The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)

by James Falkner

  The British and Dutch squadron commanded by Admiral Rooke, having safely convoyed the Levant fleet through the Straits of Gibraltar, failed to achieve a successful landing of troops in Valencia, or to bring to battle the French Mediterranean fleet, which had been expecting by the impending arrival of the squadron from Brest commanded by the Admiral of France, the Comte de Toulouse. A plan to attack Toulon was set aside, as the Duke of Savoy could not participate in such a venture at this time. Instead, on 30 May 1704 Rooke landed 1,600 English and Dutch marines, under the command of Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, near to Barcelona in Catalonia. This project had been discussed in Lisbon prior to the fleet’s departure, and much was hoped from a Catalan uprising on behalf of the archduke. However, although there was little animosity shown to the allied troops, it was soon found that there was for the time being no particular sentiment in favour of Charles, while the Governor of Barcelona, Don Velasco, refused to accept a letter from the archduke. A threat to bombard the city only produced a derisive response and resentment from the populace when it became know, and was generally an ill-judged move that failed to impress Don Velasco. Lacking real numbers to make Prince George’s presence ashore count, Rooke then re-embarked the troops on 1 June and sailed for the coast of southern France once more to see if he could force an engagement on the French fleet. Adverse winds drove him back which ‘did as much damage to yards, masts and sails, as a battle’.12 Another attempt to intercept the Brest squadron failed, and Rooke turned for the straits once more. On 26 June he combined forces with the fresh squadron just arrived from the Tagus under the command of Shovell, and a fresh attempt to take Cadiz, or to seize Port Mahon in Minorca, were discussed but discounted. However, it was known that Gibraltar with its comparatively safe harbour for shipping, was weakly garrisoned by Spanish soldiers, and that would be a prize well worth having.

  The allied fleet took on board fresh water at Tetuan on the North African coast, and crossed the straits on 30 July 1704. That afternoon a 1,800-strong party of English troops and marines were landed on the narrow sandy isthmus that connects the Rock with the Spanish mainland, Some allied warships entered the harbour and warning shots were fired by the garrison gunners, one of which took away the topmast of HMS Ranelagh. The Governor of Gibraltar, Don Diego de Salinas, was immediately summoned to surrender, but he gallantly refused to do so, even though the defences were dilapidated and his inadequate garrison consisted of no more than ‘fifty-six men of whom there were not thirty in service’ in addition to a militia formed from the inhabitants of the town.13 A heavy bombardment began two days later, while armed boats were sent in with a boarding party to take hold of a French privateer which was sheltering beside the Old Mole; the vessel was secured and brought off without any casualties being suffered. A Spanish battery on the New Mole was dismounted by the cannonade, and an unopposed landing was made there, although a powder magazine blew up causing a number of casualties amongst the attackers, and wrecking some of the boats beached nearby. A party of armed seamen landed at Europa Point at the southern extremity of the Rock, and at that de Salinas could see that continued resistance was futile. His small garrison, and the civilian inhabitants, had been subjected to the truly extraordinary total of 40,000 roundshot and shells in the naval bombardment, which did a lot of damage but caused very few casualties. The governor submitted on being granted good terms, and he and the garrison, and most of the inhabitants who feared what their fate might be amongst the Protestant heretic soldiers (the fresh and well-remembered outrages at Cadiz cast a long shadow), left the Rock. They established a camp on the Spanish mainland in sight of their old homes, with what few possessions they had been able to carry with them. Those few French subjects present in Gibraltar had to surrender themselves as prisoners of war. The allies had taken possession of Gibraltar in the the name of Archduke Charles at a fairly modest cost of some 300 killed and wounded, mostly caused by the explosion of the magazine, but before long the British would come to regard the place as being just for their own use. Even so, the value of using Gibraltar to ensure safe passage for allied warships through the straits was plain, and was described in London, with a degree of exaggeration, as being ‘a footing for the King of Spain [Carlos III of course] in the strongest fort belonging to that country, and of great use to us for securing our trade and interrupting of the enemy’s’.14

