This man and his achievements are often remembered in Spain, but outside its borders they hardly know. Meanwhile, he was an outstanding naval commander and naval engineer, the author of projects of several interesting types of gunboats, including armored ones, a veteran of the anti-tank wars and the Great Siege of Gibraltar, adored by sailors and disliked by noble officers. We are talking about Admiral Antonio Barcelo.
Balearic in Armada
Antonio Barcelo and Pont de la Terra was one of the few Armada officers who did not come from the Basque Country. He was born in Palma de Mallorca, on the first day of 1717, in the family of Onofre Barcelo, the owner of a merchant shebeca that transported goods between the Balearics and Catalonia. His mother was a member of one of the most prominent families of the island - Pont de la Terra. As soon as Antonio reached the right age, he and his father began to make trade flights between the islands and the mainland. It was not an easy occupation - at the beginning of the 18th century, Berber pirates were still strong, who raided the Spanish coast and robbed merchant ships, threatening shipping and the Christian population. Even ordinary merchants had to master perfectly not only maritime and trade sciences, but also military ones.
When Antonio was 18 years old, his father died, and the young man took over command of the shebeka. A year later, he had to face the Berbers for the first time at sea, and the battle was won, after which such skirmishes fell like a cornucopia. Barcelo won all battles with the pirates of the shebek, and her captain began to earn fame and recognition for himself both among civilian and naval sailors in Spain. Great fame was brought to him by the battle with two Berber galleys, which took place in 1738, in which he, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy, won a landslide victory. King Felipe V, having learned about this battle, immediately made Barcelo a lieutenant of the frigate (teniente de fragata) of the Armada by the highest decree, without any study and special training - the 21-year-old Balearians had already successfully demonstrated the necessary skills. From that moment on, he became an active participant in the hostilities against the corsairs, not forgetting about his native islands - when famine broke out on them, Barcelo made every effort to buy and deliver grain to Mallorca, which saved many lives.
In 1748, the Berbers captured a Spanish shebeka with 200 passengers on board, including 13 officers of the Royal Army. King Fernando VI, enraged by this event, ordered Antonio Barcelo to gather a detachment and carry out a punitive raid. This raid ended successfully, the Berbers suffered great damage, but the war did not end. In 1753, when he was in Mallorca, the coastal alarm went off, and Barcelo, without thinking twice, put a company of grenadiers on his shebeka and went to sea. There he had to face a 30-oared 4-gun galiot, accompanied by several small shebeks. Ignoring the numerical superiority of the enemy, Barcelo attacked the squadron of corsairs, and made a real pogrom for it - the shebeks fled, the galiot was captured after boarding. For this, the Balearic was promoted to the rank of ship lieutenant (teniente de navio).
In 1756, traveling from Palma de Mallorca to Barcelona, he met two Algerian galiots on his shebek. And again, disdaining the enemy and ignoring the numerical superiority, Barcelo rushed to the attack, and won - one galiot was sunk by artillery fire, the second fled, and this despite the fact that they had to fight on both sides, which obviously reduced the capabilities of the Spanish ship! In this battle, the ship's lieutenant himself received two wounds, from which, however, he quickly recovered. In 1761, Barcelo was already the captain of a frigate (capitano de fragata) and commanded a division of three shebeks. In one of the battles he had a chance to fight seven Algerian ships, all of which were taken prisoner. The next year, the irrepressible Balearic got a rich, albeit a kind of prize - he managed to board an Algerian frigate and capture its commander, the legendary (at that time) Berber corsair Selim. In this battle, he received a wound that disfigured his face for life - a bullet went through his left cheek, tearing it, and leaving a large scar.
Despite all the wounds, the fight against the Berbers continued, and battles took place almost every day. In many of them, Antonio Barcelo's division was noted. When the French and Austrians tried to increase the onslaught against the pirates, he was chosen as one of the "allied commanders". And although nothing came of this venture (the case stalled at the very beginning), the choice in favor of the Balearic spoke for itself: he was seen as one of the main fighters against the corsairs of the Mediterranean. From 1760 to 1769, he captured 19 Berber ships, captured 1,600 Muslims and freed more than a thousand Christian prisoners, for which he received the title of captain of the ship (capitano de navio) under the royal patent. Acting already in the new position of the commander of a small sailing and rowing flotilla, consisting of galliots and shebeks, Barcelo became one of those thanks to whom the Spaniards managed in 1775 to keep the Peñon de Aljusemas fortress, located on the island of the same name. The flotilla itself suffered losses, but the Berber squadron that was besieging the fortress was forced to lift the siege. Once again, Barcelo proved himself in the best possible way, which allowed him to soon take part in a major expedition to Algeria.
