The invasion of Cuba took place between 4–5 August and 9 December 1741 during the War of Jenkins' Ear. A combined army and naval force under the command of Admiral Edward Vernon and Major-General Thomas Wentworth arrived off Cuba and fortified positions around their landing site at Cumberland Bay. Despite facing no serious opposition, neither commander felt prepared to advance on the Spanish settlement at Santiago de Cuba. Harassed by Spanish raids and with a mounting sick list, the British finally evacuated the island after several months of inactivity.
Background
Vernon had made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Cartagena in 1741, and after his repulse he directed the fragments of his sickly and dispirited followers against the island of Cuba. The south and east of Cuba were so little populated, and so far from the capital, Havana, that they might have made a permanent establishment there.[5]
Vernon's expedition
The land forces consisted of the remnants of the troops from Cartagena, some 3,000 British and American troops[6] augmented by 1,000 Jamaican soldiers.
Vernon left Port Royal to capture Santiago de Cuba with the following ships:[7]
40 Transports carrying 4,000 troops under Major-General Thomas Wentworth
Battle
George Stadt Camp near the River Guantamano and the intrenchments made on the adjacent hills, 1741
On the night of 4–5 August, the British force, bolstered by 1,000 reinforcements from Jamaica landed in three different beaches of the Guantanamo Bay. Without opposition, they marched against the village of La Catalina. However, the British, 105 kilometres (65 mi) short of their objective, slowed down three days later because of the growing concerns of their commander, Major-General Thomas Wentworth.
Santiago's Governor Francisco Caxigal de la Vega, garrison commander Carlos Riva Agüero, and local militia Captain Pedro Guerrero had only 350 regulars and 600 militia to hand and so retreated from the British. Nevertheless, Wentworth's army became paralyzed by fatigue and disease, spending the next four months encamped, being sporadically raided by Spanish forces. Vernon, disgusted at his colleague's inactivity, but unwilling to risk any part of the fleet against the town, sent warships to cruise independently until Wentworth's sick list grew so long—2,260 soldiers being struck with fever by 5 December—that the expedition was re-embarked, setting sail at dawn on 9 December and returning to Port Royal ten days later.
Aftermath
Admiral Vernon's enterprise accomplished nothing but the loss of many of his soldiers and his own disgrace. Vernon was forced to return to Britain in 1742.[8]
References
^Beatson, Robert. Naval and Military memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783, London, 1801, Vol. I, p 111.
^Beatson, Memoirs, p.112. David Marley, Wars of the Americas; A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present, California, 1998, pp.259
^David Marley, Wars of the Americas; A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present, California, 1998, pp.259
^Beatson, Robert. Naval and Military memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783, London, 1801, Vol. I, p 115.
^Pares, Richard. War and Trade in the West Indies, Oxford university press, 1936 ISBN0-7146-1943-4, pp. 91-92.
^Coxe, William. Memoirs of the kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon, Volume 3, London 1815, p.24 states that Havana is attacked by "...3,000 men, the discouraged and exhausted remnant of the troops which had been repulsed at Cartagena ..."
^David Marley, Wars of the Americas; A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present, California, 1998, pp.259
