Sailors' mutiny - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Chilean naval mutiny of 1931 was a violent rebellion of the Chilean Navy

Chilean Navy

-Independence Wars of Chile and Peru :The Chilean Navy dates back to 1817. A year before, following the Battle of Chacabuco, General Bernardo O'Higgins prophetically declared "this victory and another hundred shall be of no significance if we do not gain control of the sea".This led to the...

enlisted men against the government of Vice President Manuel Trucco

Manuel Trucco

Manuel Trucco Franzani was a Chilean politician and provisional vice president of Chile in 1931.He was born in Cauquenes, the son of Napoleón Trucco Morano and of María Franzani Monigette. He completed his studies in his native city, and at the Instituto Nacional...

Background

In 1931, Chile was bankrupt. The situation had caused the downfall of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo

Carlos Ibáñez del Campo

General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo was a Chilean Army officer and political figure. He served as dictator between 1927 and 1931 and as constitutional President from 1952 to 1958.- The coups of 1924 and 1925 :...

on July 26, 1931. The collapse of exports and prices for Chilean products, the lack of liquidity and the high level of external debt

External debt

External debt is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. The debtors can be the government, corporations or private households. The debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, other governments, or international financial institutions such...

had led the League of Nations

League of Nations

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

to name Chile as the country most affected world-wide by the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. There were already 130,000 unemployed and the situation had caused the closing of the saltpeter

Niter

Niter or nitre is the mineral form of potassium nitrate, KNO3, also known as saltpeter or saltpetre . Historically, the term "niter" – cognate with "natrium", a Latin word for sodium – has been very vaguely defined, and it has been applied to a variety of other minerals and chemical compounds,...

mines in the Atacama, in turn causing a massive migration of workers to the urban centers.

As part of its attempts to deal with the Great Depression, the government of Vice President Manuel Trucco

Manuel Trucco

, who had taken over from president Juan Esteban Montero

Juan Esteban Montero

Juan Esteban Montero Rodríguez was a Chilean political figure. He served twice as president of Chile between 1931 and 1932.-Early life:...

on August 20, 1931, launched cuts to public spending. At the end of that month, the Finance Minister, Pedro Blanquier, notified all public employees, including the armed forces, of a reduction of 30% in their salaries. This reduction was on top of another 10% that had been applied to the armed forces the year before and the loss of all extra bonuses already accrued and owed to them. The military were already suffering from chronic low salaries and these reductions were further aggravated by the loss of purchasing power

Purchasing power

Purchasing power is the number of goods/services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if you had taken one dollar to a store in the 1950s, you would have been able to buy a greater number of items than you would today, indicating that you would have had a greater purchasing...

that the Chilean currency had experienced due to inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

and the general recession of the economy. The discontent was specially strong in the Navy

Chilean Navy

, where a strict class system was in place, separating the officers from the enlisted men.

The mutiny

On the night of August 31 to September 1, 1931, while the fleet was in the port of Coquimbo

Coquimbo

Coquimbo is a port city, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo lies in a valley south of La Serena, with which it forms Greater La Serena with more than 400,000 inhabitants. The commune spans an area around the...

, the sailors of the Chilean battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

Almirante Latorre

Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre

Almirante Latorre, named after Juan José Latorre, was a super-dreadnought battleship built for the Chilean Navy . She was the first of a planned two-ship class that would respond to earlier warship purchases by other South American countries...

mutinied, taking prisoner all the officers of the ship, who were kept confined in their cabins. The insurrection immediately spread to the rest of the fleet in Coquimbo, and all 14 units were soon in the hands of the sailors. The movement was under the leadership of Petty Officer Ernesto Gonzalez, who cabled the government demanding that they rescind the salary reduction and notifying them that the movement was not a political one.

On the 3rd, the mutiny spread to the naval base of Talcahuano

Talcahuano

Talcahuano is a port city and commune in the Biobío Region of Chile. It is part of the Greater Concepción conurbation. Talcahuano is located in the south of the Central Zone of Chile.-Geography:...

, where the base personnel, students at the sailors' academy, the coastal artillery and workers of the navy shipyards took over the Southern fleet, bringing the number of ships in the hands of the insurrection to 26. The sailors disembarked the officers, and took to sea to join the rest of the mutineers in Coquimbo. In the meantime, other military units started to join the movement, including the Arica and Maipo Army Regiments, stationed in the cities of La Serena and Valparaíso

Valparaíso

Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...

respectively.

At this point the demands of the mutineers were increased to include an agrarian reform, industrial "solidarity" and the payment of external debt by the "millionaires". Vice President Trucco was extremely alarmed and sent Admiral Edgardo von Schroeders to negotiate, while at the same time preparing the Army

Chilean Army

The Chilean Army is the land arm of the Military of Chile. This 45,000-person army is organized into seven divisions, a special operations brigade and an air brigade....

and Air Force

Chilean Air Force

The Chilean Air Force is the air force of Chile, a branch of the Chilean military.-History:The first step towards the current FACh was taken by Teniente Coronel Pedro Pablo Dartnell, when he founded the Servicio de Aviación Militar de Chile on December 20, 1910, being trained as a pilot in France...

. At the beginning, the negotiations moved quite smoothly, but they soon broke down when the mutineers started to suspect that the government was only interested in buying time while preparing to attack.