Expeditions to Algeria and the Siege of Gibraltar
In the same 1775, Barcelo's rowing flotilla became part of the expeditionary forces, which were sent on a punitive campaign against the Berbers. A large number of prominent army officers fell into it - the ground forces were commanded by General O'Reilly, the fleet - by Pedro Gonzalez de Castejón, and his chief of staff was José de Mazarredo. However, the expedition, as a result of a series of accidents and mistakes, ended in complete failure, the troops had to land in another place, inconvenient for deployment, the Algerians constantly exerted pressure from land and sea, the army suffered heavy losses, and it soon had to be evacuated in a difficult situation. This story could have ended in defeat and massacre, if it were not for the rowing flotilla of Antonio Barcelo - operating close to the coast, driving off the Berber ships and supporting the evacuating army with the fire of their light cannons, the shebeks and galiots of the Balearians saved the situation and allowed the evacuation to be completed more or less successfully. Even a large-scale cavalry attack by the Berbers, with a mass of about 10-12 thousand horsemen, did not help - the troops, having received the support of naval artillery, bravely repelled the attacks and won time to evacuate the wounded. The losses were heavy, but not fatal - 500 killed and 2,000 prisoners from the entire 20,000-strong army. The actions of Barcelo in difficult conditions were highly appreciated by everyone, both ground officers and the command of the fleet. His merits were recognized by the king, who, shortly after the return of the expedition home, promoted the Balearic to the rank of brigadier. At this time, Barcelo's ailment is already beginning to affect - progressive deafness, which developed due to his very close acquaintance with naval artillery: many times in battles, disdaining safety, he was too close to the firing guns, which could not but lead to sad consequences.
In 1779, Spain entered the war with Great Britain on the side of the USA and France, and the so-called Great Siege of Gibraltar began. Due to the geographical conditions and the fortifications erected by the British, it was probably the most inaccessible fortress in the world, and having an unsuccessful experience of sieging it, the Spaniards decided to rely primarily on the blockade. Brigadier Antonio Barcelo was appointed the blockade fleet, which was supposed to operate directly at the fortress. He approached the task creatively, and was engaged not only in the blockade, but also constantly harassed the British with the night actions of his light forces. According to the admiral's project in Cadiz, special gunboats of a new design were built, with two cannons up to 24 pounds, placed on installations with a central pin or complex swivel, more characteristic of ships of the mid-19th century. The cannons were located at the extremities, in the middle were rowers, providing them with a course in any direction. The boats had a low profile and low visibility, which was especially good at night. Finally, according to Barcelo's decree, some of the boats were sheathed with a streamlined wooden frame, over which thick oak sheathing and iron slabs were put in. in fact, the ships turned into rowing armored gunboats, where armor was used in combination with streamlined shapes to divert shells into a ricochet, and to prevent the hot shells used by the British from combustible materials. To increase the buoyancy from the outside, the plating began to be sheathed with a cork, as well as to make a filing from it to absorb the impact of enemy shells on the armor. First appearing near Gibraltar, these gunboats made the British laugh, but not for long - very soon these awkward ships, about which the Spaniards said they would not survive the first shot from their heavy cannons, turned the garrison's night service into a real hell. One of the British officers, Captain Sayer, wrote later (the translation is approximate, Sayer himself may be a Seier, i.e. a German in British service):
The first appearance in front of the British garrison of the "new model" gunboats of the Barcelo design caused everyone to laugh, but not for long. At first, no one realized that they were the most formidable and invincible enemy that had appeared before the English fleet. Barcelo always attacked at night, choosing the darkest directions and areas of defense, where it was impossible to detect his small squat boats. During the night, his gunboats literally bombarded us with their shells throughout the entire area of the fortress. The British were tired of the bombing much more than the day's service. At first they tried to dispose of the Barcelo gunboats with coastal batteries firing at flashes in the dark, but in the end the British realized that this was just a waste of ammunition.
In parallel with the fight with the British, the Balearic had to fight with his colleagues, most of whom simply hated him because of his low origin, considering Barcelo an upstart. At the same time, Barcelo himself was a rather rude and sharp-tongued person, which only exacerbated the situation. The case almost went to court because of his insult to some other officer of the Armada, but the case was hushed up. Even the attempt to "remove" the Balearic from the Armada did not help, justifying his writing off to the shore by almost complete deafness and respectable age. The new commander of the siege of Gibraltar, the Duke de Crillon, tried to push through this resignation - but after arriving at the siege camp and getting to know Barcelo personally, he immediately cut off any encroachments on the valuable commander of the rowing forces: he was a genius of a small war, and to lose such because of intrigue de Crillon was not going to. The subordinates adored their commander, including thanks to the attentive and careful attitude towards the personnel, which always easily won the hearts and souls of sailors, regardless of their nationality. In Andalusia, where a large number of sailors came from, a rhyme very soon spread that if the king had at least four naval commanders like Barcelo, Gibraltar would never have become English. However, the king no longer had people like Antonio, and the siege itself, along with the general assault, ended in failure. At the end of the general assault, Barcelo was wounded, but soon returned to service.
