Great Siege of Gibraltar (1779–1783): Britain Holds the Rock

The Great Siege of Gibraltar was a combined French and Spanish attempt to recapture Gibraltar from Britain between 24 June 1779 and 7 February 1783. Lasting about three years and seven months, it is the longest siege in British military history. The garrison under General George Augustus Eliott survived blockade, bombardment and a massive assault by floating batteries in September 1782, and Gibraltar stayed British when peace came.

Background

Anglo-Dutch forces had seized Gibraltar in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession (see Capture of Gibraltar), and Spain formally ceded it to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. Spain tried and failed to take it back in 1727, and recovering the Rock remained a central aim of Spanish policy.

The opportunity came with the American War of Independence. France had allied with the American rebels in 1778, and in April 1779 Spain joined France through the secret Treaty of Aranjuez, on condition that the allies would help it regain Gibraltar and Minorca. Spain declared war on Britain in June 1779, and the land and sea blockade of Gibraltar began on 24 June.

The blockade (1779–1781)

Gibraltar is a limestone promontory joined to Spain by a narrow sandy isthmus. The Spanish built strong lines across the isthmus and stationed warships in the Bay of Gibraltar to cut the garrison off. At the start the defenders numbered about 5,400 soldiers, and the civilian population was several thousand more.

By the end of 1779 food was scarce and scurvy was spreading. In January 1780 Admiral Sir George Rodney defeated a Spanish squadron off Cape St Vincent in the so-called Moonlight Battle and brought a large convoy into Gibraltar. A second relief under Admiral George Darby arrived in April 1781. The Spanish responded with an intense bombardment from their land batteries that destroyed much of the town, forcing civilians to shelter in the south of the peninsula.

On the night of 26–27 November 1781 Eliott launched a surprise sortie of more than 2,000 men against the Spanish forward batteries. The attackers spiked guns and set fire to the works, destroying months of siege preparations at little cost to themselves.

Life under siege

Daily life in the garrison was hard. Fresh food was the greatest problem: salt meat and biscuit were the basic diet, and prices for eggs, vegetables and livestock rose to extraordinary levels. Eliott, a strict vegetarian and water drinker, is reported to have tested how little a man could live on by eating only a small daily ration of rice for about a week. Scurvy weakened many men until supplies of fresh fruit, especially lemons and oranges taken from captured ships, improved the situation.

Discipline was strict, and drunkenness became a serious problem after the 1781 bombardment, when soldiers looted wine stores in the ruined town. The garrison included British regiments and several Hanoverian battalions, as well as a corps of soldier-artificers formed in 1772, a forerunner of the Royal Engineers. Civilians, including Genoese, Jewish and Spanish residents, either left on relief convoys or endured the bombardment in improvised shelters.

The grand assault of 13 September 1782

After a Franco-Spanish force under Louis des Balbes de Berton, Duc de Crillon, captured Minorca in February 1782, Crillon took command at Gibraltar. The allies concentrated tens of thousands of troops on land, often estimated at around 35,000 or more, and a large combined fleet in the bay.

Their main weapon was a fleet of ten floating batteries designed by the French engineer Jean-Claude-Éléonore Le Michaud d’Arçon. These were cut-down ships with thick timber walls on the side facing the enemy, lined with wet sand and cork and fitted with a system of pipes to pump water through the hull. They were meant to resist cannon fire, sail close to the sea walls and batter a breach.

The British had a counter: red-hot shot. Furnaces heated cannonballs until they glowed, and gunners carried them to the guns to fire into wooden ships. On 13 September 1782 the batteries anchored off the town and began firing. For hours the British shot seemed to make little impression, but by evening several batteries were burning. During the night fires spread, magazines exploded and all ten batteries were lost, either blown up or set on fire.

Brigadier Roger Curtis led British gunboats into the burning line and rescued several hundred Spanish and French sailors from the water. Allied losses on that day are usually estimated at well over 1,000 killed, wounded or captured, while British losses were light.

Relief and the end of the siege

The allies kept up the blockade, but in October 1782 Admiral Lord Howe fought his way into the strait with a large convoy and resupplied the garrison, while the combined fleet failed to stop him. This made further assault pointless.

Preliminary articles of peace were agreed in January 1783, and the siege was lifted on 7 February 1783. In the final settlement signed at Versailles on 3 September 1783, alongside the Treaty of Paris with the United States, Spain recovered Minorca and Florida but not Gibraltar.

Key people

• George Augustus Eliott (1717–1790): Governor of Gibraltar, known for strict discipline and personal frugality. He was created Baron Heathfield in 1787.
• Duc de Crillon (1717–1796): French general in Spanish service who had taken Minorca and led the 1782 assault.
• Jean-Claude d’Arçon (1733–1800): French military engineer who designed the floating batteries.
• Roger Curtis (1746–1816): Royal Navy officer who commanded the gunboats and led the rescue of allied sailors.
• John Drinkwater (1762–1844): Young officer of the garrison whose history of the siege, published in 1785, remains a key eyewitness source.

By the numbers

Casualty figures vary between sources and should be treated as approximate.

Innovations and legacy

The siege produced lasting innovations. Lieutenant George Koehler designed a depressing gun carriage in 1782 that allowed cannon on the heights to fire steeply downward at the Spanish lines. From May 1782 soldiers under Sergeant-Major Henry Ince began cutting tunnels into the north face of the Rock to mount guns, the start of the Great Siege Tunnels.

The defence became a source of national pride in Britain at a time when the war in America was being lost after the Siege of Yorktown. Paintings by John Singleton Copley and Joseph Wright of Derby celebrated the destruction of the floating batteries. For Spain, the failure ended its most serious attempt to recover the Rock by force.

Timeline

• 1779, 12 April: Treaty of Aranjuez commits Spain to join France against Britain.
• 1779, 24 June: The Spanish blockade of Gibraltar begins.
• 1780, 16 January: Rodney’s victory in the Moonlight Battle opens the way for the first relief convoy.
• 1781, 12 April: Darby’s convoy arrives; heavy Spanish bombardment of the town follows.
• 1781, 27 November: British sortie destroys the Spanish forward batteries.
• 1782, 13 September: The grand assault fails and all ten floating batteries are destroyed.
• 1782, October: Howe’s fleet relieves the garrison.
• 1783, 7 February: The siege is lifted after preliminary peace terms are agreed.
• 1783, 3 September: Peace of Versailles leaves Gibraltar in British hands.

Why it matters

The Great Siege fixed Gibraltar’s place as a British possession, a status that has continued ever since and remains a point of dispute with Spain. It also showed how determined defenders, regular resupply by sea and new technology such as red-hot shot could defeat a far larger besieging force.