Siege of Cartagena de Indias (1741)
The siege or battle of Cartagena de Indias, from March 13 to May 20, 1741, was the decisive episode that marked the outcome of the Asiento war (1739-1748), one of the armed conflicts between Spain and Great Britain that occurred during the 18th century.
As a result of longstanding trade tensions, the war was fought primarily in the Caribbean Sea; the British attempted to capture key Spanish ports in the region, including Portobelo and Chagres in present-day Panama, Havana (present-day Cuba), and Cartagena de Indias (present-day Colombia).
Two previous naval attacks failed in 1740, while the third attempt in March 1741 was a combined naval and land assault. The British were forced to withdraw, having lost, according to estimates, between 9,500 and 11,500 men, mostly to yellow fever; some units suffered mortality rates of 80 to 90 percent. It was one of the biggest defeats for the Royal Navy in its history. The victory demonstrated Spain's ability to defend its position and largely ended military operations in this area. Both countries shifted their focus to the war of the Austrian succession, and hostilities ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748.
Background
At the time, it was a priority for the English to have strongholds on the mainland in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, which they wanted to convert into British and in which they already had some islands, Jamaica being the main one they. Spanish power on a European scale had been in clear decline for 70 years, so Great Britain was not willing to continue accepting enormously disadvantageous conditions for them as far as American trade was concerned. Despite that legality established as a result of past wars, smuggling by English merchants was constant, and it was not the first time that British soldiers tried to set foot on the coast, attacking cities or poorly protected ports, sometimes with momentary success., but in the end the territories were always recovered by the Spanish.
Within this panorama, the problems of smuggling and privateering in the Caribbean Sea affected both powers equally, although with a Spanish advantage. The British admit to having captured 231 Spanish ships compared to 331 British captured by the Spanish, up to September 1741, while the Spanish counts speak of 25 compared to 186, although despite the great discrepancy in figures, both counts recognize an advantage for the Spanish people.
And precisely one of the many smuggling problems, which occurred in 1738 off the coast of Florida, was used by Great Britain as a pretext to try once again to seize Spain's American possessions. The incident, which would bring such terrible consequences, occurred when a Spanish coast guard, La Isabela, under the command of Captain Juan de León Fandiño, seized a British smuggler captain, Robert Jenkins, and supposedly as punishment he cut off an ear while saying: "Go and tell your king that I will do the same to him if he dares to do the same."
There is no evidence that Jenkins ever appeared in the British Parliament. Traditionally this war was known in Great Britain as "The Spanish War". The term "War of Jenkins' Ear", devised by the Scotsman Thomas Carlyle, after the publication in 1858 of his work History of Friedrich II (in whose book XI, chapter VI the expression is used for the first time).
The war
Initiating hostilities in November 1739, Admiral Edward Vernon attacked the Plaza de Portobelo on the Isthmus of Panama with 6 ships. The square was defended by only 700 men, so Vernon's success was absolute (this event gives its name to Portobello Road in London and the famous anthem Rule, Britannia! was also composed commemorating that victory). Meanwhile, the forces of Commodore Anson, with the ship Septentrión and two smaller ships harassed the colonies in the South Pacific, as a diversionary maneuver, but without causing appreciable damage. As an ultimate goal, Anson had the mission of supporting a future military operation on the Isthmus of Panama from the Pacific coast that would have the objective of cutting off land communications between the Viceroyalty of New Granada and that of New Spain, to immediately begin the conquest British New Granada.
After that initial triumph, Vernon, enveloped in a climate of euphoria, and stirred up by British public opinion and by the incendiary proclamations of the young parliamentarian William Pitt, decided to strike a decisive blow, for which he assembled a formidable fleet of 186 ships, with 27,600 men, armed with 2,000 cannons, which left Port Royal (Jamaica) and anchored at the beginning of March 1741 along the coast of Cartagena de Indias, the most important city in the Caribbean, where all the goods from the trade between Spain and the Indies, including the treasures extracted from the mines of Potosí (present-day Bolivia) and Peru.
When the viceroy of New Granada, Sebastián de Eslava, learned of Vernon's coming in force to try to conquer Cartagena, as the place was without a military governor, he decided to personally take command of the defense, for which reason Blas de Lezo, head of the station and squadron (six ships of the line) remained as his immediate subordinate. He only had about 3,600 men and a fleet of six ships: the Galicia, the San Carlos, the San Felipe, the Africa, the Dragon and the Conqueror.
In a letter dated November 27, 1739 in Portobelo, Vernon comments to Lezo that he has given the prisoners excellent treatment despite the fact that they did not deserve it. Lezo responds to him in a letter dated December 24 of the same year aboard the Conquistador in a dry, arrogant and challenging tone, and says goodbye to him but not before blurting out:
"I can assure you, that if I had been found in Portobelo, I would have prevented him, and if things had gone to my satisfaction, I would have also gone to look for him anywhere else, persuaded me that the spirit that lacked those of Portobelo would have left me to contain his cowardice" (I understand that of the defenders of Portobelo).
The Battle
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The Scottish novelist Tobias Smollet, who participated as a surgeon in the battle, has left us a description of it in his novel The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748). The great British fleet was sighted on March 13, 1741, which put the city on edge. Before preparing to disembark, Vernon silences the batteries of the Chamba, San Felipe and Santiago fortresses defended by Lorenzo Alderete, from Malaga. After attacking the Punta Abanicos fortress on the Barú Peninsula, defended by José Campuzano Polanco (1689-1760) from Santo Domingo, he set out to shell the San Fernando de Bocachica fort day and night for sixteen days. Bocachica was defended by Carlos Desnaux with 500 men who, finally, had to withdraw before the offensive superiority. After this fortress, only the Bocagrande Fortress remained as the entrance to the bay. In the first, four ships were destroyed to prevent navigation through the narrow channel and, in the second, two ships, contrary to the opinion of Blas de Lezo that it would not be of much use after what was seen in Bocachica, to also prevent access to the Bay. The blockade of the Bocagrande channel did not help much, as the admiral had thought.
