Attack on Derna
- When
- April–May 1805
- Where
- Derna, Cyrenaica
- Part of
- Battle of Derne
O'Bannon led Marines and mercenaries in an assault on Derna in April–May 1805, capturing the city before the allies faced a subsequent Tripolitan siege.
The Battle of Derna at Derna, Cyrenaica, was a military engagement in April–May 1805 of a mercenary army recruited and led by United States Marines under Eaton and O'Bannon. Eaton offered peace conditions to the bey of Derna, Mustafa Bey, in exchange for loyalty to Hamet. O'Bannon led the Marines, Greek mercenaries, and the cannoniers in the attack, and the Tripolitans abandoned their site and reinforced the position that O'Bannon was attacking. Despite the initial capture of the city, the allies had to face a siege imposed by the Tripolitans, which delayed their advance to Tripoli until a peace treaty was signed.
Sources
- Battle of Derna (1805) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-26
- First Barbary War Wikipedia
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.