The war machine that could have tipped the global balance and brought down the U.S.
U.S. Admiral George Dewey said after destroying the Spanish Navy in 1898: “If they had had a single torpedo submarine like the one invented by Mr. Peral, I could not have maintained the blockade for even 24 hours”.
The first functional military submarine was invented by the Spaniard Isaac Peral in 1888. With a capacity for 12 crew members, it could launch three torpedoes and had an electric propulsion system. It included innovations such as a periscope, a navigation system and a steel hull. On the surface it traveled at 8 knots (9 mph) and underwater at 3.5 knots (4 mph).
The project initially received support and funding from the Spanish government and was successfully tested in the port of Cadiz in 1889. It sailed on the surface, fired torpedoes without explosive charges and sailed submerged in the Bay of Cadiz. These tests generated enthusiasm and expectations about its potential to revolutionize naval warfare.
Despite the successful trials, Isaac Peral’s project was rejected by Rafael Rodriguez Arias, Minister of the Navy. The intervention of Queen Maria Cristina in Peral’s favor was the only reason why Rodriguez Arias accepted further tests of the project, but he put obstacles at every step. During these tests, the electric accumulators suffered unexplained failures that Peral attributed to sabotage. The project, which was to be kept secret, was accessible to unauthorized persons. This allowed technical details to become known to other countries.
When José María Beránger succeeded Rodriguez Arias as Minister of the Navy in 1892, he definitively destroyed the project. In addition, he had a very bad personal relationship with Isaac Peral, which led him to do everything possible to discredit him. The submarine was never used in military operations and the Spanish fleet was destroyed by the USA in 1898. The Spanish overseas empire was coming to an end. The admiral of his fleet, George Dewey, said after the massacre: “If Spain had had a single torpedo submarine like the one invented by Mr. Peral, I would not have been able to maintain the blockade for even 24 hours”.
The legacy of the Isaac Peral
In 1895, the American John Philip Holland created a submarine with mixed propulsion powered by gasoline and electric engines. Two years later it was put into service by the US Navy. The first Spanish operational war submarine was built in 1916 and was named Peral, but it was based on Holland’s design.
Peral’s submarine was forgotten and stored in various warehouses until 1965 when it was put on display in the Spanish city of Cartagena. Since 2012 it can be visited in the city’s naval museum.
A review of the history of submarines
The creation of a submersible boat has been a dream that has fascinated sailors throughout history. The first documented account of such a device is by Aristotle. In the 4th century B.C. he wrote of Alexander the Great’s supposed immersion under the sea inside a glass bell. Another legend claims that Alexander the Great himself used a bathyscaphe during the siege of Tyre.
Of course, Leonardo Da Vinci drew in the early 16th century a double-hulled submersible in which only one person could fit. And in 1578, Englishman William Bourne designed a grease-coated wooden submersible craft that was never produced.
The first documented viable project for a mechanically propelled submersible was that of the Dutchman Cornelis Drebbel in 1620. His submarine, also made of wood covered with greased leather, could navigate underwater by means of oars coming out of watertight holes. The air for the rowers entered through tubes with floats and could sail for several hours at a maximum depth of 5 meters... although some chroniclers claim that it was actually pulled by another boat.
The submarine as a weapon of war
In 1775, during the American War of Independence, the American David Bushnell built an individual pedal-powered submarine. He called it Turtel and it had a hand drill with which it was intended to bore holes in the hull of the enemy ship to introduce a charge of dynamite. It succeeded in submerging, but was unable to drill the hole or damage another ship.
In the 19th century the self-propelled submarine began to take shape as a viable military tool. The Spaniard Narciso Monturiol built one with anaerobic propulsion in 1859. In 1877, the Pole Stefan Drzewiecki created a propeller submarine for the Russian Navy with 4 crew members. In 1884 he evolved the invention and made it battery-powered. Almost simultaneously, Isaac Peral was building the submarine that would change everything.
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