War of the Oranges

The war of the Oranges was a brief military conflict that pitted Portugal against France and Spain in 1801.

Development

In 1801, Napoleon ordered Portugal to break its traditional alliance with the United Kingdom and close its ports to British shipping. In this claim he involved Spain, then governed by Minister Manuel Godoy, by signing the Treaty of Madrid in 1801. According to this treaty, Spain promised to declare war on Portugal if the neighboring nation maintained its support for the British. Given the Portuguese refusal to submit to Franco-Spanish claims, the so-called war of the Oranges was unleashed.

The military campaign barely lasted eighteen days between May and June 1801. In it, a Spanish army under the command of Godoy successively occupied a dozen and a half Portuguese towns, including Arronches, Castelo de Vide, Campomayor, Portalegre, Olivenza and Jurumeño.

For their part, the Portuguese of the northern army tried to surprise the Spanish forces in southern Galicia, launching an attack against the fortress of Monterrey. Although they failed in their attempt, the Portuguese forces were able to defend the border against repeated Spanish attacks, later withdrawing to Chaves upon hearing the news of the signing of the armistice.

Peace was signed in Badajoz on June 6 (Treaty of Badajoz), returning all the conquered places to Portugal with the exception of Olivenza and its territory, which was already an old border dispute between the two countries. Taking advantage of the occasion and the geography, Vila Real (Villarreal) was not returned either, which did not belong to Olivenza, but to Jurumeña. The dividing line between Spain and Portugal was established in that area using the course of the Guadiana river, de facto but de iure since questions remain about the possession of the territory (see question of Olivenza).

Although the agreement between France and Spain provided for Portugal to cede to Spain one or several Portuguese provinces that represented twenty-five percent of the metropolitan population in order to use them as a bargaining chip and obtain the return or cession of Mahón, the island of Trinidad and Malta, this clause was waived by Carlos IV of Spain, to the great displeasure of Napoleon.

The war of the Oranges received its name from the bouquet of oranges that Godoy sent to Queen María Luisa when she was besieging the city of Elvas.

American Front

On August 8, 1801, a group of Portuguese irregulars allied with some discontented Guarani, in the context of the War of the Oranges, occupied the town of San Miguel Arcángel and a few days later they conquered the rest of the current department of Misiones Orientales and the town of San Francisco de Borja.

The Treaty of Badajoz recognized Spanish sovereignty in the territories conquered in the Eastern Missions, signed on June 6, 1801 in the city of Badajoz between Spain and France on one side, and Portugal on the other, put an end to the war of the oranges In relation to Spain, Portugal definitively recognized the right of possession of the colony of Sacramento and the Eastern Missions, which had already been tried to be solved through the Treaties of Madrid of 1750 and that of San Ildefonso of 1777. The treaty also stipulated that the violation of any of its articles would lead to its annulment.

Portugal never returned the territories of Misiones Orientales, which currently belong to Brazil. It was the first violation of the treaty. The Treaty of Badajoz stipulated only the transfer of the Plaza de Olivenza and its territory to Spain. However, Spain also annexed the Alentejo squares of Arronches, Castelo de Vide, Barbacena, Campomayor, Jurumeña, Portalegre and Ouguela, located on the left bank of the Guadiana River. Therefore, as was dictated in the Treaty of Badajoz, all of these places were returned to Portugal. For his part, since the return of the American territories, claimed by Spain, did not take place, he justified that Olivenza, Táliga and Villareal, which belonged to the territory of the Portuguese municipality of Jurumeña, should not be handed over to Portugal again after the Napoleonic wars.

The justice of the Portuguese claims over the sovereignty of Olivenza were recognized at the international congress of Vienna in 1815, but Spain, relying on the provisions of the Treaty of Badajoz, kept the territory under its sovereignty because Portugal never It withdrew from the Eastern Missions and even occupied the entire territory east of the Uruguay River between 1816 and 1828. At present there are still claims for the return of this territory by some Portuguese organizations. Misiones Orientales, which was occupied by Portugal after signing peace, continued under Portuguese and later Brazilian power. Argentina claimed a boundary to the east of the Uruguay River until the Cleveland Award on Misiones.