Costa del Sol Towns
Siege of Gibraltar
Anglo-Dutch
After the death of Charles II, without an heir to the
throne ofSpain, the Spanish
Succession War broke out between the two main pretenders to the throne, Philip
of Anjou and the Archduke Charles ofAustria. The first one had
the support ofFrance (he
was the grandson of Louis XIV ofFrance)
whileAustria,England andHolland were in favor of the latter.
In August 1704, while returning to Lisbon
after the abortive attempt to take the city of Barcelona,
an Anglo-Netherlands fleet with 45 ships of the line and 10 Dutchmen under the
command of Admiral Sir George Rooke captured the city of Gibraltar
on behalf of Archduke Charles of Austria.
Another part of the original Gibraltar chose to move to the
vicinity of the hermitage of San Isidro, thus giving rise years later to the
town of Los Barrios, while a minority sought refuge in the ruins of the city of
Algeciras, uninhabited since 1379, when the city was destroyed and burned by
the Nazarite to see who would be unable to preserve it before the advance of
the troops.
Spain's King Philip V,
the name by which Philip of Anjou was crowned, ordered to besiege Villadarķas
Marquis Plaza de Gibraltar. This first attempt
to reclaim the city was unsuccessful and the Spanish army lifted the siege. However, in order
to monitor the isthmus and opposing a possible invasion of the rest of the
territory, they established a permanent garrison in the area and created the
Military Government of the Campo de Gibraltar.
The hostilities began on August 2nd 1704. The Anglo fleet,
with its 1,500 artillery pieces, 30,000 projectiles fired in six hours,
demolished much of the fortifications of the square. Gibraltar fell on 3rd
August 1704. In theory the Anglo-Netherlands did not arrive
with the intention to invade or conquer any part of Spain
but to protect and liberate the Spanish, the French pretender to the throne of Spain,
Philip of Anjou.
However, after taking the square, Admiral Rooke, lowered
the standard of the Archduke Karl replacing it with the English while
proclaiming Queen Anne, the mistress of the Rock of Gibraltar. The Spanish
population of Gibraltar decided to move en
bloc, as well as its garrison.
La Linea de la Concepcion is a
municipality belonging to the Spanish region of Campo de Gibraltar, situated in
the province of Cadiz.. In 2008 it had 64,240 inhabitants. It sits on the sandy isthmus connecting
the Rock of Gibraltar with the coast in the east flank of the Bay of Algeciras,
between Sierra Carbonera and Gibraltar.
Its surface area is 26 square kilometers
and it has a density of 2470 inhabitants/km². It is situated at a height of 5 meters and
134 kilometers from the provincial capital, Cadiz.
What is today the municipality
of La Linea de la Concepcion
was part of Gibraltar in the Kingdom
of Seville, from its
recapture of the Nazari Kingdom of Granada by the Crown of Castile in the
fifteenth century until the English invasion in the early eighteenth
century.
