Falklands War

The Falklands War (English Falklands War/Crisis, Spanish Guerra de las Malvinas / Guerra del Atlántico Sur) was an undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands (also known as the Malvinas), as well as South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which lasted from April to June 1982. Although surprised by the Argentine attack on the islands, Britain eventually prevailed, and the islands remained in British hands, in accordance with the wishes of their people. In Argentina, the outcome of the war led to the fall of the military junta and the restoration of the democratic system.

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Background

Historical ownership

Ownership of the islands was long disputed. In 1600, the Dutchman Sebald de Weert sighted a group of three uninhabited islands. Soon after, they were marked on Dutch nautical charts. In 1690, English Captain John Strong was the first to set foot on the islands and named the strait between the two main islands Falkland Channel, after the Chief of Admiralty, Lord Falkland. Only later was "Falkland" used as the name of the entire archipelago. Between 1698 and 1712, French captains charted the islands. On their maps, published by Frezier in Saint-Malo in 1716, they were listed as "Iles Malouines" - referring to the name of the city of St. Malo. In 1764, the Frenchman Louis Antoine de Bougainville founded the first colony, which was sold to Spain by the French crown in October 1766. On April 1, 1767, the colony was formally handed over to the Spaniards, who kept the - Spanish modified - name of the islands as "Malvinas". However, as early as December 1766, the British Captain (Captain of the Royal Navy) John McBride had landed on Saunders Island (Spanish Isla Trinidad), then called "Falkland", and left a small force under Captain Anthony Hunt (Captain of the Army) to secure British claims. The name Falkland was thus initially singular and did not refer to neighbouring East Falkland (Isla Soledad), the plural "Falklands" was not used by the British until much later. In November 1769, Captain Hunt's sloop and a Spanish schooner encountered each other in the Falklands Sound. They demanded each other to vacate the Falkland Islands, but no one complied. This resulted in the Falklands Crisis between Britain and Spain, which almost led to a conflict between the two countries. In May 1770, the Spanish governor in Buenos Aires, Francisco Bucarelli, dispatched five frigates, which quickly forced the thirteen British stationed by Hunt on 10 June 1770 to surrender. Impending war between Britain and Spain was averted by a secret declaration of peace on January 22, 1771, in which Spain yielded but reserved sovereign rights over the Falkland Islands. In a further treaty on 16 September 1771, both sides mutually recognised their previous rights in respect of the Falkland Islands and Malvinas respectively. However, the British made no discernible attempt to settle the islands permanently in the years that followed.

The justification for Argentina's claims to ownership of the Falkland Islands is very complex. However, the claims are mainly based on the fact that Buenos Aires considers itself the sole legal successor to the former Spanish Viceroyalty on the Río de la Plata.

With the dethronement of the previous king and the French takeover of Madrid in 1808, autonomy efforts in the Spanish colonies in South America intensified. On May 25, 1810, Buenos Aires declared itself autonomous. Only when, after the expulsion of the French, the reinstated Spanish king Ferdinand VII refused to recognize the autonomy of the South American colonies, did the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata declare themselves independent on July 9, 1816. In the wars that followed, the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in Buenos Aires emphatically claimed all the territories that had ever been part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of La Plata, which - notwithstanding the still existing British claims - also included the Falkland Islands (or in Spanish: Islas Malvinas). This led not only to battles with Spanish troops, but also to several wars with Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and with Brazil in the following decades. Border disputes with Chile over mutual claims to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego were largely settled after the 1982 Falklands War (with Argentina's relinquishment of the Beagle Channel islands on November 25, 1984). Some disputes, however, continue.

The last Spanish garrison in the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) withdrew to Montevideo in Uruguay in 1811, together with the inhabitants of the settlement of Puerto Soledad (Port Louis). Thereafter the islands were virtually uninhabited, and were only visited temporarily (usually to repair ships and take on fresh water) by seamen and whalers of various nations. The role played by David Jewitt in 1820/21 is now disputed. Jewitt was a U.S. privateer who, in 1820, captained the ship Heroine with official permission from the Buenos Aires government to hunt Spanish ships (but in the process raided ships of other nations on several occasions). When his ship was damaged during a storm, he landed on East Falkland in October 1820, where he met Captain James Weddell, the noted British navigator and polar explorer, who helped him make it seaworthy again. After completing repairs, Jewitt left the islands again after about six months (in April 1821). In the modern Argentine view, Jewitt took possession of the islands "for Argentina" during this time. However, this claim was not published anywhere at the time (apparently not even in Buenos Aires) or even communicated to other governments. The claim only became known when, over a year later, newspapers in the U.S. and Europe reported on the trial of the captain of the privateer ship Heroine, who was being tried for piracy in Lisbon at the time.

It was not until June 1829 that Buenos Aires formally appointed a governor of the islands. The new governor was Louis Vernet, a Hamburg-born French merchant with a US passport, who had first come to the Falkland Islands in 1826 for private economic reasons, in order to catch the now quite numerous feral cattle on the islands with the help of Argentine gauchos and move them to the mainland. For this purpose he also established a settlement there in 1828. In January 1829, Vernet had his claim to vast areas on the Falkland Islands for agricultural use officially registered at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires. In April 1829 the embassy formally confirmed his claim, and the ambassador informed him that Her Majesty's Government was happy to take his settlement under its protection. In negotiating with the British embassy, however, Vernet had concealed the fact that he had had land rights confirmed with the Argentine government a year earlier, in January 1828, and had applied to Buenos Aires for fishing and grazing rights in the Malvinas as early as 1823. After the Argentine government had founded the "Comandancia Político y Militar de las Malvinas" (Spanish: "Political and Military Command of the Malvinas") in June 1829 with regard to his settlement and had appointed Vernet as its first "commander", the British ambassador protested sharply to the Argentine government in a formal note on 19 November 1829 against this blatant violation of British sovereign rights over the Falkland Islands. Because of Vernet's (apparent or actual) "double-crossing", the latter's name is rarely mentioned in Argentine accounts today, and the South Americans base their claims primarily on David Jewitt, who had spent only a few months on the islands in a wrecked ship.