  The news of the loss of Gibraltar was greeted with understandable dismay in Madrid, and the Comte de Toulouse, now commanding the French fleet in Toulon, set out to challenge Rooke’s hold on the straits. Four of the Dutch ships with Rooke had already sailed for Holland, to embark troops for service in Spain, and three frigates had been despatched to the Azores to shepherd in Portuguese merchantmen coming from Brazil. Rooke’s fleet was reduced in strength, but he was rejoined by Sir Cloudesley Shovell, whose ships had also re-supplied with fresh water at Ceuta. The French turned back rather than enter the straits, but, the opposing fleets met and clashed off Málaga on the morning of 24 August 1704. Rooke had fifty-nine warships plus seven fireships, while Toulouse could put in the line of battle fifty-seven warships, six fireships and twenty-eight swift galleys. These oar-driven vessels proved their worth in towing the larger French ships into position when the wind dropped, and their heavy bow-mounted guns did a lot of damage to their opponents. With a brisk easterly coming up Rooke had the wind advantage, but the battle, while fiercely fought, was inconclusive, and despite a prodigious expenditure of powder and shot no ship on either side was sunk or taken, although most were badly battered, and Captain Sir Andrew Leake had been mortally wounded aboard HMS Grafton (70 guns). ‘The Comte de Toulouse,’ the Duc de St Simon wrote, ‘met the fleet under Rooke off Málaga and fought with it from ten in the morning till eight at night. It was long since such a tenacious and furious contact had been seen at sea.’15 British and Dutch casualties came to 2,718, while Toulouse lost 3,048 killed and wounded, amongst whom were Admirals de Bellisle and Lorraine.

  The next day Toulouse had the wind advantage, but after the rough handling received the previous day he did not engage the allied fleet. He was not to know that Rooke’s ships were perilously low on powder and shot, after their wasteful bombardment of Gibraltar a few weeks earlier, after which there had been no chance for replenishment. That the French had held their own could not be doubted though, with every chance of greater success to come. At a council of war on his flagship, Toulouse pressed the case for engaging Rooke again the next morning, but his senior officers, appalled at the high casualties already suffered, would not agree. As a result, the French Mediterranean fleet hauled off that night and made for Toulon, enabling a very relieved Rooke to get his battered ships into the shelter of Gibraltar bay, where the Dutch flagship Albemarle blew up, apparently by accident, taking with her almost the entire crew.

  Louis XIV received a highly-slanted report of the engagement, in which the advantages gained were exaggerated, so he wrote with considerable satisfaction to the Cardinal de Noailles:

  The fleet which I have drawn together in the Mediterranean under the command of my son, the Comte de Toulouse, Admiral of France, has not only disappointed the designs of the English and Dutch fleet joined together upon the coast of Catalonia, but has likewise ended the campaign gloriously by a general engagement altogether to our advantage; although the enemy was considerably more numerous and had a favourable wind, yet their first efforts were sustained, and they have been repulsed with so much bravery by our officers and seamen, animated by the example of a general, that they had no other thought during the fight, which lasted ten hours, than to avoid being boarded by our ships, which was several times attempted.16

  Despite this evident satisfaction, the engagement of the two fleets had been a scrambled affair without real advantage being gained one way or the other, and Toulouse was reluctant to venture out again. Rooke’s ships were in no fit state to serve on without major repairs, in fact some were hardly seaworthy, and in mid-September they limped away to refit in
the Tagus, and even England and Holland, before winter set in. Still, for all the French claims of having achieved victory, the simple fact was that from this point onwards, they and their Spanish allies never again seriously challenged the British and Dutch to a general engagement of battle-fleets at sea. This moral defeat was clear, even though the French ships’ firepower, rigging and sailing characteristics had on the whole been noticeably better than that of their opponents, even if the crews were evenly matched.

