Battle of Tres Forcas 1856
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 7 August 1856 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1856 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | 19th century (1800–1913) | derived from year |
| Location | Morocco | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Africa | Natural Earth |
| Participants | Kingdom of Prussia, Sharifian Empire | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 35.4383, -2.9744 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Tres Forcas was a battle on 7 August 1856 between boat crews from the Prussian Navy corvette SMS Danzig (then on a foreign cruise, commanded by Heinrich Adalbert) and the Moroccans. It occurred at Cape Tres Forcas in Morocco, and was one of the first examples of Prussian or German gunboat diplomacy.
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 had decided that a Prussian warship should be deployed to the River Danube's outlet into the Black Sea and, on its way there, Prince Adalbert decided to explore the Rif coast of Morocco. There, four years earlier, on 7 December 1852, the Prussian warship Flora had been shot at by pirates, with one sailor killed and its captain injured.
On 7 August 1856, Prince Adalbert manned two boats and deployed them along the coast. After the boats came under fire from the moroccans, Danzig moved to only 600 metres from the shore to give the boat crews supporting fire. Adalbert then ordered a landing operation by 14 officers and 53 non-commissioned officers, sailors, and marines, led by Adalbert in person. Around noon, he led a surprise attack on a steep rock face nearly 40 metres high under heavy enemy fire. This attack was successful and the Moroccans were forced back to a plateau.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Tres Forcas (revision 1379525970), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Browse more: battles in Morocco · Africa · 19th century battles