In 1831, the so-called "Lexington" incident occurred, triggered by Vernet's seizure in 1829 of three ships belonging to US sealers who had violated fishing and hunting rights guaranteed to him by the Argentine government in 1823 and by the British government in 1829 (the US had - according to Vernet - indiscriminately killed seals and other animals on the islands). The USA therefore sent the corvette Lexington more than two years later, in December 1831, whose crew destroyed the settlement in Vernet's absence and declared the Falkland Islands free (i.e. not belonging to any state), which also turned interest in Europe back to the islands. To the Argentine protests against the violation of its sovereignty, the USA merely replied by referring to already existing British sovereign rights.

Nevertheless, in 1832 Buenos Aires posted troops on the islands with the task of establishing a penal colony there. In November 1832, however, the prisoners revolted and murdered the commander of the troops, Captain Jean Etienne Mestivier. Argentina dispatched another ship with soldiers to arrest the murderers. Only three days after their arrival, the British sloop HMS Clio landed, whose captain John James Onslow took down the Argentine flag and raised the British one on January 3, 1833, thus renewing the British claims. Thereafter, the islands had no governmental authority for over a year (i.e., even after the British ship departed, the Argentine government made no attempt to reclaim the archipelago). It was not until 10 January 1834 that HMS Tyne landed for one of its routine annual visits and, in order to permanently secure British claims, left a young officer to establish a British administration as a "resident naval officer" (Permanent or Acting Naval Officer). It was only after the establishment of further settlements that Britain appointed its own governor for the Falkland Islands in 1842. Between 1833 and 1849, the Argentine Confederation renewed its protest several times, which Great Britain rejected on the grounds that they based their claims on the fact that the Falkland Islands had been Spanish, but that Spain had already ceded the rights to the islands to Great Britain before the independence of South America, which is why the islands no longer belonged to the Viceroyalty.

Between 1843 and 1852, a series of wars broke out between Buenos Aires and provinces north of La Plata and on the Parana, which had declared themselves independent, and in which Brazil and the two major European powers, France and Great Britain, eventually also became involved (→ cf. articles on the history of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Juan Manuel de Rosas). In the course of this crisis, the Argentine Confederation under Juan Manuel de Rosas and Great Britain concluded a treaty on November 24, 1849, in which "all" differences were settled. According to the British, this also settled the dispute over the Falkland Islands, which Argentina denies today. However, the Argentine Confederation - and later the Republic of Argentina - made no further claims to the Falkland Islands over the next few decades. Maps printed in Argentina either omitted the islands altogether or marked them as British territory.

The Republic of Argentina, founded in 1862 as the successor state to the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and the Argentine Confederation, maintained consistently good relations with Great Britain until the beginning of the Second World War, during which time it made only indirect claims to the Falkland Islands. It was not until 1941 that the islands were again mentioned in an official document, the first time since 1849. In the course of this war, relations between the two states cooled noticeably, as Argentina remained neutral until almost the end despite pressure from London (the declaration of war on Germany did not take place until 27 March 1945).

Negotiations between Argentina and Great Britain (1965-1981)

It was not until after the war and the founding of the UN that Argentina began to take a more active stance on the Falkland Islands again at the beginning of the 1960s, as part of the discussion on the decolonisation of the world. However, the approximately 1,900 inhabitants of the Falkland Islands strongly opposed coming under the rule of Argentina. Therefore, invoking Article 73 of the UN Charter, which emphasises the self-determination of the inhabitants, the then British representative to the UN, Hugh Foot, also rejected Argentine claims to the Falkland Islands before the UN General Assembly in August 1964. Only a little later, however, in December 1965, the UN General Assembly demanded in a resolution (UN Resolution 2065) that Great Britain and Argentina should immediately begin negotiations on the islands and find a peaceful solution to the problem.

Following the call, Britain and Argentina began negotiating the future of the islands in 1965. However, no agreement was reached until the outbreak of war 17 years later. The talks failed because, although several successive Labour governments in London were quite prepared to make concessions and give up the islands, just like other British "colonies", Argentina insisted on unlimited sovereignty, i.e. it was not prepared to grant the Falklands autonomy rights such as those enjoyed by the Swedes in the Åland Islands, which belong to Finland. This, however, was an indispensable precondition for the transfer of sovereignty rights for the British, who always emphasized the right to self-determination. After a Peronist group hijacked a plane in September 1966 (a Douglas DC-4) and hijacked it to Port Stanley, where they captured two British officials in order to force an immediate handover of the Falkland Islands to Argentina, talks were temporarily suspended. A small contingent of 45 Marines was then stationed at Port Stanley to better protect the islands.

In the negotiations, the Labour government of the time always outwardly put the interests of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands first, but it carefully shielded the negotiations with Argentina from the British public. The residents of the archipelago also learned nothing at all about the negotiations, which is why in early 1968 they began to lobby the government in London through the media with the help of Conservative MPs. As a result, in the same year, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Lord Chalfont, visited the Falkland Islands as well as Argentina. His report again pointed out that the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands wanted to remain British, but Argentina insisted on its claim, so without a solution to the problem (armed) conflict was to be feared. Despite growing opposition, this year British Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart and Argentine Foreign Minister Costa Méndez nevertheless reached a memorandum of understanding in which both sides acknowledged that "in the best interests" of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, the UK government was prepared to transfer sovereignty to Argentina at a date to be determined.

