The Varese steams proudly through a naval review.
The Garibaldi class were some of the most distinctive and popular armored cruisers of the high pre-dreadnought era (above, the Varese on her way to a naval review). Between 1894 and 1902 ten cruisers were purchased by four different countries: The first five by the Italian Navy, four more by the Argentine Navy, two by the Japanese, and one by the Spanish Navy. The design proved a profitable signature product for the Ansaldo Yard in Genoa. The lead ship's name honored Guiseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), the iconic Italian patriot and freedom fighter who inspired the liberation movement against Austrian rule in the mid-19th century. At left below, he is seen landing at Marsala in 1860, commencing the critical push for Italy's independence and national unification -- the Rissorgimento. Garibaldi had strong ties to the sea and held a captain's certificate in the British merchant marine, a handy document for running arms and men to the insurgency during the long struggle to forge a nation.Garibaldi class ships' selling point was that they packed impressive firepower onto a modest-size platform; this dictated a relatively short and wide-built hull. Equipped with a prominent ram and cruiser stern, decorated with a frosting of bronze "scrambled egg" decoration at the bow, the hull had a moderate tumble-home shape amidships. The ships' layout was symmetrical with one prominent central mast, in the time-honored Italian manner. There were two widely spaced funnels: the engine room was sandwiched between the two boiler rooms. Two barbette positions (fore and aft) housed the big guns, with a box battery on the main deck holding 3-4 more secondary guns per side; four sponsons on the hull hung over the waves and accommodated more intermediate guns such as 6" or 5.5". The design was made to be customizable; ships could be enlarged anywhere from 6,500 to 7,700 tons. The main armament varied from four 8", to one 10" and two 8", to two 11" guns. With a 6" armor belt and maximum speed of 20+ knots, the Garibaldis were competitive with other armored cruisers of the decade. They packed a lot of firepower in a compact package, but had sufficient speed to run from heavier forces; arguably, they may be considered as precursors of the battlecruiser or "pocket battleship" concept. In combat their ability to take and mete out punishment was proved beyond doubt, as was their ability to survive even when exposed to the fire of pre-dreadnought battleships. The ships purchased by Japan were the largest and most robust of the class, and also the latest built, going into service early in 1904; the Kasuga differing from her sister in bearing a single 10" gun forward with two 8's aft on an additional 360 tons' displacement, an arrangement also used on some of the Argentine navy boats. This setup was favored by Italy as well, while the Spaniards opted for two 10" guns, but sent their ship to war before the big artillery could be installed.
Specifications for the Garibaldis (Nisshin:):
Dimensions: 366'6" OA x 61'6" x 24' LWL: 357'. Displacement: 7,698 tons standard. Armament: (4) 8" (2x2), (14) 6" (152mm), (10) 3.2" QF guns, (6) 1.85" guns; (2) Maxim MG; (4) 18" torpedo tubes. Armor: Belt: 150/70mm (5.9"/2.76"). Barbettes 5.9"/3.94". Casemates 5.2"/4.3". Conning tower: 5.5". Deck: 1.5"/1". Propulsion: (2) inverted vertical triple-expansion engines developing 13,500 HP, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 20 knots. Range: 5,500 nm. @ 10 kts. Crew: 600.
Smaller version specifications (Cristobal Colón): Displacement: 6,840 tons. Dimensions: Length: 328' Beam: 59.7' Draft: 24' Speed: 20 kts. Designed armament: (2) 10", (10) 6-inch, (6) 4.7-inch guns; (4) 17.7" torpedo tubes.
Ships in class: Garibaldi · Ferrucio · Varese · Nisshin · Kasuga · Cristobal Colón · San Martín · Remo · Gen. Pueyrredón · Gen. Belgrano.
