Episode 5 of 6
Deterioration of the Garrison
- When
- August 1800
- Where
- Valletta
- Part of
- Siege of Malta (1798–1800)
By August 1800 the besieged city lacked animals, food, and water, and civilians had been expelled.
To conserve resources, the French forced civilians out of Valletta; the city's population fell from 45,000 in 1799 to 9,000 by 1800. By August 1800 the situation was desperate: no horses, pack animals, dogs, cats, fowls, or rabbits remained alive in the city, the cisterns were empty, and even firewood was scarce. Starvation and disease had disastrously affected the troops' health, morale, and combat capability.
Sources
- Siege of Malta (1798–1800) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-22
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.