At that time, the economic situation of the islands, which was primarily based on sheep breeding and wool, began to deteriorate. With the British government and the nine large landowners who owned most of the islands at the time tacitly expecting that the islands would probably go to Argentina "within twenty-five years", neither the government nor the private entrepreneurs wanted to invest in the Falklands. By cancelling subsidies for the weekly shipping service to Montevideo, which had to be discontinued as a result, the British government finally got the Falklanders to agree to an aviation agreement with Argentina in 1971. As a result, the Argentine state-owned airline LADE took over the mainland service, but considered the flight to be domestic and forced passengers to accept a special Argentine identity card identifying the holder as an Argentine citizen of the Malvinas (which the British government tacitly accepted). This point was - at least for a larger part of the Falklanders - a great annoyance and aggravated their distrust both of Buenos Aires and of the government in London. At the same time, the British government refused to build roads on the islands, to modernize the port of Port Stanley, or to build an airport on the islands suitable for modern aircraft. The Argentines then took over this task from funds in their defence budget and built the modern airport at Stanley in 1972. In return, London extended Argentine rights to supply the islands in several individual agreements between 1973 and 1975, with the mostly state-owned companies responsible increasingly moving to fly the Argentine flag exclusively in the Falklands.

After the Labour Party took over government again in 1974, following a brief Conservative interlude, the Foreign Office sought to expedite talks with Argentina along the lines of UN Resolution 2065 on the Falkland Islands. In 1975, the Labour government's newly appointed British ambassador to Argentina, Derek Ashe, made an offer to the then Argentine president, Isabel Perón, that Argentina should further develop the Falklands economically with generous British aid, thereby winning over the islanders. The Argentine government, however, distrusted this offer and saw in it only a coldly calculated British delaying tactic. After Ashe subsequently received a series of threatening letters and a car bomb exploded outside the British embassy, killing two members of the guard, he was recalled in 1976 at Argentina's request.

Nevertheless, in order to make the transfer of sovereignty rights to Buenos Aires palatable to the Falklanders, the British government sent Lord Shackleton, the son of the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton, who was close to the Labour Party, to Argentina and the Falkland Islands. However, Buenos Aires refused Lord Shackleton entry and he therefore had to be taken by ship from Montevideo to the islands. After a longer stay on the islands Lord Shackleton came in his detailed report, which he presented to the Prime Minister James Callaghan in June 1976, however, to a not so pleasing result for the Labour Party. Not only did he state again that the people of the islands wanted to remain British, but also that (contrary to quite a few official representations to the press) the islands did not cost the taxpayer a penny. Between 1951 and 1974, he said, the islands had generated an average surplus of £11.5 million a year. Moreover, he listed how this amount could easily be increased by some investment (he pointed, among other things, to fishing in the waters around the islands, which had not existed at all until then, and to the likelihood that the Malvinas Basin off the coast contained oil-bearing strata). The State Department considered the report a "disaster"; it reiterated in its response that it would protect the interests of the Falcon countries, but it nevertheless did not break off talks with Buenos Aires, despite Argentine provocations that became more frequent from 1976 onward. In February 1977, in an attempt to mitigate the strong impression the Shackleton Report had made on the Falklanders, Prime Minister Callaghan dispatched his Foreign Office confidant, Ted Rowlands, to the Falklands to make it clear to the inhabitants that the two strongest economic "trump cards" Lord Shackleton had cited, fish and oil, were in the waters around the islands, and therefore could not easily be used against the will of the Argentines. Nevertheless, even Rowland failed to persuade the Falklanders. From this time on, the State Department increasingly favored the "lease back" model (along the lines of Hong Kong), but this was rejected by both the hawk countries and Argentina, which was now increasingly insistent on immediate and unrestricted sovereignty over the South Atlantic islands.

However, as a result of the coup d'état in Argentina and the seizure of power by a military junta, which soon proceeded with great brutality against the opposition in the country, the attitude of many Labour and Liberal Party MPs changed after a short time, who now no longer wanted to support the handover of British citizens to the "Argentine torturers". Even after the election victory of the Conservative Party in 1979 and the appointment of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, talks with Argentina initially continued, with the new government initially adopting the "lease back" model to buy time, but they have since been conducted in an increasingly non-committal manner by the British side, giving Buenos Aires the impression that it was to be put off forever. However, with the planned closure of the last British research station on South Georgia and the decommissioning of the ice patrol ship HMS Endurance, which until then had represented British sovereignty in the area of the Antarctic Islands, the British government signalled to the Argentines in the late autumn of 1981 that it was apparently prepared to withdraw completely from the South Atlantic. And it was in this sense that the step was understood by Argentina (cf. on this also the next section).

Military preparations of the Argentine junta since 1976

After a coup d'état in March 1976, Argentina was ruled by a military government which, as part of the "Process of National Reorganization", murdered numerous opposition members until 1983, the majority of whom simply disappeared without a trace (see: Desaparecidos). This was justified with the fight against the leftist guerrilla of the Montoneros, which however only counted a few thousand men. The country was already suffering from major economic problems before the military came to power, and these were exacerbated during their rule.

In October 1977, after Argentina had established an (armed) research station on Southern Thule Island (also known as Thule Island → Southern Thule Islands; found in numerous dictionaries as Morrell Island, the US name of the island), British intelligence warned of increased military activity in southern Argentina. The British government then sent two frigates and a submarine into the South Atlantic as a precautionary measure (which, however, was not made public and was not noticed at all by Argentina) and declared an (economic) exclusion zone 25 nautical miles around the Falkland Islands, but otherwise tacitly accepted Argentina's occupation of the island.