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 112m x 18.75m x 7.3m LWL: 357'. Displacement: 7,698 tons standard. Armament: (4) 203mm (2x2), (14) 152mm, (10) 80mm QF guns, and (6) 47mm guns; (2) Maxim MG; (4) 450mm torpedo tubes. Armor: Belt: 150/70mm (5.9"/2.76"). Barbettes 150/100 mm. Casemates 132/109.3 mm. Conning Tower: 140 mm. Deck: 38/25 mm. Propulsion: (2) inverted vertical triple-expansion engines developing 10,067 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 37 km/hr. Range: 10,186 km @ 18.4 km/hr. Crew: 600.
Smaller version specifications (Cristobal Colón): Displacement: 6,840 tons. Dimensions: 100m x 18.2m x 7.32m. Speed: 37 km/hr. Designed armament: (2) 254 mm, (10) 152 mm, and (6) 120 mm guns; (4) 450 mm torpedo tubes.
Garibaldi on trials (lower photo) and on review (upper). The class was a showcase product for G. Ansaldo & C. of Genoa. Before being sold to the Argentine navy, this ship sank the Turkish ironclad Avnilla and several gunboats at Beirut during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12.
Built by Orlando at Leghorn (Livorno), the 1897 General Belgrano was one of the four Garibaldis sold into Argentine serice. She and two of her sisters -- Pueyreddón and Garibaldi -- mounted single 10" guns fore and aft. The fourth cruiser, the San Martín, had two twin 8" turrets.
Francesco Ferrucio was one of the three Garibaldis in the Italian fleet (five were ordered but two of these later sold to Argentina). In the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12, she was squadron-mate to the Garibaldi in the Beirut bombardment and joined her in shelling the Dardanelles forts as well.
One of the most famous Garibaldis met a sad end in battle. Cristobal Colón was purchased by Spain on the eve of the Spanish-American War. She was to have been armed with two 10" guns in single mounts, in addition to ten 6" guns in sided batteries. But she was bundled off to war, willy-nilly, with her 10" guns uninstalled, voyaging transatlantic to Cuba with the squadron of Adm. Ernesto Cervera.
In this view from the U.S. Naval Historical Center collection, Colón's officers gather for a portrait on the foredeck of the new command. The empty shield for the forward 10" mounting gapes just behind them. Though the big guns might not have saved the ship altogether from the pitiless fate that awaited her, they would at least have granted a chance of hitting back before meeting her doom.
Early on the morning of July 3, 1898, Adm. Cervera ran his squadron -- four cruisers and two destroyers -- through the blockade at Santiago de Cuba. They were annihilated by the waiting Americans. After being hit repeatedly, Colón, fleeter than her sisters, had nearly outdistanced the blockaders, running some 48 miles from the harbor's mouth, when the battleship USS Oregon bustled up under forced draft and loosed a 13" salvo at extreme range. The shells bracketed the ship's wake, close enough that her captain turned into shore and struck his colours, meantime ordering the crew to open the sea-cocks. She ended on her beam-ends with her guns impotently tracking the sky. Anxious to take home a trophy ship, the Americans refloated her, but the hulk broke tow and foundered on the way to the States for refit.
Full account of the Santiago battle - by Walter Millis. Lavishly Illustrated
Nisshin and her sister Kasuga (above) were built for Argentina at Ansaldo, but when Argentina canceled delivery they were hastily purchased by Japan on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War. Kasuga showed the flexibility of the design by mounting a single 10" (254mm) gun forward and two 8" aft: her single gun forward is very evident in the shot above. Schematic Sister Nisshin relied on 8" (203mm) weapons throughout, mounting four in twin turrets, as seen in the circa 1904 photo below. When completed, the two cruisers were sailed out to Japan by picked British Navy crews to discourage unwanted attention from marauding Russian forces. After mines subtracted 2 battleships from the Japanese lineup, Nisshin and Kasuga replaced them in the Japanese battle line during the Battle of the Yellow Sea (Aug. 1904) and the following year at the Battle of Tsushima. At Tsushima, Nisshin engaged the battleship Osliabya. Nisshin was hit several times and had one of her 8" gun barrels sheared off by a direct hit, but stayed in the fight despite a flooded bunker and several casualties. The ship returned to the Mediterranean during WWI, serving as a convoy escort and lead ASW vessel for a Japanese contingent based at Malta. In 1936 she was designated as a target; was finally sunk by 18" shells from the superbattleship Yamato in 1942.
