The Butterfly Effect: A British AAR

Of all the pitfalls and disasters that were predicted for the British government’s supply of modern weapons to Spain one of the few potential problems not discussed was the simple logistics of getting the equipment there. After a lively start by the Republic’s naval forces, particularly the daring light vessels based out of the Basque country port of Bilbao, the introduction of a convoy system had made the supply lines seemingly secure. The ‘interception’ of convoy SM 1 therefore came as something of a shock, though not as much of as shock as the first broadside from the Republican battleship Cortes. As with so many events in hindsight this was not a surprise, the issue of British convoys had been simmering in diplomatic circles for months. In truth it was an incident looking for a trigger, a role convoy SM 1 performed admirably.

The main problem with convoy SM 1, aside from it’s cargo of QF 2 pounder anti-tank guns, was its destination; the recently captured port of Malaga, as advertised in the convoy code (SM1 - Southampton to Malaga, journey 1). Typically convoys from Britain terminated in the Atlantic ports of Northern Spain, La Coruna or Vigo being the usual destinations. For a British convoy to go to a Southern Spanish port was unusual enough, for one to go to a Mediterranean port was unheard of. The official reason behind the change of policy was simple, given the speed of the Republican advance the guns had to get to the front as quickly as possible and Malaga was the nearest major port to the Republican advance. This explained the choice of a southern port, but not the extra risk of entering the Med, the reasons for that was a question of politics and practicality. The dilemma that the British government faced was simple; none of the Monarchist factions in Southern Spain were particularly appealing, yet one of them had to get the arms. In the end it was decided to go with the unsavoury, but talented and (notionally) professional General Yagüe and the Army of Africa, instead of the national syndicalist and worryingly anti-British (or at least anti-British interests) Manuel Hedilla and the Falangist militias. It was this decision that pointed to using Malaga, where the Army of Africa held sway, instead of an Atlantic port such as Cadiz where Hedilla’s supporters were in control. Thus it was for long term 'strategic' reasons that the convoy had to pass the Pillars of Hercules and enter the Eastern Mediterranean, which is where the problems for the convoy began.

The Republican Armarda sprung their ambush off the coast of Marbella, the halfway point between Malaga and Gibraltar, when the convoy was clearly, if somewhat irrelevantly, in international waters. The fleet was the most powerful the loyalists could assemble in the Mediterranean; the battleship Cortes (formerly the Jaime I), the light cruisers Libertad and Almirante Cervera and four Churruca-class destroyers. The fleet’s commander, Admiral Luis Gonzalez Ubieta, had been given orders to ensure the convoy did not reach ‘rebel’ territory and to do so in such a way that London would be discouraged from sending further convoys. The background to this ambitious plan was a simple political judgement; London’s commitment to Spain appeared lukewarm while Paris was firmly backing the Republicans. It was therefore reasoned that British could be convinced to honourably back down rather than risk war for a cause they clearly had doubts about. To this end convoy SM 1 was to be made an example of, an overwhelming force deployed to force the convoy to divert to a Republican port to set a precedent and weaken the resolve of the wavering British establishment. There were but two problems with this plan; 1. The Republican navy’s ‘overwhelming’ force entirely failed to intimidate or impress the Royal Navy and 2. The convoy’s commander was not the fractious and uncertain British cabinet, or even the conciliatory and still somewhat Francophile Foreign Office, but a Royal Navy Commodore with a mission to fulfil. Given the stakes involved these were unfortunate oversights to make.


The first problem for Admiral Ubieta was the convoy’s covering force, specifically the fact that it had one. In acknowledgement of the convoy’s importance the Admiralty had beefed up the standard escort, the pair of sloops in the close escort were joined by a covering force of three cruisers, the County-class HMS Cornwall and HMS York and the Leander-class HMS Orion. Despite this the Republicans still held a considerable numerical advantage and pressed their demands. Contrary to popular fleet legend they did not order the Royal Navy escorts to heave to, Uibeta merely ordered the merchantmen to stop and be inspected. That said quite what he expected the escorts to do if their charges had complied with the order isn’t obvious, steam around in circles perhaps. In any event Agar duly refused this request and, after an exchange of views on the territorial sovereignty during a Civil War and the rights of neutral merchantmen during such a conflict, the first of the threatened warning shots was fired, the Cortes firing a round across the bows of HMS Cornwall. True to form Agar responded as he had promised, with a counter warning shot in reply which dropped just in front of the Cortes. Whether Admiral Ubieta genuinely believed the close shot was actually a hit, or if he was just looking for a reason to escalate the stand off before the still steaming merchants made it to Malaga, is not clear; too many ‘official’ post-battle records were subject to the tender mercies of government officials and propaganda men for any truth to emerge. What was clear was the response from the Cortes, all eight of her 12”/50 main guns lighting up in a massive broadside, this blast being followed in short order by the rest of the Republican squadron and the first return fire from the Cornwall, the ‘Battle of the Alboran Sea’ had begun.

