If
one was trying to envisage the perfect military
hero, Don Blas de Lezo would be a prime candidate.
Indeed, if he was from the English speaking
world, numerous movies and books would have
already immortalized him: a gallant man who
although incapacitated by leg and arm amputations,
and the loss of one eye, saved a city against
overwhelming odds. Locals today joke about him,
waving their fists whenever his name is mentioned
and cursing: "because of him, we don't speak
English!"
Cartagena
was the focus of trade between South America
and the rest of the world thanks to its position
on the Caribbean and deep-water harbour; gold
and silver plundered from the Incas were transported
back to Spain from here, in annual convoys.
Other European nations knew this, and pirates
and buccaneers from France and England had sacked
and looted Cartagena on previous occasions:
Robert Baal in 1544, Martin Cote in 1569, and
Sir Francis Drake in 1586. In each instance,
buildings were destroyed in addition to huge
ransoms being extracted, so the resident Governor,
using local merchants' money, started building
a fort in the 17th century. The most imposing
structure in Cartagena became the trapezoid-shaped
Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas. It has no
vertical walls, and was designed to deflect
cannon balls much like the Stealth Bomber deflects
radar. The Fort was completed in 1654, and though
continually improved and strengthened in ensuing
years, Cartagena was taken again by the French
pirates de Pointis and Ducasse in 1697. This
was the most devastating attack in Cartagena's
history.
In the 1700's, friction between Spain and England
grew after the English captain of The Rebecca,
Robert Jenkins, had his ear severed by the Spanish
customs officer Juan Leon Fandiño, as punishment
for smuggling transgressions in Florida. Jenkins
was told a similar fate was in store for the
English King should he visit. When news of this
reached England, Sir Edward Vernon, Member of
Parliament, was enraged and persuaded Parliament to declare
war on Spain in 1739. He was made an Admiral
and given mandate to attack Spanish dominions
(at the same time, Commodore George Anson was
sent to plunder the Pacific shores of Chile
and Peru). After conquering Portobelo, a smaller
fortress-town in what is now Panama, with only
six warships, Vernon boasted that he could take
Cartagena and all its riches for England's Exchequer.
Vernon was able to secure funding
to assemble a massive fleet for his venture:
180 ships, over 2000 canon and more than 28,000
men (this dwarfs the "invincible" Spanish Armada
that Phillip II used to try to conquer England:
it only totalled 126 vessels). Earlier sackings
of Cartagena had been successful with as few
as 1000 men. Some 2700 of the men were recruited
in the North American Colonies, under the command
of an officer named Lawrence Washington, a half-brother
of George Washington. Vernon also enlisted 2000
Jamaican macheteros. Cartagena's defences were
miniscule in comparison: 3000 soldiers, some
native Indian archers, black slaves and six
ships and their crew. But Vernon's gathering
of such a large force proved impossible to keep
secret, and Cartagena was well prepared for
attack when Vernon's fleet arrived at 9am on
13 March 1741.The fort was riddled with tunnels
and storage areas, in which the Spanish stockpiled
enough arms and food to sustain the populace
during a prolonged attack. The Viceroy Sebastian
de Eslava and Don Blas de Lezo were in charge
of defence, but they were seriously outnumbered.
Cartagena's population was only 20,000, with
fewer than 6000 men under arms.
Vernon landed men on Isla Tierrabomba
and after firing thousands of rounds of shells
on the smaller Castillo de San Luis. The entry
to the bay was guarded by escolleras, or shallow,
man-made underwater breakwaters, and a heavy
chain that could be drawn across the entrance
between the two forts. But the English were
able to breach them and launched a prolonged
attack by firing for 16 days and nights, at
an average of 62 rounds an hour - too much for
Don Blas and his Colonel De Naux to sustain
for long. In a vain attempt to prevent Vernon's
entry, the Spaniards sank their last remaining
ships at the harbour entrance. Don Blas was
at the front line of action, and was wounded
in his thigh and only arm, and was forced to
retreat to the walled city. Vernon entered the
harbour, sent Washington and the North Americans
to take the Convento de La Popa on the hill
overlooking San Felipe, and launched a barrage
of artillery that street by street was slowly
crumbling Cartagena. Confident that victory
was his, he sent a message to England that Cartagena
was about to fall. The English authorities,
on receiving this advice, minted commemorative
victory coins.
