Churchill, Malta and Gibraltar by Victor Aquilina, published by Kite Group, 2021

Malta and Gibraltar have gone through many hurdles in their relationship with Britain over the years, but perhaps no other time was as pivotal to their prospects of fashioning their own future status as three days of war cabinet talks in London in May 1940 in what has been described as one of the decisive moments of World War II.

The talks were over a proposal for Britain to join France in offering territorial concessions, including Malta, to Italy in a bid to keep it out of the war. However, this soon turned into a political tussle over whether or not to sue for peace terms with Nazi Germany through Italian mediation. As the main players fought a battle of wits, the fate of the two fortresses in the Mediterranean lay in the hands of one man: Winston Churchill.

In Churchill, Malta, and Gibraltar, just published by Kite, Victor Aquilina tells the story of how the talks evolved. Since the talks are invariably documented from the perspective of the protagonist countries, Britain and France, and, even more so, the key political figures involved, Prime Minister Churchill and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, the time is well overdue for Malta and Gibraltar to share a bit of the limelight in the drama played out in Europe’s darkest hour. After all, the future of both Malta and Gibraltar depended on the outcome of the talks.

Was Churchill prepared to sell off the island, as some Anglophobe political observers and even historians infer?

There was another important player in so far as Gibraltar was concerned: Spain. British sovereignty of the Rock still rankled in the hearts of the Spanish people who wanted the territory back badly. But rather than joining the war on the Axis’s side, the country’s leader, General Francisco Franco, resorted to double-dealing. Outwardly neutral, he declared non-belligerency when Italy joined the war although this did not stop him from openly supporting Nazi Germany.

A Maltese wartime poster showing Winston Churchill at the Western Desert predicting Allied victory in the North African campaign. Photo: National Archives of Malta

But how had the talks developed in those fateful three days of war cabinet talks? Was Churchill at any time prepared to sell off the island, as some Anglophobe political observers and even historians infer on the basis of seemingly contradictory positions he took at a crucial moment in the talks?

How did he manoeuvre his way out of difficult currents against him to finally lead his cabinet to turn down the French proposal to offer territorial concessions to Italy and even more so to consider peace terms with Germany? And did he really promise to hand over Gibraltar back to Spain if it remained neutral?

Various political cartoons of Winston Churchill. Photos: Private Collections

This account of the May 1940 war cabi­net meetings is put in the wider context of Malta and Gibraltar’s relationship with Britain over so many years. It first explores at some length the two peoples’ expectations and aspirations, as well as their many disappointments along their constitutional journey.

The book has a foreword by Judge Joseph Galea Debono.