The age of the dreadnought was a precursor to what the world would witness decades later during the Cold War over nuclear weapons. Nations wanted them not only to protect themselves, to threaten their adversaries but also to display the prestige from having them, even to the point of redundancies. Dreadnoughts could be built and bought with little thought by any nation with the tenacity, drive and economy to do so. Brazil is one of those forgotten nations who had a handful of them in the early 20th century, in this case, with the Minas Gerais.

The Minas Gerais was an important step not only for dreadnoughts in general but also for the Brazilians. As a relatively new nation, it had a lot to prove especially since it had been a forever-colony. Brazilian Admiral Huett Bacelar noted its importance by stating that the construction of advanced ships and navy would raise the nation’s profile and place it’s strength where it ought to be appropriate given Brazil’s size and location.1 It should be stated that much of its size was uninhabited and its location was quite out of the way from world politics. However, it was notable as Brazil wasn’t the only rising South American naval power of the time. Both Chile and Argentina had a standoff and built up their own fleets, and when they hadn’t been used, their purchase had been advocated by Admiral Rozhestvensky of the Russian Empire, however these requests were denied by the Tsar due to costs shortly before the disastrous battle of Tsushima.

The Minas Gerais itself was launched in 1908 and completed by 1910. It was a notable ship of its time, “having had a displacement of 19,250 tons, its main armor at 9 inches, a coal capacity of 2000 tons and an armament consisting of twelve 12-inch guns, twenty-two 47 -inch quick-firing, and eight 3-pounder quick-firing, with four torpedo tubes.”2. The Minas Gerais wasn’t the only impressive ship of the time as Brazil was constructing two others as well such as the notable Sao Paolo. Brazil had been wholly caught up into the zeitgeist at the time and with few practical reasons.

These ships were on an elite level. To note the impressiveness of the ships and how formidable they had been, they “…were already longer, heavier… than Britain’s own epochal H.M.S. Dreadnought.”3 Britain’s ship had entered into service just a few years before and it had already been exceed in some ways. These more modern ships were so advanced that it had made many previous dreadnoughts obsolete, towering over anything the world had thus far, not to mention the Chilean and Argentinian fleets.4. This was the age of rapid naval growth and development which had also helped Japan and the United States to build competitive navies in a short amount of time.

The Brazilian Battleship Minas Gerais was almost immediately put to use although Brazil wasn’t off to war. Instead, Dr. Lauro Severiano Müller was visiting the United States and returned on the same ship, showing off the power and the prestige of the Brazilian nation. While the original intent of the visit was to return the favor of a visit from Elihu Root in 1906, it was really to show up on a modern dreadnought in a fantastic way to gain the attention of the rising republic. 5 But as mentioned, these vessels were meant for much more than their military power. The impressiveness of their size, modernity and the wealth they represented showed off a nation like a peacock and it’s feathers.

However, what the Minas Gerais is probably best known for would happen in later 1910. On 16 November 1910, Marcelino Rodrigues Menezes was shackled on the deck of the Minas Gerais. The ship’s commander, Cápitano-de-Mar-e-Guerra João Periera Leite, had Menezes lashed 250 times for a penalty of insubordination toward an officer. The age-old practice, in which was meant to be the last known instance of in the Brazilian navy, launched a mutiny which causes included not only and primarily the corporal punishment of the enlisted, but also empressment of sailors and the forced lengthening of their service time which could theoretically become indefinite. 6

The plotting of the mutiny was in action on board the Mineas Gerais and the sister ship, the Sao Paulo. João Candido, on board the Mineas Gerais, plotted for a mutiny throughout the fleet for 22 November of the same year. This date was specifically chosen because the captain of the Mineas Gerais was dining aboard a visiting French cruiser. However, upon his return to his own ship, he and his officers who were with him were met with rifle shots. The captain and two of the officers were immediately shot and killed in the mutiny with another officer mortally wounded. The success of the mutiny aboard the Minas Gerais quickly swept through the fleet and those aboard the Sao Paulo. Marshal Floriano and Babia7 continued the mutiny but without further bloodshed, leaving the officers on the shore. 8 A transmission was soon sent where the fleet under a red flag demanded better food and living conditions, an end to corporal punishment and an amnesty to those who had mutinied. When no response was offered, the captured ships then proceeded and opened fire to specifically target forts, the naval arsenal and government buildings. However, these shots were wildly inaccurate. Some civilian casualties were reported and the government quickly rallied, even considering sinking the ships with torpedo boats which would’ve been a great monetary loss and caused further hits to what little prestige they had remaining. Also this likely would’ve damaged relations between Brazil and the United Kingdom since there were still British technicians aboard. When considered options had been mulled through, the Brazilian government agreed to amnesty shortly after with a vote accepting the measure. The mutineers returned on 26 November.

Roughly two weeks passed when on the night of 9 December 1910 a group of marines also revolted from within their barracks on the Island of Cobras, taking possession of the fortress. Not wanting further revolts to spread, the President declared martial law within the city and a new order was given to fire on the rebels at dawn. Those within the fort surrendered after roughly two hundred of them were either wounded or killed. 9 For the ensuing years little happened for the Minas Gerais.

