Twelfth siege of Gibraltar 1704
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1704 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Spain | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War of the Spanish Succession | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 36.1500, -5.3500 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
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, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Netherlands, Pro-Habsburg Spain, Portugal and 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…
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Twelfth siege of Gibraltar (revision 1370751889), 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.
Nearby battles
- Tenth siege of Gibraltar 1506 · 1 km
- Eighth siege of Gibraltar 1462 · 1 km
- Capture of Gibraltar 1704 · 1 km
- Great Siege of Gibraltar 1779 · 1 km
- Second siege of Gibraltar 1315 · 1 km
- Sixth siege of Gibraltar 1411 · 1 km
Other battles of the War of the Spanish Succession
- Battle of Speyerbach 1703
- First Battle of Höchstädt 1703
- Siege of Bonn (1703) 1703
- Siege of Guadeloupe 1703
- Siege of Kehl (1703) 1703
- Battle of Blenheim 1704
- Battle of Málaga (1704) 1704
- Battle of Schellenberg 1704
- Capture of Gibraltar 1704
- Siege of Colonia del Sacramento 1704
All 61 battles of the War of the Spanish Succession →
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