  In the meantime, the battered defences of Gibraltar were repaired and strengthened, with a garrison of 2,300 Dutch and English marines, some seventy volunteer seamen serving as gunners, and a small detachment of Catalan irregulars. Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt commanded the garrison, with the Irish-born Colonel Henry Nugent as the governor, having the local rank of major-general and already holding the honorary Spanish title of the Count de Val de Soto. Rooke had asked Archduke Charles that the marines be released for sea service, but nothing came of this, the admiral had, however, arranged a considerable re-supply from North African ports, helped by an enterprising English trader named Mr Warren, before his ships left the straits. The Alcayde Ali Benabdulla, the Moorish governor in Tangier, was particularly helpful, as he hoped to see the Spanish troops in the besieged enclave of Ceuta leave to pursue their quarrels elsewhere over the throne in Madrid. He had been impressed by the display of allied naval might over recent weeks, and clearly felt it opportune to adopt such a cooperative course. Prince George sent an envoy to negotiate with the Alcayde, hoping to secure horses, corn and barley, and perhaps even the use of Moorish mercenary troops, although this would surely have meant more trouble than it was worth. Having Protestant soldiers serving in the peninsula was bad enough for the locals to endure without any such complications and, perhaps fortunately, the dangerous notion was dropped.

  Before long efforts to retake the Rock were seen to be in preparation, with the approach of a 600-strong advanced guard of Spanish troops, followed by a more substantial force commanded by the Marquis de Villadarias in early September. A land blockade was established in the process, but few real hostilities took place for the time being. Rooke and his ships had gone, and on 4 October, a French squadron of twenty warships commanded by Admiral Jean Pointis entered Gibraltar bay, escorting transports which landed troops, guns and stores before sailing away to Cadiz. Once established there, Pointis and his squadron should be well placed to intercept any attempts to replenish and reinforce the garrison on the Rock. Three days later Queen Anne penned a note to the archduke, setting out how clearly what an advantage to the allied cause holding firmly on to Gibraltar was:

  The capture of the town of Gibraltar upon which you congratulate me is the more pleasing since it will open a passage into Your Kingdom of Spain and its conservation will no doubt ensure great advantages. With that view I am working, on my side, with all application, and I hope that Your Majesty and the King of Portugal both will unite with me in taking the necessary measures to defend the place.17

  Villadarias had command of 8,000 Spanish troops in sight of Gibraltar, in addition to the 4,000 French reinforcements landed by Pointis, while a siege train of forty heavy guns and twelve mortars had been brought forward into position, at great effort, with which to batter the defences. Trenches were opened on 21 October opposite the Landport gate, and a bombardment began six days later. On 9 November, a squadron sailing out of Lisbon commanded by Admiral Sir John Leake appeared off the Rock, after evading the attentions of the French squadron in Cadiz, and drove ashore to be set on fire several French ships found in the Bay, although one frigate, the Etoile (24 guns) was boarded and captured by an armed party from HMS Swallow. That same day Major-General Nugent was mortally wounded by an exploding shell; but despite sickness amongst the garrison, an attempt to surprise the defences on 11 November was driven off with heavy Spanish losses. ‘The enemy attacked us this day, at break of day, at the Round tower and the breach above it.’18 Leake had landed stores and reinforcements, including workmen to improve and repair the defences, but at the end of the month, learning that Pointis was approaching with his squadron from Cadiz (lookouts on the Rock had the ability to see over the adjacent Spanish headland into the approaches from the open waters of the Atlantic), the admiral moved his ships to a better position from which to fight a general engagement, and to cover an expected convoy bringing more reinforcements for the garrison.

