Infanta María Teresa was the lead ship of her class of armoured cruiser constructed for the Spanish Navy. The ship fought at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish–American War.
Construction and characteristics
Infanta María Teresa and her sister ships and were authorized in Spain's 1887 naval program. Inspired by the British armored cruisers, they were built to a design drawn up by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow, England. They had two funnels and were fast and well armed. Their main armament was mounted on the center line in single barbettes fore and aft. Their armor was poor: their guns had only lightly armored hoods, their guns were mounted in the open on the upper deck, their armor belt was thin and protected only two-thirds of their length, and they had a high, unprotected freeboard that took much damage during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba; one source suggests that despite their classification as armored cruisers, their lack of protection made them more akin to fast, heavily armed protected cruisers than to true armored cruisers. Like other 19th-century warships, they were heavily furnished and decorated with wood, which the Spanish failed to remove prior to combat and which fed fires during the battle.Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905, p. 382.
Infanta Maria Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, and Vizcaya were built by Sociedad Astilleros del Nervión ("Nervión Shipyards") at Sestao, Spain. Infanta Maria Teresa was laid down on 24 July 1889 and launched on 30 August 1890 in a ceremony presided over by Maria Christina, Queen Regent of Spain, and was completed in 1893.The Spanish–American War Centennial website: Infanta Maria Teresa. While she was fitting out, the shipyard began to experience increasing financial problems during 1891, and these brought the construction of all three cruisers to a standstill in April 1892, prompting the Spanish government to intervene and appoint Capitán de navío (Ship-of-the-line captain) Pascual Cervera y Topete to serve as director of the shipyard. It was decided to move the three incomplete ships to Ferrol to complete fitting-out. Infanta Maria Teresa departed Sestao at 14:00 on 1 September 1893 and arrived at Ferrol on the morning of 2 September 1893, maintaining a constant speed of during the voyage with six boilers lit. She conducted official speed trials off Galicia on 18 September 1893, during which she was expected to reach at natural draft and at forced draft. She was delivered to the Spanish Navy in 1893. The construction delays caused the cost of each cruiser, set at 15 million pesetas when they were ordered, to rise to about 20 million pesetas each by the time of their completion.
Operational history 1893–1898
Assigned to the Training Squadron, Infanta Maria Teresa served as the flagship of a representative squadron – which also included the battleship and the protected cruiser — under the overall command of Contraalmirante (Counter admiral) Fernando Martínez de Espinosa y Echeverri sent to represent Spain at the opening of the German Empire′s Kiel Canal, which linked the North Sea with the Baltic Sea.Engineering (1895), vol. 59, p. 727. The ships departed Cartagena, Spain, at the end of May 1895 and arrived in Germany in early June. During the ceremonies, Infanta Maria Teresa became the first Spanish ship to transit the new canal. In January 1896, when Contraalmirante (Counter Admiral) José Reguera y González Polo took command of the Training Squadron, it consisted of Pelayo, Almirante Oquendo, Infanta Maria Teresa, and Vizcaya.
To represent Spain at ceremonies in the United States recognizing what would have been the 75th birthday of the late President Ulysses S. Grant and celebrating the opening of Grant's Tomb in New York City, Infanta Maria Teresa got underway from Mahón on Menorca in the Balearic Islands on 3 April 1897 in company with the unprotected cruiser and proceeded to New York, which the two ships reached on the day of the tomb's dedication, 27 April 1897. After completing their participation in the planned events, the two cruisers departed New York on 11 May 1897. They arrived at Mahón at the end of June 1897 and rejoined their squadron.
During the first half of August 1897, Infanta Maria Teresa, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya, and the torpedo gunboat visited the Arsenal de Ferrol to have their bottoms cleaned and painted. After loading coal, they departed Ferrol in mid-August for duty with the Training Squadron, by then under the overall command of Contraalmirante (Counter Admiral) Segismundo Bermejo y Merelo, and proceeded to Cádiz, Spain, where the new armored cruiser joined them. The ships subsequently made a cruise along the coast of Galicia before arriving at Lisbon, Portugal, on 23 September 1897. They then headed for Cádiz, which they reached in October 1897. Bermejo then relinquished command of the Training Squadron to take office as Minister of the Navy.
On 30 October 1897, Pascual Cervera y Topete, now a contraalmirante (counter admiral) and former Minister of the Navy, took charge of the Training Squadron. On 27 November 1897, the squadron – composed of Vizcaya (serving as Cervera's flagship), Almirante Oquendo, Infanta María Teresa, and Cristóbal Colón — got underway from Cádiz and began maneuvers focused on crew training and gunnery practice during a voyage to Levante. Destructor and the destroyers and remained behind in Cádiz until their bottoms were cleaned, but later joined the squadron at Santa Pola, as did the torpedo boats , , and from Cartagena. Once all six of the smaller warships had rendezvoused with the cruisers, several exercises took place highlighting simulated night attacks against the other ships by the torpedo boats. The Ministry of the Navy recommended that Cervera keep the maneuvers to a minimum to "save fuel and projectiles," restricting the large-caliber guns of Cervera's cruisers to firing only two rounds each. Nonetheless, Cervera saw enough by the time the maneuvers ended on 22 December 1897 to conclude that his ships, and particularly their gunnery, were in a poor state of readiness for combat. After the maneuvers concluded, the Training Squadron anchored at Alicante on 23 December 1897, and a few days later it arrived at Cartagena.
