The Victoria Lines are a series of fortifications built by the British military between 1875 and 1899. But as Ray Cachia Zammit explains, at two locations, they incorporate elements built by the Knights of St John some 170 years earlier.

The defining feature of the Victoria Lines is a continuous infantry wall that connects together three forts and a number of other gun batteries and ancillary military facilities to form a single line of defence. This is some 12 kilometres in length and it follows the contour of the ‘Great Fault’, a geological fault that extends across Malta from coast to coast, specifically from Fomm ir-Riħ in the west to Madliena in the east.

Geological faults may be formed as a result of an earthquake or they may occur slowly over a very long period of time. In either case, their most common manifestation is in the form of a fracture in the rock formation caused by the rock on one side of the fault slipping with respect to the other side.

In the case of the Great Fault, this fracture has resulted in the formation of a ‘step’ whereby the land immediately to the north of the Great Fault is lower than that to its south. Effectively, the ‘Great Fault’ constitutes a natural barrier that cuts off the north of Malta from the rest of the island. It was this feature that the British sought to exploit when they built the Victoria Lines.

The Knights

It is interesting to note that many years before the decision by the British military to build fortifications along the Great Fault, the Knights of St John had already recognised the potential of this natural barrier as an additional element within their overall defence strategy.

The imposing bastions built by the Knights to defend Valletta and the Three Cities are the most readily visible element of this strategy. And most people will also be familiar with the coastal towers built by the Knights. These include many small watch towers as well as a number of much larger bastioned towers, such as the one at St Thomas Bay. What is often overlooked, however, is that the Knights also built extensive coastal defences directly along the shoreline. These included coastal batteries, redoubts and entrenchments.

Most of these coastal defences were built in the years 1715 and 1716, including entrenchments at Armier, Ta’ Qassisu (Mellieħa) and Għajn Tuffieħa. This extremely ambitious construction project underlined the concept of opposing the enemy on the beaches where a landing was possible.

However, in view of the significant challenge to build and garrison all of the projected coastal defensive works, the Knights also built two sets of entrenchments in two locations along the Great Fault as a fallback line of defence. One was at San Pawl tat-Tarġa and the other at Ta’ Torri Falka (today the main road to Mġarr) which subsequently (under the British) came to be known respectively as Naxxar Gap and Falka Gap.

These two sites were chosen because they were the location of the two principal roads linking the north of Malta to the higher ground beyond the Great Fault. The road at Falka provided access to Mdina and the road through Naxxar provided access in the direction of Valletta.

Today, the road through Tarġa Gap (San Ġużepp tat-Tarġa, l/o Mosta) is an even more important route than the ones through Falka and Naxxar. However, after ascending to San Ġużepp tat-Tarġa from Burmarrad one has still to cross Wied il-Għasel before being able to proceed in the direction of either Mdina or Valletta and, at the time of the Knights, this was only possible across the readily defensible Tal-Isperanza bridge in Mosta.

The British

In contrast to the strategy of the Knights, who had perceived their fortifications along the ‘Great Fault’ as an ancillary or fallback position, the British in the 19th century saw the Great Fault as their principal line of defence in the eventuality of an enemy landing in one of the many bays in the north of Malta.

For many years after their arrival in Malta, the British military had been served well enough by the many kilometres of bastions inherited from the Knights. However, as guns became more destructive and their range increased, it became necessary to find a way to keep an eventual enemy further away from the all-important naval facilities in the harbour area, at a distance from where the enemy’s guns could not inflict any damage.

For this reason, in 1872 it was decided to strengthen further the natural defensive position represented by the Great Fault by building a number of detached forts along this fault, which thereafter was to be referred to as the ‘North-West Front’.

By 1878, three detached forts had been built along the Great Fault itself, namely (from west to east) at Binġemma (1875), Mosta (1878) and Madliena (1878). Also in 1878, another fort was built to the rear of Fort Madalena and called Fort Pembroke, to plug the gap between the high ground at Madliena and the accessible shoreline, in the direction of Valletta.

However, it was soon acknowledged that the detached forts on their own were not sufficient to provide an effective cover over the whole length of the Great Fault, particularly because not all sections of the fault are equally steep. The ‘North-West Front’ was the subject of regular inspections by visiting commissions who identified a number of weaknesses. One area of particular concern was at Dwejra. Therefore, in 1881, a decision was taken to fortify this plateau by building a kilometre-long entrenchment, to be referred to as the Dwejra Lines.

Ultimately, a decision was taken to construct a continuous infantry wall to join together all the forts and other defensive works along the whole length of the Great Fault, with a patrol path running alongside so as to facilitate the movement of troops. Work on this infantry wall and patrol path started in 1895. It was named the Victoria Lines in 1897 and completed in 1899.

Naxxar Gap

In 1722, the Knights, had built their entrenchment at San Pawl tat-Tarġa (l/o Naxxar) of dry rubble-wall construction. It had a redan-trace plan, consisting of four triangular spurs which projected from a long, straight line of curtain walls, preceded by a shallow and straight rock-hewn ditch. When the British decided to fortify this area, this Knights’ entrenchment was still relatively well preserved and the fortifications built by the Knights were restored and incorporated within the Victoria Lines.

Falka Gap

The Knights’ entrenchment at Ta’ Torri Falka was completed in 1731. The entrenchment formed a V-shaped enceinte with a bastion occupying the salient angle. The ramparts were built of a rough-faced ashlar laid in regular courses.

By the time the Victoria Lines were built, the Falka Gap entrenchment was largely in ruins, and the British built a new entrenchment of novel design, immediately to the rear of the one built by the Knights in this area.

The Victoria Lines came down from Dwejra, across the main road to Mġarr, before proceeding in the direction of Tarġa Battery and Tarġa Gap. Because of the rather gently sloping ground in this area, the British did not build a wall but an entrenchment, consisting of a straight, half-a-kilometre-long stretch of rock-hewn ditch topped by a thick parapet.

Very little of these defensive works can still be seen today except for the ditch because a road was built over the parapet part of the entrenchment, primarily to service a nearby quarry.

The Victoria Lines in World War II

The Victoria Lines were never put to the ultimate test of an enemy invasion and their military significance began to fade even before World War I. By the advent of World War II, the British defence strategy had shifted definitively towards impeding an enemy’s landing by defending directly all the beaches where such an invasion could take place.

Within this context, the Great Fault was seen as an important in-depth line of defence in the eventuality of a successful enemy landing in the north of the island, if the enemy had overrun the beach defences. A number of concrete pillboxes were, therefore, built in various places along or very close to the Victoria Lines.

On reflection, this 20th-century development was not dissimilar from the defensive strategy that had been adopted by the Knights 200 years earlier, when they had built their two entrenchments along the Great Fault.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges as his principal references Fortresses of the Cross (1994), and British Military Architecture in Malta (1996), both published by Dr Stephen C. Spiteri.

The author is co-founder of the Friends of the Victoria Lines Trail, which aims to increase awareness of the Victoria Lines and their potential to be developed into Malta’s first national trail.

www.facebook.com/FriendsofTheVictoriaLinesTrail/