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The easternmost of Spain’s Balearic islands, Menorca has an importance that belies the literal translation of its name (‘smaller island’). At just 30 miles long and no more than 12 miles wide, it is less than a fifth the size of its near neighbour Mallorca, and offers little in the way of natural resources, such as forests or freshwater streams. One thing it does have going for it, however, is that its capital Mahón (officially Maó) boasts the Mediterranean’s largest natural harbour, and because of this, it has long been regarded by Europe’s power-brokers as a naval prize worth fighting for – at one point, changing hands six times in less than a century, and coming under British control in the periods 1708-1756, 1763-1782, and 1798-1802.
Reaching three miles inland, and stretching for the most part between 500 and 1,000 yards in width, Mahón’s sheltered harbour has no tide, and needs no dredging, yet it is deep enough for the largest ships. With an entrance 250 yards wide – guarded by the formidable mid-16th-century St Philip’s Castle, a square fort with a bastion on each corner and a surrounding ditch carved from rock – its waters even contained three islands that would prove ideal for use as a quarantine and hospital. No wonder, then, that at the beginning of the 18th century, when the British craved a naval base close to Toulon, the headquarters of the French fleet, attention should focus here.
First fall
Menorca was first taken on 14 September 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession – the great power struggle of 1701-1713, brought on by the death in 1700 of Spain’s childless King Charles II, and fought out between the rival Bourbon and Habsburg claimants to the Spanish throne, with the former supported by France and the Basques, and the latter by Austria, Portugal, Britain, and the Catalans.
Earlier plans to take the island had been scuppered by the British capture of Gibraltar in 1704 – with the £50,000 allocated by Parliament to capture Menorca being sent to Gibraltar instead. Then, in 1705, Barcelona and Tarragona fell to the Habsburg allies, with Valencia following the next year. In September 1706, Ibiza and Mallorca surrendered bloodlessly, leaving Menorca isolated. Meanwhile, a pro-Habsburg uprising on the island in 1706 had failed. The castle remained in French hands, and 2,000 Bourbon soldiers were sent to crush the rebels. Local autonomy was removed, rebel farms were destroyed, and 33 rebels were executed, with others exiled or made to become galley slaves. This drove most of the population to support the Habsburgs.
With so many landing places, the island was hard to defend.
By 1708, St Philip’s Castle had 100 unpaid and badly behaved French soldiers, who lived in fear of the Habsburg-supporting locals. At the same time, the British desperately needed a winter base in the Mediterranean, with the Admiralty concluding in June 1708 that: ‘We do not know of any port in the Mediterranean… where 20 ships of war may safely winter unless Port Mahón.’ With the stage now set, James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope – then the commander-in-chief of British forces in Iberia – assembled 500 Spanish, 600 Portuguese, and 600 British soldiers, picking up 300 more Spanish soldiers in Mallorca. On 13 September, they reached Mahón, near the island’s south-eastern corner, where they joined the British fleet under Admiral Leake, which had been there for more than a week. The following day, the British disembarked at an undefended beach at Alcaufár, just a short distance from Mahón and St Philip’s Castle – though, as there were no roads on Menorca, they had to build one.
On 15 September, the British were given the keys to the city by Mahón’s magistrates. Six days later, they took Fort St Anthony, in Fornells, on the island’s northern coast. It had 50 men and 12 guns; two British warships had pounded it for four hours into surrender. The 100-strong garrison at the western port of Ciudadela surrendered without a fight soon after. By 22 September, only St Philip’s Castle and the smaller nearby fort of St Charles remained in Bourbon hands.
As women and children sheltered inside the castle, Stanhope threatened to slaughter the garrison of St Philip’s if they did not surrender. The British artillery opened fire on 28 September. An hour and a half later, they had knocked out an artillery tower, and before long the wall had twice been breached. Stanhope’s second in command Brigadier (later Field Marshal) George Wade’s grenadiers attacked the breaches without orders. Stanhope ordered the rest of his men to attack, and they drove the French into the fort by nightfall.
The following day, the French commander La Jonquière and the Governor of the island Dávila surrendered 1,000 men and 100 guns; despite having plenty of food and ammunition, only token resistance was offered. Such was the public outcry at the loss of Menorca that both men faced jail for their actions – with Dávila committing suicide before he could be brought to trial.
Menorca cost the British just 50 dead and wounded – with Stanhope’s own brother among the deceased. In 1713, Spain recognised British control of Gibraltar and Menorca under the Peace of Utrecht – the series of treaties which confirmed the Bourbon candidate Philip V as king of Spain, while also underlining Britain’s growing dominance as a maritime and commercial power. Philip V lamented: ‘We Spanish will live with thorns in our feet for as long as Menorca and Gibraltar remain British.’
