Battle of Tres Forcas

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You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (December 2010) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Gefecht von Tres Forcas]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Gefecht von Tres Forcas}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Battle of Tres Forcas
Battle of Tres Forcas by Alexander Kircher
Date 7 August 1856 Location Cape Tres Forcas, Morocco Result Moroccan victory
Belligerents
Prussia	Morocco
Commanders and leaders
Prince Adalbert of Prussia (WIA) Eduard von Knorr (WIA)	Unknown
Strength
14 officers 53 non-commissioned officers, sailors, and marines 2 gunboats	Unknown
Casualties and losses
7 killed 22 wounded 2 gunboats damaged	Unknown

The Battle of Tres Forcas was a battle on 7 August 1856 between boat crews from the Prussian Navy corvette SMS Danzig (then on a foreign cruise, commanded by Prince Adalbert of Prussia) and the Berber Riffians. It occurred at Cape Tres Forcas in Morocco, and was one of the first examples of Prussian or German gunboat diplomacy.

The Treaty of Paris of 1856 had decided that a Prussian warship should be deployed to the River Danube's outlet into the Black Sea and, on its way there, Prince Adalbert decided to explore the Rif coast of Morocco. There, four years earlier, on 7 December 1852, the Prussian warship Flora had been shot at by pirates, with one sailor killed and its captain injured.

On 7 August 1856, Prince Adalbert manned two boats and deployed them along the coast. After the boats came under fire from the Riffians, Danzig moved to only 600 metres from the shore to give the boat crews supporting fire. Adalbert then ordered a landing operation by 14 officers and 53 non-commissioned officers, sailors, and marines, led by Adalbert in person. Around noon, he led a surprise attack on a steep rock face nearly 40 metres high under heavy enemy fire. This attack was successful and the Riffians were forced back to a plateau. However, they were also receiving continuous reinforcement, so Adalbert finally decided to withdraw, lest he and his troops become cut off from the shore.

Prussian casualties were seven dead and 22 wounded, including Adalbert, shot in the thigh. A subscription from the whole Prussian Navy raised a monument to the dead of the battle in Gibraltar in the form of an eagle, set up in 1863. Despite being a complete tactical failure, the landing and the courage of Adalbert and his sailors were praised for decades to come by the Prussian people and particularly within the Prussian and German Imperial navies.^[1]