The Huascar’s next exploit was in 1879, when she fought the Almirante Cochrane and the Blanco Encalada. The Huascar opened fire at 3,000 yards range but inflicted no injury. The Cochrane steamed in and replied at 700 yards with a broadside which made the ironclad shiver from stem to stern, for every shot struck. The Huascar was no match for either of these vessels and certainly not for them both, but she fought on with a grim determination which has made this engagement one of the most memorable on record, and has caused more than one historian to compare it to the famous fight of Sir Richard Grenville’s little Revenge, when that intrepid adventurer tackled a Spanish fleet numbering fifty-three vessels, and did not surrender until he himself and nearly all his crew were wounded, and most of the others killed, and his ship was like to sink under him.
The punishment the Huascar received in this engagement was extraordinary. No fewer than twenty-seven of the heaviest projectiles fired by her opponents struck her, thirteen of the blows being severe. Two of the large shells went through her turret armour and exploded. Three others struck her conning tower. Her ’tween decks was turned into a shambles, and almost wrecked by the explosion of five heavy shells. Three times was she hit severely in the stern. The battle was fought at close range and the force of the blows inflicted must have been tremendous. Under the rain of shot and shell the wonder is that the Huascar remained afloat. Had the Chilian shooting been better it is doubtful if she could have survived. The Almirante Cochrane fired forty-five 9-inch Palliser shells, and twelve 20-pounder shells, besides a great number of smaller projectiles; and the Blanco Encalada delivered thirty-one heavy shells. The Huascar fired about forty shells, but could do little damage to her formidable antagonists. The Cochrane was hit three times, but did not sustain much injury, and the Blanco Encalada escaped practically unhurt. After her surrender, the Huascar was patched up by the Chilians, and when she was fit to go to sea again and look for more fighting she flew the Chilian flag. Under her new owners she captured a small gunboat and participated in the blockade of Callao. She was on the effective list of the Chilian navy up to a year or two ago, and is now passing to the scrap-heap by slow and dignified stages.
In the fighting off Valparaiso in April, 1891, during the Chilian Revolution, the Blanco Encalada stopped a tug called the Mary Florence and a torpedo boat from leaving the harbour, and the two latter, which were Government vessels, were so hotly fired upon that they were glad to return. A heavy shot from the Blanco Encalada struck the Mary Florence and blew her out of the water, killing the seventeen men who constituted her crew. The torpedo boat held on, but the other insurgent vessel, the O’Higgins, knocked her into pieces with a well-directed broadside, and her crew shared the fate of that of the Mary Florence. The Blanco Encalada and O’Higgins then turned their attention to the forts, and a lively battle followed. Although it was dark some good shooting seems to have been made, for the forts at last had the range of the O’Higgins, and a heavy shell struck one of the guns on her quarter-deck. The explosion shook her from end to end, and when the smoke cleared away it was found that her deck was almost torn to pieces and the gun itself was lying on the other side of the deck, while nine of the gun’s crew of twelve were either killed or blown into the water and drowned. The O’Higgins was immediately taken out of range, but the Blanco Encalada kept up the fight for a time without being any the worse and then retired to look after her consort.
After they had gone, the rebel man-of-war Esmeralda, which must not be confounded with the wooden vessel of that name, opened fire on the town while the inhabitants for and against the Government were having a pitched battle in the streets. The Government forces got the worst of the fight, and the Esmeralda took in a supply of coal and provisions, and steamed away to join other insurgent vessels.
This Esmeralda was designed and built by Armstrong, at Newcastle, in 1884, for the Chilian Government, and is of more than ordinary interest, as she was the first example of the modern protected cruiser class. She was framed on the ordinary transverse system, and had three decks; the upper, or gun deck, was 11 feet above water, the main deck about 5 feet, and the lower, or arched protective deck, which was of 1-inch steel and extended from stem to stern, was at the middle 1 foot below water-level, and at the side 5 feet. It protected the engines, boilers, magazines, and all the vital parts. Minute sub-divisions of the hold space below the protective deck and of the space between it and the main deck were effected by means of transverse and longitudinal bulkheads and of horizontal flats or platforms; cork was also packed in the cellular spaces to ensure sufficient buoyancy and trim in case the water-line region should be riddled. Her twin screws were driven by two independent sets of 2-stage expansion engines, developing 6,500 h.p., which gave her a speed of 18.25 knots. She had four double-ended boilers, 13 feet diameter and 18½ feet long, working at 90 lb. pressure, each with six furnaces supplied with forced draught. Her bunker capacity was 600 tons, sufficient for eight thousand knots at a speed of eight knots, or six thousand knots at ten knots. Her armament was two 25-ton 10-inch breechloading rifle guns, protected by steel screens, and having a training arc of 120 degrees on either side of the keel; six 4-ton 6-inch breechloading rifle guns; two 6-pounder quick-firers, and a number of machine guns, as well as three torpedo tubes. Her two military masts had a Gardner gun in each. Her displacement was 3,000 tons, her length 270 feet, her breadth 42 feet, and her draught of water 18.5 feet.
On the morning of May 23rd, before daylight, the search-light of the Government torpedo gunboat Almirante Condell revealed in the distance the presence of the Blanco Encalada. The torpedo gunboat had the Almirante Lynch as companion, and the pair lost no time in attacking the ironclad, which was at anchor with banked fires, as part of her machinery was ashore undergoing repairs. The Condell opened the ball with her torpedo, which missed, and followed it with discharges from her Hotchkiss gun. The Lynch also brought her Hotchkiss gun into play, and as both vessels were firing end-on, they presented a very small target to the ironclad, upon which, however, they could make little impression. The Blanco Encalada answered the fire, but ineffectively. The torpedo boats, attacking her from different sides, discharged five more torpedoes, which missed, and though the ironclad was firing carefully, the steel armour of the smaller vessels turned aside her shot and shell. At last a shell from the ironclad dropped on the Condell, doing a great deal of damage. The Lynch’s Hotchkiss gun played havoc with everything and everybody on the Blanco Encalada’s deck and above it.
