Gibraltar

Where is Gibraltar and why did it matter?

Gibraltar is a narrow peninsula topped by a great limestone ridge, the Rock, on the south coast of Spain. It stands at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar, the channel between Europe and Africa that joins the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. At its narrowest the strait is only about 13 kilometres wide, with Morocco on the far side. The Rock is usually counted as one of the ancient Pillars of Hercules.

Any ship sailing between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean had to pass through this gap. A fortress here could watch that traffic. In the game’s years, though, Gibraltar had only an old harbour wall, the Old Mole, and few naval workshops. The Royal Navy’s main Mediterranean base and dockyard were at Port Mahon on the island of Minorca, which Britain captured in 1708.

How did Britain capture Gibraltar in 1704?

In 1702 England, the Dutch Republic and Austria went to war with France and Spain over who should be king of Spain. This was the War of the Spanish Succession. On 31 July 1704 an English and Dutch fleet under Admiral Sir George Rooke sailed into the bay. About 1,800 English and Dutch marines landed under Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, a German prince fighting for the Austrian side.

After a heavy bombardment, the Spanish governor, Diego de Salinas, surrendered on 4 August. His garrison was tiny, mostly townsmen with only a handful of trained soldiers. (England still used the old calendar, so English records date the surrender 24 July.) The town was taken in the name of Archduke Charles, whom the allies wanted as King Charles III of Spain, not in the name of Queen Anne.

Nearly all the townspeople, except about fifty families, chose to leave. They settled nearby at Algeciras, Los Barrios and around the hermitage of San Roque. In August 1704 a French fleet fought the allies off Málaga, and then a French and Spanish army besieged the Rock into 1705, but Gibraltar stayed in allied hands.

What did the Treaty of Utrecht say about Gibraltar?

The war ended with a set of treaties signed at Utrecht in 1713. In Article X of the treaty between Spain and Britain, dated 13 July 1713, Spain gave Britain the town, castle, port and defences of Gibraltar. The article came with strings attached:

• Britain got the town “without any territorial jurisdiction”, meaning no land beyond it, and no open road into Spain.
• The garrison could buy food from Spain for cash only when in need.
• Goods smuggled into Spain through Gibraltar could be seized.
• No Jews or Moors (Muslims from North Africa) were to live there, and Moroccan warships were barred, though Moroccan merchant ships could come in.
• Catholics in the town kept the right to worship.
• If Britain ever gave Gibraltar up, Spain was to be offered it first.

Spain never stopped hoping to take it back, and these rules caused quarrels for many years.

Who lived in Gibraltar around 1715?

Gibraltar was first of all a garrison, a town run by the army, with soldiers guarding its walls and a governor in charge. After 1704 new civilians moved into the empty houses: British traders, Spaniards, Genoese and Jews from North Africa.

Prince George of Hesse declared Gibraltar a free port soon after the capture, to tempt supply ships in during the siege. In February 1706 Queen Anne’s government confirmed it. Ships of any nation could land goods without paying duties, and the English Navigation Acts, the laws that kept colonial trade in English ships, did not apply. Even so, in January 1730 London’s Board of Trade was still asking merchants about formally making Gibraltar a free port.

A count of civilians in August 1725 found 1,113 people, not including the soldiers. About 400 were Spaniards and 137 were Jews, most of them from North Africa. Despite the treaty, Jewish families were sent away more than once, after 1713 and again in 1718, but they kept coming back because the town needed them.

Why did Gibraltar depend on Morocco?

The Rock grew almost no food. Genoese fishermen brought in fresh fish, and most stores came by sea from Britain, but fresh meat, especially live cattle, came across the strait from Morocco, along with timber, lime and bricks for building.

That made the Moroccan sultan, Moulay Ismail, very important to the garrison. His treasurer, a Jewish merchant named Moses ben Hattar, had business in Gibraltar, and Jewish traders from Tetouan and Salé ran much of the supply. Around 1718, after a British admiral seized cargo belonging to Jewish merchants who acted for the sultan’s court, Moulay Ismail broke off trade.

A British envoy, Captain Charles Stewart, made a new treaty in January 1721. It reopened trade and freed British captives held in Morocco, men taken by Moroccan corsairs, licensed sea raiders, who were released in July 1721 after a ransom was agreed. The treaty also counted the people of Gibraltar as British subjects, which protected its Jewish merchants.

What happened in the siege of 1727?

In 1727 Spain and Britain went to war again, and King Philip V of Spain sent an army to retake the Rock. Its commander was the Count de las Torres; his chief engineer, Jorge de Verboom, thought the plan would fail and left for Madrid. Sources put the Spanish army at anywhere from 12,000 to 25,000 men.

The siege began in February. At first Colonel Richard Kane held Gibraltar with about 1,200 soldiers, and he sent the town’s Spanish residents away. Brigadier Jasper Clayton then arrived with Admiral Sir Charles Wager’s squadron of warships, and the governor, Lord Portmore, came in the spring. Wager’s ships fired on Spanish workers digging trenches across the flat isthmus. A Spanish plan to dig a mine under the British guns failed because the limestone was too hard.

Bombardments in March and May badly damaged the town and some of the gun batteries, but the defences held. Because the sea stayed open, food kept arriving from Morocco. In June the Spanish asked for a truce, agreed at San Roque, and the siege ended after about four months. An uneasy peace held until the war formally ended in 1729.