The Falkland Islands are a desolate and cold group of islands in the South Atlantic, 400 miles off the South American mainland. The two main islands are about the same area as Wales in the UK and in 1982 had a population of 1,820 people and 400,000 sheep - hardly a place that would expect an invasion or a war of liberation in response.
Before 1816 the island had a chequered past and were often left unguarded and uninhabited. After 1816 when Argentina won its independence from Spain they laid claim to the islands. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars Britain was determined to reassert its imperial claims and this included the Falklands. Pride was also at stake after the failure of a British expedition to Argentina during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1833 a British Naval force evicted the Argentineans and it was this act of aggression that they wished to avenge in 1982.
Under international law the Argentineans had no case, despite the original British aggression the Island had been settled and inhabited by the British continuously since 1833 with most of the islanders descended from the Scottish settlers brought there by the Falkland Islands Company to raise sheep. If such a claim as the Argentinean one was honoured then it would open an immense can of worms for many countries throughout the world. The British also pointed out that the UN charter gave small nations the right of National Self Determination and the islanders definitely wanted to remain British. Yet with such a seemingly worthless piece of territory at stake with a population equal to a large block of flats it seemed to the Argentineans that the British would offer no physical resistance especially with the distances involved and a population of 100,000 British Ex pats living on the Argentine mainland.
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