In 1783, commanding a squadron of 78 pennants, Barcelo for the second time in his life appeared under the walls of the fortress of Algeria, trying to finally stop Berber piracy in the Mediterranean. For this, the city was taken "to the gun", and later subjected to bombing for 8 days. Alas, this time luck was not favorable to the Spaniards - despite the colossal consumption of ammunition, the Algerians managed to inflict only small losses, caused several fires in the city itself, destroying 562 buildings (just over 10%) and sinking the gunboat. The results were more than modest, even if they were achieved at the cost of very small losses. The following year, the expedition was repeated, this time with the involvement of the allied fleets of Naples-Sicily, Malta and Portugal. The command was carried out by the same Antonio Barcelo, and this time luck smiled at him. For 9 days, allied ships bombarded Algeria, sinking almost the entire Berber fleet and destroying a significant part of the fortifications and the city. Even taking into account the prematurely interrupted campaign due to unfavorable winds, the results were quite sufficient. Leaving African waters, Barcelo did everything to ensure that the Algerians received information about his intentions to return next year, with even larger forces, as a result of which the Algerian bey was forced to negotiate peace with Spain, stopping pirate raids on its shipping and shores. Tunisia followed the example of the Algerians, impressed by the actions of Barcelo. Until the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, piracy in the Mediterranean was stopped.
Recent cases
After resolving the Algerian issue, Antonio Barcelo returned home, already a deaf old man with a wounded body and a set of old sores. In 1790, in the light of the siege of Ceuta by the Moroccans, he was remembered and appointed to command a squadron intended for the bombing of Tangier. However, by the time he assumed command of the squadron, peace negotiations had already begun, as a result of which the bombing was canceled. Barcelo, knowing the changeable nature of the Moors, considered that they were only playing for time to gather forces, and went as a private person to reconnaissance in Ceuta and its environs, where a new Moroccan army was really gathering. Soon the negotiations broke down, and a full-length war began - but unexpectedly, due to intrigues, Barcelo was removed from his post as squadron commander. He turned personally to King Carlos IV, and achieved his return as the commander of a squadron intended for the war with the Moroccans, but that squadron did not go out to sea due to incessant storms, and after a while it was completely disbanded. Intrigues began again against the Balearic-high, and he was finally sent home. Insulted and humiliated by this, Antonio Barcelo for some time tried to organize a punitive expedition to Morocco, but he was simply ignored. He eventually died in 1797, at the age of 80, never returning to the navy. His remains are buried in Mallorca, but in the Pantheon of outstanding sailors in San Fernando there is a memorial plate with his name - that there should be this famous Balearic, in the 19th century, no one doubted.
Antonio Barcelo is one of the most prominent Armada officers of his generation. An unsurpassed master of the "small war" at sea, using the forces of rowing and sailing-rowing ships, he always achieved victory, even in the most difficult and hopeless situations. He acted slightly less successfully as the commander of mixed squadrons. His actions during the siege of Gibraltar, together with gunboats of his own design, became a model and a subject of discussion throughout Europe at that time. The sailors adored him, the kings loved him, he had friends in high society, the people of the Spanish Levant idolized him as a protector against the Berber threat - but alas, he did not completely fit into the structure of the Armada. The reason for this was both the complex character of the Balearic and the peculiarities of his origin - according to the concepts of his time, he was too small a nobleman, an upstart, and even did not have a systemic naval education, speaking in everything, literally, self-taught. Because of the latter, he was considered completely illiterate, unable to write and read, although he could just do that, and even excellently, constantly holding next to him his beloved book - "Don Quixote" by Cervantes. Being a noble, honest and kind man, he could not fight intrigues, as a result of which he could not prove himself as a naval commander. Only colossal patience and endurance allowed him to endure the antics of his colleagues, who constantly mocked him on the topic of lack of education and low birth. Nevertheless, history has already forgotten the names of his ill-wishers, but Antonio Barcelo is remembered (albeit not everywhere) as an outstanding sailor, naval commander, protector of Christians from Berber corsairs and slavery, and even a designer who created one of the first examples of armored ships in Europe and who used such ships in practice with great success.