After the break in negotiations, the government issued an ultimatum for unconditional surrender. The mutineers answered by declaring a "social revolution" and announcing links with the Worker's Federation and the Communist Party of Chile

Communist Party of Chile

The Communist Party of Chile is a Chilean political party inspired by the thoughts of Karl Marx and Lenin. It was founded in 1922, as the continuation of the Socialist Workers Party, and in 1934 it established its youth wing, the Communist Youth of Chile .In the last legislative elections in Chile...

. Meanwhile the Minister of War, General Carlos Vergara, had massed troops near each of the mutineers' strongholds.

Talcahuano attack

On the 5th, army troops under the command of General Guillermo Novoa attacked the naval base of Talcahuano

Talcahuano

Talcahuano is a port city and commune in the Biobío Region of Chile. It is part of the Greater Concepción conurbation. Talcahuano is located in the south of the Central Zone of Chile.-Geography:...

. These forces were composed of four regiments and an artillery battalion. The attack started at 15:30 when the artillery started to bombard the destroyer Riveros

Riveros

-List of people with the surname Riveros:* Cristian Riveros , a Paraguayan footballer* Bárbara Riveros Díaz , Chilean triathlete* Guillermo Riveros , a former Chilean football defender* Jaime Riveros , a Chilean footballer...

, which was protecting the base. The ship was hit and severely damaged and eventually was forced to withdraw to Quiriquina Island

Quiriquina Island

Quiriquina Island, Chile is located at the entrance to the Bay of Concepción, 11 km north of Talcahuano.In April, 1557, Don Garcia de Mendoza, Spanish viceroy of the Kingdom of Chile, arrived at the harbor of Concepción, with a large force of infantry and established himself upon the island of...

to disembark its injured and dead. After two days of battle, the army managed to capture the naval base on the 6th. The number of dead was never revealed but it has been estimated to be considerable.

Coquimbo bombing

Air Commodore Ramón Vergara, Commander-in-chief of the Air Force

Chilean Air Force

and brother of the Minister of War concentrated all his air power in the city of Ovalle, near the port of Coquimbo

Coquimbo

where the fleet was gathered. He amassed 2 Junkers R-42

Junkers G 24

The Junkers G 24 was a German three-engine, all-metal low-wing monoplane passenger aircraft manufactured by Junkers from 1925. Junkers F 24 was the designation for single-engine versions of the same aircraft.-Design and development:...

heavy bombers, 14 Curtiss Falcon

Curtiss Falcon

The Curtiss Falcon is a family of military biplane aircraft built by the United States aircraft manufacturer Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company during the 1920s. Most saw service as part of the United States Army Air Corps as observation aircraft with the designations O-1 and O-11, or as the...

and Vickers Vixen

Vickers Vixen

|-See also:-External links:*...

light bombers, 2 Vickers-Wibault Type 121

Vickers Wibault

-Bibliography:* Andrews, E.N. and Morgan, E.B. Vickers Aircraft Since 1908, Second edition. London: Putnam, 1988. ISBN 0-85177-815-1.* Green, William and Swanborough, Gordon. The Complete Book of Fighters. New York: Smithmark, 1994. ISBN 0-8317-3939-8....

s and 2 Ford 5-AT-C

Ford Trimotor

The Ford Trimotor was an American three-engined transport plane that was first produced in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and that continued to be produced until June 7, 1933. Throughout its time in production, a total of 199 Ford Trimotors were produced...

transports (modified as light bombers). Their original mission had been to intercept the Southern fleet to prevent it from joining the rest of the mutineers in Coquimbo. This was considered easy to do, since the Southern fleet did not have anti-aircraft artillery. However, the Air Force was not able to find the fleet at sea and could not prevent it from arriving safely.

Since the effectiveness of the Air Force had been placed in question by its earlier failure, Commodore Vergara insisted on attacking the fleet. This raid took place on the 6th at 5 PM. The plan was to concentrate the bombing over the Battleship Almirante Latorre, but the result was only one hit, on the submarine Quidora, resulting in one fatality and one wounded. Five planes were hit by fire from the fleet but were able to return to base, while one Curtiss Falcon

Curtiss Falcon

was so seriously damaged that it went down over La Serena. Its two pilots survived, with only minor injuries.

Aftermath

The combined actions of Talcahuano and Coquimbo seemingly disheartened the mutineers, who decided to end the mutiny. They took the fleet to Valparaiso

Valparaíso

and there they surrendered unconditionally to the authorities. The sailors were court-martial

Court-martial

A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...

ed and received different sentences ranging from light prison to death sentences. Further purges in the navy followed. However, no one was executed, and the mutineers were all eventually pardoned by the authorities a year later, with the advent of the Socialist Republic of Chile

Socialist Republic of Chile

Socialist Republic of Chile was a short-lived political entity in Chile, that was proclaimed by the Government Junta that took over that year.-Background:...

Sources

The Abortive Kronstadt: The Chilean Naval Mutiny of 1931, William F. Sater, Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 60, No. 2 (May, 1980), pp. 239-268. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2168(198005)60%3A2%3C239%3ATAKTCN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3
Chile: A Brief Naval History, Carlos López Urrutia http://www.historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=16
La sublevación de la escuadra y el período revolucionario 1924-1932, Germán Bravo Valdivieso, Ediciones Altazor, Viña del Mar, 2000, 213 páginas.
La sublevación de la escuadra, Liborio Justo, Punto Final, suplemento, Sept. 28, 1971.
La revolución de la escuadra, Patricio Manns, UCV, Valparaiso, 1972.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.