The Great Siege of Gibraltar was an unsuccessful attempt by Spain and France to capture Gibraltar from Britain during the American Revolutionary War. It was the largest battle in the war by number of combatants.
On 16 June 1779, Spain entered the war on the side of France with the primary war aim of capturing Gibraltar from the British. The vulnerable garrison of Gibraltar, commanded by George Eliott, was besieged from June 1779 to February 1783. Initially, the siege was carried out solely by Spanish forces under Martín Álvarez de Sotomayor. The siege proved to be a failure because two British relief convoys entered unmolested, the first under Admiral of the White George Rodney in 1780 and the second under Admiral George Darby in 1781, despite the presence of the Spanish Navy. A major assault was planned by the Spanish in late 1781, but the British garrison sortied in November of that year and destroyed many of the forward batteries.
Following the Spanish failure to defeat the garrison or prevent the arrival of relief convoys, the besiegers were reinforced by French forces under Louis de Crillon, who took over command in early 1782. After a lull in the siege, during which the Franco-Spanish besiegers gathered more guns, ships and troops, a "Grand Assault" was launched on 13 September 1782. This involved huge numbers—60,000 attackers, 49 ships of the line and 10 specially designed and newly invented floating batteries—against 5,000 British defenders. The assault proved to be a disastrous and humiliating failure, resulting in heavy losses for the French and Spanish. This was the largest action fought during the war in terms of numbers.
The final sign of defeat for the besiegers came when a crucial British relief convoy under Admiral Richard Howe slipped through the blockading fleet and arrived at the garrison in October 1782. The siege was finally lifted on 7 February 1783 and resulted in a decisive victory for the British. It was a factor in ending the American Revolutionary War—the Peace of Paris negotiations were reliant on news from the siege, particularly at its climax. At three years, seven months and twelve days, it is the longest siege ever endured by the British Armed Forces.
Background
The Rock of Gibraltar was first fortified with the Moorish Castle in 710 AD. It was the site of ten sieges during the Middle Ages, some of them successful. An Anglo-Dutch force captured the Gibraltar peninsula in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession; possession was assigned to Britain in the 1713 peace Treaty of Utrecht that ended the war. The Spanish made an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Gibraltar in 1727 during the Anglo-Spanish War (1727–1729). After the war ended with the Treaty of Seville (1729), in 1730 Spain built a line of fortifications across the north of the peninsula, cutting Gibraltar off from the mainland.
In 1738 a dispute between Spain and Great Britain arose over commerce between Europe and the Americas. This led to the outbreak of the War of Jenkins' Ear on 23 October 1739. Both sides planned to establish trenches near Gibraltar. Seeing these first movements, Britain ordered Admiral Vernon to sail from Portobello and strengthen the squadron of Admiral Haddock who was already stationed in the Bay of Gibraltar. However, no substantial fighting occurred at Gibraltar before peace returned in 1748.
King Philip V of Spain had died on 9 July 1746 and his successor, Ferdinand VI, began negotiations with Britain on trade. The British Parliament was amenable: they considered lifting the British embargo on Spain and possibly ceding Gibraltar in return for a trade agreement. However, none was reached before Ferdinand VI died in 1759. The new king, Charles III, was less willing to negotiate with Britain. Instead, he signed a Family Compact alliance with Louis XV of France on 15 August 1761. France was already at war with Britain in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), so Britain responded by declaring war on Spain. In the following two years, the British captured Manila and Havana, the capitals of the Spanish colonies of the Philippines and Cuba, respectively. Again there was no fighting at Gibraltar. The peace Treaty of Paris (1763) that ended the war returned Manila and Havana to Spain, in exchange for Spanish holdings in Florida. The treaty also transferred most of France's colonies in North America to Britain.
In the years of peace that followed both France and Spain sought an opportunity to fight Britain on more favourable terms, with the goal of recovering their lost colonial possessions. The outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1775 provided that opportunity.
