[Ennath]

April 23, 1891
Sinking the Blanco Encalada

In 1891, after a series of struggles about multinational nitrate interests, Chilean President José Manuel Balmaceda refused to sign the national budget passed by Congress and then dissolved Congress. The dissolution split both the Chilean Army and Navy, with some forces remaining loyal to Congress and others to the President. An armed conflict ensued after a mutiny by the navy, which at that time was docked at Valparaíso.

Supporters of those forces loyal to Congress, including members of the dissolved assembly and their backers among nitrate interests, bought weaponry from Europe and the United States. Better equipped than the forces loyal to the President, they rapidly captured Chile’s northern provinces, which had recently been conquered from Bolivia and Peru during the War of the Pacific, and which contained the valuable nitrates.

Since the Congressionalists controlled all of the current ships in the Chilean Navy, the Balmacedists commandeered vessels nearing completion in England and France, including the torpedo gunboats Almirante Condell and Almirante Lynch. These were built by Laird Brothers, the same firm that built the Confederate raider Alabama30 years before. Both carried an armament of five Whitehead torpedoes, two 14-pounder guns in echelon on the forecastle and one on the poop, four 3-pounders and two machine guns. Their maximum speed was around 21 knots.

The 2 ships arrived at Valparaíso on March 21 and docked at Quintero Bay on April 18. While at Quintero, their commanding officers, Cmdr. Carlos Moraga of Almirante Condell and Cmdr. Juan Fuentes of Almirante Lynch, were informed of the possibility that Blanco Encalada, a Congressionalist ironclad, was going to be in Caldera Bay in 5 days. The two commanders consulted and sent their proposal to attack Blanco Encalada to the Balmacedist government, which was approved.

Blanco Encalada was a central battery ironclad, its main guns in sidemounted casemates and able to fire either broadside or forward/aft. She displaced 3540 tons and made 14 knots. Her main battery comprised six 9” muzzle-loading rifles, plus a 20-pounder, 9-pounder and 6-pounder. Her belt armor was up to 9” thick. Completed in 1875, she had participated in the War of the Pacific as the Chilean Navy’s flagship.

Blanco Encalada arrived at Caldera Bay on April 22, under the command of Captain Luis Goñi, escorting several transports. The troops on these ships landed and captured the surrounding railroad and town of Copiapo. At about 0120 on the 23rd, Goñi returned to the ship. Although it was known that Balmacedist torpedo boats were nearby, the Congressionalists believed that they would not attack the transports. Because of this, torpedo nets were left onshore, and watertight bulkheads were left open.

At 0400, Almirante Condell set out toward Caldera Bay, with Almirante Lynch 20 yards behind her. The armed steamer Imperial traveled with the torpedo boats, taking up a position to the left of both boats. It was to wait some distance off Caldera, in order to escort the ships back home when the attack ended. Both torpedo boats entered Caldera at roughly 1530. When they were 500 yards from Blanco Encalada, both boats came under fire by rapid-fire guns on board the ironclad, which only had 7 men stationed as guards. About 100 yards from Blanco Encalada, Almirante Condell fired her bow torpedo. It missed and landed on shore, unexploded. Moraga then turned his torpedo boat into the direct fire of the ironclad and fired both his starboard torpedoes. The front torpedo hit, but failed to explode, and the rear torpedo passed clear under the target.

As all of Blanco Encalada’s guns were occupied by Almirante Condell, the crew did not notice Almirante Lynch approaching from the opposite direction. From 50 yards out, Almirante Lynch fired her bow torpedo, which missed, and then her forward starboard torpedo after executing a turning maneuver like Almirante Condell had done. The second torpedo struck Blanco Encalada, creating a hole roughly 7 by 15 feet The ship sank within minutes, taking 182 men with it. Several of the men who escaped, including Captain Goñi, did so by clinging to animals in Blanco Encalada’s cargo hold, including a llama and a cow.

As she was sinking, the torpedo boats fired their 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns at the survivors, killing about 40. The torpedo boats also fired at the transport Biobio, which had been trying to rescue the surviving crew. The entire engagement lasted 9 minutes, and Blanco Encalada sank 2 minutes after the torpedo hit. As Lynch and Condell left the harbor, they spotted the transport Aconcagua, which they attacked with their 14-pounder guns (after ruling out their Gatlings due to their potential for overkill). The Aconcagua surrendered after an hour and a half battle, but the torpedo boats were unable to seize her due to an approaching ship which they thought was the cruiser Esmeralda. It turned out to be the neutral HMS Warspite. Almirante Lynch was slightly damaged in the battle, suffering hits to her steam-pipe and flooding in her aft compartment, but besides that, the 2 torpedo gunboats were undamaged.

The sinking of Blanco Encalada was followed by an attack by the torpedo craft on her sister ship, Almirante Cochrane, at that time moored at Iquique. Almirante Cochrane retreated before any torpedoes were fired. On August 28, the Balmacedist army was defeated at the Battle of La Placilla, and 3 days later Congressional forces marched into Santiago, effectively ending the Chilean Civil War. Blanco Encalada underwent some re-floating attempts after the war, which were ultimately unsuccessful, and she was left in Caldera Bay until being demolished in 1954 when a new bridge was under construction.

The battle had a wider impact on naval weapons development as Blanco Encalada was the first armored warship sunk by a self-propelled torpedo. News of the attack spread and navies of several major powers realized the potential of torpedoes as a cheap counter to expensive pre-dreadnoughts, which led to the acceleration of torpedo boat (and eventually submarine) production, the addition of torpedo nets to ships for use when they were moored in port, and the addition of torpedo tubes to surface ships.