I have been wondering to know, in English spoken forums and English history websites, if it is true that the War of Jenkins' Ear was hidden from English historians through time.

I was not surprised I read nothing more than "began with an ear cut off" and end with the beginning of the war of the Austrian succession, at every english spoken website. Of course, in that war ocurred the biggest and worse humilliation and defeat made to British navy at war.

We already know the war began with an historic ear but in fact it was an excuse. The real motive been the ambition of English businessmen for controlling the Spanish empire due to their weakened power in America after the war of the Spanish succession

The most important episode on this war was the battle of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). For those who want to know this episode of history, it is necesary to introduce the figures of the Spanish admiral Blas de Lezo, the English admiral Edward Vernon, and the place: Cartagena de Indias, the main port for Spaniards in America.

After the Jenkin's ear episode at the British parliament, the English king George II sent a huge armada, the biggest amphibious invassion to the Battle of Normandy of 1944, composed of 186 ships, 26400 men and 3000 artillery pieces.

The king of Spain, Felipe V ordered Blas de Lezo to defend the city of Cartagena de indias from the English attack, counting for that task with only 3000 infantry soldiers and recruits and 600 indians archers.

Blas de Lezo's legend started during a long period of continuous victories over the English and Dutch navys during "the Spanish sucession war". In those combats Lezo lost one of his legs, his left eye and a shot in the shoulder leave him a useless arm as well. For all that, he was called half-man or woodleg.

Lezo prepared de port's defence for one year. British arrived at Cartagena on may 5 1741 and in march 13, the English vessels started firing with their canons to the San Luis de Bocachica castle at a rate of 62 canon shots/hour.

After a month of continous bombing, the English disembark and took Bocachica and Bocagrande castles.

Lawrence Washington, half-brother of George Washington, in charge of the 4000 Virginian colonists, spread their troops at La Popa hill. This was the time Vernon commited the mistake of sending a ship with the message of victory to Jamaica. This news were sent to Great Britain where it took an enormous relevance, and George II ordered to fabricate coins and medals conmemorating the victory at Cartagena.

So overconfident was the English admiral about the victory over the outnumbered Spaniards that in April 19 1741 Vernon decided to send their soldiers to the final assault to San Felipe fortress helped for their warships batteries. Meanwhile the Spanish sunk their remaining ships at the ports entrance to divide English troops and hinder their attack.

When they arrived to the fortress walls they realized these beeing bigger as they thought because the Spanish dag up a hole around the fortress and british ladders were too short and useless to take the Fortress.

With that advantage and the British surprised and ensnared, Spaniards opened fire over them, and abandoning their positions, charged against the British, slaughtering them and forcing the reminders to scape back to their ships.

Finally, on may 9th 1741, after 57 battle days, with no food, half of his troops and sailors dead or sick by tropical plagues, Vernon decided to sail back to Jamaica, abandoned many vessels in the way out, due to the lack of people to steer them.

The result:

In the British side:

6000 British died

only 300 of the 4000 Virginian colonist survived.

7500 were wounded or sick and most of them died later on.

50 ships were taken or sunk for the Spanish defences or the British who had not enough men to steer them.

1500 destroyed or captured canons.

At the end, about 16000 British died.

In the Spanish side:

800 died

1200 wounded or sick

6 ships sunk

350 canons temporarily taken by the enemy.

In that battle each Spanish soldier and vessel fought and defeated ten English and American colonists.

The English historians hid the battle by order of the king George II with great succes to the present day as far as we can see.

The defeated admiral Vernon was given a hero's burial with the fallacious legend: "He subdued Chagre and at Cartagena conquered as far as naval forces could carry victory."...Neither victory nor conquest, but he became a hero.

Blas de Lezo died months later for the plagues at Cartagena and was forgotten in history until now. Nobody knows his burial site.

And I can now make sure that if English speakers want to know about this crucial battle for Spanish colonies must go to Spanish history books or websites, although it is quite unknown for common Spaniards.

Some links in english:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=YeywbYKq-NQ

http://www.pieceofeight.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10

http://members.aol.com/GlobTreasr/history.html

This post is intended as a reply to the above article. Specifically I'm challenging the assertion that the War of Jenkin's Ear and specifically the Battle of Cartagena de Indias have been deliberately hidden from the English-speaking world's history books as sensationally claimed by some sites online.

The battle is certainly forgotten in the British perspective, but it's definitely there in the books. It's not covered that much on the Internet but there are a few sites, starting with Wikipedia, as well as Google Book previews. Try searching under 'wentworth, vernon, Cartagena'.

But basically the 18th century just isn't a popular period in British popular culture, unlike the Napoleonic or Agincourt eras. Even the era's victories get little coverage online. If you look for accounts of The grand assault on Gibraltar, which was like Cartagena with the roles reversed (and the British even more outnumbered) you'll find very little – and searching gives you mostly books rather than Internet write-ups. And if you try to find accounts of 'successful Cartagenas' such as the captures of Havana and Manila you'll find virtually nothing, these, like Cartagena, are forgotten in the UK.

