Reina Blanca (English: Queen Blanche), sometimes referred to as Blanca (English: Blanche), was a screw frigate of the Spanish Navy commissioned in 1859. She took part in the Hispano–Moroccan War of 1859–1860, the multinational intervention in Mexico in 1861–1862, several actions during the Chincha Islands War of 1865–1866, and the Third Carlist War in 1874. After service as a training ship during the 1870s and 1880s, she was scrapped in 1893.
Reina Blanca was named for Blanche I of Navarre (1387–1441), who was queen regnant of the Kingdom of Navarre from 1425 to 1441. She also was Queen of Sicily from 1402 to 1409 and regent of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1404 to 1405 and from 1408 to 1415.
Construction and commissioning
Reina Blanca′s construction was authorized along with that of the screw frigates and by a royal order of either 8 AugustMinisterio de Fomento, 1853, p. 140. or 8 October 1853 (sources disagree). She was laid down at the in Ferrol, Spain, on either 16 October 1854González-Llanos. or 4 April 1855Lledó Calabuig. (sources disagree) as a wooden-hulled screw frigate with mixed sail and steam propulsion. She was launched on 19 February 1859, and after fitting out she was commissioned later in 1859. Her total construction cost was 3,082,909 pesetas.
Service history Early service Reina Blanca put to sea for the first time on 30 November 1859 and operated under the command of either Capitán de navío (Ship-of-the-line captain) Manuel SibilaBalaguer, p. 132. or Capitán de navío Don Tomás (sources disagree) as part of a Spanish squadron off Morocco during the Hispano–Moroccan War, taking part in blockade operations and shore bombardments.de Alarcón, p. 260.Ventosa, p. 931. After the war ended in 1860, the squadron disbanded, and Reina Blanca joined the escort of a convoy conveying a Spanish Army force under the command of Generale (General) Juan Prim to the naval base at Havana in the Captaincy General of Cuba. Subsequently operating in the Caribbean under the command of Capitán de fragata (Frigate captain) José Morgado e Iñel, she took part in a naval demonstration off Port-au-Prince, Haiti, by a squadron under the command of Joaquín Gutierrez de Rubalcava in 1861.
Reina Blanca next participated in a multinational intervention in Mexico to settle damage claims in 1861–1862, again as part of a squadron under Gutierrez de Rubalcava. The Spanish ships seized Veracruz on 14 December 1861 and French and British forces arrived in January 1862. Spanish and British forces withdrew from Mexico in 1862 when it became apparent that France intended to seize control of Mexico, and Reina Blanca returned to Cuba. She soon headed home to Spain, where she became a unit of the Training Squadron. When that squadron disbanded in mid-1862, she moved to Cádiz, embarked Generale Felipe Ribero y Lemoine, and returned to the Caribbean, disembarking Ribero at the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, where he took up his appointment as governor. She then continued on to Havana, which became her base.
Chincha Islands War Amid tensions between Spain and her former colonies Chile and Peru, Reina Blanca was reassigned to the Pacific Squadron in 1864. Getting underway from Havana under the command of Capitán de navío (Ship-of-the-Line Captain) Juan Bautista Topete, she moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where she and the screw frigate rendezvoused with the screw frigate . The three ships passed through the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific Ocean and reached Pisco, Peru, on 19 December 1864, then joined the Pacific Squadron in the Chincha Islands on 30 December 1864. Villa de Madrid became the flagship of the squadron's commander, Vicealmirante (Vice admiral) José Manuel Pareja, whose predecessor Luis Hernández-Pinzón Álvarez had seized the Chincha Islands from Peru in April 1864. On 27 January 1865 Pareja and a Peruvian government representative, Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco, signed the Preliminary Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Spain and Peru, known informally as the Vivanco–Pareja Treaty, aboard Villa de Madrid in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to settle claims between the two countries that instead sparked the outbreak of the Peruvian Civil War of 1865.
The political situation in the region further deteriorated during 1865 when Pareja steamed to Valparaíso, Chile, to settle Spanish claims. When Chile refused to settle, Pareja announced a blockade of Chilean ports, with Reina Blanca assigned to the blockade of Caldera. As a result of the blockade, the Chincha Islands War broke out between Spain and Chile on 24 September 1865. The blockade spread the Pacific Squadron thinly among the waters off Chilean ports, and early setbacks in the war culminated in a humiliating Spanish naval defeat in the Battle of Papudo on 26 November 1865 in which the Chilean Navy corvette captured the Spanish Navy schooner . News of the defeat prompted Pareja to commit suicide aboard Villa de Madrid off Valparaíso, shooting himself in his cabin on 28 November 1865 while lying on his bed wearing his dress uniform. He was buried at sea.Farcau, p. 17.
