The primary aspect of the Falkland Islands has been their complete insignificance in every way. The islands have no practical use except as a whaling station, weather observatory (although dreary is what people usually observe), or naval coaling station, useful in the rare case your ships still use coal. When English sea captain James Cook discovered the islands, he declared them “not worth the discovery.” On the other hand, he did feel it was worthy to note that it was not worth discovering.
Despite this persistent insignificance to humans, the Falkland Islands have been the subject of power grabs throughout modern history. In the 1760s the French, British, and Spanish, all eagerly gobbling up colonies around the world, eyed the worthless islands as an easy addition to an empty quadrant of their colonial empire map. In 1764 the French set up a colony on the islands — followed a year later by the British — with both colonies ignorant of the other’s existence. When the French and British discovered each other’s heinous presence, the British demanded the French declare their allegiance to King George III. The French spurned their offer and, sensing perhaps their only value existed as an object of desire to the British Empire, quickly sold their interest to Spain.
As the Spanish colony grew, the British colony withered, and in 1770 the British retired, but not before the British foreign office issued its standard diplomatic threat to start a war of honor with Spain. The Spanish agreed to a secret peace treaty that supposedly maintained Spanish sovereignty over the islands while allowing the British to keep their main colony at Port Egmont. This treaty, whose exact terms have never been made public, forms the main dispute over who exactly holds the deed on the insignificant islands.
Despite having their colony restored, the British pulled up stakes in 1774 and continued with their empire building for the next sixty years. During this time the Spanish Empire continued to melt while the British Empire grew to ever-greater glory. Tellingly, the fortunes of both empires were apparently completely unrelated to their respective colonial position in the Falklands.
The dissolution of the Spanish Empire left in its wake a host of new countries in South America, including Argentina, the closest country to the Falklands. The Argentines, a new nation eager to grab its own worthless possessions, declared the Falklands theirs and in 1820 landed a ship to plant their new flag. Soon, colonists established a fishing port, a logical use for the barren islands, but one that proved to be a festering affront for unknown reasons to the maritime-minded English, who were inclined to claim any gathering of dirt protruding above the waves as their own.
In 1833 a British warship swooped down to the Falklands, (known to the Argentines as the Malvinas), claimed them for Britain, and escorted the fisherman-provocateurs back to Argentina. The ousting of the fishermen caused an uproar in Argentina. National honor had been insulted and they vowed revenge.
One hundred fifty years later, the Argentines made their move.
WHAT HAPPENED: OPERATION “DEFEND THE CRUMBS OF THE EMPIRE”
In 1982 General Galtieri and his fellow juntos were successfully waging the “dirty war” that killed something like 30,000 of their own citizens. Despite the seeming success of the dirty war, the junta felt that things were not going well for the country and that happiness was not widespread throughout the land.
The reason was that although the country had undergone the junta’s “National Reorganization Process,” the economy was still a mess. This fact, combined with the gnawing suspicion that the junta had been responsible for the disappearance of thousands of citizens, had resulted in many unhappy Argentines. In order to cheer them up, Galtieri and the juntos came up with the idea of reflagging the Falkland Islands, humbling the British overlords, and taking revenge for the ousted fishermen from 150 years ago. Maps of Argentina always showed the Malvinas as part of their country; many depicted them as supersized islands lying close to the Argentine shore. Since very few people had actually been there, no one was the wiser. To Galtieri, taking the Falklands would restore national pride and make the citizens forget about the staggering economy and the hordes of disappeared citizens.
After a short period of careful study, the junta came up with a plan to make a quick invasion, declare victory, and reap the benefit of the public relations bonanza. Their little fantasy world failed to take into account the willingness of England’s leader — “Iron Lady” Thatcher — to fight to the death over insignificant crumbs of the former British Empire. Her autobiography contains a matchless bit of British understatement, admitting that the Falklands were “an improbable cause for a twentieth-century war.” The junta gave the nod to a crack team of scrap-metal merchants to spark the invasion by landing on South Georgia Island on March 19, 1982. South Georgia Island is administered by the Falklands governor and lies a thousand miles east of the main Falkland Islands. Its only other claim to fame is that it had been the location of an abandoned whaling station inhabited by a British Antarctic survey team. The determined metal gleaners landed unopposed and brazenly planted the Argentine flag — without informing the British authorities — and then started to aggressively collect metal whaling scrap. The British governor of the Falklands, Rex Hunt, had the scientists confront the scrap harvesters and ask them to have their passports stamped with a British landing permit.
Outraged over the proposed soiling of their passports, they refused, as it would acknowledge the despised British sovereignty. The British governor insisted that the flag be lowered. The Argentines agreed and lowered the flag but still refused to get their landing permits.
In response to the South Georgia invasion, a Royal Navy ice patrol boat, the HMS Endurance, was sent with twenty-two heavily armed Royal Marines on board to remove the incursive scrap seekers. The juntos then told the gullible British that the scrap-metal men had left, so the Endurance turned around. But the next day the British scientists on South Georgia radioed Hunt saying the Argentines were still there. The Endurance made a quick U-turn and stood ready off South Georgia as Thatcher’s government told Galtieri to remove his men from the island. Both sides girded for a big confrontation over the tiny island off the small islands.
Galtieri refused to dial down the macho. No self-respecting member of the junta, having successfully dominated millions of unarmed Argentines, would take orders from the British. The scrap-metal men stayed. The Royal Marines landed and confronted the Argentines. To the juntos this scene was a repeat of the humiliation they suffered in 1833, almost nine short generations ago.
Galtieri countered with an ice-breaker loaded with one hundred marines. They landed the first blows of the war by defeating the British force and occupying the barren island. Casualties during the short, cold fight were minimal, with one Argentine killed and no British deaths. Apparently the soldiers themselves were unaware of the necessity of risking their lives for the worthless islands.
Thatcher, feeling the phantom pangs of empire, assembled an armada to counter the Argentine navy steaming to the Falklands to invade. Meanwhile, the Americans, led by overreaching power-grabber Al Haig, the secretary of state, opened negotiations with the Argentines to forestall potentially embarrassing hostilities between one of its favorite democracies and one of its favorite military dictatorships. The United States also found itself in somewhat of a corner diplomatically: the Monroe Doctrine calls for resisting European aggression in the Western Hemisphere; America’s greatest ally and NATO treaty partner is the U.K., and the United States is bound to defend it if attacked, even if only on the toenail of its former empire.