Both France and Spain began by supplying funding and arms to the American revolutionaries, and drew up a strategy to intervene on the American side against Britain. France entered the war as allies of the new United States with a Treaty of Alliance in October 1778. On 12 April 1779 France signed the Treaty of Aranjuez with Spain based on its Third Pacte de Famille between the Bourbon kings, wherein they agreed to aid one another in recovering lost territory from Britain. Spain then declared war on Britain on 16 June and became a formal co-belligerent with the United States Congress. The first war aim for Spain at Aranjuez was to secure Gibraltar, and the agreement with France was not to make peace or agree to a truce until that place was recovered. With the British occupied with the war in America, their base at Gibraltar was vulnerable, and Spain expected its capture to be a straightforward opening to the war, to be followed by a Franco-Spanish invasion of Great Britain that could be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations to recover the lost colonies.
Opposing forces
The Spanish blockade was to be directed by Martín Álvarez de Sotomayor. Spanish ground forces were composed of 16 infantry battalions, which included the Royal Guards and the Walloon Guards, along with artillery and 12 squadrons of cavalry. This yielded a total of about 14,000 men. The artillery was commanded by Rudesindo Tilly, while the cavalry and the French dragoons were headed by the Marquis of Arellano. Antonio Barceló commanded the maritime forces responsible for blockading the bay. He established his base in Algeciras, with a fleet of several xebecs and gunboats. French involvement was limited, but in 1781 the first of them arrived in numbers with the Régiment de Besançon (Half Company of artillery).
A fleet of 11 ships of the line and two frigates were placed in the Gulf of Cadiz under the command of Luis de Córdova y Córdova to block the passage of British reinforcements.
The British garrison in 1778 consisted of 5,382 soldiers under General Eliott as Governor-General. All the defences were strengthened. The main physical task facing Eliott was an extensive building programme of new fortifications for Gibraltar, as set out in a report by a commission that had examined the state of the Rock's defences in the early 1770s. The most prominent new work was the King's Bastion designed by Sir William Green and built by the Soldier Artificer Company on the main waterfront of the town in Gibraltar. The King's Bastion comprised a stone battery holding 26 heavy guns and mortars, with barracks and casemates to house a full battalion of foot. The Grand Battery protected the Land Port Gate, the main entrance to Gibraltar from the isthmus connecting to the Spanish mainland. Other fortifications and batteries crowded along the town's waterfront and on the Rock.
Eliott began a programme of increasing the number of guns deployed in the batteries and fortifications, which initially stood at 412, many of them inoperable. Many of the infantry assisted the artillery in serving the guns. The garrison included three battalions of Hanoverian and around 80 Corsican troops. Eliott also formed a unit of sharpshooters. The Royal Navy had only a token force present—mostly sailors and marines on shore—but one former ship of the line, HMS Panther, was moored in the harbour as a hulk and floating battery. The frigate HMS Enterprise and twelve gunboats were also present. Eliott's preparations inspired confidence in his troops. The British had anticipated an attack for some time, and had received additional reinforcements and supplies by ship. Britain stepped up preparations after France entered the conflict in 1778, although the French were initially more concerned with sending forces to America, and it was not until Spain joined the war that the long-expected siege commenced.
British troops included:
- 12th Regiment of Foot, then 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment of Foot
- 39th Regiment of Foot, then 39th (East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot
- 56th Regiment of Foot, then 56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot
- 58th Regiment of Foot, then 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment of Foot
- 65th Regiment of Foot, then 65th (2nd Yorkshire, North Riding) Regiment of Foot
- 72nd Regiment of Foot (Royal Manchester Volunteers)
Siege
On 16 June 1779, the Spanish issued what was in effect a declaration of war against Great Britain, and a blockade immediately commenced. On 6 July 1779, an engagement took place between the British ships and Spanish vessels bringing supplies to the Spanish troops on shore. Several Spanish vessels were taken and the hostilities began. The combined Spanish and French fleets blockaded Gibraltar from the sea, while on the land side an enormous army constructed forts, redoubts, entrenchments, and batteries from which to attack.
