There were many events leading to the 1982 Falklands War (Guerra de las Malvinas in Spanish) between the United Kingdom and Argentina over possession of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.
Background
The Falkland Islands had been the subject of a sovereignty dispute almost since they were first settled in 1764, between Great Britain and the later United Kingdom on one side, and successively France, Spain, and the United Provinces of the River Plate (later Argentina) on the other.
Britain made diplomatic protests when Luis Vernet was appointed Governor by the United Provinces and both Britain and the United States made diplomatic protests over the attempt to curtail rights to sealing on the islands. After Vernet seized American ships sealing in the islands and confiscated their catch, the United States dispatched a warship to the islands, resulting in the abandonment of Puerto Luis (previously known as Puerto Soledad) and the voluntary repatriation of many of the settlers. Subsequently, the United Provinces tried to re-establish the settlement at Puerto Soledad as a penal colony, but a mutiny resulted in the murder of one Governor.
Shortly after that mutiny had been quelled, in January 1833, a British naval task force arrived which was charged with the re-establishment of British rule on the islands. The British requested that the Argentine administration leave the islands, who complied with that request without a shot being fired. Contrary to popular belief, the settlers on the island were not expelled at the same time, but were encouraged by the British to remain.J. Metford; Falklands or Malvinas? The background to the dispute. International Affairs, Vol 44 (1968), pp. 463–481."Much is made in successive presentations of the Argentine case of the next episode in the history of the islands: the supposed fact that Great Britain 'brutally' and 'forcefully' expelled the Argentine garrison in 1833. The record is not nearly so dramatic. After the commander of the Lexington had declared, in December 1831, the Falklands 'free of all government', they remained without any visible authority. However, in September 1832, the Buenos Aires Government appointed, in place of Vernet, an interim commandant, Juan Mestivier. The British representative immediately lodged a protest, but Mes- tivier sailed on the Sarandi at the end of the year to take charge of a penal settlement at San Carlos, his Government's reserve on East Falkland. There was a mutiny, led by a sergeant of the garrison, and Mestivier was murdered. At this juncture, on January 11, 1833, H.M. sloop Clio arrived at Puerto de la Soledad when Pinedo, the commander of the Sarandi and 25 soldiers were attempting to re-establish order. The so called 'brutal' eviction is laconically recorded in Captain Onslow's log: Tuesday 1 Jany. 1833. P.M. Mod. with rain 12.20 shortened sails and came to Port Louis (Soledad), Berkeley Sound ... found here a Buenos Ayrean flag flying on shore. 2.30 out boats. 3 furled sails. 5.30 Moored ship . . . Wednesday Jany. 2. Moored at Port Louis A.M. Mod. cloudy ... loosed sails and landed a party of marines and seamen and hoisted the Union Jack and hauled down the Buenos Ayrean flag and sent it on board the schooner to the Commandante. Sailmaker repairing the Main top Gallant sails.... In the interval between these two entries, Onslow had 'civilly' (his report) told Pinedo that he had come 'to exercise the right of sovereignty' on the islands and asked him to haul down his flag on shore. Pinedo protested, but said that if the Buenos Aires flag were allowed to fly until January 5, he would leave with his soldiers and anyone else who wished to go. When Onslow proved adamant, Pinedo agreed to embark his soldiers, but he left his flag flying on shore. This was why Onslow sent it to him by one of the Clio's officers. Pinedo sailed on January 4 and was later punished by the Buenos Aires Government for failing to offer any resistance" The islands remained continuously in British possession from then until 1982.
Build-up
From 1976 to 1983, Argentina was under the control of a military dictatorship, and in the midst of a devastating economic crisis. The National Reorganization Process, as the junta was known, had killed thousands of Argentine citizens for their political opposition to the government. The era was known as the Dirty War.
The military staged a coup against the government of President Isabel Perón and put General Jorge Videla in power. He was succeeded by General Roberto Viola and then General Leopoldo Galtieri for a short while. Before he started the Falklands War, Galtieri was subject to growing opposition from the people. The actual rule of General Galtieri lasted eighteen months. In the course of 1981, Argentina saw inflation climb to over 600%; simultaneously, the GDP fell by 11.4%, manufacturing output by 22.9% and real wages by 19.2%. The trade unions were gaining more support for a general strike every day, and (most ominously for the dictatorship) popular opposition to the junta was growing rapidly.