Already by 1905, the most advanced countries were building much larger and better protected armored cruisers, and Italy responded with the Pisa class and the contemporaneous San Giorgio class, an incremental improvement over the Garibaldis, mounting four 9.2" and eight 7.6", all in twin turrets. These ships had three funnels and originally stepped only one mast, abaft all of the funnels (schematic). Eventually the need for a foremast near the bridge brought about a two-mast rig as shown above, greatly improving the ships' appearance. The Pisa and Amalfi completed in 1909, their up-gunned near-sister Georgios Averof, built by Orlando of Leghorn for the Royal Hellenic Navy, was delivered the following year. Averof in time to fight as Greek flagship in the First Balkan War and deliver two convincing naval victories for Greece. The up-gunned San Mateo and San Giorgio (below) also appeared in 1910, armed with eight 8"/45 and four 10"/45 guns originally set in a homely four-funnel layout with stepped-down quarterdeck. Armor plans were nearly identical between the two classes, except that the San Mateos carried a full 10 inches on the conning tower -- about one-third more than their predecessors.
These two classes of ship thus were only 4 - 5 years old when the Great War broke out. Although armored cruisers played a part in the world conflict, the type was being eclipsed by the dreadnought battlecruiser even before the Great War. The reason is easy to find: When faced with battlecruisers, the armored cruisers found themselves outgunned, out-engined, and outdated. This was demonstrated several times over, most cogently at the 1914 Battle of the Falklands and the Battle of Jutland. At the Falklands, 26-knot battlecruisers swiftly overtook 23-knot armored cruisers and brought their 12" guns into play while the cruisers were still outranged. And the British already had four battlecruisers capable of 28 knots, armed with 13.5" guns, and 32-knot ships with 15" guns abuilding. No armored cruiser afloat could withstand a confrontation with one of these wonder ships. After the spectacular sinkings of several armored cruisers at Jutland, the type was largely recognized as obsolete, and no new vessels of that type were ordered. Of course, several battlecruisers also blew up and sank at Jutland, leading the British to increase armor on existing ships and add protection to battlecruisers then building.
But surface ships were not the only new weapons to which armored cruisers proved vulnerable. Mines and sub-launched torpedoes accounted for their share. The name ship Giuseppe Garibaldi herself was sunk by the Austro-Hungarian Navy's U-4 on July 18, 1915; the French armored cruiser Leon Gambetta by her sister, the U-5, in a celebrated exploit by Lt. Georg von Trapp, also in Adriatic waters. In the British navy, most of the extant armored cruisers were retired after the War and scrapped in the early 1920s. Other navies were more thrifty: Pueyreddón and Belgrano both served in the Argentine Navy through WWII and were scrapped in 1954 and 1948, respectively -- Belgrano passing her name along to the light cruiser (ex-USS Phoenix, built 1935) eventually sunk in the 1982 Falkland Islands War by a British nuclear "killer" submarine.
Meanwhile in Italy, the San Martín and Ferrucio held on until scrapped in 1935. They were replaced the following year by two modern 11,300-ton light cruisers of the new Abruzzi class. 33-knot turbine ships with more than the usual protection, the new Garibaldi and Duca degli Abruzzi proved to be among Italy's best warships of WWII, present at nearly every battle. Both were targets at Taranto, where the Duca took serious damage, which was repaired and the ship returned to duty, serving in the North Atlantic with the Allies after Italy changed sides. After the war the Abruzzi were at the core of the much-diminished Italian navy. They were converted to guided missile cruisers in 1953. After a radical rebuild, Garibaldi emerged in 1961 to spend a decade as flagship of the Italian fleet. She was heavily crusted with aerials and radar dishes for that duty, but retained her reognizable dashing profile. Both Abruzzi class cruisers were decommissioned in 1971 and scrapped the following year.
