If in 1879 Chileans carped about their navy’s plight, they had ample reasons:
budget cuts forced the navy to sell the Independencia and to disarm
the O’Higgins and the Covadonga. As a consequence of the loss of these
vessels, the fleet also dismissed twenty-two officers and slightly more than
four hundred enlisted personnel. The following year, arguing that they
were in such poor condition that they did not justify repairs, the Ministry
of War and Marine sold the Ancud and, after numerous attempts,
finally auctioned off the Abtao. The Chileans had also disarmed
the clearly decrepit Esmeralda and Covadonga.
Rather than thin the naval cadre’s ranks, the navy tried to retain as
many essential personnel as it could. Thus, instead of discharging the
few remaining guardia marinas (midshipmen) who served as junior deck
officers, the Chilean government sent them to complete their training
in the navies of Great Britain, France, and Germany. Surplus line officers
received assignments to the maritime administration of ports, thus allowing
the government to reduce their budget by dismissing civilian bureaucrats
while retaining as many officers as it could.22 The Pinto government
also closed the Escuela Naval, which had trained Chile’s naval officers,
in part to save money and in part because the much smaller fleet did
not need many officers.
...
Not surprisingly, naval enlisted men deserted in large numbers, and the fl eet issued a
variety of orders, all largely futile, to limit the effects of this flight.
The staff reductions lowered efficiency. Since the crewmen of the Blanco
Encalada labored seven days a week, simply to maintain their ships, they
did not have time to perfect their military skills.25 Oscar Viel, captain of
the smaller Chacabuco, denounced the navy’s policy of rotating men every
three months, which, he claimed, adversely affected their training.26
Throughout the fleet there were so few sailors that most vessels could
not engage in maneuvers without cannibalizing the crews from other
units. For years the navy continued to deteriorate. The boundary dispute
with Argentina forced the Chilean fleet to remain on alert. In November
1878 Pinto despatched his ironclads to the southern coal mining town
of Lota so that they could be within easy striking distance of the Argentine
Patagonia, an order that taxed the fleet’s manpower. One Chilean
official even suggested that the government send the Chacabuco, not its
ironclads, to the Strait of Magellan because the navy simply did not have
enough sailors to man them.27
Chile’s navy also needed ships’ engineers. Early in the war it became
apparent that the Pinto government could not fi nd enough Chileans to
operate or maintain to its fl eet’s engines and boilers. A few men acquired
technical training from Santiago’s Escuela de Artes y Ofi cios, but many
lacked practical experience. Those who were still apprentices needed
years of seasoning before they would acquire the necessary technical
skills.28 Obviously the fl eet could not wait for this process of maturation;
instead, the navy began to hire foreigners whom it enticed to enlist by
offering them a higher salary than that authorized by law. This tactic did
not always work: in 1883 the fl eet could not fi ll slots for thirteen third
engineers because it paid so little that experienced men refused to enlist.
29 By the war’s end, non-Chileans constituted 53 percent of the fi rst
engineers; 20 percent of the second engineers; 8 percent of the third
engineers; and 5 percent of the apprentices. The presence of so many
foreigners understandably worried the minister of war, who recognized
that Chileans would have preferred that the nation rely on its own sons’
unquestioned “patriotism and abnegation” rather than trust the uncertain
loyalty of foreign mercenaries.
If possible, the vessels of Chile’s battle fleet were in worse condition
than the personnel who manned them: the Chacabuco and the O’Higgins
needed such an “extensive and radical repair,” including careening and
a change of boilers, that the minister of war and navy suggested that they
should be used as sailing ships. The Chacabuco, for example, could generate
less than a third of its required steam pressure.37 Even the newest ships
suffered from neglect: the navy had to order the Cochrane to England to
replace the zinc amour plate, and if the government wanted to save the
Blanco Encalada from suffering more extensive damage, it too should have
been sent to Britain, but the nation’s treasury simply did not have the
funds to pay even for the most urgently needed repairs. The fleet’s condition
deteriorated so much that the annual report of the comandante de
arsenales concluded that of the navy’s seven warships, only the Magallanes
and the side-wheeler transport Toltén were “in a perfect state of service.”
The Bolivian crisis forced Pinto to order his ironclads to Antofagasta,
but stationing its armored ships in the north not only strained the navy’s
manpower resources but damaged its ships. After late 1878 the ironclads’
engines, boilers, and hulls began to suffer from the constant wear
and tear of steaming. Thus, Chile’s navy began the war with its capital
ships, and most of its ancillary vessels, in various stages of disrepair.
These flaws, plus the lack of training, compromised Pinto’s maritime
forces. As Commander Boys of the hms Pelican sadly noted, “The Chilean
ironclads are . . . handy and efficient vessels, but owing to want of
practice, some doubt may be felt to their power of maneuvering with
rapidity and skill sufficient to enable them to avoid or parry the attack of
the Huáscar ram.”39
