Word: minorca
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...green timber, cork and rawhide was set afire by red-hot British cannonballs. In that long siege, British General Sir George Elliot lost in action only 333 out of 7,000 men in the face of attackers totaling 40,000. Britain offered to trade Gibraltar for Florida or for Minorca, but the Spanish refused. Spain offered to buy it for $10,000,000 and the British refused. By the 19th Century its value to British naval supremacy was recognized as beyond price and it became a world symbol for permanent security...
...since Munich, however, has the British Empire been so obliging as when it arranged last week to hand over to Generalissimo Franco the Island of Minorca, one of the choicest of Mediterranean strategic plots. Lying athwart the French line of sea communications to North Africa and not far from the British Mediterranean "lifeline" to the East, Minorca was so strongly fortified (by British guns before the war) that the Loyalists had held on to the island since the war's start despite attacks by the Rebel Navy and Italian ships and planes. Nearby Majorca, bigger but not stronger...
Franco's forces on Minorca before the Italians took over in his name...
...Port Mahon, Minorca's chief town, the British cruiser Devonshire called last week. On board was the Count of San Luis, a Franco negotiator. The British arranged a conference at which Loyalist leaders were told of an impending attack, were threatened with starvation even if the attack were repulsed. Upshot: the red-&-gold Rebel flag was soon unfurled on Minorca and the Devonshire sailed away toward Marseille with 450 Loyalists who had feared to stay on the island...
...more direct sign of displeasure came when Rebel bombers raided Port Mahon while the Devonshire was still in the harbor, dropping their cargoes so near the cruiser that the crew manned her anti-aircraft guns. Not much more reassuring for the British was a Rebel version of the Minorca surrender which ungratefully toned down Britain's "good offices," trumped up a tale about a brief but heroic landing on the island which ended in its capitulation...