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The Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar was fought between September 1704 and May 1705 during the War of the Spanish Succession. It followed the capture in August 1704 of the fortified town of Gibraltar, at the southern tip of Spain, by an Anglo–Dutch naval force led by Sir George Rooke and Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt. The members of the Grand Alliance, Holy Roman Empire, England, the Netherlands, Pro-Habsburg Spain, Portugal and the Savoy, had allied to prevent the unification of the French and Spanish thrones by supporting the claim of the Habsburg pretender Archduke Charles VI of Austria as Charles III of Spain. They were opposed by the rival claimant, the Bourbon Philip, Duke of Anjou, ruling as Philip V of Spain, and his patron and ally, Louis XIV of France. The war began in northern Europe and was largely contained there until 1703, when Portugal joined the confederate powers. From then, English naval attentions were focused on mounting a campaign in the Mediterranean to distract the French navy and disrupt French and Bourbon Spanish shipping or capture a port for use as a naval base. The capture of Gibraltar was the outcome of that initial stage of the Mediterranean campaign. At the start of the siege, Gibraltar was garrisoned by around 2,000 Dutch, English, Austrian and pro-Habsburg Spanish troops facing a besieging force of up to 8,000 French, pro-Bourbon Spanish and Irish troops. The defenders were able to hold off the numerically superior besieging force through exploiting Gibraltar's geography and the small town's fortifications, though they were frequently short of manpower and ammunition. The besiegers were undermined by disputes between the French and Spanish officers and terrible conditions in their trenches and bastions, which led to outbreaks of epidemic disease and undermined morale. Sea power proved crucial, as the French navy sought unsuccessfully to prevent the Grand Alliance shipping in fresh troops, ammunition and food. Three naval battles were fought during the siege, two of which were clear defeats for the French and the last of which resulted in the siege being abandoned as hopeless after nine months of fruitless shelling. The outcome was disastrous for the French and Bourbon Spanish side, which was said to have lost 10,000 men against only 400 for the Grand Alliance. ==Aftermath of the capture of Gibraltar== The loss of Gibraltar in August 1704 posed a strategic threat to the rule of the Bourbon claimant to the Spanish throne, Philip V of Spain. It was not only, as a later Spanish writer put it, "the first town in Spain to be dismembered from the domination of King Philip and forced to recognise Charles,"〔Hills, p. 178〕 but it also potentially had great value as an entry point for the Grand Alliance armies. Its possibilities were recognised immediately by the Alliance forces' leader Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, who told Charles in a letter of September 1704, that Gibraltar was "a door through which to enter Spain".〔 An army landed at Gibraltar could advance rapidly along the coast to Cadiz, supported by naval forces, and capture the major port. From there, it was a relatively short distance to Seville, where the Habsburg claimant Charles could be proclaimed king, following which the Alliance could march to Madrid and finish the war.〔 Gibraltar itself had been largely emptied of its population, most of whom left the town after its capture and had moved to temporary accommodation elsewhere in the Campo de Gibraltar. Only a few dozen Spaniards and a small community of neutral Genoese remained.〔Jackson, p. 101〕 The town was garrisoned by a motley assortment of Alliance forces, consisting of around 2,000 British and Dutch marines, 60 gunners and several hundred Spanish, mostly Catalans, followers of Charles of Austria.〔Hills, p. 183–4〕 They were supported by Sir George Rooke's Anglo-Dutch fleet consisting of 51 ships of the line operating in the Strait of Gibraltar. The Alliance had two significant disadvantages – limited supplies and a pressing need for their ships, which had already been at sea for six months, to be repaired and reprovisioned.〔 As soon as Gibraltar was captured, the Alliance set about preparing for a Bourbon counter-attack. The Alliance fleet sailed a short distance across the strait to Tetuan in Morocco, where it took on fresh water. On 22 August, a French fleet was sighted in the strait but began to withdraw after being spotted. Rooke caught up with the French off Málaga on 24 August and attacked, in a bid to prevent the French from slipping past him and attacking Gibraltar. The two fleets were evenly matched but the French ships were faster and had more ammunition than the confederates.〔Jackson, pp. 101–2〕 They did not manage to make this advantage count, however, and the Battle of Vélez-Málaga was effectively fought to a draw. No ships were sunk but both fleets took very heavy casualties with around 3,000 killed or wounded on each side, including the French commander.〔 The Anglo-Dutch fleet was hampered by a shortage of shot and gunpowder, much of which had already been used in bombarding Gibraltar during the operation to capture it, and Sir George Byng's squadron was forced to pull back when it ran out of ammunition.〔Alexander, p. 55〕 The rest of the fleet was dangerously low on ammunition but fortunately for the confederates, the French withdrew the following day, leaving the Anglo-Dutch fleet to limp back to Gibraltar.〔Hills, p. 180〕 Having dealt with the French naval threat, Rooke left as many men, guns and supplies at Gibraltar as he could before sailing for home. He split off part of his fleet, leaving Admiral Sir John Leake with 18 ships to patrol the strait and the Portuguese coast. The Spanish had already mobilised their forces and at the start of September the Marquis of Villadarias, the captain-general of Andalusia, arrived in the vicinity of Gibraltar with an army of 4,000 men. Villadarias planned to increase his force to 12,000, consisting of 9,000 Spaniards and 3,000 Frenchmen. The Two Crowns force was also supplemented by many of the civilian refugees from Gibraltar.〔Jackson, p. 103〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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