On 2 April 1982 Argentine forces landed near Stanley on the Falkland Islands, which Argentina claimed, and by mid-morning the British Governor had ordered the small Royal Marines garrison to lay down its arms. That evening the British Cabinet agreed to send a task force. In 1801 Nelson attacked the Danish line at Copenhagen.
The Argentine landing on the Falklands
Early on Friday 2 April 1982 Argentine forces landed on the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), a British territory in the South Atlantic that Argentina claimed. They came ashore near the capital, Stanley, and moved on it from more than one direction; the Governor later told Margaret Thatcher that they had landed at about 6 a.m. local time. The Argentine side saw the landing as the recovery of islands that Britain had held since 1833.1
The small garrison of Royal Marines defended Government House. It was heavily outnumbered, and after a short fight the Governor, Rex Hunt, ordered the Marines to lay down their arms; the Argentine Navy dates his surrender to mid-morning. The defenders suffered no casualties, while the Argentine side lost men killed and wounded.2
In London the Cabinet met at 7.30 that evening and agreed that a naval task force should sail. On Saturday 3 April the House of Commons met, and Thatcher told it that Argentina's armed forces had attacked the islands and established military control of them. The war that followed ended with the surrender of the Argentine forces at Stanley in mid-June 1982.3
Battle of Copenhagen
2 April 1801 · 225 years ago
Also on 2 April: Copenhagen, 1801
In 1801 a British fleet under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, with Vice Admiral Lord Nelson as his second in command, was sent to force Denmark out of the Armed Neutrality of the northern powers. It anchored north of Copenhagen on 30 March. Facing it in the King's Deep lay a Danish line of defense of blockships, floating batteries and smaller vessels under Commodore Olfert Fischer.4
Nelson, flying his flag in the Elephant, attacked on the morning of 2 April, about ten o'clock in the British accounts and half past ten in the Danish. Of his ships of the line, the Bellona and the Russell ran aground and the Agamemnon could not reach her station. The Danes held out for hours. The 17-year-old Lieutenant Peter Willemoes, commanding a floating battery, fought Nelson's flagship at close range.5
The blind eye
With the issue still in doubt after some three hours, Parker made the signal to leave off action. Nelson had it acknowledged but not repeated. The famous scene comes from the narrative of Lieutenant Colonel William Stewart, who was on the Elephant: Nelson said to Captain Foley, "You know, Foley, I have only one eye, I have a right to be blind sometimes", and putting the glass to his blind eye exclaimed, "I really do not see the signal". Neither Parker's despatch nor Nelson's mentions it.6
The frigates obeyed the signal, and their commander, Captain Edward Riou, was killed as they hauled off.7
Losses and the armistice
By the middle of the afternoon most of the Danish line had been silenced. Nelson sent a letter ashore under a flag of truce, carried by Captain Frederick Thesiger, threatening to burn the floating batteries he had taken unless the firing stopped; the truce saved the Danish wounded in burning ships.8
The British lost about 250 men killed and nearly 700 wounded. The Danish killed and wounded ran well over a thousand. On 9 April an armistice was agreed, and Denmark suspended its part in the Armed Neutrality. Tsar Paul I of Russia, a member of the league, had been murdered in March, before the battle. Read more on Horatio Nelson and the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807.9
