Roughly 6,700 miles from Great Britain and 350 miles from South America lies the Falkland Islands archipelago of two main islands and over 200 smaller ones, mostly treeless, with a total area of about 4,700 square miles. There are good anchorages and the windswept terrain is generally hilly moorland with an abundance of wildlife.
The British first took an interest in the islands in 1592 when they were sighted by the Elizabethan explorer John Davis as his ship was driven off course in a storm. A century later, the privateer John Strong landed and named them after Anthony Carey, 5th Viscount Falkland, First Lord of the Admiralty. In February 1764, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, largely inspired by the loss of Canada to the British, founded the settlement of Port Louis in Berkeley Sound with immigrants from St Malo and named the islands ‘Les Iles Malouines’. The British reacted by despatching Commodore John Byron, grandfather of the poet, and he raised the Union flag at Port Egmont on West Falkland on 12 January 1765. In January the following year, Captain John McBride landed a 100-strong garrison and gave the French six months to leave.
In April 1767, the French sold Port Louis to Spain, who christened the islands ‘Las Malvinas’. For the next two years, the British and Spanish existed in isolation until Captain Anthony Hunt encountered a Spanish warship. In June 1770, five ships from the Spanish province of Buenos Aires threatened Port Egmont and while Hunt was negotiating terms, 1,600 troops landed and forced the twenty-three Royal Marines to surrender. The British were outraged. Prime Minister Lord North considered war and Foreign Secretary Lord Weymouth resigned. In 1982, another Hunt and party of Royal Marines were forced to surrender and another minister resigned. When Louis XV of France told Charles III of Spain that he would not support war with Great Britain, North agreed to Spain’s sovereignty over Las Malvinas, but omitted this clause from their copy of the declaration. In 1771, Spain returned Port Egmont to the British. Three years later, when the British abandoned the Falklands, Lieutenant S.W. Clayton RN, the garrison commander, hammered a lead plaque, carved by HMS Endurance’s shipwright, on the fort door:
Be it known to all nations, that Falkland Island, with this Fort, Stonehouse, Wharf, Harbour, Bays and Creeks thereunto belonging, are the Sole Right of His Most Sacred Majesty George III, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc. In witness whereof this plate is set up, and his Britannic Majesty’s colours left flying as a mark of possession.
Significantly, the statement referred only to ‘Falkland Island’, i.e to West Falkland, so does Britain have a valid claim? Great Britain recognized Spain’s claim to East Falkland and Port Louis remained unmolested until abandoned in 1806.
The islands remained in Spanish hands until 1816 when the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata claimed Spanish colonies in the region, including the Falklands. Four years later, Port Louis was reoccupied and in 1828, colonists from the newly created Argentina under Louis Vernet claimed the islands. On 2 January 1833, a British flotilla, commanded by Captain John Onslow, forced the garrison to surrender and deported Governor Pinedo. Argentina’s claim was that the islands had been inherited from Spain after Britain had abandoned them, however she was a minnow compared to the growing imperialism of Great Britain.
When two administrators left by Captain Onslow were murdered in January 1834, a naval party from HMS Tyne rebuilt Port Egmont fort. Nine years later, Lieutenant Richard Moody RE arrived with a Royal Engineer detachment and, on being appointed Governor, moved to Port Stanley where he established the Legislative Council and is commemorated by the barracks. In 1849, pensioned Royal Marines provided the garrison until 1858 when Royal Marines, accompanied by their families, took over as the Falkland Islands Garrison Company for the next twenty years, while Port Stanley established itself as a coaling port. The Falkland Island Company was founded in 1852 by the debt-ridden Argentine, Samuel Lafone, who purchased the soggy mass of Lafonia to develop his Royal Falkland Land, Cattle, Seal and Whale Fishery Company and cleared his debts by introducing sheep. With sheep came shepherds from Scotland, Wales and the West Country, including from the hamlet of Goose Green in Somerset, all of whom lived in Company-owned settlements in the ‘camp’, the interior outside Stanley. The islands were largely unaffected by the two world wars, other than when they provided shelter for the Royal Navy after the Battles of the Falklands in 1914 and River Plate in 1939. Great Britain left economic development to the Falkland Island Company.
