The Cruiser Canarias

This is the story of a battle that never took place but may still have changed the course of the Civil War. 

At the start of the military rebellion, General Franco’s best tropos, the Army of Africa, were effectively bblockaded in Morocco as the Republican Navy prevented them from crossing into the peninsula.  The rebels put together a modest airlift, one that became mucho more significant two weeks later when German and Italian transport planes arrived. Rebel propaganda proclaimed the small naval convoy on August 5 the “Convoy of Victory” even though it carried only 1,600 men, six artillery pieces, and 100 tons of munitions. There was no follow up however, as the Republican fleet continued to control the Strait. 

The situation changed radically when Republican authorities ordered the bulk of the fleet to the Cantabrian Sea on September 21. Their objective was to provide moral and, if posible, material support to their forces in the north which were isolated and facing a more powerful enemy. In the end, this decisión did little to improve the situation in the north, but it did seriously weaken the blockade of the Strait, especially as the rebels had sent two cruisers, including the Canarias, a modern heavy cruiser that was much better armed, more heavily armoured, and much faster than anything in the Republican fleet. 

The Republic paid a heavy price for this strategic error.  At the Battle of Cape Espartel on September 27, the rebels sank the destroyer Almirante Ferrándiz and seriously damaged the Gravina. That same day, they began to send convoys that were able to cross from Africa to the peninsula more or less unmolested. This allowed the Army of Africa to continue its advance towards Madrid. The modern planes provided by the fascist powers and the coastal batteries of Ceuta and Algeciras confirmed the rebels’ control of the Strait for the rest of the war.