  The bombardment of the defences of Gibraltar continued all the while, with breaches appearing at intervals and the besiegers’ entrenchments creeping ever closer. By the first week of December only about 1,000 troops in the garrison were fit to man their posts, but the bad weather that battered Leake’s squadron also slowed the siege work and flooded the entrenchments, so that there was in consequence a lowering of morale and lessening in enthusiasm amongst Villadarias’s troops. However, a new battery mounting 36-pounder siege guns was set up and soon did a lot of damage to the defences along the Old Mole. On 14 December, a ship arrived with news that a relief convoy was sailing from Lisbon, and although several ships were lost in an encounter with a French squadron off Cape Spartel, thirteen warships and four transports arrived safely in Gibraltar bay by 19 December. A welcome reinforcement of over 1,700 troops, including English Foot Guards, were landed with a substantial quantity of stores and ammunition. On 23 December a sally by allied soldiers destroyed lengths of the siege works for little loss, evidence of a new offensive spirit amongst the Gibraltar garrison, and this exploit was repeated a week later with similar success. The spark seemed to have gone out of the siege operations, and the bombardment by the Spanish and French gunners now dwindled away, with casualties and sickness reducing the force commanded by Villadarias to fewer than 6,400 men.

  On Christmas Day the squadron under Leake re-appeared from the east where it had been wind-bound for several days, and early in January 1705 he took the various ships gathered in Gibraltar bay off to Lisbon, where they arrived safely on 20 January. The Marquis de Villadarias was replaced by Marshal Tessé, and Admiral Pointis still cruised hopefully off the Rock with his squadron, but fresh attempts to storm the defences proved fruitless, with a sharp bombardment and infantry attack on 5 February by French troops being beaten off, and a brisk counter-attack by Dutch troops having some success. Leake re-supplied the allied garrison once more in late March with a joint Anglo-Dutch and Portuguese squadron and inflicted a damaging local defeat on the French squadron with three ships captured and two others driven ashore and burned; Pointis was wounded in the engagement, never to fully recover his health.19 By April, Tessé recognised that the attempt to recover Gibraltar was fruitless without the employment of far greater resources than were available, and turned his siege operations once more into a simple blockade. In any case, concern was felt that allied attention would once more be given to a fresh attack upon Cadiz, and the garrison there urgently needed strengthening. Philip V reluctantly consented to the attempt on the Rock being abandoned, and by the third week of the month Tessé began to withdraw his troops, unmolested by the allied garrison, a difficult operation that he accomplished with great skill. The cost of this failed enterprise was heavy, for of the 18,000 troops eventually devoted to retaking the Rock, some 12,000 had become sick or casualties. The loss amongst the garrison was far less, and the cause of Archduke Charles in the contest for the throne in Madrid was boosted, to a limited degree, by this manifest failure on behalf of Philip V and his generals. The allied presence in southern Spain, by contrast, had been emphatically maintained, and this achievement at Gibraltar was not simply the seizure of the Rock and the gaining of a safe, if rather cramped, anchorage in the sheltered waters of the bay. The ability to dominate passage of the straits was a major benefit, but could only be had if a naval squadron was permanently stationed at the Rock, and for the time being this could not be provided. The French and Spanish had been drawn into what was in effect a futile sideshow, with the diversion of resources away from more promising campaigns, imposing
a wearying and persistent drag upon the preparations to counter the expected advance of allied troops from Portugal.

  In that wider campaign, the Duke of Berwick had faced a clear dilemma, for Philip V, urged on by his grandfather in Versailles, had wanted Gibraltar to be recovered without delay. By now Schomberg had returned to London and been replaced by the veteran campaigner Henri de Ravigny, the Earl of Galway. ‘Finding that the King of Portugal complains that the Duke of Schomberg,’ Queen Anne had written to the archduke, ‘I have resolved to recall him and send out the Earl of Galway to take the command of my troops, which – I am anxious to Inform you – I shall soon bring to full strength.’20 Das Minas was preparing a fresh advance into Spain from Beira, while Berwick’s own forces were reduced by casualties, sickness and a lack of forage. Campaigning in the peninsula was proving to be a testing business, and he wrote that:

  The army of the enemy would be composed of thirty-seven battalions, ten of which were English or Dutch, and of fifty squadrons. The only forces I had to oppose to them were eighteen French battalions reduced to nothing, and thirty-seven squadrons in the weakest condition, exclusive of five Spanish battalions in garrison in Ciudad Rodrigo.21