The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, Volume 1

The Origins of the Falklands War

Lawrence Freedman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781135775896
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Drawing on a vast range of previously classified government archives as well as interviews with key participants, this first volume of the official history of the Falklands Campaign is the most authoritative account of the origins of the 1982 war.

In the first chapters the author analyzes the long history of the dispute between Argentina and Britain over the sovereignty of the Islands, the difficulties faced by successive governments in finding a way to reconcile the opposed interests of the Argentines and the islanders, and the constant struggle to keep the Islands viable. He subsequently gives a complete account of how what started as an apparently trivial incident over an illegal landing by scrap-metal merchants on the island of South Georgia turned into a major crisis. Thanks to his access to classified material, Lawrence Freedman has been able to produce a detailed and authoritative analysis which extends the coverage given by the Franks Committee Report of 1983.

This volume is ultimately an extremely readable account of these events, charting the growing realization within the British government of the seriousness of the situation, culminating in the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands at the start of April 1982.

1

Origins of the Dispute

What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island which not even southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of Siberia; of which the expence will be perpetual, and the use only occasional; and which, if fortune smiles upon our labours, may become a nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future Buccaniers.

So wrote Samuel Johnson about the Falkland Islands in 1771. He wondered then why Britain might be prepared to go to war for such a desolate place. Significantly this quote was put in the files of the Secretariat of the Chiefs of Staff at the end of March 1982, just as Britain was gearing up to war. It reappears often in later files.

Johnson’s assessment of the Falklands may have been widely cited during the 1980s, but it was quite unfair. The climate of the Falklands is not at all Siberian. It is temperate, somewhat warmer than Britains in its winter although cooler in its summer. It is perfectly habitable, although there are difficulties with access and internal communications. There is a marked lack of trees although an abundance of wildlife. This archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean consists of two large islands and about 780 smaller islands. The larger East Falkland has an area of 2,580 square miles while West Falkland, with adjacent islands, covers 2,038 square miles. The Islands are found at the eastern entrance to the Straits of Magellan and some 250 miles to the west is the Argentine province of Patagonia. About 800 and 1,300 miles respectively to the south east are South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which were throughout the period covered by this account Dependencies of the Falkland Islands.¹

Although South Georgia has been used by transient workers from the whaling industry in its past its sub-polar climate discourages habitation: the South Sandwich Islands are quite uninhabitable as they are mountainous, volcanic and covered with glaciers. By contrast, the Falklands have proved able to sustain a settled population and a pastoral economy. The local inhabitants became known as “kelpers” (seaweed gatherers), and anywhere outside of Stanley as the Camp, derived from the Spanish word Campos meaning country. By the early 20^th century the community was thriving, with a nonmilitary population of around 3,000. At the previous peak, in 1931, the population reached 2,392. The 1980 census found a total population of 1,813, but declining at the rate of about 30 a year. All but around five percent were British, but there were some 30 Argentines, connected with the links established between the Islands and the mainland, 27 Chileans, mainly farm and road workers, and 24 Americans, largely of the Bahai faith. There were in total 589 residential buildings in the Islands (363 of them in Stanley).² Until 1982 the most important military association of the Falklands was the battle fought close by in 1914 when four German cruisers were sunk with the loss of some 1,900 men, after a squadron had been sent urgently from Britain to respond to the loss of two British cruisers in an earlier engagement.

The main problem for the Falkland Islands was, and still is, disputes over its ownership, continuing over 250 years. Since 1833 they have been under British control, and successive British governments have insisted that this is right, but an international court has never tested the claim and Argentina disagrees. This question was considered in public in a semi-formal manner a few months after the Falkland Islands had been retaken by Britain after an Argentine attempt to settle the matter in its favour by force. A Select Committee of the House of Commons addressed seriously the question of who actually owned the Islands. The Government insisted that there was no issue, but Members of Parliament were clearly troubled by a confusing story, which went some way to explaining why it was that Argentina had been so persistent in its claim. As the Committee was about to reach a conclusion, the May 1983 general election intervened, and it took until the next year before a reconstituted Committee could issue a report. The result was hardly a ringing endorsement of Britain’s claim to a territory on whose behalf it had just gone to war. The Committee declared itself ‘unable to reach a categorical conclusion on the legal validity of the claims’ of either Britain or Argentina.³ It then raised the significance of the Argentine invasion of 1982 by declaring that this in effect had decided the matter. The ‘historical argument…has been rendered less relevant by Argentina’s illegal resort to arms.’