Arriving from Callao, Peru, the armoured frigate rendezvoused with Villa de Madrid and Berenguela at Caldera, Chile, on 12 December 1865. Learning of Pareja's death, Numancia′s commanding officer, Contralmirante (Counter admiral) Casto Méndez Núñez, took charge of the Pacific Squadron that day and transferred to Villa de Madrid. After meeting with the commanding officers of the squadron's ships, Méndez Núñez departed aboard Villa de Madrid bound for Coquimbo, Chile, where he rendezvoused with Reina Blanca. The two ships got underway on 18 December for Valparaíso, where the screw frigate Resolución and the screw corvette and joined them on 19 December 1865, thus concentrating the squadron there. A few days later, Méndez Núñez limited the blockade to Valparaíso and Caldera. After bringing aboard supplies from a newly arrived Spanish frigate, Méndez Núñez's squadron began operations to find and recapture Virgen de Covadonga. The squadron first searched the Juan Fernández Islands and then Puerto Inglés on Chiloé Island in the Chiloé Archipelago off Chile without finding her.
Peru and Ecuador joined the war on Chile's side in January 1866. In February 1866, Méndez Núñez sent Reina Blanca, still under Topete's command, and Villa de Madrid south to destroy the combined Chilean-Peruvian squadron. To save coal, the two frigates stopped at the Juan Fernández Islands to obtain supplies and information before beginning their search. The Spanish frigates found the allied squadron, composed of the Peruvian Navy frigate and corvettes América and Unión and the Chilean Navy schooner Covadonga, anchored and immobilized in an inlet on the Chilean coast in the Chiloé Archipelago at Abtao Island on 7 February 1866. In the resulting Battle of Abtao, the Spanish ships were reluctant to close with the allied squadron because of a fear of running aground in shallow water. Apurímac opened fire at 16:15, and an indecisive exchange of long-range gunfire ensued over the course of about 90 minutes in which the ships fired about 1,700 rounds and Covadonga — the captured Virgen de Covadonga, now commissioned into Chilean service and renamed – scored several hits on Reina Blanca. The Spanish frigates displayed good marksmanship but had little success and ultimately withdrew as darkness fell to avoid wasting ammunition. During the engagement, Villa de Madrid was hit seven times in her hull and four times in her masts and rigging, suffering four men wounded and three others accidentally injured; two of her guns burst at their muzzles, although this did not result in any additional damage or casualties. Reina Blanca was hit eight times in her hull and eight in her masts and rigging, suffering two men wounded.
Méndez Núñez decided to make a second attempt at destroying the allied squadron, this time with Reina Blanca and Numancia under his personal command. On 17 February 1866, the two ships left the waters off Valparaíso, where the Pacific Squadron had concentrated, and headed south to the Chiloé Archipelago, where they found that the allied ships had retreated into an inlet on the coast of Calbuco Island. Unable to close with the allied ships because of Numancia′s draft, Méndez Núñez ordered his ships to withdraw. The two Spanish ships anchored at Puerto Low on 27 February, at Puerto Oscuro on 1 March, and in the Gulf of Arauco on 9 March 1866. At some point during these operations – sources disagree on whether it was on 6 March or on the afternoon of 9 March — Reina Blanca captured the Chilean sidewheel paddle steamer Paquete de Maule, which was bound from Lota, Chile, to Montevideo carrying naval personnel assigned to join the crews of the Peruvian ironclad turret ship and broadside ironclad there;García Martínez p. 83. sources disagree on the number of personnel aboard, claiming both a total of 134 men and of eight officers and 140 enlisted men. Paquete de Maule had been flying the British flag when Reina Blanca stopped her, and the men aboard her tried to pass themselves off as neutral British civilians, but a suspicious Spanish officer tricked them by calling out an order to them which they obeyed with military discipline, revealing themselves as naval personnel, and the Spanish arrested them. On 10 March, Reina Blanca captured two Chilean barges carrying coal and gunpowder, both much needed by the Spanish squadron. Reina Blanca, Numancia, and their three prizes departed the Gulf of Arauco on 12 March to rejoin the rest of the Pacific Squadron off Valparaíso, Numancia and Paquete de Maule doing so on 14 March and Reina Blanca and the two barges arriving on 15 March. Chilean authorities offered to exchange Spanish civilians held in Chile for the men captured aboard Paquete de Maule, but Méndez Núñez turned the offer down. He hoped to exchange his captives for the Spaniards captured aboard Virgen de Covadonga, but the Chileans refused.
Bolivia joined the war against Spain on 22 March 1866, closing all the Pacific ports of South America south of Colombia to Spanish ships. Under orders to take punitive action against South American ports, Méndez Núñez selected undefended Valparaíso as his target,Scheina, page not specified. although he found the idea of attacking an undefended port repugnant. On the morning of 31 March 1866 his squadron arrived at Valparaíso. Numancia fired two shots to signal the rest of the squadron to open fire at 09:00, then withdrew to a rearward position and took no further part in the bombardment. Facing no opposition, Reina Blanca, Villa de Madrid, the screw frigate Resolución, and the screw corvette conducted a three-hour bombardment of Valparaíso while Berenguela and the sidewheel paddle steamer Paquete de Maule stood by offshore to guard against any attempt at escape by Chilean merchant ships. By the time it ended at 12:00, the bombardment had killed two people, injured 10, and sunk 33 merchant ships in the harbor, destroying Chile's merchant fleet.New York Times staff, 6 May 1866. It inflicted US$10 million (equivalent to about US$224 million in 2011) in damage.