The British government spent £300,000 improving the island’s fortifications in the period 1708-1738. The results were mixed, however, and by 1740, one commander could be heard complaining that his garrison was composed of drunkards, thieves, and Irishmen. Two regiments were there for 22 years without relief; many soldiers tried to commit suicide, or to mutilate themselves to escape. With so many potential landing places, the island needed at least 6,000 men to defend it – but Menorca was never given enough troops.
The fall of 1756
Between 1756 and 1763, the Seven Years War saw Britain and France taking opposite sides in a wide-ranging struggle that, with campaigns in Europe, North America, and South Asia, has been described as the first truly global conflict. At the outbreak of hostilities, there were four Menorcan regiments – but all four colonels plus nine other officers were missing. Most of the British navy was by now fighting in the Atlantic, with little to spare for the Mediterranean.
In January 1756, the French decided to take Menorca in retaliation for the British invasion of French North America, and to persuade Spain to join them. In February, the British government discovered the French plans, but refused to allocate adequate resources to combating them, believing the real attack would be via the English Channel. This cost valuable time. Although the absent officers were ordered to return to Menorca, they had to wait a month for the British squadron to leave, and so took no part in the siege to come.
On 25 February, the British government intercepted a letter confirming the French plan – but waited two weeks before sending a squadron of ten sailing ships carrying an infantry battalion under Admiral John Byng. They were to join Captain George Edgcumbe’s squadron in Mahón. One reason for all the delay was that Byng was short of 300 men – a problem that might have been solved by moving sailors from fully staffed ships to the rest, but, again, the Admiralty forbade this.
At first, the Gibraltar garrison’s commander, Major General Thomas Fowke, was ordered to give Byng a battalion if Menorca needed it – but he then received another, contradictory order, and limited his support to some 250 men when Byng passed through the Strait, even though he knew Menorca had been invaded. Fowke and Byng both thought the French guns would stop them landing at Mahón, even though there were plenty of other landing sites.
Meanwhile, Menorca’s Lieutenant-Governor, Lord William Blakeney, was also angry, believing he could hang on for reinforcements. He ignored requests to drive cattle into the castle, to demolish the garrison buildings or its wells, and to expel the pro-French clergy. By now, however, Menorca’s defences were in a poor state, with crumbling walls and rotten gun platforms, while a request to the island’s nobles to send mounted men to the coast to watch for invaders was ignored. Menorcans were not pro-British any more.
On 16 April, the French fleet was seen: five frigates,12 ships of the line, and 186 transports. On 18 April, they landed 15,000 troops at Ciudadela, where they were given the keys to the city by the local rulers; and, on 20 April, the British abandoned the fortlets of Alayor, Ciudadela, and Fornells, instead concentrating 3,000 men in St Philip’s Castle, while Captain Edgcumbe took all but one of his ships out of Menorca, fearing a French blockade.
The French under the Duc de Richelieu had 24 battalions, 62 siege guns, 21 mortars, and four howitzers. What they lacked were new Menorcan maps and carts for the artillery. Still, on 23 April, the siege of St Philip’s began. The French guns arrived slowly, with the bombardment finally starting on 8 May. By 12 May, guns were placed on the site of demolished windmills, much closer to the fort.
The weakness of St Philip’s Castle was that the arrabal (garrison) of about 60 shacks was so close by that it provided cover to the French until they got within 150 yards, helping them to hide cannons and ammunition. The buildings were torn down by the French to create barricades. An anonymous witness wrote: ‘All the batteries that did the real hurt were planted among these houses, and all the mortar batteries (which killed most of those that were killed) were raised behind them.’
On 20 May, Byng’s fleet of 13 ships of the line (now reinforced by Edgcumbe) took part in the infamous, if inconclusive, skirmish known as the Battle of Minorca. Confronting the French fleet commanded by the Marquis de La Galissonière, Byng ordered his warships to attack – but the assault was bungled. The wind restricted the British ships’ movement, keeping them too far from the more heavily armed French, who could still fire on them with their stern guns. With several of his ships now seriously damaged, and sensing no realistic chance of victory, the unfortunate Byng refused to disembark his infantry, before eventually retiring to Gibraltar – but the decision to give up on relieving the garrison, and therefore to hand Menorca to the French, proved to be his death warrant. He was court martialled for dereliction of duty, found guilty, and executed by firing squad – the incident which prompted the French author Voltaire later to observe (in his 1759 novella Candide) that the English like to ‘shoot an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others’.
