An Ear, a Man from Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country and 190 Boats

AN EAR, A MAN FROM GIPUZKOA IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY AND 190 BOATS

Monthly Strategy Report January 2014

Alejandro Vidal Head of Market Strategy

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 A S W A R D Monthly Strategy Report. January 2014

An ear, a man from Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country and 190 boats.

We all know that military interests are tightly bound to economic interests. We are equally aware that Spain has a military past in which defeats stand out and the victories are relatively few. Here is a story that allowed the push that the colonies gave to the Spanish economy to be maintained and which facilitated the independence of the United States.

In 1738, with the War of the Spanish Succession at an end, it was now obvious that the Spanish Empire was fi nding it increasingly diffi cult to jointly maintain trade and defend the Latin American strongholds, especially in the Caribbean. Bouts of piracy and smuggling were becoming more frequent and were urged by the King of England, who looked at it as an undeclared war of attrition against the Bourbons, his main enemies who now occupied both the French and Spanish throne.

However, given the Spanish weakness in the area was more and more evident, the feeling in the Caribbean was ripe with pre-war tension with pirates and English corsairs placing increasing pressure on the merchants fl ying the Spanish fl ag. All that was needed to ignite open confl ict was a spark. And that spark was the capture of the captain of an English smuggling ship, one Robert Jenkins. His ship was captured by the Spanish ship La Isabela, captained by Julio León Fandiño, who punished Captain Jenkins by cutting off one of his ears and sent him back to England with a stern warning: tell your King that I will do the same to him, if he dares to do the same.

Jenkins returned to London with the amputated ear in a jar of alcohol and displayed the aff ront to the House of Commons, presided at the time by William Pitt, a very hot-blooded politician after whom the city of Pittsburg in Pennsylvania is named. As a result, England decided that such an aff ront to the King could not go unanswered and offi cially declared war with Spain in 1739, known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear (Guerra de los Asientos in Spanish). The English tactic was to control the isthmus of Panama, and to do so it was necessary to control two Spanish positions: Portobelo, in the Pacifi c and Cartagena de Indias in the Caribbean. The objective: break communications between the two main viceroyalties, New Granada and New Spain to further complicate the Spanish defence.

For such an undertaking, he appointed the admirals Edward Vernon and Lawrence Washington (the brother of George Washington, the fi rst President of the United States and leader of the rebellion of the British colonies) as commanders of the British fl eet. The fi rst step was to take Portobelo, a simple undertaking as it was defended by 500 Spanish; a squadron of six English vessels was suffi cient to take the stronghold, which further emboldened Vernon.

Vernon then gathered practically the entirety of the British Fleet under his control: 186 units, among which were 29 ships of the line (the best ships of the period) and 22 frigates, totalling 30,000 men. Against them stood the Spanish defences with 6 ships of the line and 1,200 entrenched men in the diff erent forts of the city.

Commanding the Spanish was a soldier with vast combat experience: Blas de Lezo, a man from Gipuzkoa who had been enlisted on warships since the age of 12, so courageous in combat that he was known among the troops as the half-man because of the war wounds that he had accumulated: he was missing an eye, an arm and a leg. Such was his prowess in combat that he was given command of a ship at the age of 24 and within just three years he captured 11 British ships, among which were several of great importance. Monthly Strategy Report. January 2014

After several heated epistolary exchanges between Vernon and Lezo, the great British Fleet is sighted by the ships from Cartagena in May 1741 and it changes heading for the forts they are defending at the mouth of the bay at full trim, which they bombard constantly for 16 days until they fi nally silence them. Seeing the entrance to the bay is clear, Vernon senses that victory will soon be his sends a dispatch to London informing of the capture of Cartagena.

Unfortunately, things were not to turn out well for him at all. Blas de Lezo withdraws all his troops and artillery to the castle of San Felipe de Barajas, located inside the bay, where the English fl eet are unable to position themselves comfortably or manoeuvre to benefi t from their superior numbers. After exchanging cannon fi re with the fortress equipped with artillery, with poor results for the British, Vernon decides to disembark and attempt take the fortress by land, attacking with his infantry.

The fi rst problem is that the Spanish defensive positions are laid out in such a way that Vernon is forced to surround the fortress by passing through the rain forest, where many of his soldiers fall victim to malaria and other tropical diseases, but they still manage to lay siege to the castle.

The English offi cers, after exploring the Spanish position and their strong walls, see that they will be unable to bring down the walls using the light artillery that they have been able to carry, but believe that their superior numbers is enough to try a frontal assault, using ladders to climb the walls. And so they draw up their plan of attack. However, a foresighted Blas de Lezo anticipates this movement and orders a ditch strewn with obstacles to be excavated at the foot of the walls.

So, the 600 men that still defend the castle of San Felipe hold against the fi rst wave of English with sabres and muskets. And when they fi nally withdraw and the English reach the wall, they discover that their ladders are not long enough to reach the walls across the trench. The attack comes to a standstill at the foot of the wall, from the top of which the Spanish massacre, unopposed, the British troops, causing thousands of deaths. Even during their retreat they are harassed by the Spanish, who infl ict even more losses and gain all the material left behind, including 1,500 cannons.

The British lost 8,500 men and 50 ships at Cartagena, among which were 19 ships of the line and 4 frigates, compared to the 6 lost vessels and 800 dead suff ered by the Spanish.

The problem is that London had been informed of the capture of the city, news which was received with such joy that even coins were minted to commemorate the honour of Vernon and the humiliation of the Spanish, dating the fall of the city as 1st April 1741. Such was his disappointment when discovering the truth, King George II prohibited the chroniclers from speaking of the Battle of Cartagena de Indias.

The consequences of such a debacle for the British Navy were clearly negative. Spain maintained its naval supremacy in the area for another 60 years until the famous Battle of Trafalgar. Furthermore, England decided to concentrate what was left of its ships to defend closer positions and its military position became clearly weakened in America, which accelerated the independence process of its colonies to found the United States.