page_title: Portuguese Navy
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Portuguese Navy / History / World War I
caption_attribution_description: Português: Couraçado Vasco da Gama. Scan de imagem do Livro "História de Portugal" Vol VIII, edição de Quidnovi. English: Vasco da Gama battleship (1876 - 1936) of the Portuguese Navy. Scan from a printed picture from Book "História de Portugal" vol. VIII, Quidnovi edition.
context_page_description: The Portuguese Navy is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Portuguese military, is charged with the military defense of Portugal.
  On 12 December 2017, the Portuguese Navy commemorated the 700th anniversary of its official creation by King Denis of Portugal. Tracing its origins back to the 12th century, it is the oldest continuously serving navy in the world.
  The Navy played a key role at the beginning and during the great voyages of the Age of Discoveries in the 15th and 16th centuries. The resulting of this technical and scientific discoveries led Portugal to develop advanced ships, including the caravel, new and more sophisticated types of carracks for interoceanic travel and the oceanic galleon, and to find the sea route to the East and routes to South America and Northern North America.
  Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa and Vasco da Gama reached India, linking Europe and Asia for the first time by ocean route, as well as the Atlantic and the Indian oceans.
context_section_description: The conflict between Portugal and Germany started still before the formal declaration of war between the two countries, when several military clashes occurred in the borders between Angola and German West Africa and between Mozambique and German East Africa, in the middle of 1914. In August 1914, a German surprise attack against the isolated border post of Mazúia in the Rovuma riverbank in Northern Mozambique, resulted in the massacre of the small garrison, including its commander, the Navy sergeant Eduardo Rodrigues da Costa, who become the first Portuguese killed in action during the World War I. Another of these surprise attacks occurred against the post of Cuangar in southern Angola in October, also resulting in the massacre of most of the Portuguese garrison, machine-gunned by the attacking German forces. As part of the Portuguese military reinforcements sent to respond to the German aggressions, a naval infantry expeditionary battalion is sent to Angola in November 1914, participating in the South-West Africa Campaign land fighting, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Afonso Cerqueira.
  On 23 February 1916, in an operation led by Commander Leote do Rego from the cruiser Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese Navy captures 38 German ships anchored in the Lisbon harbor. Other ships are captured in the Portuguese harbors of Mainland Portugal (Porto and Setubal), the Azores (Horta and Ponta Delgada), Madeira (Funchal), Cape Verde (São Vicente), Angola (Luanda), Mozambique (Mozambique Island, Beira and Lourenço Marques) and Portuguese India (Mormugão), in a total of 72 German and Austro-Hungarian vessels. This is followed by the German declaration of war to Portugal on 9 March, marking the formal Portuguese entrance in World War I.
  In the beginning of the World War I, the Portuguese fleet included five cruisers, one aviso (sloop-of-war), one destroyer, one submarine, 12 gunships, seven river gunboats, four torpedo boats, two training ships and other seven armed vessels. During the war, two additional destroyers, three submarines and three gunships would be received. A number of liners, cargo ships, trawlers and tugs would be mobilized and fitted for naval service, these including three auxiliary cruisers, one hospital ship, four transport ships and more than 20 naval trawlers (patrol boats and minehunters). The Portuguese Naval Aviation as well as its Lisbon Naval Air Station would be created in 1917, receiving more than 25 seaplanes during the wartime.
  From February 1916, the Portuguese naval forces operating in Mozambique included the cruiser Adamastor and the gunship Chaimite, besides several river gunboats and other small vessels of the Zambezi Flotilla. During May 1916, Adamastor and Chaimite led an operation against the German forces in the mouth of the Rovuma River, bombarding the enemy positions and launching landing parties that took the German fortifications of the Namaca island. An amphibious assault against the northern bank of the river was however repulsed by well entrenched German forces, with intense machine-gun fire that caused a high number of casualties in the Portuguese landing parties. The northern bank of the Rovuma would finally be occupied by the Portuguese forces three months later. 
  The cruiser São Gabriel was also sent to Mozambique in April 1918, incidentally detecting and engaging a U-boat, while en route. When it was anchored in Cape Town, South Africa, São Gabriel was requested to collaborate in the security of the city, that was under the threat of an uprising and only guarded by 50 police officers, disembarking 116 of the members of its crew, that assumed the defense of the port for four days, until the return of the British naval forces that had left for the sea.
  One of the main roles of the Portuguese Navy was to defend the ports of Mainland Portugal and of the Portuguese North Atlantic isles (the Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde), specially against naval mines and U-boat attacks. The main effort was made on the defense of the Lisbon harbor, the principal Portuguese seaport and naval base, w
caption: NRP Vasco da Gama, in the early 20th century
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