Pelayo was a battleship of the Spanish Navy. Named after Pelagius of Asturias, Pelayo was launched in 1887 and became the most powerful Spanish warship when she was commissioned in 1888. Pelayo was Spain's first battleship and the only pre-dreadnought battleship the Spanish navy ever commissioned. As a capital ship with a unique design and capabilities, Spanish naval authorities struggled to situate her in the navy, though Pelayo soon became popular among the Spanish public for representing Spain at several major naval and international events.
The battleship supported Spanish troops during the first Melillan campaign from 1893 to 1894, though she did not fire her guns in anger. Following the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898 Pelayo was part of Cámara's Flying Relief Column, an abortive sortie to the Spanish Philippines under Counter-admiral Manuel de la Cámara, but returned to Spain without engaging American forces. During the war she was also part of an ultimately cancelled operation to bombard the East Coast of the United States, causing panic among the American public.
Pelayo participated in the second Melillan campaign in 1909, where she finally fired her guns in anger for the first time, and subsequently participated in the Kert campaign from 1911 to 1912 along with bombarding the coast of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco in 1913. The Spanish Navy commissioned the dreadnought battleship in 1914, though both ships saw no combat in World War I as Spain renamed neutral in the conflict. By the 1920s Pelayo had become severely outdated and she was disarmed in 1923, decommissioned in 1924 and broken up in 1926.
Technical characteristics
Pelayo was a barbette ship,Conway's 1860–1905, p. 381. an ancestor of the modern battleship with the main battery mounted in open barbettes on armored rotating platforms, in contrast to heavy self-contained gun turrets. Her design was based on that of the French barbette ship , modified to give her a draft that was shallower so that she could transit the Suez Canal at full-load displacement. She displaced 9,900 tons and was in length, in beam, in depth, and in draft. She had a crew of 630 men.
Pelayo′s main guns could be loaded in any position, and consisted of two Gonzalez Hontoria-built Canet guns mounted fore and aft on the centerline and two Gonzalez Hontoria guns, also in barbettes, with one mounted on either beam.Conway's 1860–1905, p. 382. Her lone gun was a bow chaser. She also was armed with twelve guns, six on each side, three 57-millimetre Hotchkiss quick-firing guns, thirteen 37-millimetre revolvers, four machine guns, and seven torpedo tubes.
The ship had two funnels. Her propulsion system consisted of 12 boilers and two vertical compound steam engines driving two screws. On trials, she achieved under forced draft and reached . She could carry 800 tons of coal. She originally was equipped with of sails, but they were deleted soon after her completion and her rigging was replaced by two military masts.
Pelayo had Creusot steel armor. Her belt armor was wide amidships and extended above and almost below the waterline; it ranged in thickness from . Her barbettes had from of armor, while her gun shields had , her conning tower , and her deck . Internally, she had French-style cellular construction with 13 watertight bulkheads and a double bottom.
Pelayo was originally intended to be the first of a new class of battleships, but a crisis with the German Empire in the Caroline Islands in 1890 led to the cancellation of these plans and the diversion of funds to the construction of the armored cruisers. Pelayo was viewed as too slow and having too little steaming endurance for colonial service;The Spanish–American War Centennial Website: Pelayo moreover, battleship designers abandoned the barbette ship concept in the 1890s, and she ended up as the only member of her class.
The ship was the only battleship in the Spanish fleet until the entry into service of the dreadnought battleship in 1914, and her unique design and capabilities made it difficult for the Spanish Navy to plan for her tactical employment, as she had no capital ships of similar capabilities with which to operate. During her operational life, the Spanish Navy made plans to organize a division made up of Pelayo and the old armored frigates and , but the armored frigates were old and in poor condition, and the plans were dropped. After Spain began to commission her first dreadnoughts in 1914, the Spanish Navy planned to organize a division around Pelayo, but by then Pelayo herself was too old and in too poor of a condition, and these plans also were scrapped. As a result of her unique design and the difficulty of operating her with other ships, the Spanish Navy nicknamed her "Solitario", meaning "The Individualist," "The Solitary One," or "The Lonely One."
Pelayo was reconstructed at La Seyne-sur-Mer in 1897–1898, receiving armor for her midships battery and having her guns replaced by pieces, one mounted as a bow chaser and the rest on the broadside. However, the installation of these new guns was disrupted and delayed when she was rushed back into service after the Spanish–American War began. During a major refit in 1910, her torpedo tubes were removed.
Construction and commissioning
In 1884 the Spanish Minister of the Navy, Contralmirante (Counter Admiral) Juan Bautista Antequera y Bobadilla, submitted a proposal for the construction of several battleships to the Cortes Generales, which authorized the construction of only one of them, the future Pelayo. During 1884, the Spanish government contacted several shipyards about constructing the ship. King Alfonso XII approved the construction on 23 June 1884, and in Marseille, France, on 28 June the Spanish government signed a contract for her construction with the French shipyard Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranée. The order for her construction was placed on 12 November 1884, and her keel was laid at La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, in either April 1885 or February 1886, according to different sources.
