The defence of Tarifa in December 1811 was a relatively small sideshow when compared with the greater exploits of Wellington's army during the Peninsular War. It was sufficient, however, for the battle honour `Tarifa' to be awarded to regiments of the army.

The French forces in Estremadura under Soult had been constantly annoyed by Ballesteros' Spaniards who, whenever threatened by Soult, retired to their bases at Gibraltar and Tarifa. Ballesteros, not unwisely, had long decided against risking his men against Soult's French veterans in open battle which left the frustrated French commander with little option but to deprive him of these bases. Gibraltar was, of course, virtually impregnable, as the Spaniards themselves had long since discovered but Tarifa was considered an easier target for a strike, not only against Ballesteros but also against the Allied cause as a whole, for Tarifa provided the Allies with a powerful base from which its ships could operate along the south coast of Spain.

In October 1811 the Anglo-Spanish garrison numbered around 4,000 men but it was not until December of that year that they were called upon to defend the place in earnest against the French. This threat came from 12,500 French troops under Marshal Victor who set off from Cadiz on December 8th but did not reach Tarifa, just thirty miles away, until some twelve days later, mainly due to bad roads and to the marauding bands of guerrillas that hampered and hindered them along every step of their march. Victor began his siege on December 22nd, his siege train having come up the same day.

The small town of Tarifa had a population of about three thousand and lies at the point of a promontory which juts out into the sea. A causeway about 500 yards long joins the town with a small island which was virtually impossible to scale owing to its almost perpendicular sides. In fact, the only way to gain access to the island was via the causeway which was protected by a retrenchment and a battery at the island end. The land between the causeway and the town was commanded by the castle and tower of Guzmans and the Santa Catalina battery which had one heavy gun. Tarifa had once been a stronghold but its defences were woefully out of date. Its walls were designed to protect it from arrows rather than from artillery. There was no ditch and it was commanded by some heights which were easily within range of the French guns. It was the northern and eastern sides of the town that were particularly vulnerable to attack and it was upon the eastern heights that Victor's men broke ground on the 23rd.

The British troops inside Tarifa consisted of the 2/47th, 2/87th, a detachment of the 82nd, the light company of the 11th, a detachment of the 2nd Hussars KGL and a detachment of the Royal Artillery, altogether numbering 67 officers and 1,707 men. The whole was commanded by Colonel Skerrett of the 47th.

Throughout the next few days the weather was so bad that the French were unable to get any of their siege guns into position. The trenches filled up with water and turned large tracts of them into liquid mud. The weather broke, however, and on the morning of December 29th ten of Victor's guns opened up against the eastern walls of Tarifa, the guns having been dragged into position the night before.

After just a few hours' bombardment the frail walls began to crumble and soon a fairly large breach had been made. At this point Skerrett's nerve went and he began to make arrangements for abandoning the place. However, Captain Smith, of the engineers, to whom much of the credit for the defence of the place is due, and Major King, of the 82nd, disagreed as did General Campbell, Governor of Gibraltar, who recalled all the transports from Tarifa to Gibraltar without a single man on board and in so doing ensured that the defence was prolonged.

The breach in the eastern wall left Tarifa open to assault but while Leval, now in charge of the siege operations, pondered his next move, Smith was organising the defence of the place. He noticed that the level of the streets was about thirteen feet below the breach and, knowing that the French would have to jump down here, covered the ground with iron railings torn from the windows, turning every second bar upwards to form a sort of chevaux-de-frise. His men worked furiously to keep the breach, by now thirty feet wide, clear of rubbish and debris in spite of the storm of grape that flew amongst them from time to time.

On December 30th Leval sent in a summons for the town to surrender which was rejected and so the French guns continued firing until by evening the breach was no less than sixty feet wide. Later that night Leval decided that the place would be stormed the following morning. No sooner had Leval's officers begun to issue orders for the assault than torrential rain began to fall, washing down from the French camp a mass of gabions, fascines, planks of wood and even corpses, all of which crashed into the palisades before the walls, breaking them down and damaging other parts of the defences. Indeed, the wreckage from the French camp was great enough to cause a fresh opening in the walls when the portcullis protecting the tower close to the breach was bent back. This new passage was repaired by morning however.

At eight o'clock the next morning Leval's grenadiers appeared opposite the walls, moving forward through a heavy shower of rain. However, instead of making for the breach, which was defended by the 87th, the grenadiers lost their way and headed for the portcullis, as a consequence of which they were hit by a terrific enfilading fire from the defenders in the breach. The officer leading the French storming party was struck down along with a small drummer boy who fell dead at his side. The rest of the grenadiers slipped and slithered in the mud and spread out to open up an ineffective fire on the defenders along the ramparts. Some of the French even managed to find their way to the breach but they were beaten back by the fire from the defenders and by grape shot from the gun in the tower. Having made no headway at all the French were left with no other choice but to return to their mud-filled trenches leaving behind 207 men including 48 dead. The Allies on the other hand had sustained losses of just 36.

With the repulse of the assault French morale fell even further. The trenches were filled with sticky, liquid mud, the batteries were all but washed away, sickness and desertion were rife and the majority of the ammunition was ruined by the rain. The men themselves were clothed in rags and had had no decent food for days. What food they did have could not be cooked properly because of the rain. The French had, in Fortescue's words, `reached the limit of human endurance.'

The assault on December 30th turned out to be the only one to be launched by the French and after a few days more rain Victor decided to raise the siege. His men began to retire on January 5th 1812 having first burned all stores, waggons and ammunition and having abandoned a large number of guns. The siege had been a disaster and had cost the French over five hundred men, nine guns and a vast quantity of stores and ammunition. The British defenders of Tarifa lost just seventy killed and wounded during the entire siege.