The 19th century information war fought from Malta’s printing presses
The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier, The Nurse of the Mediterranean, and Fortress Malta are just a few of the epithets given to Malta, reflecting its strategic role in fighting for and defending the Mediterranean.
But what if I told you that one of Malta’s most important roles was as a printing press? In the 1800s, Malta became a producer of books and newspapers in the “great game” of nineteenth-century geopolitics.
While a printing press had existed in Malta under the Knights of St John, it was in the early 1800s that the island became a focal point of British and American interest as a bulwark against Ottoman and Russian influence. However, rather than relying solely on physical fortresses and armaments, printing presses were established in Malta on behalf of Anglican and Protestant missionary societies to exercise “soft power” against Islam and Orthodox Christianity, in a competition for the hearts and minds of the “East”.
In 1813, under British colonial rule following the Napoleonic governance of Malta, the first Malta Government Gazette was produced. But a far larger printing enterprise was about to begin. By 1820, several printing operations run by different groups had been established. Their primary objective was to spread Christianity and provide secular education in the Middle East and North Africa, while also countering Russian influence, over Orthodox Christians, emerging across the Balkans but particularly in Greece.
The Church Missionary Society (CMS), the London Missionary Society (LMS), and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions were the three major organisations to establish printing operations on the island. The British government supported these presses because they served the secondary political goal of extending British influence in the East. They operated under strict conditions, including not offending the British Governor, and that all printed materials were for export only, so as not to antagonise the local Maltese Catholic Church
Malta became the headquarters of Mediterranean missionary printing targeting the southern and eastern Mediterranean due to its proximity to the Ottoman Empire, across Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and the wider Levant, while operating under the protection of British rule. The island’s publications also filled a gap created by political censorship, which restricted the spread of potentially “revolutionary” material among the diverse populations of the East.
The output and influence of these printing operations reached their zenith in 1842. The presses produced scriptural texts, such as bibles and parables translated into Arabic and Turkish, as well as educational works on geography, astronomy and history, alongside religious literature. Over 150,000 books were issued in 1842 alone for distribution across the Mediterranean. The underlying belief was that by “educating” local populations, a generation more European in thought would emerge, and would therefore, be more receptive to Protestant Christianity.
The printing operations in Malta generated several legacies that extended well beyond the island. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a Lebanese scholar, lived in Malta while working as a translator and editor for the CMS, and as a result the Malta presses became pioneers in modernising the presentation of Arabic in print. The CMS press published one of the first modern world atlases printed entirely in Arabic, with al-Shidyaq responsible for translating geographical place names into accurate Arabic for use by the cartographers
Despite its relatively short lifespan, the Malta press is credited with contributing to the early standardisation of Arabic typefaces, influencing the later Bulaq Press in Egypt, and contributing to the foundations of the Arabic press in Lebanon. In a twist of history, an operation established in Malta to “spread Christianity” ultimately played a significant role in modernising the Arabic written language across the Middle East.
Due to financial pressures, political changes and reforms within the Ottoman Empire, the presses gradually ceased operation from 1845. However, they left behind a local legacy of highly skilled Maltese linguists, legal specialists and technical experts, which helped pave the way for Malta’s own newspaper and literary sectors.
While the ultimate aim was to launch a programme from Malta to replace Islamic and Eastern Orthodox beliefs with Protestant Christianity, the “weapon” deployed in 1842 was the printed word and education rather than direct religious or theology confrontation. Instead, the most enduring legacy was unintended, and would come to be known collectively as the Malta Press