It's true that King George did attempt to 'cover up' the battle at the time, but hiding defeats from the people was standard practise back then, in fact kings and governments have continued doing it up to today. He was, however, unsuccessful. The expedition's two commanders, Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth, were very quick to publish and distribute pamphlets blaming the debacle on the other. These were followed up by pamphlets penned by resentful veterans condemning the expedition's mismanagement.

So it was no secret then, and hasn't been since.British historians do acknowledge it, but of course don't quite see it the same way as the winning side.

Justifiably proud Spaniards view Cartagena with the winners' mythology – as the English do the Armada, Waterloo and the Battle of Britain. And when stripped of that mythology and put in the context of military history, Cartagena, though a brilliant and heroic defence, doesn't quite match up to the superhuman event some portray it as (one Spanish acquaintance of mine calls it: "The greatest victory in the history of victories in all the ages.")

There are a number of myths attached to it (besides the cover-up one), some of which are repeated in the article above.

For example, the event is sometimes termed the "worst British naval defeat", when it wasn't really a naval battle at all. The Royal Navy did suffer heavily, but due to onshore batteries surrounding them in the narrow harbour. This battle, more correctly an amphibious assault and string of sieges, was fought and lost on land, the six Spanish ships weren't really an issue.

And it certainly wasn't the largest amphibious assault before D-Day as suggested on some sites. The Ottoman assaults on Rhodes and Malta and the Mongol invasions of Japan are just a sample of pre-WW2 expeditions that used fleets of a comparable or larger size and carried a lot more troops than Vernon's 12,000 infantry (and Gallipoli in WW1 dwarfed them all).

And then there is very loose interpretation of the numbers. Of course it's tempting to count every sailor and cabin boy as the British 'assault force'(estimates range from 23-31,000 men) , but in reality the defeat lay in the failure of the 10-12,000 strong infantry force (only 1,400 of which were committed to the assault) to take the well-defended fortress of St Lazar (today's San Felipe) before disease and the rainy season set in. And, according to some British accounts at least, there were never more than 6,000 troops landed at any one time.

Spanish numbers also get played down, besides his regulars and native auxiliaries, Admiral de Lezo also had sailors, armed townspeople and slaves. So there were up to 6,500 defenders behind well-prepared fortifications with hundreds of guns.

Taken in the context of other siege situations in history, de Lezo wasn't in too bad a position,especially as he had to only delay the attackers until the rainy season when they would have to depart rather than completely defeat them. He was certainly aided in this by the grotesquely incompetent Admiral Vernon, whose bickering with the infantry commander Wentworth wasted a lot of time they didn't have. Notably he refused to supply battery support for the assault on Fort St. Lazar on the dubious grounds the harbour was too shallow.This meant the infantry force had to attack without artillery forcing them to storm the wars with ladders - a brave but suicidal tactic thwarted by de Lezo's digging around the walls so the ladders couldn't reach.

British battle casualties (estimates range from 3-6000 killed, 7000 wounded over three months fighting on land and sea) were heavy but not extraordinary for an amphibious siege assault on multiple heavily-fortified and -gunned strongholds. At Gibraltar the Franco-Spanish assault force lost a similar number in a couple of days.

Meanwhile diseases like yellow fever were cutting down the British fleet and army in the thousands, not for the first or last time during Britain's Caribbean ventures. It's no wonder British sailors and soldiers considered posting to the Caribbean to be the equivalent of a death sentence. Disease also hit the Spanish side, with the heroic de Lezo succumbing soon after seeing the British off.

So it was a brilliant victory crowning the career of a brilliant man. But Britain has suffered worst defeats, and in open battle situations, and for that reason Cartagena de Indias is remembered in British perceptions more for the shocking disease toll, and is cited as a lesson in what happens when different armed branches (in this case the navy and army) don't cooperate. As for the coins? Once again, reporting victories before the fact was common practise before modern communications, though in that case it went spectacularly wrong.I'll never understand why George Washington's half-brother named his estate after Vernon, he was there after all, and Vernon tried to put some of the blame on the American forces. In fact Cartagena sometimes turns up in books exploring the build-up to the American Revolutionary War, as an example of the intense ill-will between British regular troops and colonial forces.

Ultimately, in Brtish eyes, Cartagena de Indias just goes down in the long list of failed/successful imperialistic land grabs that modern Britain no longer wants to think about. Spain would pay it back in kind during the American Revolutionary War and neither side can claim moral superiority - there's no honour amongst thieves and frankly that's all colonialist and imperialist powers are.

Had Vernon been successful, what then? Perhaps Columbia would have been another Belize or Jamaica with English-speaking masters rather than Spanish, for a while at least. Both England and Spain's days in the New World were already numbered.

Ultimately my main point is that Cartagena de Indias hasn't been struck from the history books as some have sensationally claimed. It's just viewed with the loser's pragmatism rather than the winner's mythology.