On December 22, 1978, the junta launched Operation Soberanía (Operation Sovereignty) to militarily occupy the Cape Horn islands disputed with Chile and invade Chile. However, it was aborted a few hours later.

By 1978, the Argentine military had completely eliminated the "leftist guerrillas" through a secret Dirty War (see also Process of National Reorganization, State Terror) that claimed between 10,000 and 30,000 victims. The Argentine economy was in tatters, with inflation running at about 140% in 1980. The following year saw two changes of government: first, in March 1981, the relatively liberal General Viola took power and provided a brief period of relative freedom of expression. On November 9, General Viola fell ill and had to be admitted to a military hospital. On December 22, 1981, General Leopoldo Galtieri took over as president. Shortly thereafter, negotiations with Britain were temporarily postponed at Argentina's request.

According to many observers, the Argentine leadership at the time intended to cover up public criticism of the desolate economic situation and the human rights situation with a quick, patriotic "victory" in the Malvinas question. The 150th anniversary of the "illegal occupation of the Falkland Islands by the British" served as a pretext. Pressure was exerted in the UN with a subtle hint of a military invasion, which the British ignored. Since the occupation of the island of South Thule (1976), which London had accepted without objection, the Argentines interpreted the British attitude as a retreat and believed that Britain would hand over the islands to them without a fight in the event of an invasion. This belief was reinforced by the planned withdrawal of the last Royal Navy unit permanently stationed in the South Atlantic, HMS Endurance, and by the British Nationality Bill of 1981, which restricted the British citizenship of the islanders and declared them "hawkers".

The new friendship (based on active support for the anti-Sandinista Contras in Central America) with the United States, which lifted the arms embargo on Argentina in 1979 (Jimmy Carter was president at the time; Ronald Reagan was elected to succeed him in late 1980), strengthened President Galtieri's conviction that Britain could not wage war in the South Atlantic without U.S. support.

Further Argentine plans at the time envisaged a military occupation of the islands south of the Beagle Channel following a successful capture of the Falklands. The head of the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands War, Basilio Lami Dozo, confirmed these plans in an interview with the Argentine newspaper Perfil:

Argentina's last foreign minister before the war, Óscar Camilión - who held office from March 29, 1981 to December 11, 1981 - also confirmed these intentions, writing later in his memoirs:

Kalevi Holsti also came to this conclusion:

The idea had often been expressed in the Argentine press, for example by reporter Manfred Schönfeld of La Prensa (Buenos Aires) on June 2, 1982, about the course of the war after the Falklands deployment, when in Argentina the war was still thought to have been won:

In December 1978, the Argentine junta had already aborted Operation Soberanía at the last moment. Before the Argentine-Chilean conflict over the Beagle Channel, Jorge Anaya saw an opportunity to establish a military base on the Malvinas that Chile could not reach.

Concrete planning for the "reclamation of the Malvinas" began on December 15, 1981, when Vice Admiral Lombardo was asked at the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base by Admiral Jorge Anaya (1926-2008), the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and a member of the junta, to discreetly prepare a plan for the reclamation of the Malvinas in the near future. According to other senior officers, the military leadership had been dealing with this problem for some time; thus, preliminary planning had begun before Galtieri became president. Nominally, military planning was initially intended only to support increased diplomatic efforts in 1982, which was to be the Year of the Malvinas. In consultations with Admiral Anaya during this period, it was decided to conquer the Falkland Islands/Malvinas within a year.

In mid-January 1982, a special working commission (Comisión de Trabajo in Spanish) began concrete planning work for "the recovery of the Malvinas" in seclusion at the army headquarters in Buenos Aires. It was assumed that a landing on the Malwinas should not take place before September, i.e., it should roughly coincide with the beginning of spring in the southern hemisphere. By then, as announced by London, the British ice patrol ship HMS Endurance should also have left the South Atlantic, and by then the Argentine Air Force should have received and tested all fourteen Super Étendard ordered in France and all fifteen AM39 "Exocet" air-to-ship missiles ordered at the same time. Moreover, by that time, experience had shown that the 1982 recruit class should have been sufficiently educated and trained. The elaboration of the actual landing plans on the islands was entrusted to Rear Admiral Carlos Büsser, the commander of the Marines, who for this purpose, among other things, had the 2nd Battalion of the Marines conduct several landing exercises in southern Patagonia on beaches very similar to those of the Falkland Islands in February and March. As early as 9 March, the task force submitted the completed plan for a September landing of troops at Puerto Argentino (Stanley) to the junta, which approved it after a brief review.

Initial military situation

Argentina

The Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Argentina, or FAA) had a large number of modern aircraft and weapons, including Mirage III fighters, Mirage 5 fighter-bombers, and older but still very capable Douglas A-4 fighter-bombers. It also had the Argentine-developed FMA-IA-58 Pucará earth fighters, which could take off from short and improvised airfields. This was especially important for a mission to the Falkland Islands, where only one airfield had a concrete runway. Furthermore, the FAA still had older English Electric Canberra bombers in its inventory.

However, the Argentine Air Force was specifically prepared for a war against Chile or the guerrillas, and thus was more equipped for a short-range fight against ground targets than for a long-range fight against ships. As a result, Argentina had only two Lockheed C-130s converted to refueling aircraft for the FAA and the Navy. The Mirages were not equipped for aerial refueling.

