[attach id="309249" size="medium"]Landlord Julian Borg.[/attach]
One hundred years ago, the young men of the City of London regiment would gather at a bar in Balluta Bay and drink like there was no tomorrow.
“They knew there was a good chance they would be killed in the war. Most were slaughtered at the Somme,” said Julian Borg, sitting in his bar that once played host to the raucous young Londoners.
The ageing landlord of the City of London bar is the grandson of Karmnu Borg, known as Il Fossa, who opened the watering hole 100 years ago.
Originally, the bar did not have a name, but it became known as the local hangout of soldiers from the City of London (Royal Fusiliers) regiment, who were based in nearby Pembroke.
War had broken out in the summer of 1914 between the Allies (UK, France and Russia) and the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Arriving in Malta in September, the Londoners were preparing to do their duty.
Malta was still a British colony and many young men of the Empire trained on the island before being shipped to France to face unspeakable horrors in the trenches.
Mr Borg is dedicating the 100th anniversary of his bar to the young soldiers who gave it its name. They would travel to Balluta Bay by karozzini after a hard day’s training.
The landlord plans to organise a big anniversary bash in August, hopefully with the council’s permission to set up a stage on the street so that bands can perform.
“We have people from England, South Africa, Ireland and the US enquiring about our centenary celebrations,” said Mr Borg, who took over the bar from his father Salvu.
Mr Borg was born in the dying days of World War II but he was brought up on stories of the City of the London boys, fed to him by his father and grandfather.
“They were notorious,” he said with a smile.
“They knew the end was probably just around the corner, so they enjoyed themselves as much as possible. My grandfather knew how to handle them; he was a bit of a jack-the-lad himself,” he added.
Four City of London battalions sailed from Malta to France in early 1915.
According to Mr Borg’s painstaking research, on July 1, 1917, two City of London companies advanced into a hail of machinegun fire and shrapnel to relieve their comrades on the Somme battlefield. Out of almost 500 men, only 28 survived.
“I felt their story, which is entwined with our story, had to be told. Lest we forget,” said Mr Borg, as he gazed out on the waters of Balluta Bay, just as the soldiers had done 100 years before.