As the winter of 1779 came, provisions for the garrison soon became scarce. Bread was almost impossible to obtain and was not permitted to be issued except to the sick and to children. Salt meat and biscuits soon became a major part of the rations, with an occasional issue of four ounces of rice each day. Fuel was exhausted, and fires were made only with difficulty, using the salt-encrusted timbers of old ships broken up in the harbour for the purpose. As a result, a violent outbreak of scurvy occurred among the troops, owing to the lack of vegetables and medicines. Eliott appealed to London for relief, but as the winter wore on, rations were reduced further. Despite this, the garrison's morale remained high, and the troops continued to take their turns at various posts of duty. They had also repulsed several small testing assaults made by the Spanish and had great faith that they would receive supplies by sea, thus enduring the cold and hunger.
The Spanish were forced to commit a greater number of troops and ships to the siege, postponing the planned invasion of England, owing to this and the cancellation of the Armada of 1779.
First naval relief
In December 1779, a large convoy sailed from England to Gibraltar, escorted by 21 ships of the line under the command of Admiral of the White Sir George Rodney. On their way, they encountered and captured a Spanish convoy off Cape Finisterre in the action of 8 January 1780, capturing valuable supplies which would be later delivered to the Gibraltar garrison. The Spanish soon learned of the convoy and sent a fleet under Squadron Commander Juan de Lángara to intercept it, but underestimated the escort's strength, and Langara's ships soon had to flee. Rodney caught up with and defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on 16 January, with Langara's fleet losing six ships of the line and large quantities of supplies. Rodney's fleet proceeded to easily penetrate the Spanish blockade and reach Gibraltar on 25 January, bringing reinforcements of 1,052 men of the 73rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot (MacLeod's Highlanders) under Lieutenant-colonel George Mackenzie and a vast amount of supplies, including those captured from the Spanish. This greatly heartened the garrison, but as soon as Rodney's fleet left, the siege resumed.
The British defenders resisted every attempt to capture Gibraltar by assault. While the two sides unceasingly exchanged shot and shell, by the end of the summer provisions once again began to run low, and scurvy started to reappear thus reducing the effective strength of the garrison. Through the use of small, fast-sailing ships that ran the blockade, they were able to keep in communication with the British forces besieged on Minorca, but that force was also low on supplies.
On 7 June the two largest ships in Gibraltar, HMS Panther and HMS Enterprise, were targeted within Gibraltar's harbour by Spanish fire ships. Warning shots from Enterprise alerted the garrison and soon an intense bombardment slowed the fire ships. A few were sunk but the others carried on. The Spanish fleet waited just outside the harbour for any British ships trying to escape, so sailors from Panther and Enterprise set out in longboats, intercepted the fire ships, and towed them off course.
Second naval relief
Throughout the second winter the garrison faced foes, elements, disease, and starvation. By March the situation was serious: the garrison and civilians were on weekly rations and in need of a large supply. For the Spanish the blockade was working, with the few small ships that slipped past the blockade carrying insufficient supplies.
On 12 April 1781 Vice Admiral George Darby's squadron of 29 ships of the line escorting 100 store ships from England entered the bay, despite the Spanish fleet. The Spanish, frustrated by this failure, for the first time in the siege opened up a terrific barrage while the stores were unloaded. Although they caused great damage to the town, the South Mole where the ships unloaded their stores was out of their reach. The civilian population of about 1,000 sailed with Darby for England on 21 April, leaving the garrison with fewer mouths to feed and allowing them to operate more freely. Again the fleet left without hindrance during the night and slipped past the blockading Spanish fleet. Provisions for the garrison were now plentiful, including black powder, guns and ammunition as well as food and other supplies.