In addition, the FAA had only a few reconnaissance aircraft as well as air-to-air missiles of French and US production, but most of them were not among the most modern versions. The then state-of-the-art Exocet AM39 air-to-ship missiles, which could have posed a serious threat to the British fleet, had been ordered from France, but only five were available at the start of the war, according to Argentine figures. To these Air Force forces were added five modern Dassault Super Étendards of naval aviators equipped for aerial refueling. Argentina had ordered fourteen of these aircraft, but only five had been delivered by the outbreak of the war, which is why one of them had to remain on the ground as a spare parts donor as a result of the arms embargo imposed by the EC states.

The Argentine Air Force was divided into eight groups (Grupo 1-8), which in turn were subdivided into two to four squadrons. In some accounts, the Escuadrón Fénix (Phoenix Squadron), which consisted of 35 civilian aircraft (for transport and reconnaissance missions), is referred to as "Grupo 9". The naval aviators (Aeronaval Argentina) were divided into eight aircraft and two helicopter squadrons. The recently delivered state-of-the-art "Super Étendards" belonged to the "2 Escuadrilla de Caza y Ataque" (2nd Fighter and Ground Attack Squadron). The strength of a Grupo varied from twelve to 32 aircraft. Grupo 3 was largely transferred to the Falkland Islands during the war with its Pucará type ground attack aircraft.

For operations in the South Atlantic, the Argentine naval forces (Spanish: Armada de la República Argentina, ARA) were subdivided into

• Aircraft Carrier Battle Group (Grupo de Tareas 79.1)
• Aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo with one squadron Skyhawks
• Two modern (British-built) Class 42 destroyers with long-range anti-aircraft missiles (ARA Santísima Trinidad and ARA Hércules) as escorts
• Supply vessel A Punta Médanos
• Cruiser Combat Group (Grupo de Tareas 79.3)
• Cruiser General Belgrano, displacement 13,500 tons; commissioned as Phoenix in 1938 and later taken over by the Argentines; fifteen 152-mm and eight 127-mm guns.
• Two older destroyers (Hipólito Bouchard and ARA Piedra Buena), retrofitted with "Exocet" MM38 ship-to-ship missiles, as escorts.
• Fleet supplier Punta Delgada
• Corvette Combat Group (Grupo de Tareas 79.4)
• Three modern French-built d'Estienne d'Orves class corvettes with "Exocet" MM38 missiles: Drummond, Granville and Guerrico.
• Submarine fleet
• Two former U.S. World War II submarines, modernized in the GUPPY program:
• S-21 Santa Fe: Deployment near the island of South Georgia
• S-22 Santiago del Estero: spare parts supplier
• Two modern submarines of the submarine class 209 manufactured in the Federal Republic of Germany:
• S-31 Salta: Not yet operational due to technical problems
• S-32 San Luis: Very problematic for the Royal Navy, as it operated near the British carrier group several times without the British managing to track it down. Two attack attempts by the submarine failed due to operator errors in firing the torpedoes.

United Kingdom

The Royal Navy, at the time of the outbreak of war, was not geared to be the main force in such a maritime operation in such a remote area. Rather, it was geared for use in a possible Third World War within the NATO structure. Since in such a case its main task would have been to secure the transatlantic liaison routes, especially the GIUK gap, against the Soviet Northern Fleet, the emphasis was placed on anti-submarine warfare. Since, according to Western assessments, the concurrent threat of Soviet air attack in the North Atlantic would have been low, British ships had limited anti-aircraft capabilities. Thus, in the late 1970s, the large aircraft carriers HMS Eagle and HMS Ark Royal, which were expensive to maintain, were decommissioned, as were the corresponding Blackburn Buccaneer carrier aircraft. Due to the high costs, the British government refused to overhaul Ark Royal, which had only been combat upgraded in 1972. The retirement of the remaining small aircraft carriers had also already been decided, HMS Bulwark was decommissioned in 1980 and was already in too poor a condition for rapid reactivation by 1982; the retirement of HMS Hermes was to follow in 1982. Air support in wartime was to come either from bases ashore or from US aircraft carriers. Agreement had been reached with Australia on the sale of the relatively new HMS Invincible. As the submarine-launched missile force expanded, the number of surface forces was further reduced. The Royal Air Force was in the process of retiring the Avro Vulcan in favour of the Panavia Tornado, which was being introduced step by step. In the Army, priority was given to the modernisation of the British Army of the Rhine. In May 1981, the Minister of Defence, John Nott, had published a new White Paper with drastic restructuring maxims.

Strength of the forces involved

Due to the planned occupation of the Falkland Islands and the threat of war with Chile, Argentina simultaneously drafted two cohorts of recruits in 1982. Therefore, the Argentine armed forces had a strength of 181,000 men in that year, to which must be added the paramilitary National Gendarmerie (Spanish "Gendarmería Nacional") and the Coast Guard (Spanish "Prefectura Naval Argentina"), both of which also sent units to the Malvinas. This gave Argentina a force of more than 200,000 men. When, after the occupation of the islands, it became clear that Britain was by no means willing to acquiesce in the annexation of the Falklands, the Argentine forces still sent parts of three brigades of the army and a reinforced battalion of marines to the islands. In addition, the Air Force, the National Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard stationed further units on the islands to support them. However, the British naval blockade then prevented further reinforcement of the Argentine troops.

