The Falklands War

In 1982 came the conflict which even in the long and varied British world experience was unique, the Falklands War. Before it happened most British people would have had to consult an atlas to find out where the Falklands were - a cold, inhospitable group of islands in the South Atlantic some 500 miles off the coast of Argentina, which calls them the Islas Malvinas. The 1,800 population, of British stock, had once made a livelihood from whaling and sealing, but they now lived mainly from large-scale farming of flocks of rather skinny sheep, raised for wool rather than meat. For decades the diplomats at the British Foreign Office would have been happy to come to some kind of arrangements with Argentina, which had always claimed rightful sovereignty. However the inhabitants objected, and there was a sentiment in Britain that they should not be forced to change their way of life against their will. In 1981 there was an all-party rising in the House of Commons against tentative proposals for a compromise.

Argentina misjudged the situation. Thinking that the British would not really oppose them, or at least would accept a fait accompli, they landed a garrison in the islands which overwhelmed the token British defence force of just 30 Royal Marines, without serious fighting, and without a life being lost. They sent the British governor's flag back to London.

To the surprise of Argentina and most of the rest of the world, the British government under Margaret Thatcher decided to respond in strength. There could be no question of a limited expedition just to frighten the Argentines off. It had to be a major land, sea and air force, sent across 8,000 miles of ocean and ready to fight to the death. In a throwback to Victorian times, crowds cheered and sang as the troopships and warships sailed from Portsmouth, Southampton and Plymouth. It was like the Victorian jingo song (aimed at Russia) which gave a new word, jingoism, to the language:

'We don't want to fight,

But by jingo if we do,

We've got the men, we've got the ships,

We've got the money too.'

At a cost of some 1,200 lives, Argentine and British, the Falklands were won back. There were moments at which it seemed as if the expedition might go disastrously wrong from a British point of view; missiles sank two of the latest warships and if a few more had been on target, the whole story might have been different. Once landed, the professional British forces, set against Argentine conscripts, many of whom had had barely weeks of training, experienced only temporary difficulty.

Brian Harrison: Britain observed. 1945 to the present day; Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart, 1984, page 51