"Australian what if scenario" Topic

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By Jonathan Pearlman in Melbourne

Spain planned to attack Britain's new colony in Australia with a 100-vessel armada as part of an operation designed to "take the fight to the British in the Pacific", according to newly uncovered archival documents.
The documents, discovered in Spanish navy archives, reveal that King Carlos IV approved the plot after a Spanish expedition arrived in Sydney in 1793, just five years after the establishment of the British settlement.
As the European imperial powers struggled for supremacy of the Pacific, the Spanish invasion was intended to ensure that the southern colony would not be used by the British to cause "great harm" to Spain's colonial interests in central and southern America and the Philippines.
Documents found by Chris Maxworthy, from The Australian Association for Maritime History, showed that the Spanish intended to unleash a new type of "hot shot" cannon that involved firing heated shots that could set fire to ships or buildings.
"The plan was to attack Sydney from the Spanish colonies in South America with a fleet of 100 medium-sized boats armed with cannons and 'hot shot'," he told The Australian Financial Review.
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"The goal was the complete surrender by the British and their expulsion from the Australian land mass … The effect [of the hot shot] would be to not only impact the targets ashore but also create multiple fires in the wooden buildings of that era in Sydney, particularly if the plans occurred during the hot summer months."
It has long been known that the Dutch and French had coveted territory in the southern Pacific and sent numerous voyages to Australia, though plans for a colony there were apparently abandoned because of a belief that the land was unsuitable.
The Spanish plan followed an expedition led by naval commander Alessandro Malaspina, who reported back to his government in the 1790s that Britain's transportation of convicts to the colony was merely "the means and not the object of the enterprise" and that Britain planned to control the territory and use it for commercial ends and the discovery of resources.
He warned the king that Britain could use the colony as a base for launching an attack on the Spanish military involving "two or three thousand castaway bandits".
The archival documents show that Jose de Bustamante y Guerra, the deputy commander of the Spanish expedition, subsequently proposed an invasion of the colony to King Carlos IV and his ministers. The government sent Bustamante to a new military post at Montevideo in Uruguay and he began to build a small fleet of attack vessels.
"As the military and naval commander, Bustamante was tasked to both defend South America from an anticipated British invasion, and to take the fight to the British in the Pacific," Mr Maxworthy said.
Historians said that even if Spain had seized the colony, it would have been quickly recovered by Britain, which had a stronger military and would have been reluctant to cede its commercial interest in controlling the southern continent. In any case, the Spanish plan was ultimately deferred and then, it seems, abandoned.
John West-Sooby, an expert on early Australian voyages, said the new archival findings showed that Spain was deeply concerned about the strategic threat of the British colony and "was intending to strike first".
"The irritation of Madrid with respect to British 'incursions' into the Pacific during the eighteenth century is well known, but this confirms the bellicose attitude of the Spanish," he told The Australian Financial Review.

Interesting article thanks for sharing. It seems to me that the Spainish invasion would have been a waste of time and resources unless they planned to colonise australia at some point.
Supplying such a large invasion force would have been a major hurdle. Farmers and settlers and the penal colonies most likely wouldnt been able produce enough provisions for any length of time

Is it too late for us to give Sydney to the Spanish?

No, it's not to late.

Perhaps we could throw in a set of steak knives.

The small Spanish quarter in Sydney has some great eateries.

I thought us kiwis invaded Sydney? :- )

I'm sure the Rum Corps would have done a fine job pushing them back into the sea….or not!