When Napoleon left Malta, just a few days after he arrived here, in June 1798, he wanted to take with him all the officers and soldiers serving with the Order.

One reason may have been he wanted to deplete any possible armed opposition to the French soldiers he was going to leave behind him to guard Malta.

In this, he would fail as the Maltese uprising (with foreign help) would end the French occupation.

But a very early sign of what would happen later on came on 13 June. Napoleon had ordered that all officers and soldiers were to parade and be inspected at Birkirkara.

Before the Order was kicked out the armed forces in Malta consisted of the Reggimento di Malta (521 in April 1796), the Cacciatori (literally hunters) - some 1,200 - together with some 400 gunners and 1,200 sailors.

But on 13 June only 147 from the Grandmaster's Guard, 417 from the Cacciatori, 107 from the ship crews, 172 from the galleys' crew and 60 soldiers from the Reggimento di Malta turned up.

Napoleon was furious. And only 24 soldiers from the Reggimento di Malta, five from the Grandmaster's Guard and a few non-commissioned officers volunteered to join the French army in Egypt.

There was also another reason why Napoleon wanted Maltese soldiers to join him. He reasoned that the Maltese soldiers would come in useful in dealing with the Arabs, given that the Maltese and Arabic languages are similar.

So on 14 June Napoleon issued a proclamation that said that all soldiers of the Order had 48 hours to return to their posts or else be condemned to the galleys. He also disbanded the Cacciatori. And he grouped together the remaining soldiers into two regular regiments with the French army.

The two units were then ordered to parade at St Elmo at 5am on 16 June. On that day 358 men from the Reggimento di Malta and 119 from the Grandmaster's Guard gathered at St Elmo.

They were then marched off to the quays and forced upon the waiting ships, maybe with the threat of force.

In an effort to sweeten the pill, Napoleon ordered that the wives of the Maltese who left with the French were to receive 20 sous every 10 days and the children 10 sous every 10 days.

But the French were chronically short of money and these promises were not kept, thus increasing anger in Malta.

On 2 July, 1798 the French fleet arrived off the coast of Egypt and landed in heavy seas. On the next day the army began to march in the direction of Alexandria. Bedouin warriors on horseback harassed the troops and several stragglers were taken prisoners or killed. After a five-hour march without water Alexandria was stormed.

Bonaparte then aimed at Cairo, the capital. This entailed a 72-hour march, described as "near hell". The men were loaded with heavy, hot equipment and wore uniforms ill-suited for a campaign in North Africa. Dry, hard bread was the only food available and there was a lack of water. The Bedouin had filled the wells with sand or poisoned them.

On 5 July 1798 Napoleon ordered General Dumuy to collect the Maltese soldiers and organise them into an infantry battalion of nine companies to be called the Legion Maltaise. This Maltese Legion was hindered by the total lack of equipment.

On 22 August the whole unit set out to Aboukir. Along the march they were opposed by the Arabs and the Legion lost three, including the commanding officer, and 11 were wounded.

While previously the Maltese were praised for having stood up well against the enemy fire, this time General Dumuy complained bitterly about the performance of the Maltese soldiers who were violent towards their officers and discouraged their comrades through their bad will and example.

But a Captain Bernard MacSheehy, a French officer of Irish birth, defended the Maltese. "The Maltese, fully formed, were at Damanhour, where several of them have been killed. They had to suffer the continuing attacks of the Arabs. On their return to Alexandria, the whole Legion was put to the most arduous work. After the Battle of the Nile, they were employed to bury the dead and pick up anything that could be salvaged. To carry out this task, they had to work up to their waists in the water.

"The corps, since its formation, has not known a single instant of rest and they have given proof of courage and consistency in the middle of the most extreme of hardships.

"Many soldiers are barefoot, others lack clothes. Their footwear was ruined during their work at Aboukir, when they were constantly in the water."

Sometime later Napoleon ordered General Kleber to try and persuade Italian seamen aboard the neutral ships in Alexandria to join the Legion Maltaise. But despite the pressure and a promised bounty, the sailors could not be induced to enlist.

Certain sources claim that the Legion was then authorised to enlist Turks, despite the centuries-old enmity between the two peoples, but this order seems to have been ignored.

In April 1799, the Legion was garrisoned at Suez and it so happened that two British warships found safe anchorage near the city.

Most of the defending troops were Maltese and made contact with the British warships by swimming out to them. The Maltese thus found that in Malta the Maltese had risen against the French and were being helped by the British.

Almost immediately, the Maltese started to defect in increasing numbers. There were also cases when men refused to obey orders. The officer, who had previously defended the Maltese, MacSheehy, now the commanding officer, asked to be relieved of his command of "these miserable men" and attributed all the trouble in the Legion to "a natural cowardice and lack of a military spirit" while General Dumuy reported to Napoleon that the Maltese had never wished to serve with the French in Egypt and had been embarked on the French fleet by trickery.

They were very badly clothed and had received no pay. They had been almost starved, having received a meat ration only once in five months. When, therefore, the British offered them an opportunity to return home, they considered that they were completely justified to desert.

Napoleon received the report without any comment, relieved the Maltese Legion at Suez and collected the unit at Cairo where it was disbanded by order dated 12 July 1799.