On the island itself, the garrison’s fate was now effectively sealed. By 27 June, according to one British soldier inside St Philip’s Castle: ‘Most of our cannon were unserviceable.’ Another said: ‘A ball in any direction meets with little difficulty in piercing our parapets, which are built of the stone of this country so remarkable for its softness.’ On the night of 27/28 June, the French took three north-western and western redoubts and penetrated the underground defences. By 29 June, all but three British officers wanted to surrender. Only 105 of 208 guns were now working.
Blakeney, who had not changed his clothes nor slept in a bed throughout the 70-day siege, agreed finally to surrender. The British had suffered 398 casualties against 220 French dead and 500 wounded in the final assault. Following the capitulation, the prisoners were taken to Gibraltar. France had won a crucial victory – but it was to be relatively short-lived. In 1763, Menorca was returned to the British under the Treaty of Paris, which brought the Seven Years War to an end.
1781-1782: the third siege
On 4 July 1776, the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States, announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. France and Spain would soon join them, declaring war on Britain in 1778 and 1779 respectively. Once again, Menorca was in danger – but this time no relief fleet would be sent until February 1780, and (as in 1756) the infantry battalion it was carrying would anyway be given to besieged Gibraltar instead. On the island, the governor, General James Murray, commanded 300 sailors.
The third siege of St Philip’s Castle began on 19 August 1781. The British had 2,700 men, the French and Spanish around 14,000. The British were surprised, having assumed the Franco-Spanish fleet at Cadiz was meant for the Caribbean. Instead, it landed at Cala Mesquida, near to Mahón, which quickly surrendered: the British artillery had spotted the ships but let them pass, thinking they were Russian. Most of the British were now holed up inside St Philip’s, but lacking the element of surprise, the Spanish commander, the Duc de Crillon, did not have enough artillery to take the castle. By 1 November, however, he was reinforced by 36 mortars, 109 siege cannons, and two battalions. He tried and failed to bribe Murray. For their part, the British staged counter-attacks – but there was little hope of salvation: the only relief authorised was an infantry battalion, which was prevented by storms from leaving Falmouth before St Philip’s had fallen.
By January 1782, things were bleaker still. Scurvy and typhus had broken out, and there were no fruits or vegetables for the garrison, whose strength had shrunk to 776. By February, they were down to 660, with all but 100 suffering from scurvy; some men had to be helped out of bed for sentry duty. Meanwhile, the fort was bombarded by around 80 shells a day between 6 January and 4 February, when Murray surrendered. The siege had lasted 171 days – more than twice as long as the siege of 1756. When the remains of Murray’s garrison finally marched out, some of the French and Spanish were said to have wept at their bravery.
Loss of interest
At the time of Murray’s surrender, Menorca’s importance was already perceived to be in decline; its vulnerability proven, it was now seen to present a significant drain on resources. The previous year, the first Lord of the Admiralty had even proposed giving it to Catherine the Great in return for Russia’s help in the American Revolutionary War – an offer the empress turned down. So, when the island fell in 1782, the newspapers barely noticed.
By the end of the century, however, things had changed once more. The advent of the French Revolutionary Wars saw Britain again in need of a sheltered deep-water harbour from which to assert its authority over the Mediterranean, and naturally Mahón again came into view.
In 1798, General Charles Stuart was given a frigate, seven ships of the line, 3,000 men in four regiments, and an artillery company to take Menorca for the third time. By this point, Spain had switched sides and was allied to Napoleon, while St Philip’s Castle had been demolished after the fall of 1782, so there were no heavy guns. Stuart landed on the north coast at Addaya on 7 November. One ship feinted at Fornells harbour and blew up its powder magazine with a single shot. Brigadier Quesada, the island’s governor, had 4,000 men – but a third were sick, and 1,500 were inexperienced Swiss mercenaries, who gave up to 800 British troops after suffering four casualties in half an hour’s fighting: Stuart gave them brandy, 600 joined him and were formed into a corps. Mahón’s garrison of 160 capitulated without a fight; on 15 November, Quesada surrendered 3,681 men and four frigates, unaware the British lacked heavy guns.
It was the capture of the Maltese capital Valletta – home, of course, to its own famous deep-water harbour – that finally ended British interest in Menorca. The Balearic island was handed back to Spain for the last time on 16 June 1802, much to Horatio Nelson’s horror. The British continued using Mahón harbour throughout the Peninsular War of 1808-1814, and even today the island bears a few signs of the British occupation. What really speaks volumes, however, is that Britain stayed in Malta till 1964, but in the end gave up Menorca without a fight. Prime Minister Pitt the Younger did consider taking it for a fourth time in 1805 – but he was persuaded otherwise. Now that Britain had Malta, there really was no need.
Edmund West is a freelance journalist with an MA in History from the University of East Anglia. Since 2008, he has written for MHM, Wired, and History Today, among other publications.
All images: Wikimedia Commons, unless otherwise stated