The British Government disputed the suggestion of any serious doubt surrounding its claim, but it could not ignore the fact that for some 15 years it had been prepared to talk with Argentina about the future of the Falklands, with the transfer of sovereignty often explicitly on the agenda, and that these talks also involved the Dependencies, albeit tentatively and even though the British claim here had quite different foundations. There is no doubt that the 1982 war was a watershed in the sense that it bolstered the resolve of the British Government to defend robustly the right of the islanders to live under a government of their choosing and diminished even further any islander interest in joining Argentina. This is, however, no more than to confirm what has always been the case with the Falklands: that law has mattered less than power and determination when it comes to deciding ownership.

The Government expressed its regret in 1985 at the Committee’s reluctance to reach a conclusion. The official, confident line on sovereignty still held as if it had been constant for over 200 years. In practice, however, the British position had evolved, with an increasing stress on constant occupation and then on self-determination. In this chapter we shall chart this evolution and evaluate the legal claims made by the two sides against the historical record. In doing so it is important to note that there has never been any formal presentation of the British claim before any international or judicial body. Britain has certainly never repudiated the original basis for its claim.⁴

The question of ownership of the Falklands remains bound up, as it has always been, with the ability to sustain relatively small settlements, if necessary by force. In the years up to 1833 a number of states pursued parallel claims to these Islands without a consensus on sovereignty emerging, as each attempted to sustain their own settlements and on occasion ejected those of others. After 1833 Britain was able to maintain its settlement against Argentine objections. Argentina never renounced its claim even when there was not much that could be done about it. Equally when British officials considered the possibility of transferring the Islands to Argentina this was not because of a lack of confidence in the claim but more in their ability to sustain the Islands in the face of continued pressure from Argentina. Handing the matter over to international lawyers would not have taken the matter out of politics. Any opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) would not arise simply out of a disinterested process of legal analysis. Much would depend on the composition of the Court, including the nationality and legal philosophy of individual members, as well as whether they were disposed to see the Falklands as a relic of colonialism or a shining example of self determination.

Origins

Both sides seek to justify their claim to the Falklands by drawing on the complex history of the Islands, and the chronology of discovery, settlements, treaties, conflicts, claims and protests, but also to the meaning of sovereignty in practice during some fleeting moments of occupation.⁵

The dispute starts with the question of discovery. Argentina argues that the first sightings should be credited to either Amerigo Vespucci in 1502, Esteban Gomez, a Portuguese sailor in Magellan’s expedition of 1520 or the Camargo expedition of 1540, and point to their appearance on early sixteenth century Spanish maps. Britain puts the discovery of the Islands at 1592 and attributes this to a British Captain, John Davies, aboard the Desire, followed two years later by Sir Richard Hawkins who passed along their northern coast. Both sides agree that the Islands were first named in 1600 as the ‘Sebaldes’ by the Dutchman Sebald van de Weert who came across them as he sailed through the Straits of Magellan and into the Atlantic. This is the only authenticated discovery. The question of discovery constitutes the pre-history of the dispute. The question of ownership only really became moot in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Britain can claim the first recorded landing, on 27 January 1690, by Captain John Strong of the Royal Navy, from the Welfare. It was he who named the sound between the eastern and western islands, Falkland, in honour of the third Viscount Falkland, Anthony Cary, who was later to become First Lord of the Admiralty. Some decades later it was argued within the Admiralty that this could be just the strategic base Britain required in the South Atlantic to interdict Spanish sea lines of communication. In 1748 it was therefore decided to send an expedition to the Falkland Islands. Spain objected. It considered itself to have rights to all territories in this part of the world. This was traced back to the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494, which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal on a line that ran from Pole to Pole, 370 leagues to the west of Cape Verde. Portugal would remain predominant to the east of the line, the Spanish to the west. Spain had continued to argue for exclusive rights to the whole region under the Anglo-Spanish Treaty of 1604 and the Treaties of Madrid of 1670 and Utrecht of 1713 reinforced this claim. Britain refuted the Spanish claim, asserting that it could not ‘in any respect give in to the reasonings of the Spanish ministers.’ The right ‘to send out ships for the discovery of the unknown and unsettled parts of the world must indubitably be allowed by everybody.’ Nevertheless, this was a time of important commercial treaty negotiations with Spain and so while denying the Spanish claim the British did not pursue the expedition.

