Mers-el-Kébir
| المرسى الكبير Mers-el-Kebir |
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| Coordinates | 35 ° 44 ′ N , 0 ° 43 ′ W | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Algeria | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | Double room | ||
Mers-el-Kébir ( Spanish : Mazalquivir , Arabic المرسى الكبير, DMG al-Marsā al-kabīr 'the Great Port') is a port city with around 18,000 inhabitants on the northwest coast of Algeria , near the city of Oran .
The name became known through the first acts of war between the British and the French since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In July 1940 - despite the actually existing alliance between the British and the French - the British Royal Navy attacked the ships anchored in Mers-el-Kébir of the French navy in order to prevent their possible extradition to the German Reich ( Operation Catapult ) , since parts of the military and political leadership of France collaborated with the Germans in the Vichy regime . The French commander had previously refused to hand over the ships to the British. Militarily, the operation, in which 1297 French sailors were killed, was only partially a success. Two ships could be sunk, but the rest of the fleet escaped in the direction of the southern French ports. There it sank in accordance with the orders when the Germans invaded in 1942.
