Capture of Minorca (1798)
| Capture of Minorca | |||||||||
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| Part of the War of the Second Coalition | |||||||||
 Present day view of the Bay of Fornells |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Great Britain
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 Spain
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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John Thomas Duckworth Charles Stuart
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Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 6,000 soldiers, sailors & Marines, 20 ships |
4,000 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Light | Light, 4,000 surrendered, 4 frigates captured |
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In November 1798 a British expedition captured the island of Minorca from Spain. A large force under General Charles Stuart landed on the island and forced its Spanish garrison to surrender in eight days with only some bloodshed. The British occupied the island for four years, using it as a major naval base, before handing it back to Spain following the Treaty of Amiens.
The island had traditionally belonged to Spain, but was captured in 1708 by the British and was subsequently ceded to Britain by Spain under of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713). The British retained their possession until 1783 when it was returned to Spain at the Treaty of Paris. During their occupation the British had used it as a naval base, but it was extremely vulnerable to capture by Spanish or French forces as shown by two separate sieges in 1756 and 1781.
While Britain and Spain had initially entered the French Revolutionary War as allies, in 1796 Spain had switched to supporting France and had gone to war with Britain. The British attempted to assert their authority over the Mediterranean but had a shortage of usable bases. After the failure to establish a British presence in Corsica, other targets such as Minorca, Malta and Elba were considered. Once the French Mediterranean Fleet had been destroyed in Aboukir Bay, Earl St Vincent was determined to restore British hegemony in the Mediterranean. To ensure this, his fleet needed a base with a well protected deep water harbour that could not be assaulted by land. The best island harbour in the Western Mediterranean was at Port Mahon on Minorca, where a large modern dockyard included a careening wharf, extensive storehouses and a purpose-built naval hospital. At the end of October St Vincent decided to send an expedition against Minorca, which departed on 19 October 1798. The expeditionary force arrived off Minorca on 7 November.
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