In total, some 15,000 to 16,000 Argentines arrived in the Falkland Islands for shorter or longer periods. This number is higher than the number of soldiers who became British prisoners in the Falklands on 15 June (around 12,700) because, among other things, most of the units that had occupied the islands in April had returned to the mainland and, in addition, a large number of the sick and wounded could still be flown out in the weeks before the surrender. The number of Argentine soldiers involved in the war was even higher. Immediately after the war (1983), the Argentine army officially stated that 14,200 soldiers had taken part in the war. By 1999, this number was then successively raised to 22,200 men. The Argentine Association of Falklands Veterans reckoned in 2007 with "about" 24,000. However, since (at least temporarily) almost the entire Argentine Air Force and Navy were involved in the fighting, which together numbered 55,000 to 60,000 men, this figure - which, moreover, slowly increased over the years - cannot be correct. It can probably be explained by the fact that officially only those soldiers are recognised as "Falklands veterans" who permanently stayed in the area of the TOM ("Teatro de Operaciones Malvinas") or in the area of the TOAS ("Teatro de Operaciones del Atlántico Sur") during the war and directly participated in military operations. Therefore, all soldiers and conscripts who spent the entire war in the Andes along the Chilean border (because of the threat of war with Chile at the same time) are not counted as war veterans.

The British armed forces comprised about 327,000 men in 1982. The numerical ratio of the two forces was thus about 3:2 in favour of the British. However, most of the British armed forces were firmly tied down by their duties in NATO and by the Northern Ireland conflict. Therefore, the army command could only fall back on the two brigades of the "UKMF" (United Kingdom Mobile Force, i.e. the mobile reaction reserve). The mobile reserve also included the United Kingdom/Netherlands Amphibious Task Group (UK/NL ATG), i.e. the landing ships which the 3rd British Commando Brigade was to bring to the European coast (probably to Norway, according to plan) in the event of war. With NATO's approval, the British elements of the Mobile Reserve were relieved of their duties in the Alliance.

At first, moreover, it was thought there that the matter could be solved with the 3rd Commando Brigade of Marines (about 3,500 men) alone. When it became known in London that Argentina had in the meantime already brought some 10,000 to 12,000 men to the island, it was decided to reinforce the brigade with two paratrooper battalions of the 5th Brigade, parts of the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF), and other support troops. These included artillery and air defence units in particular. Eventually the brigade grew to a total of almost 7,500 men. Since the Argentines had in fact already brought more than 12,000 men to the islands, London sent even more parts of the 5th Brigade to the South Atlantic. Since in the meantime most of this brigade was already on its way to the South Atlantic, the British leadership searched "across the army" for everything that was still available. In doing so, they reluctantly, but of necessity, fell back on two battalions of the Guards ("Welsh Guards" and "Scots Guards") and placed them under the 5th Brigade. These were stationed in London as representative Guards battalions mainly for ceremonial purposes, and had neither the necessary training or special training, nor the required equipment and clothing for winter combat in subarctic conditions. To make matters worse, by the end of April, when the decision was made to send the brigade on, only the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 was available, but she held only 3,200 men, so about a quarter of the brigade - mainly support troops - had to be left behind. The strength of the British land forces (army and marines) thus increased to about 11,000 men. Added to this were the ship crews and naval aviators, as well as air force units, bringing the total number of men involved in the British operation in the South Atlantic to almost 30,000 (supplemented by some 2,000 civilian merchant navy seamen).

Analysis

Military

Marine

The Falklands War illustrated the vulnerability of ships in the open sea, both to missiles and submarines. As a result, warships were increasingly built using flame-retardant materials and new types of fire extinguishing systems (halons as extinguishing agents, etc.). The Exocet missiles became a best seller in all continents. The British ships did not have a short-range defence system; such systems were immediately introduced or developed by almost all navies in the years after the Falklands War.

Land Forces

Numerous conclusions also resulted from the war for the forces operating on land. Particularly on the British side, anti-tank hand weapons and anti-tank guided missiles such as the MILAN were successfully employed against Argentine field fortifications. Four light armoured vehicles each, FV101 Scorpion and FV107 Scimitar, of the British reconnaissance force had proved their worth in supporting the infantry.

Due to one-sided press reports in Europe and the USA, the Argentine troops were portrayed rather negatively in the first accounts after the war. According to these reports, units were deployed on the Argentine side that were not used to comparable climatic conditions. As a result, their resilience and operational capability were clearly limited. The Argentine units were mostly conscripts from the hot and humid interior. The British units, on the other hand, consisting of professional soldiers from the Parachute Regiment and Royal Marines, were able to train in Scotland and Norway. Only the Argentine 5th Marine Battalion was considered prepared for deployment in the dry-cold climate zone.

In fact, only three of the twelve Argentine infantry battalions deployed to the Falklands came from the "hot and humid" northern Argentine province of Corrientes. The remaining units were mainly from the major cities of Buenos Aires Province, and four of the battalions were from Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego (including the two battalions of marines), whose climatic conditions were quite similar to those of the Falkland Islands. The soldiers' personal equipment was adapted to the climatic conditions on the islands (conspicuously, the young soldiers from the warm north, who were mainly from rural areas, coped better with life in the open air or in tents than a large proportion of the metropolitan conscripts from the colder south). The official report of the experience of one of the British brigade commanders (Wilson) thus states, "The enemy was not incompetent and not fearful. He was neither ill-equipped nor starving. The use of his aeroplanes was very bold. The positions of his defenses were well chosen and they were very well laid out. He fought very skillfully and with great courage. Some of his units resisted to almost the last man." This description is confirmed in most detailed accounts later written by war veterans of individual engagements.

