Was the Spanish Navy in 1898 really nothing? The answer is clearly no.

In the last ten years of the 19th century, because Spain's economic situation was still qualified, the Spanish government invested in the construction of warships. After several years of construction, a number of new ships were built by the Spaniards to replace the old ones; To this day, the Spanish Navy is not a scum with a combat strength of only 5, as most people think, but has a considerable ocean-going fleet.

The ironclad ship "Pelayo", built by the French shipyard LaSeyne, is the absolute core of the current Spanish fleet. Completed in 1888, the ship was 111 meters long, 18.6 meters wide, 6.6 meters draft, and had a standing displacement of 9,745 tons. The 12 boilers give it a power output of 8,000 horsepower, which allows it to travel at a speed of 16.2 knots. This was a very good speed at the time, and even today, 10 years later, it doesn't seem very backward. It was armed with two 12.5-inch and two 11-inch guns, one 164.7 mm gun and 14 120 mm secondary guns, and the waterline was 450 mm thick steel armor, which was extremely powerful for both firepower and protection at the time.

After ordering this 10,000-ton ironclad ship from a French shipyard, Spain itself built several fresh cargoes. In 1889, one year after the Pelayo was commissioned, the construction of three Princess Maria Dinissa-class ironclad ships of the second class began at the shipyard in Bilbao, Spain. With a standing displacement of 6,890 tons and two 11-inch guns and 10 5.5-inch secondary guns, their firepower can be said to be quite strong for their tonnage. The most commendable thing is its speed, under the condition of strong pressure and ventilation, the power output of this class of ships can output a strong power of 13,700 horsepower, which can push the battleship to a high speed of more than 20 knots! Despite its dismal height of 12-inch main armor, it was a decent battleship overall.

In addition to these four ironclad ships, which are outdated compared to the first-class navy, there is also one warship in the Spanish fleet that is truly at the top level of the world, that is, the Italian construction of the Garibaldi-class armored cruisers. Started in 1894, the Italian ship is arguably the pinnacle of the most outstanding work on the planet: with a standing displacement of only 6,773 tons, it has the superior firepower of one 254 mm L40 main gun, two 203 mm L45 main guns, 14 152 mm L40 secondary guns and six 120 mm L40 secondary guns! In terms of speed, the ship's power crew can reach a power output of 13,000 horsepower without pressure, which can make it rush on the sea surface at a speed of 20 knots. And on the armor, a single block of 150 mm Harvey armor covered the entire height of the entire freeboard; Not only can it be completely immune to 8-inch shells from enemy patrols, but even 12-inch shells that are not yet mature in the cap cannot penetrate it! (However, even the best weapons had to be used by qualified soldiers, and although the Spaniards had such a complete battleship, their sailors were comparable to the Italian army.) In the Battle of San Diego, which broke out on July 3, 1898, the armored cruiser, which had the best practical protection on the entire battlefield and was immune to almost any shell, was frightened after only two 120-mm shells and four 57-mm shells were hit by the Americans. ）

Although the strength of the Spanish fleet was quite good, bullying the rioting natives was like slaughtering pigs and dogs, but in the face of the Americans on the other side of the ocean, this naval strength was completely insufficient.

At present, the US Atlantic Fleet on the east coast has three battleships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons, the "Indiana," the "Massachusetts," and the "Iowa." The first two ships belonged to the same class, with four 330 mm L35 main guns arranged in the form of twin turrets at the bow and stern, and eight 203 mm L35 secondary guns also arranged in the form of twin turrets on both sides of the battleship. The other Iowa was completed in June last year, and with the freeboard raised, the firepower was reduced to four 35-caliber 305mm main guns, with secondary guns equivalent to the Indiana class. You must know that the main guns of these American Iron Turtles all use a turret-type structure, and the rate of fire can reach 1 round per minute, which is far better than the barbarians of the pseudo-turrets of the British majesty! Although their main armor was only a narrow strip, and they could only crawl slowly at a turtle speed of 15 or 16 knots, their superior firepower was enough to tear any Spanish ship to shreds! And the United States in the Pacific Ocean, there is also a battleship "Oregon" that also belongs to the Indiana class; A few days after the explosion of the Maine, the Iron Turtle, with a standing displacement of 10,288 tons and carrying four 13-inch guns, eight 8-inch guns and four 6-inch guns, had begun to make a day and night journey to the east coast of the United States at a speed of 12 knots.

