The Battleship Book. Robert M. Farley
on their own dreadnoughts. Those countries without the capacity to build large armored ships simply bought them from others, most often from Great Britain. This group included Brazil, which ordered three battleships from British yards in the years before the First World War. Minas Gerais and São Paulo were delivered to Brazil in 1910, but the third ship, to be named Rio De Janiero, had another path.
Minas Gerais and São Paulo were very similar to Dreadnought in appearance and design, although they were slightly larger and carried twelve 12” guns, rather than the ten of Dreadnought. When presented to Brazil, the two ships were probably the most powerful in the world. They were certainly superior in speed and armament to the latest class of US battleships (the South Carolinas), although the US Navy commissioned four dreadnoughts in 1910 and two each in 1911 and 1912. The purchase of these ships spurred a minor naval race between Brazil and its Southern Cone neighbors, as Argentina ordered two ships from the United States in 1910, and Chile one from the UK in 1912 (although the Chilean battleship, Almirante Latorre, served in the Royal Navy as HMS Canada for four years before delivery).
São Paulo uring sea trials, 1910. Brazilian Navy photo.
Other than HMS Canada, none of these ships ever saw combat. For the Southern Cone navies (as well as for some others) battleships served no meaningful military purpose. Any war between the three states would be decided on land. The possession of a pair of dreadnoughts, even if the ships were state-of-the-art, would not long dissuade a major naval power from intervention; as noted above, the US possessed eight such ships by 1912, would commission another eight by 1918, another five by 1923. At the Battle of Jutland, the Grand Fleet deployed thirty-seven dreadnoughts and the High Seas Fleet twenty-one. São Paulo and her kin were symbols, meant to indicate to foreign and domestic audiences that Brazil was a modern, powerful player on the world stage. In 1910, with Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power on History being read by one and all, being modern meant possessing a dreadnought.
São Paulo. Brazilian Navy photo.
Mere possession did not convey the resources for maintaining a dreadnought, however. In 1910, Brazil fell into a devastating economic recession. This put immense pressure on the armed forces, which had to reduce personnel, pay, and procurement. This led to an increase in lashing, a punishment then regarded as standard in the Brazilian Navy. In the Navy, lashing fell most heavily on black sailors, many of them recent descendants of slaves. In November 1910, a particularly brutal incident of lashing led to a revolt, which began upon São Paulo’s sister ship, Minas Gerais. The revolt, concentrated among black enlisted personnel, quickly spread to São Paulo and several other ships. The sailors threatened to turn the guns of the two great battleships upon Rio de Janeiro, which was unprepared for bombardment. The government still controlled some torpedo boats, but attacking the rebels would have run the risk of destroying the most valuable property owned by the Brazilian state.
Four days into the revolt, the government acceded to most of the rebel demands, and issued a blanket amnesty. Shortly thereafter, however, the government went back on its word, expelling most of the rebel leaders from the navy and imprisoning them in brutal conditions. (In 2008, the Brazilian legislature would reaffirm the 1910 amnesty, in what labor activists saw as a victory for the history of worker’s rights.)
Minas Gerais class battleships. Journal of the United States Artillery, 1910.
In the wake of the revolt, the Brazilian government drastically reduced the readiness of the fleet, decreasing exercises and removing the firing pins from the main guns of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. Nevertheless, Brazil continued to pursue a relatively activist foreign policy, joining World War I on the Allied side. Upon Brazil’s declaration of war in 1917, it was thought sensible to deploy Minas Gerais and São Paulo with the Grand Fleet. Sadly, the two ships were in such poor condition that they had to be refit in order to be made battleworthy. The refits lasted nearly two years, extending well after the end of the war. The rest of the Brazilian Navy made a genuine contribution to the war effort by patrolling for U-boats in the South Atlantic.
The rest of São Paulo’s career was uneventful. In 1922 she helped suppress a soldiers’ revolt in Rio de Janeiro, and in 1924 her crew mutinied again. This time, Minas Gerais did not go along, and São Paulo fired upon both her sister and some shore installations before surrendering.
In the 1930s the Brazilian Navy decided to modernize both of the ships. Between 1931 and 1935 Minas Gerais was extensively reconstructed. São Paulo, however, was in such bad shape that modernization was pointless. She served her last twenty years as a stationary defense ship, until being sold for scrap in 1951. In a storm off the Azores, São Paulo broke her tow line and disappeared. No evidence of the wreck, or of the eight man caretaker crew, was ever found.
Author’s Note
The desires of the Southern Cone navies to acquire the most powerful dreadnoughts in the world, rather than ships that would have proven more manageable on their budgets, stands in contrast to the practice of most of the other naval powers. That these ships saw most of their action in revolts (also true of the Chilean Almirante Latorre) was hardly accidental.
Jose Candido. Gazeta de Noticias, December 31, 1912.
The prospect of Minas Gerais and São Paulo serving in the Grand Fleet is surely interesting, perhaps more for the different fleet and training procedures than for the material contribution they might have made. Of course, during the interwar period the Royal Navy would suffer from its own mutiny problem.
Related Entries:
Inspired by…HMS Dreadnought
Contemporary of… Rivadavia
Meant to fight… Almirante Latorre
USS Michigan
Laid Down: 1905
Launched: 1906
Completed: May, 1908
Displacement: 16,000 tons
Main Armament: eight 12” guns (four twin turrets)
Secondary Armament: twenty-two 3” guns (individual mounts)
Speed: 18.5 knots
Major Actions: None
Treaty: Pre-Washington Naval Treaty
Fate: Scrapped, 1924
Dreadnought was the first modern battleship completed, but not the first designed. That honor went to a pair of American battleships, South Carolina and Michigan. Congress limited the size of Michigan to more-or-less the same as that of the Connecticut class pre-dreadnought battleships, 2,500 tons smaller than Dreadnought. Onto that small frame the architects managed to pack eight 12” guns in four twin turrets. Larger only than the España class dreadnoughts, Michigan minimally, if efficiently, fulfilled the requirements of the dreadnought form.
Collapsed cage mast, January 28, 1918. US Naval Historical Center.
The most advanced element of the design was turret distribution. While most other navies played with wing turrents (gun turrets set off the center line, and thus incapable of firing a broadside in either direction),