STRATEGIC ILLUSIONS and the IBERIAN WAR of 1762 Patrick J
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN STRATEGIC ILLUSIONS AND THE IBERIAN WAR OF 1762 Patrick J. Speelman The Iberian war of 1762 is an anomaly within the Seven Years’ War. Yet its less-than dramatic conduct should not overshadow its importance. As part of a larger campaign it was born of an illusion imagined by the Bourbon powers. At the ground level, illusions by both sides obscured the realities of combat in Portugal, as the great powers believed it could support modern military operations. These illusions, both strategic and otherwise, set the stage for the war’s final Bourbon disaster. Simply, miscalculation had reshaped the strategic context, duration and signifi- cance of the larger war. This chapter will provide an overview of those illusions and attempt to explain the conduct and tragic nature of the campaign.1 First, war between Spain and Great Britain was not inevitable. Prior to 1759, Anglo-Spanish relations suggested reconciliation, not conflict. The Newcastle ministry deemed Spanish neutrality necessary to defeat French naval power, and it dangled intriguing prospects on many fronts.2 King George II had hinted at support for then crown Prince Charles’ transfer of Naples and Sicily to his son over his brother, who had married Louis XV’s daughter. Britain also enticed Spain with the return of Gibraltar for help in recovering the more important naval base of Port Mahon captured by France at the outbreak of hostilities.3 Ricardo Wall, the Irish-born Spanish 1 Secondary accounts include, António Barrento, Guerra Fantástica, 1762: Portugal, o Conde de Lippe e a Guerra dos Sete Anos (Lisbon: Tribuna, 2006); Alan David Francis, “The Campaign in Portugal, 1762,” Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research 59, no. 237 (1981): 25–43; and Simâo Coelho Torrezâo, “Epilogo Historico da Guerra de Portugal com Castela no Anno de 1762,” [nd], Lisbon, Portugal, Arquivo Histórico Militar, DIV/1/07/01/ m001-0029 (hereafter AHM). 2 Jeremy Black, “Anglo-Spanish Naval Relations in the Eighteenth Century,” The Mariner’s Mirror 77, no. 3 (August 1991): 253. 3 In fact these rumors became more formal overtures in 1757. Britain hinted at the return of Gibraltar and even the end of the logwood disputes in Central America for Minorca, Oran, and Ceuta in North Africa. See the classic by Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, 1739–1763 (London and Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson (Printers) Ltd., 1936), 430 patrick j. speelman state secretary, sympathized with the nascent pro-British sentiment, but colonial issues and French diplomacy doomed prospects for an Atlantic “Diplomatic Revolution.”4 Old issues of English privateers, smuggling, and Honduran logwood settlements frustrated negotiations.5 Neither side embraced conces- sions. The British government, for its part, did little to suppress ‘piratical’ activities in the Caribbean. In turn, Spanish demands for access to the Newfoundland fisheries, important training grounds for naval personnel, angered the maritime interests in London. Ships routinely violated the area whether or not they had the requisite passports. Even with the con- tentious logwood issue at the forefront of Spanish ire, diplomatic stale- mate prevailed, and war appeared unlikely.6 The accession of Charles III in 1759 set in motion the march to war.7 An Anglophobe, Charles and his chief ministers viewed Albion as a colonial menace.8 Both he and Wall rightfully viewed British control of the French Caribbean colonies as a serious threat to Spanish interests. Unlike Wall, Charles believed Spanish economic and military pressure could preempt that threat. Their illusion, that militarily pressure could force Britain to compromise, was the chief flaw in Bourbon strategic planning. In fact, Charles went further: perhaps British trade rights and smuggling could be expunged altogether with joint Bourbon action. Irksome French trade privileges in Spain and the Caribbean threatened Spanish mercantile 556–63; Jean O. McLachlan, “The Seven Years’ Peace, and the West Indian Policy of Carvajal and Wall,” The English Historical Review 53, no. 211 (July 1938): 457–77. 4 France was able to parry British overtures by dangling the prospects of giving Minorca to Spain and supporting the Infanté Felipe’s candidacy to the crown of Poland. See John D. Bergamini, The Spanish Bourbons: The History of a Tenacious Dynasty (New York: G.P. Putnam Sons, 1974), 82. 5 See Jean O. McLachlan, “The Uneasy Neutrality: A Study of Anglo-Spanish Disputes over Spanish Prizes, 1756–1759,” Cambridge Historical Journal 6, no. 1 (1938): 55–77; Karl H. Offen, “British Logwood Extraction from the Mosquitia: The Origin of a Myth,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 80, no. 1 (2000): 113–35. 6 Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies, 565. See, Karl W. Schweizer, “William Pitt, Lord Bute, and the Peace Negotiations with France, May-September 1761,” Albion 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1981): 262–75. 7 The domestic situation in Spain paralyzed foreign policy in the final two years of Ferdinand’s reign and may help explain the ‘neutral’ stance prior to Charles III’s accession to the throne. See, Charles C. Noel, “The Crisis of 1758–1759: Sovereignty and Power during a ‘Species of Interregnum,” in Robert Oresko, G.C. Gibbs and H.M. Scott, eds., Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of Ragnhild Hatton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 580–608. 8 See Allan Christelow, “Economic Background of the Anglo-Spanish War of 1762,” The Journal of Modern History 18, no. 1 (March 1946): 22–36..