“The officers of the Lynch now determined to make a supreme effort. Her flag was run up to the peak, and her Hotchkiss gun became silent. She worked round until she was bow on to the starboard side of the Encalada, and then there was a swish from the tube of the Lynch’s ram. The Encalada got her search-lights on the approaching missile, as she had on the other four, her gunners poured a leaden rain on to it for the purpose of sinking it. This, time, however, the aim of the torpedo was true, and the storm of shot from the Encalada failed to destroy it. The steel torpedo net also failed to avert the messenger of destruction, so sudden and unexpected was the attack. The torpedo struck the Encalada just abaft the foremast, and a deafening explosion followed. A huge hole yawned in her starboard side, extending below the water-line, and the ironclad quickly filled. Terror reigned on board the doomed ironclad, and the men scrambled into the boats hanging upon the rear davits, which were the only ones which had not been destroyed by the fire of the guns. Both the Condell and the Lynch now opened fire from the Hotchkiss guns, and scores of men were killed while attempting to escape. Many of the sailors sprang into the water, only to meet death by drowning, or being eaten by sharks, with which the bay abounds. The ironclad quickly settled and, with a sudden lurch, went down in less than three minutes, with her officers and crew. Out of two hundred men, only twelve escaped.”[47]
The naval proceedings in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1 remind one somewhat of Sir Richard Strachan and the Earl of Chatham, each of whom, according to the well-known verse, had his sword drawn and waited for the other. In the Franco-Prussian conflict, however, there was a hostile meeting at sea, although on a small scale. The only naval action in this war was that between the French gunboat Bouvet, carrying one 16-centimètre gun and four 12-centimètre guns, with a complement of eighty-five officers and men, and the German gunboat Meteor, with one 15-centimètre gun and two 12-centimètre guns, and having sixty-four officers and sailors. They met at Havana, and left the harbour for the open sea at the prescribed interval. When outside territorial limits they exchanged cannonades for two hours at 1,200 yards range, with little harm to either. Then the Frenchman decided to ram, but the Meteor moved and only received a glancing blow which did little damage to her hull but brought down her main- and mizen-masts. The Bouvet was going to ram again, when the Meteor gave her a solid shot in her boiler. There was no further fighting, for the Spanish ship which had steamed out from Havana to prevent a violation of neutrality, informed them that they were now in Spanish waters and that the engagement must stop.
The Turkish fleet at the beginning of the war with Russia in 1876-7 was superior to that of Russia in every respect save efficiency. The Russian Black Sea fleet, owing to diplomatic restrictions, was of very little use. The only effective naval work performed by the Russians in this war was with torpedo boats brought overland by rail from the Baltic, which were supported by merchant steamers acquired for the purpose. The Turks had some splendid vessels which should have given a good account of themselves, and had they performed the duties expected of them and of which they were quite capable, and had they been properly handled, the history of that war would have been very different. When the Turks lost command of the sea they also lost the war. One of their finest vessels was the Messoudiye, a sister ship to the British Superb, which had also been built for the Turkish Government, but was bought by England. Both were of 9,100 tons displacement, and had engines giving them a speed of thirteen and a half knots on 1,200 h.p. They had 12-inch armour with a 10-inch backing, and carried sixteen 10-inch guns. The Turks also had four vessels of over 6,000 tons displacement, the Azazieh, Mahmoudieh, Orkanieh, and Osmanieh; the Assar-i-Tewfik, of 4,000 tons, each having fifteen 6½-ton guns and one 12-ton gun; and several smaller vessels. These were all broadside or central battery ships. There were also a couple of monitors with turrets, and some armoured gunboats, among which were the Avni-Illah, of 2,314 tons displacement, a more powerful version of the Greek King George. Some of the ships had officers trained in the English Navy, and there were also a few English officers serving with the Turkish fleet. The vessels on which these officers were engaged were managed as warships should be, but those which were left to the tender mercies of the Turkish officers were sadly neglected, and discipline on board was conspicuous by its absence. This was one reason why the Russians were successful so frequently in their surprise attacks. Then, when they were disagreeably aroused to the presence of the enemy the Turks usually distinguished themselves by shooting very wildly and widely, and before they knew what they were about the Russians had dashed in and torpedoed the Turkish ship. In spite of the preponderance of Turkish ships, they only came to close quarters once with a Russian ship, and that was a converted merchantman. It is probably a good thing for the Turks that the Russian naval force was so weak, for had it been stronger the Russians would not have hesitated to attack the Turks, and when the attack was over there would probably have been a repetition of the story of the Battle of Sinope and the destruction of the Ottoman fleet which preceded the Crimean War. The ships under English officers would have given a good account of themselves, especially with such men as Hobart Pacha in command; as it was, the English did their best, but their efforts were negatived by the incompetence and indifference of their Turkish colleagues.
The Turkish warships on the Danube began the roll of Ottoman naval disasters in this war, the first to be lost being the Lutfi Djelil, launched at Bordeaux in 1868. She was engaged with a Russian battery at Braila, during the attack on the Turkish squadron, and the engagement was proceeding fiercely when a shell struck the vessel and blew her up. As torpedoes and mines were also being employed by the Russians her destruction has sometimes been ascribed to one of these.