Meanwhile, Argentina grumbled. The dispute was discussed at the UN Security Council in 1964 in which she argued that Las Malvinas must be returned, not only for legal reasons, but also to end a regional relic of colonialism. Britain replied that the islanders would not be tranferred against their will. When, in September, an Argentine pilot landed on Stanley Racecourse and planted an Argentine flag, the British sent the ice patrol ship HMS Protector to land her Royal Marine detachment. This detachment was replaced by Naval Party 8901 (NP 8901), whose strategic role was to:
Enable the seat of government to be continued in the event of hostilities. Provide alternate covert communication to and from UK. Impede incursions which might affect government and endanger the community. Maintain a cohesive presence in the event that government be discontinued, i.e. resistance.
In 1965, the UN invited Argentina and Great Britain to negotiate under Resolution 2065, in which the Falkland Islands is listed as a colony and members are reminded that under Resolution 1514, the UN undertakes to ‘bring to an end everywhere colonialism in all its form’, and, in the case of the Falklands, only ‘in the interests of the population’. By now, the islanders had developed into stubborn pro-British colonialists. In 1966, the nationalist Condor Gang hijacked a Dakota, the first in aviation history, and landed on Stanley Racecourse with the intention of capturing the islands. Their imprisonment in Argentina enhanced the view that Britain had little interest in the islands. By the 1970s, Argentina was a nation besieged by middle-class revolutionary groups. President Jorge Videla suppressed them in the vicious Dirty War, which not only broke the back of his opponents but led to Argentina becoming a political pariah. The economy collapsed. In 1976, when Argentina occupied South Thule, the British response was muted, but when she threatened the Falklands, Prime Minister James Callaghan sent a small naval task force to the region. The roles of NP 8901 were expanded to buying a three-week bargaining window at the UN, the time needed to assemble a task force. In 1980, President Roberto Viola undertook to return Argentina to democracy and the hand of international reconciliation was extended to Argentine/US military exercises. On 8 December 1981, Viola handed over power to General Leopoldo Galtieri, son of a poor Italian immigrant, cavalry officer and Army Commander. Backed by Admiral Jorge Anaya, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and school friend, and Brigadier General Lami Dozo, head of the Air Force, he formed a junta. However, the economy was dire and the Papal resolution over the Beagle Channel dispute with Chile seemed likely to go against Argentina. The Junta needed a diversion.
Irresistible to Anaya was the recovery of Las Malvinas. He had first mooted the idea in 1960 and then in the mid-1970s, with Admiral Emilio Massear, the Navy commander, he refined the scheme to remove the islanders to Uruguay and resettle the islands. The Air Force were lukewarm. To Galtieri, the proposition was tantalizing, especially as January 1983 was the 150th anniversary of the deportation of Governor Pinedo. The Junta also believed Argentina’s new relationship with the US to be an advantage. When Great Britain announced that (a) the Antarctic Patrol Ship HMS Endurance was to be decommissioned and not replaced, (b) that the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) base at South Georgia would be closed, (c) that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had denied the Falkland Islanders full British citizenship, and (d) that Nicholas Ridley, Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, seemed sympathetic to a lend-lease agreement with Argentina, the Junta interpreted that Britain had lost interest in the islands and therefore could be pushed into transfer negotiations. On 15 December 1981, Admiral Anaya flew to the main Argentine Navy base at Puerto Belgrano and instructed the newly installed Chief of Naval Operations, Vice Admiral Juan Lombardo, to update plans to liberate the Falkland Islands. On 5 January 1982, the Junta prepared a contingency plan for ‘the employment of military power’ should diplomacy fail under National Strategy Directive 1/82:
The Military Committee, faced with the repeated lack of progress in the negotiations with Great Britain to obtain recognition of our soveriengty over the Malvinas, Georgia and South Sandwich island; convinced that the prolongation of this situation affects national honour, the full exercise of sovereignty and the exploration of resources; has resolved to analyse the possibility of the use of military power to obtain the political objective. This resolution must be kept in strict secrecy and should be circulated only to heads of the respective military directives.
Preliminary plans were to be ready by mid-March, with implementation ready by 15 May. Occupation was to be bloodless. Very few in Argentina, a country whose international experience was largely confined to South America and who had not fought a major war for 120 years, knew they were about to declare war on Great Britain, whose international career extended over several centuries and who had the long habit of losing battles but winning wars.