At this point France enters the picture. Having lost its position in North America during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), it sought to rebuild its colonial power at Spain’s expense. Antoine de Bougainville, a French navigator, established a settlement at Port Louis on the Falkland Islands in 1764, proclaiming the Islands (Les Malouines) in the name of Louis XV. Spain contested this occupation on the same basis that it had challenged the proposed British expedition, referring to papal awards and prior discovery. The French backed down, reluctant to enter into another war at a time when relations with Spain in Europe were improving. As important, they received a substantial sum from Spain under an agreement of 4 October 1766, which led to the French evacuation of Port Louis and its formal transfer to Spain the next April when it was renamed Puerto de Soledad (Port Solitude). The Islands were incorporated into the jurisdiction of the Captaincy General of Buenos Aires, and Don Felipe Ruiz Puente became the first Governor of the Islas Malvinas.

On 23 January 1765, just before this Franco-Spanish agreement, which concerned East Falkland, Commodore John Byron, the poet’s grandfather, arrived aboard HMS Dolphin at West Falkland, which he claimed for King George III. He reported that: ‘the whole navy of England might ride here in perfect security from all winds,’ leading Lord Egmont, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to contend that the Islands were of extreme strategic importance and:

undoubtedly the key to the whole Pacifick Ocean. The Island must command the Ports and trade of Chile, Peru, Panama, Acapulco and in one word all the Spanish Territory upon that sea. It will render all our expeditions to those parts most lucrative to ourselves, most fatal to Spain.

Having decided to take the Falklands seriously, the British sent a second expedition. This arrived a year later in January 1766 under the command of John McBride, commander of HMS Jason. At this point a British settlement of some 100 people was established in Port Egmont at Saunders Island on West Falkland. So by this time two settlements, apparently in ignorance of each other, co-existed on the two islands. Because of this ignorance the British laid claim to all of the Falklands and when the French were discovered they were ordered to leave, although without this order having much effect.

As soon as Spain acquired its settlement from France it demanded that the British leave their settlement. The two countries swapped demands, until June 1770 when 1,400 Spanish soldiers arrived in five frigates sent from Argentina and the British were compelled to abandon Port Egmont. The British Government were outraged and made preparations for war. It was these preparations that prompted Johnson’s outburst on the dismal quality of the Islands. Now it was Spain’s turn to back down, which it did by means of a declaration in January 1771 that permitted the British to reestablish their settlement, although at the same time it reserved its position on sovereignty. Britain did not, however, make a counter-claim on its sovereignty rights at this time and, although this did not constitute in itself an implicit acknowledgement of Spanish sovereignty, the Government was criticised for the omission in Parliament.

Furthermore, the British were having their own second thoughts on the value of this property. At a time of growing unrest in its American colonies, the Falklands appeared expensive and of marginal strategic value and so Saunders Island was left voluntarily in 1774 as Britain concentrated on North America.⁶ A flag and a plaque, left behind as the settlers withdrew, with the following inscription sustained the country’s claim:

Be it known to all nations that the Falkland Islands, with this fort, the storehouses, wharfs, harbours, bays, and creeks thereunto belonging are the sole right and property of His Most Sacred Majesty George the Third, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. In witness whereof this plaque is set up, and His Britannic Majesty’s colours left flying as a mark of possession. By S.W.Clayton, Commanding Officer at Falkland Islands, AD 1774.