On 26 January 1898 the Ministry of the Navy ordered Cervera to transfer his flag from Vizcaya to Infanta María Teresa and directed Vizcaya to make a goodwill visit to New York City in return for a goodwill visit the United States Navy armored cruiser , often referred to as a "battleship," had begun at Havana in the Captaincy General of Cuba the previous day. Vizcaya got underway from Cartagena hastily on 31 January. Almirante Oquendo also soon departed to visit Havana, and Cristóbal Colón, still lacking her main guns, left for Genoa, Italy, to have them installed, leaving Cervera with only Infanta Maria Teresa and the protected cruiser under his direct command.
Maine blew up and sank in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898; Spanish authorities concluded that Maine had suffered an accidental internal explosion, but the Americans claimed that a Spanish mine or torpedo had sunk Maine. With relations between Spain and the United States deteriorating rapidly, Cervera's squadron was redesignated the 1st Squadron, and its ships received orders to concentrate at São Vicente in Portugal's Cape Verde Islands. After plans to install her main guns were cancelled, Cristóbal Colón rendezvoused with Infanta Maria Teresa at Cádiz. The two armored cruisers departed Cádiz in company with three destroyers on 8 April 1898Nofi, pp. 58, 78. and reached São Vicente on 14 April. Infanta Maria Teresa experienced machinery problems and burned excessive amounts of coal during the voyage, and after arriving at São Vicente her crew discovered that her guns had defective breech mechanisms and had been supplied with defective ammunition.Nofi, p. 78. As more ships, including Almirante Oquendo and Vizcaya, arrived over the next few days, the squadron found that it had a shortage of stokers.
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War broke out while Infanta María Teresa was at São Vicente when the United States declared war on Spain on 25 April 1898, stipulating that its declaration was retroactive to 21 April. Ordered by neutral Portugal in accordance with international law to leave São Vicente within 24 hours of the declaration of war, Infanta María Teresa and the rest of Cervera's squadron departed on 29 April 1898, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico. The squadron reached French-owned Martinique in the Lesser Antilles on 10 May 1898. While the large ships loitered in international waters, two of the Spanish destroyers went into Fort-de-France to ask for coal. France was neutral and would not supply coal, so the Spanish squadron departed on 12 May 1898 for the Netherlands-owned Curaçao, where Cervera expected to meet a collier. Cervera arrived at Willemstad on 14 May, but the Netherlands also was neutral, and strictly enforced its neutrality by allowing only Infanta María Teresa and her sister ship to enter port and permitting them to load only 600 tons of coal. Cervera's ships departed on 15 May, no longer bound for San Juan, which by now was under a United States Navy blockade, but for as-yet unblockaded Santiago de Cuba on the southeastern coast of Cuba, arriving there on 19 May 1898. Cervera hoped to refit his ships there before he could be trapped. His squadron was still in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba when the U.S. Navy's Flying Squadron arrived on 27 May 1898 and began a blockade – reinforced by the arrival of the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Squadron on 1 June— which would drag on for 37 days.Nofi describes Cervera's voyage, pp. 80, 83–86.
The blockade wore on, with Infanta María Teresa and the others enduring occasional American naval bombardments of the harbor.Nofi, p. 163, claims that Infanta María Teresa suffered 35 hits and the death of her executive officer during an American bomdardment on 6 June 1898, but Cervera's papers, p. 101, and The Spanish–American War Centennial Website: Reina Mercedes both ascribe this damage and the death to . Infanta María Teresa′s crew determined that 80 percent of the ammunition for her guns was defective.Nofi, p. 169. Some of her crewmen joined others from the fleet in a Naval Brigade to fight against a United States Army overland drive toward Santiago de Cuba.Nofi, pp. 146, 172.
By the beginning of July 1898, the U.S. thrust threatened to capture Santiago de Cuba, and Cervera decided that his squadron's only hope was to escape into the open sea by running the blockade. The decision was made on 1 July 1898, with the break-out set for 3 July 1898. The crew of Infanta María Teresa spent 2 July 1898 returning from Naval Brigade service ashore and preparing for action. With Vice Admiral Cervera aboard, Infanta María Teresa was to lead the escape, sacrificing herself by attacking the fastest American ship, the armored cruiser , in the hope that this would allow the rest of the squadron to avoid action and run westward for the open sea.Nofi discusses Cevera's plan, on pp. 172–173.