Spanish cruiser Infanta Maria Teresa
Infanta María Teresa was the lead ship of her class of armoured cruiser constructed for the Spanish Navy. The ship fought at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish–American War. Technical characteristics Infanta María Teresa was built at Bilbao, northern Spain, to a design drawn up by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow, England. Her keel was laid in 1889, she was launched on 30 August 1890, and was completed in 1893. She had two funnels and was fast and comparatively well-armed. Her main armament was mounted on the centerline in single barbettes fore and aft. Her armor was poor: her guns had only lightly armored hoods, her guns were mounted in the open on the upper deck, her armor belt was thin and protected only two-thirds of her length, and she had a high, unprotected freeboard that took much damage during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. Like other nineteenth-century warships, she was heavily furnished and decorated with wood, which the Spanish failed to remove prior to combat and which would feed fires during the battle. In 1895 she was the flagship of the representative squadron deployed to represent Spain at the opening of the Kiel Canal. Operational history Infanta María Teresa was the flagship of Spanish Vice Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, commander of the Spanish Navy's 1st Squadron, when tensions with the United States were rising after the explosion and sinking of the US battleship Maine in the harbor at Havana, Cuba on 15 February 1898. The squadron concentrated at São Vicente in Portugal's Cape Verde Islands; departing Cadiz on 8 April 1898. Infanta María Teresa, the armored cruiser , and three destroyers arrived at São Vicente on 14 April 1898, experiencing machinery problems and burning excessive amounts of coal during the voyage. As more ships arrived over the next few days, it was noted that the 140 mm guns aboard Infanta Maria Teresa had defective breech mechanisms and had been supplied with defective ammunition, and that the fleet had a shortage of stokers. The Spanish–American War broke out while Infanta María Teresa was at São Vicente. Ordered by neutral Portugal in accordance with international law to leave São Vicente within 24 hours of the declaration of war, Infanta María Teresa and the rest of Cervera's squadron departed on 29 April 1898, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico. The fleet reached French-owned Martinique in the Lesser Antilles on 10 May 1898. While the large ships loitered in international waters, two of the Spanish destroyers went into Fort-de-France to ask for coal. France was neutral and would not supply coal, so the Spanish squadron departed on 12 May 1898 for the Netherlands-owned Curaçao, where Cervera expected to meet a collier. Cervera arrived at Willemstad on 14 May, but the Netherlands also was neutral, and strictly enforced its neutrality by allowing only Infanta María Teresa and her sister ship to enter port and permitting them to load only 600 tons of coal. Cervera's ships departed on