Pelayo was launched on 5 February 1887 with Minister of the Navy Rafael Rodríguez de Arias Villavicencio, the Bishop of Toulon, and the Spanish Navy screw frigate Blanca in attendance. She was completed on 3 June 1888 and handed over to the Spanish Navy at Toulon, France, on 8 September 1888 in the presence of the Spanish Navy's Training Squadron, made up of the armoured frigate and the unprotected cruisers and . She entered service without her main guns.
Operational history 1888–1898
Under the command of Ship-of-the-Line Captain Pascual Cervera y Topete, who had supervised her construction, Pelayo made her delivery voyage late in 1888. She received her battle ensign, donated by Asturias and embroidered in Gijón. She returned to Toulon in January 1889 for modifications and improvements. After their completion, she returned to Spain in September 1889 and was assigned to the Training Squadron.
In September 1889, clashes occurred between Spanish forces and Moroccans over attacks on and the capture of a number of warships and merchant ships in Moroccan waters. The Training Squadron departed Cádiz and proceeded to Al Hoceima on the coast of Morocco on 23 September 1889, joining Isla de Luzón and the screw frigate there. The Training Squadron′s commander, Contralmirante (Counter Admiral) Carranza, considered making Pelayo his flagship, but Pelayo′s commanding officer, Cervera, opposed it because he viewed Pelayo as unworthy of the role because she still lacked her main guns, so Carranza instead hoisted his flag aboard Gerona. The unprotected cruiser arrived at Al Hoceima from Tangier with emissaries from Sultan Hassan I of Morocco to negotiate the release of prisoners from the captured fishing vessel Miguel y Teresa.
In December 1889, Pelayo encountered a severe storm in the Gulf of Lion which forced her to remain off Marseille without entering port. She finally put in at Mahón on Menorca in the Balearic Islands with minor damage. In April 1890, she returned to Toulon to have her main guns installed. The President of France, Sadi Carnot, visited her on 19 April 1890 during her stay in Toulon.
In the spring of 1891, Pelayo was part of a Spanish Navy squadron which also included Isla de Luzón, the protected cruiser , and the torpedo gunboat that visited Piraeus, Greece, and received a visit there from King George I and Queen Olga of Greece. On 1 August 1891 the Spanish Minister of the Navy, José María Beránger Ruiz de Apodaca, visited Pelayo at Ferrol. On 12 August 1891, Pelayo and other Spanish warships docked at San Sebastián, the summer resort of Spanish monarchs, where she received a visit by Queen Regent Maria Christina. Pelayo returned to Ferrol on 20 August 1891.
In 1892, Pelayo participated in events commemorating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus′s discovery of the Americas, beginning with a visit to Genoa, Italy, on 4 September 1892 as part of a Spanish squadron that also included Reina Regente, the unprotected cruiser , the armored frigate , and the torpedo gunboat . She was at Huelva, Spain, for the next event, in which Maria Christina and her son, King Alfonso XIII, boarded the unprotected cruiser at Cádiz on 10 October 1892 and, after arriving at Huelva, inspected a Spanish Navy squadron that positioned itself in two parallel lines, with Reina Regente and Vitoria among the ships to port of Conde de Venadito and Pelayo and Alfonso XII among those to starboard of her. After the inspection, the fleet proceeded to Cádiz.
In late August 1893, Pelayo joined Alfonso XII, Reina Regente, the unprotected cruiser , and the torpedo boats , , and in conducting simulated torpedo-firing maneuvers off Santa Pola. More maneuvers began when the Training Squadron departed Cartagena on 15 October and anchored at Santa Pola on 16 October. Subsequently, the ships simulated a battle off Alicante, in which a division made up of Pelayo, Isla de Cuba, Barceló, Rigel, the unprotected cruiser , and the torpedo boat opposed a division composed of Alfonso XII, Reina Regente, Destructor, and Habana and the torpedo boat , later joined by Conde de Venadito. The maneuvers, which also included other combat actions, an amphibious landing, and a final naval review, were scheduled to conclude on 22 October 1893. However, in September 1893, Riffians in Morocco began attacks on Spanish positions near the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the coast of North Africa, beginning the first Melillan campaign. The Training Squadron interrupted its maneuvers to proceed to the North African coast and intervene. Several more warships reinforced the squadron in late November 1893, when the squadron's operations concluded with the arrival at Melilla of troops under General Arsenio Martínez Campos.
In 1895, Pelayo, the armored cruiser , and the unprotected cruiser represented Spain at the inauguration of the Kiel Canal, which connected the North Sea with the Baltic Sea. Squadrons of several other countries also assembled at Kiel in the German Empire for the ceremonies, which took place on . After returning from Germany, Pelayo, Alfonso XII, Marqués de la Ensenada, and the armored cruiser arrived at Tangier on 12 July 1895 to place pressure on Sultan Abdelaziz to put an end to unrest in Morocco. Once the situation in Morocco had calmed, the ships returned to Spain, arriving at Algeciras on 17 August 1895.