# Spanish battleship Pelayo

Pelayo was a battleship of the Spanish Navy which served in the Spanish fleet from 1888 to 1925. She was the first battleship and the most powerful unit of the Spanish Navy at the time. Despite its modern design for the time, Pelayo and the rest of the Spanish Asia-Pacific Rescue Squadron never engaged in combat during the Spanish–American War. Some historians have argued that had the battleship, along with the modern armored cruiser Carlos V, participated directly in the conflict the course of the war would have been altered dramatically and possibly lead to a Spanish victory, thus retaining Spain's status as a colonial power.
As a capital ship of unique design and capabilities and the only Spanish battleship to enter service prior to the dreadnought España in 1914, Pelayo posed a problem for the Spanish Navy, which had difficulty finding a tactical role for her. In her early years, however, she played an important role in representing the Spanish Navy, and gained great popularity through her presence at important naval events. She supported Spanish operations during the First Melillan campaign in 1893–1894. During the Spanish-American War in 1898, she took part in an abortive sortie to the Philippines, but returned to Spain without seeing action in the war. She later fired her guns in anger for the first and only time during the Second Melillan campaign in 1909.
Pelayo was named for Pelagius of Asturias (ca. 685–737), a nobleman who founded the Kingdom of Asturias and is credited with initiating the Reconquista, the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, traditionally dated to have begun with the the Battle of Covadonga (c. 718 or 722).

## Technical characteristics

Pelayo was a barbette ship, 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 Marceau, modified to give her a draft that was 3 feet (0.9 m) shallower so that she could transit the Suez Canal at full-load displacement. She displaced 9,900 tons and was 105.60 metres (346 ft 5 in) in length, 20.20 metres (66 ft 3 in) in beam, 15.50 metres (50 ft 10 in) in depth, and 7.50 metres (24 ft 7 in) in draft. She had a crewed of 630 men.
Pelayo′s main guns could be loaded in any position, and consisted of two Gonzalez Hontoria-built 32-centimetre (12.6 in) Canet guns mounted fore and aft on the centerline and two Gonzalez Hontoria 28-centimetre (11 in) guns, also in barbettes, with one mounted on either beam. Her 16-centimetre (6.3 in) gun was a bow chaser. She also was armed with twelve 120-millimetre (4.7 in) guns, six on each side, three 57-millimetre Hotchkiss quick-firing guns, thirteen 37-millimetre revolvers, four machine guns, and seven 356-millimetre (14 in) torpedo tubes.
Pelayo had two funnels. Her propulsion system consisted of 12 boilers and two vertical compound steam engines driving two screws. On trials, she achieved 9,600 indicated horsepower (7,159 kW) under forced draft and reached 16.7 knots (30.9 km/h; 19.2 mph). She could carry 800 tons of coal. She originally was equipped with 4,000 square feet (372 m$^2$) 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 2.1 metres (6 ft 11 in) wide amidships and extended 0.6 metres (2 ft) above and almost 1.5 metres (5 ft) below the waterline; it ranged in thickness from 45.1 to 29.8 centimetres (17.75 to 11.75 in). Her barbettes had from 40.0 to 29.8 centimetres (15.75 to 11.75 in) of armor, while her gun shields had 7.94 centimetres (3.125 in), her conning tower 15.56 centimetres (6.125 in), and her deck 7.0 to 5.1 centimetres (2.75 to 2 in). 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 Infanta Maria Teresa-class armored cruisers. Pelayo was viewed as too slow and had too little steaming endurance for colonial service and battleship designers abandoned the barbette ship concept in the 1890s, and she ended up as the only member of her class.
Pelayo was the only battleship in the Spanish fleet until the entry into service of the dreadnought battleship España 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 Numancia and Vitoria, 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 16-and-12-centimetre (6.3 and 4.7 in) guns replaced by 14-centimetre (5.5 in) 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, which became Pelayo. During 1884, the Spanish government contacted several shipyards about constructing the ship. King Alfonso XII approved the construction on 23 June 1884, and on 28 June in Marseille, France, 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 Numancia and the unprotected cruisers Castilla and Isla de Luzón. She was delivered without her main guns.

## Operational history

Under the command of Capitán de navío (Ship-of-the-Line Captain) Pascual Cervera y Topete, a future Contralmirante (Counter Admiral) who had supervised her construction, Pelayo made her delivery voyage late in 1888. She recieved 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.
Pelayo spent her early years in Spanish waters, showing the flag in various naval reviews and exhibitions, notably in Greece in 1891, at Genoa, Italy, in 1892, and Kiel, Germany, in 1895.
She began a reconstruction at La Seyne in 1897, and was there when the Spanish–American War broke out in April 1898. She was rushed back into service with her old 16-and-12-centimetre (6.3 and 4.7 in) guns removed but her new 14-centimetre (5.5 in) guns not yet mounted, and entered service with the Reserve Squadron on 14 May 1898.
She remained in Spanish waters for a month to guard against United States Navy raids against the Spanish coast. She then was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral Manuel de Cámara, which was to steam to the Philippines and defeat the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Squadron, which had controlled Philippine waters since defeating the Spanish squadron of Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron in the Battle of Manila Bay.
Cámara's squadron—consisting of Pelayo, armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V, auxiliary cruisers Patriota and Rapido, destroyers Audaz, Osado, and Prosepina, and transports Buenos Aires and Panay—sortied from Cadiz on 16 June 1898, passing Gibraltar on 17 June 1898. It arrived at Port Said, Egypt, on 26 June 1898, and requested permission to transship coal, which the Egyptian government finally denied on 30 June 1898 out of concern for Egyptian neutrality. By the time Cámara's squadron arrived at Suez on 5 July 1898, the squadron of Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete had been annihilated in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, freeing up the U.S. Navy's heavy forces from the blockade of Santiago de Cuba. Fearful for the security of the Spanish coast, the Spanish Ministry of Marine recalled Cámara's squadron on 7 July 1898, and Pelayo returned to Spain, where Cámara's 2nd Squadron was dissolved on 25 July 1898. Pelayo spent the last month of the war in Spanish waters, and thus missed combat.
After the war, she resumed her duty of showing the flag, attending naval reviews in Toulon, France, in 1901 and in Lisbon, Portugal, and Vigo Bay, Spain, in 1904. But the Spanish Navy found it difficult to find a role for Pelayo, which had no similar ships with which to operate. There was thought of having her operate with Spain's new dreadnoughts España-class battleship when they began to commission during the World War I era, but by then she was too old and slow to be compatible with them. She thus earned the nickname Solitario, meaning "The Lonely One."
Pelayo fired her guns in anger only once, when she bombarded Moroccan insurgents in 1909 during the Second Rif War.
Pelayo underwent a major refit in 1910. In 1912, she was badly damaged in Fonduko Bay due to a navigational error. She was repaired, but thereafter served as a training ship, including service in 1920 and 1921 as a gunnery training ship in the Training Division. Pelayo was disarmed in 1923 and scrapped in 1925.