After this, Vernon entered the bay triumphantly and in turn, all the Spanish defenders entrenched themselves in the fortress of San Felipe de Barajas after having abandoned the fortress of Bocagrande. Vernon, believing that victory was only a matter of time, sent a courier to England giving the news of the victory.
Next, he ordered an incessant shelling of the castle of San Felipe by sea and land to soften up the forces garrisoned in the fortress. Only 600 men remained in it under the command of Lezo and Desnaux. Vernon decides to surround the fortress and attack from behind him. For this they entered the jungle, which was an odyssey for the British who contracted malaria and lost hundreds of their men. However, they reached the gates of the fortress and Vernon ordered to attack with infantry. The entrance to the fortress was a narrow ramp that De Lezo quickly ordered three hundred men armed with bladed weapons to block, and they managed to contain the attack and inflict 1,500 casualties on the assailants.
The morale of the attackers dropped considerably after this and because of the epidemics that caused continuous casualties. Vernon became very nervous at that moment as the Spanish resistance far exceeded his expectations and he had already sent the news of the victory to Great Britain. Vernon heatedly discussed with his generals the plan to follow. They finally decided to build ladders and surprise the defenders on the night of April 19.
The raiders, under the command of General Thomas Wentworth, organized themselves into three columns of grenadiers and several companies of redcoats. In the vanguard were Jamaican slaves armed with a simple machete. The advance was slow due to the heavy weight of artillery they were transporting and the continuous fire that came out of the trenches and from the top of the fortress, in addition to the fact that they were exposed on a large esplanade; however, they managed to reach the walls.
But Blas de Lezo, anticipating this attack, had ordered a ditch to be dug around the wall, with which the ladders fell short to overcome the ditch and the wall, leaving the attackers unprotected and not knowing what to do. The Spanish continued with their heavy fire, which caused a great massacre in the invading ranks.
The next morning, April 20, innumerable corpses, wounded and mutilated could be seen in the surroundings of the fortress, revealing the very serious British defeat. The Spanish took the opportunity to charge with a bayonet causing the flight of the British. The Spaniards would manage to kill hundreds of them and seize the supplies that the besiegers abandoned after their flight.
Vernon had no choice but to retreat to the ships. He ordered continuous cannonade for another thirty days, since they still did not accept defeat. However, illnesses and shortages of provisions were beginning to take their toll on what remained of the troops. Finally, the British High Command orders the withdrawal, slowly and without ceasing cannonade. The last ships left on May 20. They had to burn five of them due to lack of crew.
Consequences
Immediate consequences
The British had between 8,000 and 10,000 dead and some 7,500 wounded, many of whom died en route to Jamaica.
Meanwhile, Britain was celebrating the "victory" with the disastrous end still unknown. As many as eleven different types of commemorative medals and coins were minted, none official, and all by artisans outside the government, celebrating the capture of Cartagena by Anglo-American forces. One of them showed Lezo kneeling before Vernon, handing him his sword and with the inscription "The pride of Spain humiliated by Vernon". These came to circulate in Spain to the ridicule of the Spanish.
Overall, the war reported few successes and many problems for Great Britain, since the failure of Cartagena de Indias was compounded by several defeats when the British tried to take San Agustín (Florida), La Guaira and Puerto Cabello (Venezuela)., Santiago de Cuba and Havana. However, the Spanish counterattack in the Battle of Bloody Marsh, in Georgia, could be repelled and therefore the fighting ended without border changes in America. For its part, Spain managed to maintain its territories and prolong its military supremacy in America for nearly another century.
Long-term consequences
As a result of this battle, Spain strengthened the control of its Empire in America for approximately 70 more years and with it the prolongation of the maritime rivalry between the Spanish, French and British until the beginning of the century XIX. For the UK, the medium-term consequences were much more serious. Thanks to this victory over the British, Spain was able to maintain territories and a network of military installations in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico that would be masterfully used by Lieutenant Colonel Bernardo de Gálvez to play a decisive role in the independence of the British colonies. of North America, during the so-called American war of independence, in 1776. The War of the Asiento would later merge into the War of the Austrian Succession, for which Great Britain and Spain did not sign peace until the Treaty of Aachen, in 1748.
Spain renewed both the right of asiento and the permit ship with the British, whose service had been interrupted during the war. However, this restitution would only last two years, since by the Treaty of Madrid (1750), Great Britain renounced both in exchange for compensation of 100,000 pounds. These concessions, which in 1713 seemed so advantageous (and constituted one of the clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht), had become dispensable in 1748. Furthermore, it already seemed clear then that peace with Spain would not last long (it was broken again in 1761, when the Spanish joined the Seven Years' War in support of the French), so their loss was by no means catastrophic.
Blas de Lezo was honored for his participation in the siege of Cartagena de Indias, since a square and an avenue in the city of Cartagena bear his name. A modern statue stands in front of the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas.
In 2014 the mayor of Cartagena, Dionisio Vélez, faced with popular pressure, ordered the removal of a commemorative plaque in honor of the British soldiers who died during the siege, which had been discovered days before by Prince Charles of Wales and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, during her visit to the city.