The Spanish Government viewed Britain’s departure with great satisfaction and instructed their Governor of the Malvinas ‘to make sure that they do not return to that quarter.’ In 1775 the plaque was retrieved and transported to Buenos Aires. In 1780 the Viceroy of Buenos Aires instructed that the settlement be destroyed. From 1774 to 1810 Spain, through this Vice-Royalty, was the exclusive administrator of the Falkland Islands. The old settlement was used largely as a prison camp. With a population estimated in the mid-1780s at only 80–120, of which a substantial minority were convicts, Spain’s interest in these barren islands remained slight. There were even suggestions that they might be abandoned. The main task of the numerous governors of the Islands over this period was to undertake inspection tours ‘to prevent British sailors and fishermen from settling anywhere’. In the St. Lawrence Convention of 1790 Spain conceded to Britain navigation and fishing rights in the Pacific and South Seas in return for an agreement not to establish any settlements on the eastern or western coasts of South America or on the adjacent islands to the south or those parts occupied by Spain. This clearly prevented Britain from occupying the Falklands and although this Convention was abrogated in 1795 it was revived in 1814.

When, in 1806, Spain was threatened by Napoleon and an unofficial British expedition briefly captured Buenos Aires (in the process retrieving the plaque that had been left on the Islands in 1774) the Spanish Governor in Puerto Soledad fled from the Malvinas. The Spanish eventually withdrew from the Falkland Islands altogether in 1811, leaving behind a few gauchos and fishermen, and a plate proclaiming Spanish rights on a church door at Puerto de Soledad: ‘The island, with its ports, buildings, dependencies…belongs to the sovereignty of His Majesty Fernando VII… King of Spain and the Indies’. For the next ten years the Islands were uninhabited, used only by whalers and sealers, and it could be argued that they had become terra nullius.

Having rejected Spanish rule in 1810, on 9 July 1816, the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata declared their independence. The United Provinces became Argentina and claimed as its inheritance the territorial rights of Spain. This is the basis, along with geographical contiguity, for the Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands.

The governments of the United Provinces generally were unstable in their first years and had difficulty establishing their authority over the territories they claimed. In November 1820 Colonel Daniel Jewett, an American, raised the flag of the United Provinces on behalf of the new government in Buenos Aires at Puerto de Soledad. Finding fifty vessels of various nationalities on the Falkland Islands, Jewett ordered them to cease their fishing activities and leave the Islands. No British protest was made: this may have reflected ignorance, as there was no representative in Buenos Aires at the time. A Governor was appointed, although he never visited the Islands, and there is little evidence of any serious effort to exercise any effective control. When, in 1825, Britain recognised the United Provinces it made no mention of the issue of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, but there is no reason to suppose that the omission was deliberate. Nor did Britain protest the next year about the establishment of a permanent settlement. It took the appointment of a political and military Governor, Louis Vernet, on 10 June 1829 to revive British interest.

The creation of the Argentine colony was largely free enterprise on Vernet’s part. He was granted exclusive rights of the fisheries and endowed with ‘all the authority and jurisdiction necessary to fulfil his job’ as Governor. When the decree became known in Buenos Aires the British Chargé d’Affairs delivered a formal protest on 19 November 1829, noting that: ‘the Argentine Republic, in issuing this Decree, [has] assumed authority incompatible with His Britannick Majesty’s rights of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands’, citing as he did so, British rights from discovery and the restoration of occupation in 1771. At this time the British Government, with the Duke of Wellington Prime Minister, considered reoccupation of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Maps
• 1. Origins of the Dispute
• 2. Inconsistent Appeasement
• 3. Communications and Condominiums
• 4. Mis-Communication and Non-Cooperation
• 5. Shackleton
• 6. Unreliable Defence
• 7. Reappraisal
• 8. Undetected Deterrence
• 9. Marking Time
• 10. Towards Lease-Back
• 11. The Rise of Lease-Back
• 12. The Fall of Lease-Back
• 13. Micawberism
• 14. No Plans
• 15. Alarm Bells
• 16. South Georgia
• 17. Crisis
• 18. Delayed Response
• 19. The Worst Moment
• 20. Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index