| Anglo-Spanish War | |||||||||
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| Part of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars | |||||||||
 La Reconquista de Buenos Aires: Beresford surrenders to Santiago de Liniers, by Charles Fouqueray. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Spain |
 Great Britain |
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The Anglo-Spanish War between 1796 and 1808 was a part of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
In the War of the First Coalition, Spain had fought against Revolutionary France and had been defeated. In 1796, Prime Minister Godoy faced a decision: whether to continue to fight Revolutionary France or to join the French side and hope for better times. He chose the latter and signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1796, allying Spain to France, in exchange for French support for Charles IV's relations ruling the Italian Duchy of Parma.
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In response, the British blockaded Spain in 1797 and separated her colonial empire from the mother country. By the end of 1798, the Spanish fleet had been defeated in the Battle of Cape St Vincent, and Minorca and Trinidad were occupied by the British. A British attempt to capture Tenerife failed.
The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 provided for a temporary truce in hostilities, only to be broken in 1804, when the British captured a Spanish treasure fleet off Cádiz. The French planned an invasion of England in the coming year; the Spanish fleet was to be an integral part in assisting this invasion. At the Battle of Trafalgar, in 1805, the Spanish navy and the French Mediterranean fleet, attempting to join forces with the French fleets in the north for the invasion, were attacked by Admiral Lord Nelson at the head of a British fleet in one of history's greatest naval engagements. The disastrous defeat that the Spanish and French suffered assured British control of the seas, and seriously shook the resolve of the Spanish, who began to doubt the utility of their alliance with France. Meanwhile, a British campaign (1806-1807) to conquer the strategically important River Plate region in South America ended in disaster.
After Trafalgar, Godoy withdrew from the Continental System that Napoleon had devised to combat Britain, only to join it again in 1807, after Napoleon had defeated the Prussians. Napoleon, however, had lost his faith in Godoy and King Charles; there was also growing support in Spain for the king's son, Ferdinand, who opposed the popularly despised Godoy. Ferdinand, however, favoured an alliance with Britain, and Napoleon doubted the trustworthiness of any Spanish royalty.
In 1807, France and Spain invaded Portugal, and, on 1 December, Lisbon was captured with no military opposition. In the beginning of 1808, the French presence in Spain was so predominant that it led to revolt. Napoleon then removed King Charles and his son Ferdinand to Bayonne and forced them both to abdicate on 5 May, giving the throne to his brother Joseph. This led to the Spanish War of Independence and the de facto end of the Anglo-Spanish War, as Lord Canning, foreign secretary of His Majesty's Government, declared:
| “ | No longer remember that war has existed between Spain and Great Britain. Every nation which resists the exorbitant power of France becomes immediately, and whatever may have been its previous relations with us, the natural ally of Great Britain."[1] | ” |
Notes
- ^ Foy, p. 213
References
- Foy, Maxmilien Sebastien (1827). Histoire de la guerre de la Peninsule sous Napoleon. III.
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