However, the inhospitable climatic conditions at the beginning of the southern winter in the Falkland Islands put the forces of both sides to severe tests. For the first time since the Winter War and the subsequent operations of the Wehrmacht in Finland during the Second World War, infantry battles were fought in the subpolar climate zone. The special features of this climatic zone, apart from high wind speeds in the low-cover terrain, were the cold and the ground moisture, which reduced the protective effect of combat boots made of leather. As a result, cases of trench foot, or trench foot, reappeared on the British side for the first time after the First World War. For this reason, boots with a PTFE membrane (also called Gore-Tex) were subsequently developed, as only rubber boots were available as otherwise suitable footwear. Lessons were learned for the clothing and field equipment as well as the armament of the infantry. These include, among other things, the introduction of wind and waterproof clothing with PTFE membranes that are open to vapour diffusion.

The British standard rifle L1 A1 SLR, a variant of the self-loader FN FAL without continuous fire, proved to be no longer adequate. No night sight could be added for night combat and it had no telescopic sight.

Lessons could also be learned for training and about the psychology of a soldier and his readiness to fight within the small combat community through cohesion. Differences in training became particularly apparent between the paratroopers and the members of the Guard regiments. A fixed component of the training is therefore since then also there a mentally, but also physically demanding training, among other things by rappelling exercises.

Further lessons could be learned in medical service and in self-help and comrade-help. Due to the climate and the weather - cold leads to a contraction of the veins, the application of an infusion via a peripheral or central venous access is not possible for an inexperienced and untrained soldier when wounded - a volume replacement was carried out rectally via a flexible plastic catheter. Initial experience with cryogens in the form of natural hypothermia was gained in wounded care. Blood loss and subsequent physical shock were thus minimized. At the same time, the soldiers as a whole, but especially the wounded, had to be protected from hypothermia. In spite of this experience, it is only today that leading research in the USA is concerned with this "initial care" of a polytrauma casualty by cryogens, in order to keep him stable until he can be fully treated in a hospital.

On both the British and Argentine sides, however, most of the killed and wounded were not the result of engagements between the two armies, but were overwhelmingly victims of air attacks on ships hit by bombs or by missiles (the British suffered about half of all naval casualties overall; even the Army suffered slightly more than half of its casualties from the bombing of the Sir Galahad). The relatively high number of civilian sailors who lost their lives during the conflict also reflects the enormous importance of the navy and shipping on both sides. On the British side, 45 requisitioned and chartered merchant ships were involved, carrying more than half a million tons of supplies (including about 400,000 tons of fuel). Argentina, on the other hand, was very quickly cut off from sea supplies to the islands by the British submarines, which is why the very last units still hastily brought to the Malvinas could only be brought there by aircraft with some of their equipment, where they ultimately, however, hindered the defense more than they helped it.

Falkland Island Review Committee

After the end of the war, a British inquiry, headed by Lord Franks, into the events surrounding the start of the Falklands War was held in October 1982 by the Falklands Island Review Committee. In the inquiry, which met in secret, Margaret Thatcher admitted that the Argentine attack on the archipelago came as a surprise to the British government. The government had not expected this move, which was classified as "stupid". British intelligence had thought it possible since 1977 that Argentina would attack the islands, but it was not until 26 March 1982 that the Ministry of Defence presented a plan to defend the area. The Prime Minister expressed shock in her diary at the possibility mentioned in this plan of not being able to repel an attack, but she still considered the invasion unlikely. In October 1982, she described the moment when she received intelligence on 31 March that an Argentine attack was imminent as the worst moment of her life.

Peter Carington, who had resigned as British Foreign Secretary on April 5, 1982, backed up Margaret Thatcher's statements that he, too, thought an attack was out of the question.

On 18 January 1983, the Government presented the official final report of the Falkland Islands Review (also known as Frank's Report) to Parliament. The report certified that the Government had done nothing to provoke Argentina into attacking the Falkland Islands. The government was also found to have been unable to foresee the attack. It was nevertheless recommended that intelligence gathering and analysis be improved. The opposition described the report's conclusions as a whitewash and a cover-up of the real results.

Political consequences

The Argentine military junta, which was exposed to strong internal pressure due to a severe economic crisis, had used the annexation of the Falkland Islands for domestic political goals. The war therefore had a domestic impact on Argentina. The country's defeat forced President Leopoldo Galtieri to resign after only a few days on June 18, following violent demonstrations in the country. Galtieri was replaced by General Reynaldo Bignone. The country returned to democracy on December 9, 1983.

In the long run, the debacle ended the Argentine military's regular interference in politics and discredited it before society. In Comodoro Rivadavia, seat of Argentine jurisdiction for the war zone, 70 officers and non-commissioned officers were charged with inhumane treatment of soldiers during the war.

Argentina's defeat ended the military alternative for resolving the Beagle conflict, until then the preferred option for the hawks in the Argentine government, and later led to the signing of the 1984 treaty between Chile and Argentina.

The war between Argentina and Britain ended with the capture of the invading forces without a formal peace treaty. Argentina never withdrew its claim to the Falkland Islands; to this day (March 2013) each Argentine government renews the country's claim to the archipelago. Every year Argentina renews its claim to the islands before the UN Decolonisation Committee. In the weeks surrounding the 30th anniversary of the start of the war in April 2012, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a left-wing populist in her country's Peronist tradition, again sharpened her tone toward Britain.

The journalist Jürgen Krönig wrote on this topic in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in 2012:

In Argentina, the soldiers were celebrated as heroes at the beginning of the war, but shortly after its end, many considered them failures. Many of the war veterans feel disregarded by the country's official policy.

Exploration of oil deposits near the Falkland Islands by companies with a British license has exacerbated the conflict, according to the Argentine government. President Kirchner complained: "Our natural resources - fish deposits and oil reserves - are being plundered."

