camps with little else to do while the time away writing messages to their families and friends back home.

What a patient thought of Malta and the Maltese on the back of an Għajn Tuffieħa convalescent camp postcard.

Not only the British – the German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war, and the French Navy stationed in Malta, to mention two other considerable bodies of men, kept the postal services overworked.

A postcard of a No. 61 military hospital said to be Malta.

All cards from the author’s collection

The newly built Valletta primary school near Fort St Elmo, used as a hospital