Spanish battleship Alfonso XIII

Alfonso XIII in 1932, after having been renamed España
History
Spain
Name	Alfonso XIII (renamed España in 1931)
Namesake	King Alfonso XIII of Spain; after 1931, the country of Spain
Builder	SECN, Naval Dockyard, El Ferrol, Spain
Laid down	23 February 1910
Launched	7 May 1913
Completed	16 August 1915
Fate	Sunk by naval mine, 30 April 1937
General characteristics
Class and type	España-class battleship
Displacement	Normal: 15,700 t (15,500 long tons) Full load: 16,450 t (16,190 long tons)
Length	140 m (459 ft 4 in) o/a
Beam	24 m (78 ft 9 in)
Draft	7.8 m (25 ft 7 in)
Installed power	12 × Yarrow boilers 15,500 shp (11,600 kW)
Propulsion	4 × steam turbines 4 × screw propellers
Speed	19.5 knots (36.1 km/h)
Range	5,000 nmi (9,300 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement	854
Armament	8 × 305 mm (12 in) guns 20 × 102 mm (4 in) guns 4 × 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder guns 2 × machine guns
Armor	Belt armor: 203 mm (8 in) Deck: 38 mm (1.5 in) Turrets: 203 mm Conning tower: 254 mm (10 in)

Alfonso XIII was the second of three España-class dreadnought battleships built in the 1910s for the Spanish Navy. Named after King Alfonso XIII of Spain, the ship was not completed until 1915 owing to a shortage of materials that resulted from the start of World War I the previous year. The España class was ordered as part of a naval construction program to rebuild the fleet after the losses of the Spanish–American War; the program began in the context of closer Spanish relations with Britain and France. The ships were armed with a main battery of eight 305 mm (12 in) guns and were intended to support the French Navy in the event of a major European war.

Despite the reason for the ships' construction, Spain remained neutral during World War I. Alfonso XIII's early career passed largely uneventfully with routine training exercises in Spanish waters, though she was used to assist civilian vessels in distress and her crew was deployed to suppress civil unrest in Spain. In the 1920s, she took part in the Rif War in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, where her sister España was wrecked. In 1931, Alfonso XIII abdicated and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed; the new republic sought to erase remnants of the royal order, and so Alfonso XIII was renamed España. As part of cost-cutting measures, the ship was then reduced to reserve. Plans to modernize España and her sister Jaime I in the mid-1930s came to nothing when the Spanish coup of July 1936 initiated the Spanish Civil War.

At the start of the conflict, the crew murdered the ship's officers and attempted to resist the Nationalist rebels in Ferrol, but after the Nationalists seized coastal artillery batteries, they surrendered. España then became the core of the Nationalist fleet and she was used to enforce a blockade of the north coast of Spain, frequently patrolling and stopping freighters that attempted to enter the Republican-controlled ports of Gijón, Santander, and Bilbao. During these operations on 30 April 1937, she was fatally damaged when she accidentally struck a mine that had been laid by a Nationalist minelayer. Most of her crew was evacuated by the destroyer Velasco before España capsized and sank; only four were killed in the sinking. The wreck was discovered and examined in 1984.