When it comes to the most important wars of the last century, the Falklands War is bound to be among them. In this war, the emerging Argentina tried to challenge the British Empire in the sunset, but in the end it was still defeated. Although Israel's air force and naval aviation have allowed the world to witness how powerful the eagles of the Pampas Plateau are in this war, they still cannot hide the fact that argentina's navy and army are pulling their crotches.
It can be said that from beginning to end, the Argentine air force was fighting alone, and the navy became a shrunken-headed tortoise after the cruiser Admiral Belgrano was sunk, unwilling to go out of the port to help the fraternal forces fight, and became the laughing stock of the entire war. Argentina's Army units have become a joke. This group of Argentine soldiers was stationed on the island, and one of the most important prologues in Argentina was not only nearly starved to death, but also directly disarmed by a small group of British troops.
The British captured 11,500 Argentine officers and men at the cost of only 17 people, which is a rare sight in the history of modern warfare. Let's take you into this war and discuss it. The Malvinas Islands, known in Britain as the Falkland Islands, are actually small but magically geographically, an area that became a colony of Egypt during the Age of Discovery, but it is very close to Argentina, only five hundred kilometers from the nearest part of the island and the Argentine mainland.
During the Age of Discovery, it was first discovered by Spanish colonists, and then after Britain succeeded Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Netherlands as the new maritime hegemon, Britain reached the archipelago from Spain and used it as its own colony. Later, argentina became independent, the British did not return the island, and the Argentines did not claim territory from the United Kingdom because of the complicated domestic affairs, and the island was also unresolved between the two countries, laying the groundwork for the contradictions between the two countries in the future.
Before the Outbreak of the Falklands War, both Britain and Argentina were devastated by certain circumstances. The ruler of Argentina at the time was named Galtieri, one of the many dictators of South America in the last century. The Argentine people were already dissatisfied with Gartieri and his military junta, and often broke out democratic demonstrations, which made Galtieri very troubled, even the most stupid dictator would understand the truth that water can carry boats and overturn boats. Now that the whole of Argentina is in a mess, the situation will be even more complicated if Galtieri cannot find a suitable solution. So he found a very dangerous but effective way to gain domestic support by recovering the Malvinas Islands.
After all, if the junta can recover the lands seized by other countries, it is enough to prove that they are not completely corrupt and incompetent, and this is the only way for Galtieri to solve the crisis of his own governance. Galtieri considered himself a world of friends, he exported goods to the Soviet Union, and he fought fiercely with Reagan of the United States, and he could say that he and Britain would not intervene at least the two superpowers.
More importantly, At that time, Britain was already at the end of the crossbow, and the whole world could see the decline of the British Empire. British influence had plummeted, and the British were still worrithing over whether to sell the aircraft carrier. For argentines, this is a godsend, and for Britain, there are a lot of contradictions waiting to be transferred. Since Margaret Thatcher came to power, her series of neoliberal policies not only did not have any good effect in Britain, but also caused a large number of British workers to lose their jobs, and there was a wave of opposition to Thatcher throughout Britain, and she naturally understood that if she did not come up with some measures, the final result would inevitably end with her own bad downfall, and Britain now needed a step to make itself able to land decently.
The Argentine military junta did not know this, and the Argentines believed that the British would not go on an expedition for a small island that was thousands of miles away and did not contribute much to British finances. Galtieri had thought that after the Argentine army raided and occupied the Malvinas Islands, the British might have sent a fierce letter of protest and would not have sent any large troops to interfere with themselves. So Galtieri immediately launched an aggressive move, and throughout the Malvinas Islands, the British garrison was only a few dozen people, and the only heavy equipment was an icebreaker equipped with artillery.
Therefore, the Argentine raid naturally won quickly, and the British on the island surrendered without thinking. At that time, the dissatisfaction of the Argentine nation with Galtieri before all vanished, and Galtieri was supported like a national hero, after all, this national leader achieved Argentina's century-old national shame and helped Argentina recover the last piece of land that was also forcibly occupied by other countries.
However, the fact is that the British people's behavior is also like a frying pan, when the British people's opposition to Thatcher has reached its climax, and at this critical moment, the Argentines forcibly took the British land, and Thatcher thought it was also a perfect opportunity, she immediately showed her tough attitude to the world, and said that she would not sell the aircraft carrier, but decided to form an expeditionary fleet with the aircraft carrier as the core, and began to attack Argentina and retake the Malvinas Islands at all costs.
At the beginning of the war, the British nuclear submarine Conquistador sank the Argentine Navy's Admiral Belgrano, the cruiser made the Argentine Navy afraid to leave the port, and the subsequent Army operation surprised everyone. With just over 2,000 permanent residents on the Malvinas Islands, this is an important pastoral area with 650,000 sheep in the entire archipelago. With the arrival of the British expeditionary fleet, the Argentine navy was too timid to fight, and the British navy soon blockaded the entire Malvinas Islands, and the island's more than 10,000 defenders were now facing the problem of severance.
Soon, the Argentine army had run out of fuel and food for heating, and the airdrops alone were not enough to sustain the front. However, at this time, the Argentine army wanted to collect mutton fat from the people to use, but the local residents refused, and the Argentine army was caught in a dilemma. So the whole world saw a very strange scene, there are 650,000 sheep in the Malvinas Islands, but the island's 13,000 soldiers are starving day and night.
It can be seen from this that the Argentine commander's dead brain and the incompetence of the Argentine Navy, the troops who do not have enough to eat, naturally cannot win the battle. At that time, Britain and Argentina were a pair of Crouching Dragons, but it was clear that the British Wolong was still stronger. As British paratroopers landed on the Falklands, various messages circulated among argentines, some saying that Britain had poured its entire forces into fighting the Malvinas Islands, and some saying that Britain was even preparing to use nuclear weapons against Argentina.
In this situation, the Argentine Army stationed on the Falklands has completely lost all its fighting spirit, starvation, coupled with a variety of messages, which makes the already ineffective combat effectiveness of this force even worse. With the constant harassment of the British, the morale of the Argentine troops fell directly to the extreme. Before the two sides could engage in a truly large-scale clash, the Argentine Army announced its surrender. After this war is over. The Argentine army killed 55 men, and the British lost only 17 soldiers.
Of the 13,000 Argentine soldiers stationed on the island, 11,500 were captured by the British. With the reoccupied Malvinas Islands by the British, the situation of the people in both countries underwent a two-tier reversal. The Argentine people were so disappointed by the incompetence of Gartieri's military government that within a few years Galterry was ousted from power, and Margaret Thatcher quelled the anger and became the most popular British leader of the time. In a sense, the Falklands War broke the backbone of the Argentines.
Until then, Argentina's economy was actually thriving, with few fluctuations, but not poor. But after the Falklands War, the national spirit of the entire country seemed to have been sucked away, and Argentina was now a stagnant and depressed scene. The Malvinas Islands remained in the hands of the British, once again becoming a century-old national humiliation for Argentina.
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