Spain's single pre-dreadnought battleship, the Pelayo, leads an abortive relief expedition to Manila. Shown following the flagship in this sketch are the armored cruisers Carlos V and Princesa de Asturias. The expedition was halted at the Suez Canal and directed to return home and protect Spain from the Yankee fleet. The Pelayo never budged from Cádiz for the rest of the war. This ship had a touch of French hauteur; she was built at La Seyne for the Spanish navy 1885-87. A few large warships of nearly this size were building in Spain at the time, a tradition that peaked with the three Spanish dreadnoughts brought on line starting in 1913.
Spain's decline as a world power in the 19th century was marked, yet little remarked at the time what with the exciting rise of new nations in Italy and Germany. As prosperity flooded the industrializing parts of Europe, Spain became a backwater, without the wealth to invest in great fleets to contest as an important player -- a status she had never regained since the Napoleonic wars. Once Europe's leading power, Spain had come upon hard times. She did not easily make the transition to the mechanical/industrial age, and her fleet suffered from inadequate engines and steam plant, handicapping its effectiveness. Spanish naval design looked backwards to the galleons of her glorious past. As late as the mid-1880s Spain was still building her cruisers of wood and even her first steel ships commissioned with a full sail rig.
Yet until 1898 Spain retained remnants of her far-flung empire, linked by a sleepy telegraph cable and a modest fleet, mostly composed of cruisers, gunboats, and transports. Spain was a pioneer of the torpedo boat destroyer -- a status which took a serious hit when their leader and chief exponent, Capt. Fernando Villaamil, perished at the Battle of Santiago. So did Spain's most powerful class of modern cruisers - all 3 of them -- and a fourth Garibaldi-class armored cruiser, fresh from the builders, scuttled herself to avoid capture. Taken as a whole, the war was a complete disaster for Spain. Afterwards, only the Canary Islands and Moroccan territories remained of the once worldwide Spanish Empire.
The cruiser Infanta Isabel fires a salute for a departing dignitary.
Spanish Navy Contents
Spain's Pre-Dreadnought Battleship: The Pelayo (1885)
Unique Small Battleship built near Toulon, France.Armored Cruiser Carlos Quinto (1898)
Sent to Far East to war on U.S., but soon recalled to protect Spain.The Spanish Squadron Sunk at Santiago, 1898
The flower of Spanish armored cruisers.The Spanish Wrecks After the Battle
In Photos by J.C. Hemment.Asiatic Flagship Reina Cristina (1887)
Sunk at the Battle of Manila Bay.Cruiser Reina Mercedes (1887)
Had a long career with the USN later.All Cruiser Classes in the Armada Española, 1861-1975
From Battleships-Cruisers.Co.UK.Spain's Destroyer Programme
Advanced for its time - Cut off in its prime.Spanish Gunboats
More legacy ships for the USN.The Spanish-American War
Entire section including all the major battles.Spain's Dreadnoughts: The España Class (1913)
Compact Dreadnought Model - 3 Sister Ships.
Four twin 12" turrets on 15,500 tons.
Two of three fought in the Spanish Civil War
On Opposite Sides - Both Sunk 1937.
The reason for the Pelayo and Carlos V's recall: Commodore Dewey and his fightin' Yanks ring down the curtain on Spain's long rule in the Philippines in the Battle of Manila Bay. Striking at dawn on May 1, 1898 against the Spanish squadron anchored at Cavite, Dewey deployed 3 large protected cruisers with 8" guns and 3 modern gunboats with 5" and 6" guns. Some 400 Spanish seamen were killed and 10 ships sunk -- the entire Spanish Asiatic fleet. By contrast none was killed and no ships damaged on the American side. American gunnery is exploding the wooden cruiser Castilla at her moorings and setting fire to the flagship Reina Cristina in this spirited illustration by J.G. Tyler. Dewey captured the Cavite Naval Yard and forts minutes from the capital city. Spain's stunning defeat put the seal on the dotage of the Spanish navy. Many of her most enterprising officers died in the war, and the service was a long time recovering. In Spain as a whole, the defeat set off a surge of artistic and literary ferment known collectively as "the Generation of '98." Barriers fell in the brilliant, experimental novels of García Lorca, Lope de Vega, and Valle-Inclán. Their writings and the beautiful Art Nouveau architecture of the time are strands in a rich tapestry of culture left for all posterity to enjoy.
Spain took one last stab at naval self-respect with the construction of the 3-ship España class starting in 1909.These were the world's smallest dreadnoughts, intended more for coast defense than fleet action, and custom designed and gunned by British armaments giant Armstrongs. At El Ferrol, British partners in the venture John Brown developed a modern naval dockyard for Spain even as they constructed the first and name ship of the class, the España, in that dockyard. Two of the ships were in commission by 1915, but Jaime I, the third sister, did not complete until 1921. Supply shipments from Britain dried up soon after the War began and did not resume immediately after the Armistice. By the Twenties, 12" gunned early dreadnoughts were regarded as distinctly passé by the world's leading navies. Their worthlessness was underlined by the fact that multitudes of once ground-breaking dreadnoughts were going to the wreckers on every side. And to command respect, you now needed 15" or 16" guns.
From the plan above, it is clear why the España's secondary battery was nearly always useless: it was sited too close to the surface in an already low-freeboard hull, guaranteeing conditions too wet for good gunnery most of the time. On what should have been an arch-dreadnought, stripped to the essentials, the inclusion of a large secondary armament was gratuitous, but in the unending game of naval one-upmanship, it no doubt looked impressive in harbor and made the ships' stats sound more impressive.