If one considers weight of broadside the Royal Navy stood no chance, thanks to the mathematics of artillery the 12”/50 shells of the Cortes were not 50% heavier than those of the 8”/50s on the Counties, they were well over 300% heavier (850lb vs a mere 256lb). Yet as we have seen the Admiralty was confident that a County-class could fight and beat an Espana-class, this confidence that came from the knowledge there is more to naval warfare than weight of shot. Like almost the entire Spanish Navy the Cortes had been designed and built by the British owned Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval (SECN, Spanish Society for Naval Construction) and had been designed by British engineers and architects ‘inspired’ by Royal Navy designs. In some cases this worked spectacularly, the two Cervera-class cruisers in Ubieta’s squadron were in many ways better ships than the British Emerald-class they were based on, but sometimes it led to the Spanish unwittingly copying British errors. Sadly for the Republican’s the Cortes contained one of the worst of these mistakes; the 12”/50 Mark XI gun, one of the Royal Navy’s least successful efforts at gun design. In an effort to increase destructive power the Admiralty had specified a modest (~10%) increase in charge size, and so muzzle velocity, in the Mark XI compared to it's predecessors. This seemingly small change had a catastrophic effect on the burning of the propellant, and so gun accuracy; at worst a single broadside could end up with shot scattered over several acres as the variations in burning speed took their toll. Worse still the Spanish had been supplied with a similar vintage of shell, the same pattern of shells that would perform so poorly at the Battle of Jutland and whose lamentable capabilities had not been helped by decades of inadequate storage. It is therefore easy to see why the Royal Navy attaché in Spain confidently predicted that the Espanas would struggle to hit anything and do little damage in the event they did manage a hit, a prediction that came tragically true for Admiral Ubieta.

As the lighter forces on both sides jockeyed for position the Cortes and HMS Cornwall engaged in a long range duel, the Republicans trying to keep their prized battleship safe by keeping their distance. This was a quite unfortunate, if understandable, mistake; the weakest point on the Cortes was its thin deck armour, another legacy from its pre-Great War British ancestors. Counter-intuitively the Cortes would have been safer had she closed the range, at shorter range Cornwall’s shells would longer be plunging onto thin decks but instead hitting the far thicker main belt. As it was the accuracy of Cornwall's guns, and their far higher rate of fire (5 round a minute against barely 1 from Cortes), soon began to tell on the larger ship. Despite getting the better of the rest of the engagement, superior Republican numbers swamping the other two Royal Navy cruisers, Ubieta ordered a retreat and signalled a request for a cease fire. Though arguably ‘winning’ at that point, the damage to the Cortes seemingly outweighed by that inflicted on York and Orion, Ubieta had realised the Republican bluff had failed. Clearly the Royal Navy at least was prepared to risk war to protect the convoy and it was apparent the only way he could get the merchants into a Republican port was by sinking their escort, an escalating step he was neither authorised nor inclined to take.

Had the battle ended their, an apparent tactical victory to the Spanish but a strategic victory for the British, the fallout would have been severe enough. However matters were to get exponentially worse mere minutes after the shooting ended, the Cortes suffering a delayed internal explosion due to battle damage. This set off a below decks fire that swiftly reached the main magazine, spelling the ships doom in a hellish explosion that broke the ship's back and left the resultant two parts rapidly sinking. From the Admiralty perspective the explosion transformed the clash from an indecisive engagement into a news worthy victory, a mere cruiser besting an enemy battleship. Somewhat more importantly it also transformed a serious diplomatic incident into a full blown catastrophe complete with attendant political crisis.

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Notes: Took a while but then it is one of my longer efforts. I did wonder about the techie paragraph in the middle on guns, but eventually decided to keep it. After all what would this AAR be without somewhat unnecessary technical diversions?

The 12”/50 guns were that bad and the Espanas did have fairly bad internal sub-division, being so small and cramped didn’t help, so fire (or flood water) could spread very quickly. See the OTL fate of Jaime I destroyed by accidental explosion and fire, the sinking of the original Espana on rocks and the sinking of Alfonso XIII/Espana after hitting a single small mine. Quite a jinxed class when you come to think about it really.

Would the Republicans actually escalate? Well OTL they did regularly turn away blockade runners and shot at quite a few of them, with the secure support of the French (and with Britain wavering) it didn’t seem that unreasonable they’d take the next step and try to stop a convoy, particularly one so important. Not that they'd actually go to war, but a high stakes bluff seemed plausible.

Next update is, obviously enough, the very serious consequences of this little jaunt. And the dodgy translation of the equally dodgy Latin chapter name? Always outnumbered, never outgunned.