It is interesting to note the paranoia and worry on the precipice of World War I, particularly with massive ships coming from other countries. American politicians and newspapers were concerned about Brazil being used as a proxy for ship ownership considering it’s “fourth-rate status.” Should it have been true, it would’ve radically shifted balances of power around the world. Even Winston Churchill had proclaimed in October 1913, “The simultaneous building by so many powers great and small of capital ships, and their general naval expansion, are causes of deep anxiety to us. Germany may fall behind in the race as she has herself provoked, and we may yet be left to face a great preponderance of loose Dreadnoughts, wh[ich] at v[ery] short notice, a diplomatic grouping or regrouping may range against us.” 10 As Britain was a naval-heavy state, such uncertainties about switching allegiances or proxies had obviously set them especially on edge. And wavering allegiances, particularly among smaller powers holding onto dreadnoughts or other dangerous vessels had no doubt increased the anxiety and fear among politicians beyond the island nation.

In spite of the worry, the Mineas Gerais and Sao Paulo were bystanders through World War I. While Brazil joined the war in 1917, and had even offered to send the Minas Gerais and Sao Paolo to the United Kingdom for use, the offer was declined due to the age of the ships and their state of disrepair. This should note the advances in naval technology in that less than a decade they were already refused even for free use.

After World War I, the Mineas Gerais was sent to be refit on 15 July 1920, six months after the Sao Paulo returned from the United States for the same reason. By the beginning of October, the Mineas Gerais had been refit for 1920s modernization but the remainder of its lifetime remained relatively without note. It had been involved as a standby for the government to put down another mutiny in 1922 and again, remained on the government’s side during another attempted mutiny in 1924 when the Sao Paulo was seized once more.

On 16 May 1952, the Minas Gerais was decommissioned but it remained a stationary headquarters ship for the Naval CinC until 17 December of the same year. On the last day of the year, 31 December 1952, it was sold to the Italian SA Cantiere Navale de Santa Maria,11 a ship breaking company. They then took it and the Minas Gerais was scrapped in 1954, ending its front-loaded career. Just like many ships of its era, it was revolutionary in the year that it had been launched, but by the time it needed to be used, it was often obsolete as soon as it was released like 1990s and 2000s PCs.

The rise of the dreadnoughts is an interesting time in military history because so much had advanced so quickly on a global scale. Without holding back many secrets, all nations of capability were able to build or buy their own major warships. This openness had allowed both the United States and Japan to modernize so quickly which aided Japan’s actions against China and the United State’s victory against Spain in the Spanish-American War. There was an incredible craze based on the Alfred Thayer Mahan Naval philosophy colliding with ingenuity and technological advancement. Perhaps it is most succinctly recollected in the finalizing quote below:

“Prior to the dreadful war now raging in Europe, the whole of Christendom seemed to have gone mad on the subject of battleships; even countries which our schoolboy geographies used to characterize as ‘semi-civilized’ joining in the race for naval supremacy.” 12

Notes

1 Erhart p 6

2 Wood p 274

3 Hough pp 30-31

4 Erhart pp 3-4

5 Pan American

6 Bell p 33

7 The Naval Annul p 46

8 Hough pp 28-29

9 ibid. pp 29-30

10 Erhart p 7

11 Dodson

12 Goodrich p 373

Bibliography

Bell, Christopher M., and Bruce A. Elleman, eds. “Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective.” Accessed February 7, 2024. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=dtU3JW7WVWwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=minas+geraes+battleship&ots=gbiqyD2fze&sig=-G6sbIng9tx8AzIVGuJavAjOZAI#v=onepage&q=minas%20geraes%20battleship&f=false

Dodson, Aidan. The Windfall Battleships: Agincourt, Canada, Erin, Eagle and the Balkan & Latin-American Arms Races. Accessed February 7, 2024. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=AK3YEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=minas+geraes+battleship&ots=LJbxK0zMm5&sig=_S_V3pL7_BqKyZf9rpZKfQ-1fX8#v=onepage&q=minas%20geraes%20battleship&f=false

Erhart, Edward Samuel. n.d. “The ‘Loose Dreadnoughts’: South America’s Struggle for Naval Preeminence – ProQuest.” https://www.proquest.com/openview/05dba0b0b1c7499a227cbc346a712ee8/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y.

Goodrich, Caspar F. “The Future of the Battleship.” The North American Review 202, no. 718 (1915): 373–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25108580.

Hough, Richard. “The Big Battleship.” Google Books. Accessed February 7, 2024. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=aN8UYOt1XxYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA13&dq=minas%2Bgeraes%2Bbattleship&ots=6TFjXO-5n1&sig=quuEmoXbkbJYapYSrte-stPoIno#v=onepage&q=minas%20geraes%20battleship&f=false.

“The Naval Annul.” Accessed February 7, 2024. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=dgFAAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=minas+geraes+battleship&ots=6gqiMUjPUD&sig=-8mancvrqifg6fz4uL7w2f0oh2M#v=onepage&q=minas%20geraes&f=false

“Pan American Notes.” HeinOnline. Accessed February 7, 2024. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.jounrals%2Fbulpnamu37&div=13&id=&page=

Wood, Walter. “The Battleship: Being the Story of the Greatest Naval Weapon From the First Ship-of-the-Line to Present-Day Leviathans.” Google Books. Accessed February 7, 2024. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=Z8y2kAzmAo0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=minas%2Bgeraes%2Bbattleship&ots=1oXjpcTS1i&sig=BXY45kdLW2lRrKSuZPY4qN1OgK8#v=onepage&q=minas%20geraes%20battleship&f=false.