Swiftsure & Triumph
Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 10:59 pm
While reading thru some posts on the Dreadnought era the subject of HMS Agincourt came up & the fact that was acquired under odd circumstance and was, in the end, something of a white elephant.
This got me on to the subject of HMS Swiftsure & Triumph, another pair of oddball ships acquired under unusual circumstances. The two ships were being built for Chile as Libertad & Constitution as part of an ongoing Naval Arms Race with Argentina. In 1903 (or maybe '02, not sure off hand) Chile& Argentina Agreed to submit their differences to arbitration by the Pope. As part of the resulting Treaty all ships being built abroad had to be disposed of. The two Chilean Battleships and two Argentine Armored Cruiser were immediately put up for sale. The Japanese tried to buy the Battleships but could not come up with the funds. They ended up buying the two ACr instead which became the Nisshin and Kasuga in Japanese service. The Russians opened negotiation with Chile for the purchase of the Battleships but the British steeped in and bought them to keep them out of Russian hands. Swiftsure & Triumph were massively out of step with British design concepts of the time - i.e. King Edward VII class and inferior in just about every respect to the preceding British designs.
Ed B.
This got me on to the subject of HMS Swiftsure & Triumph, another pair of oddball ships acquired under unusual circumstances. The two ships were being built for Chile as Libertad & Constitution as part of an ongoing Naval Arms Race with Argentina. In 1903 (or maybe '02, not sure off hand) Chile& Argentina Agreed to submit their differences to arbitration by the Pope. As part of the resulting Treaty all ships being built abroad had to be disposed of. The two Chilean Battleships and two Argentine Armored Cruiser were immediately put up for sale. The Japanese tried to buy the Battleships but could not come up with the funds. They ended up buying the two ACr instead which became the Nisshin and Kasuga in Japanese service. The Russians opened negotiation with Chile for the purchase of the Battleships but the British steeped in and bought them to keep them out of Russian hands. Swiftsure & Triumph were massively out of step with British design concepts of the time - i.e. King Edward VII class and inferior in just about every respect to the preceding British designs.
Ed B.