Referendum 2013

In a referendum held on 10 and 11 March 2013, the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands voted 99.8% in favour of maintaining the status quo as a British overseas territory. The Argentine government described the referendum as a "legally worthless manoeuvre".

casualties and expenses of war

United Kingdom

• 258 killed (including 8 Chinese civilian employees and 3 female residents of Stanley), 777 wounded soldiers, sailors and airmen
• 2 Destroyers: Sheffield, Coventry
• Two frigates: Ardent, Antelope
• 1 Landing ship: Sir Galahad
• 1 Container vessel: Atlantic Conveyor
• 1 landing craft: Foxtrot 4 (landing craft 4 of the Fearless)
• 10 Harrier fighters, of which 6 Sea Harriers (2 shot down by anti-aircraft fire, 4 lost in accidents) and 4 Harrier GR.3 (2 shot down by anti-aircraft fire, 1 lost in accident, 1 irreparably damaged in emergency landing)
• 24 helicopters (13 were lost with their ships)

Cost of war: about 2.5 billion British pounds.

Argentina

• 649 killed (including 18 civilian sailors) and 1,068 wounded soldiers, sailors and airmen
• 1 Cruiser: General Belgrano
• 1 submarine: Santa Fe (damaged and abandoned)
• 2 patrol boats: Río Iguazú and Islas Malvinas (captured)
• 3 freighters: Río Carcarañá, Bahía Buen Suceso, Isla de los Estados
• 1 Spy trawler: Narwhal
• 1 civilian tanker: Yehuin (captured)
• 75 aircraft (14 captured)
• 25 helicopters (15 captured)

Cost of war: unknown

The clearing of the numerous mines lasted until the end of 2020 and was officially ended in
a ceremony on 14 November 2020.

Medical consequences of war

In 2001, politically motivated action groups emerged in the UK claiming that the number of combat casualties on both sides was lower than the number of returned veterans who took their own lives because they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While several studies had shown that symptoms of PTSD appeared in about one-fifth of soldiers after war, this rarely led to an "abnormal life" later on. The neutrality of such studies, which not infrequently reach different conclusions, is controversial, especially since the numerical base on which they are based is usually small. A group of 2,000 veterans, including a number of soldiers who had been in the Falkland Islands, claimed in 2002 that there had been no adequate medical or psychological care for severe post-traumatic stress disorder after the war. Her claim against the Ministry of Defence went all the way to the High Court in 2003, but the High Court dismissed the allegations as exaggerated and unproven. During the trial, the Ministry was able to prove that after the war, all PTSD sufferers who wished to were treated as in-patients with the "best possible methods at the time" ("in line with contemporary best practice"). The judge then left no doubt that, in his view, some very seriously ill patients had not been treated well, but he found no evidence of systematic neglect of PTSD sufferers by the ministry, which is why he dismissed the case.

Earlier, in 2001, other action groups in Argentina and the UK claimed that within 20 years of the end of the war, the number of Argentine veterans committing suicide due to PTSD had risen to 125. However, the different groups gave quite different figures for both Argentina and the UK, but increasing over time, which they justified by saying that no reliable statistics were available. A 2003 account by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy claimed that 300 veterans had killed themselves. In 2013, the British magazine Dailymail wrote that SAMA (South Atlantic Medal Association), an organisation representing veterans of the Falklands War, claimed that 264 British Falklands War veterans had killed themselves. That figure would exceed the number of British casualties, 255. But more accurate figures cannot even be gleaned from good British statistics. In an April 1, 2006, Deutschlandfunk report, according to one sufferer, the number of suicides by Argentine army veterans was put at exactly "454," which would exceed the number killed in action. However, as in the other cases, no concrete statistical basis was given and no comparisons were made with the "normal" suicide rate of the civilian population or with that in other armies of the world.

Discussion about nuclear weapons on board British ships

In April 1982, some of the British ships headed directly from their patrols in the North Atlantic, where they had to monitor Soviet Navy submarines equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles, to the South Atlantic. Therefore, it was actually already clear at that time that very likely some of the ships were nuclear armed. Nevertheless, in the 1990s this fact was presented in the anti-government press as "secret information" and a "sensation". The left-liberal Guardian in particular demanded clarification about the nuclear weapons at the time. After repeated refusals by the British government, the newspaper sued for the right to information and won after years of litigation. On 5 December 2003, the British Ministry of Defence confirmed that several ships had carried nuclear weapons during the war. However, the use of the weapons had been ruled out from the beginning. Moreover, none of these ships had entered South American waters. Argentine President Néstor Kirchner demanded an official apology from Britain on December 7, 2003, saying that his country had been unduly threatened and endangered by British nuclear weapons. However, the British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, rejected this demand as inappropriate.

In June 2005, the British government officially confirmed that the frigates HMS Broadsword and HMS Brilliant had on board at the beginning of the war tactical nuclear weapons of the type MC (600), which had been developed for use primarily against Soviet submarines in the Atlantic armed with nuclear intercontinental missiles. These were not "nuclear bombs" in the general sense, as sometimes portrayed by the press, but a type of "depth charge", or rather, self-targeting anti-submarine torpedoes with a long range and large radius of action, specifically directed against the deep-diving large Soviet submarines. Thus, the weapons could not have been usefully employed against Argentina at all. For security reasons and to avoid violating international law (i.e., the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which declared South America a "nuclear-weapon-free zone"), these weapons were transferred to the aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes during the voyage to the South Atlantic, and subsequently to the supply ships RFA Fort Austin, RFA Regent, and RFA Resource, which remained outside the territorial waters of the Falkland Islands (and thus did not formally violate the Treaty of Tlatelolco).

Monument to the British Fallen in London


Argentine prisoners of war in Port Stanley


Monument to the Argentinean Fallen in Buenos Aires