President Galtieri, as head of the junta, aimed to counter public concern over economic and human rights issues by means of a speedy victory over the Falklands which would appeal to popular nationalistic sentiment. Argentine intelligence officers had been working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to help fund the Contras in Nicaragua, and the Argentine government believed it might be rewarded for this activity by non-interference on the part of the United States if it invaded the Falklands. The Argentine leadership had noticed that during the Suez Crisis in 1956, the US had objected to the British use of force, that in 1981 the UK reached agreement with the former colony Rhodesia and that the 1961 Indian Annexation of Goa was initially condemned by the international community and then accepted as a fait accompli.David R. Mares, "Violent Peace", 2001, Columbia University Press, , p. 146
Argentina exerted pressure at the United Nations by raising hints of a possible invasion, but the British either missed or ignored this threat and did not react. The Argentines assumed that the British would not use force if the islands were invaded."" ("This was neither about national pride nor anything else. The junta—Galtieri told me—never believed the British would respond. He thought the Western World had gone corrupt. That British people did not have God, that the US had gone corrupted... I could never convince him that the British would not only fight back but also win [the war].") La Operación Rosario fue concebida como una acción militar sorpresiva destinada a provocar una repercusión política internacional tal que obligara a Gran Bretaña a encarar seriamente las negociaciones sobre la soberanía de las islas de acuerdo con las resoluciones de las Naciones Unidas. Por esa razón, se planeó la ocupación, la instalación de un gobierno argentino y la retirada inmediata de las fuerzas intervinientes, excepto los efectivos indispensables que requiriera la seguridad. No se previó una reacción de la magnitud que tuvo la británica, que llevó a un conflicto que no se deseaba y para el cual no se estaba preparado.
According to British sources, the Argentines interpreted the failure of the British to react as a lack of interest in the Falklands due to the planned withdrawal (as part of a general reduction in size of the Royal Navy in 1981), including the last of the Antarctic Supply vessels, HMS Endurance, and by the British Nationality Act of 1981, which replaced the full British citizenship of Falkland Islanders with a more limited version.
Operation Sol in 1976 had secretly landed a force of 50 men from the Argentine military under the command of Captain César Trombetta on the unoccupied Southern Thule, which belonged to the British South Sandwich Islands, where they established the military outpost of Corbeta Uruguay. This led to a formal protest from the United Kingdom, and an effort to resolve the issue through diplomatic rather than military means. (The United Kingdom's ultimate response was Operation Journeyman, an armed force commanded by Captain Hugh Balfour, the commanding officer of the frigate , and accompanied by the nuclear submarine , the frigate , and two auxiliaries, and in support.)
Reports from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in 1977, 1979 and 1981 suggested that "as long as Argentina calculated that the British Government were prepared to negotiate seriously on sovereignty, it was unlikely to resort to force." However, if "... negotiations broke down, or if Argentina concluded from them that there was no prospect of real progress towards a negotiated transfer of sovereignty, there would be a high risk of its then resorting to more forceful measures, including direct military action."
Preparation
First moves At a lunch between Admiral Jorge Isaac Anaya (another member of the junta) and General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri on 9 December 1981, in the main army barracks at Campo de Mayo, the two discussed how and when to overthrow President Roberto Viola. Anaya offered the navy's support on the understanding that the navy would be allowed to occupy the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.Jimmy Burns: The land that lost its heroes, 1987, Bloomsbury Publishing, Galtieri appears to have hoped that public opinion would reward a successful occupation by affording him power for at least ten years. They believed that the flying of the Argentine flag in Port Stanley on the 150th anniversary of Britain's "illegal usurpation of Las Malvinas" would lead to a neo-Perónist era of national pride.
On Tuesday 15 December, Anaya flew from Buenos Aires to the main Argentine naval base at Puerto Belgrano. He travelled there to install Vice-Admiral Juan Lombardo officially as the new Chief of Naval Operations. After the ceremony, Anaya surprised Lombardo by telling him to prepare a plan for the occupation of the Falkland Islands. Lombardo later told the author Martin Middlebrook in an interview that Anaya told him to "take them but not necessarily to keep them". The conversation between Anaya and Lombardo was short and concluded with Anaya stressing the need for absolute secrecy.
Shortly after this initial order, Lombardo flew to Buenos Aires to ask Anaya for clarification of his orders. Lombardo recalled later:
The Air Force's Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo was not informed of the decision before 29 December and even Foreign Minister Costa Méndez was unaware of the planning while he prepared his diplomatic initiative in January 1982.Chapter three: Deadlock Again, page 23 in Freedman, Lawrence: Signals of war, 1990, Faber and Faber,
Planning Detailed planning began in early January 1982. It was headed by Vice Admiral Juan José Lombardo (Commander-in-Chief Fleet) and included General Osvald Garcia (commander of the Fifth Army Corps) and Brigadier Sigfrido Plessel, (member of the Air Force Staff). The operation would be an amphibious landing of 3,000 troops en masse to minimise bloodshed. The contingent of Royal Marines, British civil service officials and the more anti-Argentine among the Falklanders would be deported and the bulk of the invasion force would return to their bases within 48 hours. A military governor and a gendarmerie of about 500 would be left to keep the Falklanders in line. Anaya's draft planned to replace the entire island population with Argentine settlers, but Lombardo believed that such a step would outrage the international community. Instead the Falklanders should be offered financial compensation if they wished to emigrate.