Yet Don Blas' men refused to
surrender. Held up in the fort, they repulsed
attack after attack. The Bay of Cartagena was
filled with bodies of the enemy: injuries, malaria,
cholera, dysentry and scurvy were beginning
to fell the English (the historian Enrique Román
Bazurto noted that the English brought these
diseases with them).Don Blas was a veteran himself
of city-seige tactics: he had been sent to Genoa
earlier in his career to obtain payment for
the Spanish Crown, and was able to get it simply
by surrounding the city with Armada canon and
threatening to raze the entire town. Vernon
ordered an all-out night-time assault by his
marines on the fort on the 20 April. The Jamaican
machete wielding slaves led the assault, followed
by the English artillery, both of whom were
easy targets for the Spanish from their lofty
positions. The attack was repelled, and Don
Blas seized an opportunity, ordering his remaining
600 men into a do-or-die bayonet-charge counter
attack, that left 800 English dead, 1000 taken
prisoner, and Vernon's ships full of sick and
wounded. It was Cartagena's finest hour.
Other assaults up till the
25th proved fruitless. Vernon started to argue
with General Woort about tactics, while desertions
and deaths to tropical diseases mounted. On
the 28th April Vernon started to withdraw, and
on the 20th May he set sail for Jamaica, his dreams of plunder and riches as decimated as his men:
he had lost 18,000 men, about half due to disease,
the rest to Spanish military superiority. The
English only managed to capture 200 prisoners.
Five ships of the English fleet were burnt at
sea for lack of sailors to sail them home; another
sank on the way to Jamaica. Vernon was welcomed
home a hero, and is buried in Westminster Abbey,
though King George II never allowed the details
of this embarrassing defeat be published. Vernon's
efforts are also remembered in the USA - Lawrence
Washington named his family estate Mount Vernon
in his honour. Eslava was rewarded for his efforts
by being made Viceroy of Peru, though he chose
to continue to live in Cartagena. His house
can still be seen at Plaza del Tejadillo, a
short walk from Plaza Santo Domingo. Don Blas,
wounded in the great Siege of Cartagena, died
of his injuries in September of the same year.
He has no known grave, though local legend has
it that his body was interned in the Iglesia
de de la Orden Tercera, next to cartagena's
Convention Center, but there is no tomb to see;
perhaps he was buried at sea, perhaps he was
pickled and sent to Spain only to be lost, or
perhaps his tomb was not completed in the rush
to re-build Cartagena. This rush was temporarily
suspended in 1742 when Vernon, hearing of Don
Blas's death, returned with another naval squadron,
but ultimately never launched an attack.
Today, Cartagena's population
is approaching one million, and welcomes foreign
naval vessels for the tourist dollars they bring.
Spain is no longer the colonial master, and
no gold is shipped in convoys. The fort is featured
on phone cards and attracts great crowds of
visitors everyday. Just last week an amateur
scuba-diving friend of mine discovered some
rusting cannons and brought up some cannon balls,
which are commonly used as doorstops in Cartagena.
At
the foot of the fort, is a statue of a man.
The plinth on which it stands has large reproductions
of the victory coins that the English had prematurely
minted, showing Don Blas kneeling before Vernon
with the motto "The Spanish Pride pull'd down
by Admiral Vernon" and "True British Heroes
Took Cartagena April 1741". The man is brandishing
a sword in his left arm, because he lost his
right arm in the Battle of Barcelona; minus
one leg lost in the Battle of Gibraltar; and
wearing an eye patch covering his left eye lost
in the Battle of Toulon. This same man lost
his life in the Battle for Cartagena, the last
of his 23 campaigns. This man is Don Blas de
Lezo.
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