Читать книгу The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei. Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office онлайн

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We may realize more clearly the place of Gibraltar in British policy if we turn for a moment to another outpost in this region, which we held for most of the eighteenth century. Minorca was captured soon after Gibraltar, and the two were commonly associated since they both served a like purpose. Gibraltar divided Carthagena 28 from Cadiz, and Toulon from Brest; it was a bar to the union of the Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets of France or Spain. But in the eighteenth century France was the more dangerous enemy, and from the point of view of our relations with France, Minorca was more valuable than Gibraltar. Minorca had no land attack to fear and was better placed than Gibraltar for keeping guard over Toulon, the great arsenal of the French navy in the Mediterranean. The value of both stations lay in their influence on our fights in the Atlantic and the English Channel, since our road to India was round the Cape and we had no thought of the Mediterranean as an alternative. At the end of the century the eyes of British ministers were opened, when Gibraltar became associated not with Minorca but with Malta. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who first directed our policy towards Egypt and drove us to the occupation of Malta.