page_title: Thirteenth Siege of Gibraltar
section_title: The Early Siege
hierarchical_section_title: Thirteenth Siege of Gibraltar / Gibraltar under siege / The Early Siege
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir Charles Wager (1666-1743)
context_page_description: The Siege of Gibraltar of 1727 saw Spanish forces besiege the British garrison of Gibraltar as part of the Anglo-Spanish War. Depending on the sources, Spanish troops numbered between 12,000 and 25,000. British defenders were 1,500 at the beginning of the siege, increasing up to about 5,000. After a five-month siege with several unsuccessful and costly assaults, Spanish troops gave up and withdrew. Following the failure the war drew to a close, opening the way for the 1728 Treaty of El Pardo and the Treaty of Seville signed in 1729.
context_section_description: The Count de las Torres's first move was, by cover of night, to move five battalions and 1,000 working men forward to take the Devil's Tower and two other abandoned fortifications, and to dig trenches parallel to Gibraltar's walls. Until the invention of the Koehler Gun in the Great Siege (1779–1783), fixed artillery guns could not be depressed below the horizontal, so the Spanish working parties could not be fired upon from the North Face of the Rock. The finished trenches might have proved the attackers with a good foothold from which to assault the town. However, 'Admiral Wager moved his squadron out of the bay to the eastern side of the isthmus, and at point-blank range, yet beyond the reach of the Spanish guns, pounded the men with enfilade fire for three days, inflicting on them perhaps more than 1,000 casualties.' The Spaniards soon built batteries to drive away Wager's ships, but even without naval bombardment the strong winds and heavy rain of February made digging and maintaining the trenches nearly impossible.
  Willis's battery, on the North Face of the Rock, gave the Spaniards a great deal of trouble. After a natural cave was discovered in the Rock, a plan was hatched to mine under Willis's Battery and 'excavate a gallery 1.5 metres wide and 1.7 high to a depth of about 25 metres, then a further 20 upwards, and to fill the cavity with 400 barrels of powder.' This activity was noticed by and alarmed the defenders:
  They possest themselves of a Cave, under the Rock, in order to undermine it, so as to get into the Town; upon discovery ... our Men made a mine over their Heads and blew up the Rock upon them.
  A machine was invented to let a man down the side of the Rock to spy what the Enemy were doing. This was put into execution, in the Night too, with no effect, for the unevenness of the Rock prevented any safe decent, so that we could make no discovery how they propos'd to blow it up.
  However, the limestone under Willis's battery was far too solid to mine easily 'in less than the space of eight or ten months and a hazard whether it could be perfected even then or not.'
caption: Admiral Sir Charles Wager
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