In the face of such a strong lineup of the Americans, Spain was already unable to parry; And at this time, the Spanish Navy broke itself again. Their most powerful ironclad, the Pelayo, began to undergo large-scale modernization in 1897, and it is still lying in dry docks in the country, unable to go to sea for combat at all. With 1 Garibaldi-class perfectly equipped cruiser and 3 6,890-ton second-class ironclads alone, it is obviously no match for the United States 4 battleships, 1 second-class ironclad and 2 armored cruisers. In the event of a war, the United States will undoubtedly seize sea supremacy in the Caribbean; And this is something that Spain absolutely does not allow to see!

To this day, Spain has committed more than 200,000 troops to the island across the ocean to suppress the Cuban uprising. And such a large number of troops, the amount of materials consumed every day is extremely staggering, and Cuba alone is obviously unable to meet the normal needs of this army. Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if the basic materials of food and other things can be solved on the spot by plundering, but what about arms and ammunition? These things are completely unavailable in Cuba, and they have to be transported across the ocean from Spain! If the United States had mastered the sea and cut off Spain's sea supply lines, its 200,000 troops in Cuba would have become a turtle in an urn. Without the supply of domestic supplies, this army will collapse without a fight! At that time, they will either die in battle or go into American prisoner-of-war camps; Both outcomes were unaffordable for Spain. As for retreat? Sorry, Cuba is the only remaining piece of land for the Spaniards, and they have never intended to abandon Cuba!

Therefore, in order to keep Cuba and at the same time ensure that their 200,000 troops in Cuba will not be wiped out by the Americans, Spain must strengthen their maritime strength; Even if they can't defeat the Americans, at least they can't let the other side completely control the sea power.

However, if Spain were to begin a step-by-step naval build-up now, there would undoubtedly be no shortage of time. The construction of the navy is not as good as that of the army, which only needs to shoot a rifle into the hands of the reserve officers and men to pull up a force, while the navy must go through a long period of warship construction if it wants to be built. At present, even with the industrial strength and shipbuilding level of Britain and Germany, it takes 2 years to complete an ordinary cruiser, and the construction period of a large battleship is close to 3 years. And now that the sky over Cuba is cloudy and tense, the Americans have put their knives on the necks of the Spaniards, how can they still tolerate the Spaniards for three years? In this case, Spain had only one choice, and that was to ask the other powers to sell the ships in service to Spain, and if the performance could not be too backward! Only in this way will Spain be able to quickly build up combat power at sea to defend against the imminent military strike of the United States against Cuba!

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Just do it. Over the next nearly month, the Spanish ambassadors to Britain, France, Italy, and Russia visited the heads of government of these countries and expressed to them their desire to purchase warships in active service. However, to the great disappointment of the Spaniards, none of these 4 countries agreed!

At this time, Russia was sparing no effort to pursue the strategy of expansion in the Far East, and itself had a great demand for naval warships; Under these circumstances, it was impossible for them to give their already modest wealth to the Spaniards. Italy's attitude is similar. At that time, the Garibaldi-class armored cruisers of the gods were born, which caused a sensation in the entire Italian naval department (Britain, France, Russia and other powers ignored Italy gorgeously); Just as the Navy was preparing to receive the new type of ships with great expectations, the hungry wolves from abroad were also invited to the meeting, and they put forward the intention of purchasing the new type of cruisers. And the Italian government, seeing the money, actually sold all the most advanced warships that were still on the slipway! Italy's first batch of five Garibaldi-class cruisers were lying on the slipway to build, and before they could be launched, they were swept away by Argentina and Spain; Due to Italy's own limited industrial strength, it is the limit to build five 6,800-ton cruisers at once, and the consequence of this is that Italy itself began to build its own Garibaldi-class installation cruisers in 1898, a full four years later, which undoubtedly seriously slowed down the construction speed of the Italian Navy. Now the Italian Navy saw that the weasel who stole the chicken had come to greet him again, and bluntly expressed his refusal, saying that he would not sell any more warships in active service. Moreover, Italy's dream of dominating the Mediterranean Sea has always been in its mind, and now their navy lags behind the British and French detachments in the Mediterranean; Italy did not have enough of its own warships, so how could it sell its own ships in service to Spain?

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