Ramón de Carranza y Fernández de la Reguera, (16 April 1863 – 13 September 1938) was a Spanish sailor, intelligence officer, diplomat, politician, and an increasingly controversial figure in the history of Spain. For over twenty years, he was a career officer in the Spanish Navy, leading raiding parties and engaging in naval battles all over the world.
During the Cuban War of Independence, he earned several medals for bravery and courage under fire. After the destruction of the USS Maine in Cuba, he was assigned the position of Naval attaché at the Spanish Legation in Washington, D.C. With the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, he became the chief spymaster of the Montreal Spy Ring, and US intelligence historians have suggested that he was the most importantly-positioned Spaniard on the entire American continent at the time.
After the war, he returned to Spain, where he entered into politics. Carranza served in the Cortes Generales, the Congress of Deputies, and over half a dozen terms in the Senate of Spain. While serving an earlier term as mayor, he oversaw the creation of the Bullring of Cádiz and several popular hotels. However, he left the city bankrupt, forced to leave politics for several years. During the Spanish Civil War, Carranza was loyal to the Francoists and served in the Francoist Army. During the war, he was made again the Mayor of Cádiz, and its provincial , during which time he oversaw one of the city's harshest periods of civil repression and extrajudicial executions. However, his specific involvement in these deaths is considered unverified by the People's Party.
Career in the Spanish Navy On 13 April 1863, Ramón de Carranza was born at sea on a passenger ship in the middle of its voyage from the Balearic Islands to Galicia. When the ship pulled into port at its destination of Ferrol, Galicia, Spain, his birth was recorded at the nearest courthouse as being in that city.
He was born into a family with a long tradition and history of sailing and deep roots in the Spanish Navy. He was the third of six children. His father, José Juan de Carranza y Echevarría, had served most of his life in the navy around Galicia, but would reach the rank of Admiral in the late 1880s and go on to serve as Captain General of Ferrol and later of Cádiz. His mother was Carmen Fernández de la Reguera y Fernández de Pola, who came from Santander. Two of his brothers; Fernando, Juan Manuel, also pursued careers in the navy. Another one of his brothers, José Ignacio, joined the Spanish Marine Infantry.
Early naval career On 17 August 1876, shortly after the Third Carlist War, at only the age of 13, Carranza entered the Spanish Navy as a cadet. Graduating at the top of his class, he advanced to marine guard second-class midshipman on 25 June 1878, serving his first posting aboard the frigate Blanca. In July 1881 he became a first-class midshipman, and was commissioned as an ensign on 25 July 1882.
On 16 July 1886, he was promoted to Lieutenant and posted to Cádiz. After a great scandal while his father was serving as the Capitan General of Ferrol, with protestors throwing stones at the family house, the rest of his family later followed Carranza to Cádiz where they began to try and embed within the local fishing community.
Through the 1890s, Carranza continued to advance through a series of standard naval assignments, serving as a navigation officer aboard the battleship Pelayo and the cruiser Conde del Venadito.
In 1890, he married Josefa Gómez Aramburu, a member of one of the most important families in Cádiz and the daughter of a wealthy shipping tycoon who was also involved in the Aramburu Bank, giving him access to her family's relatively immense wealth. This allowed him his own entry into the profitable tuna fishing industry at Cádiz. Together, the couple would have seven children, although only four of them survived childhood.
Loss of the Tajo (1895) In 1895, Carranza was appointed Commander of the Somorrostro-class iron-hulled gunboat Tajo, which was built for coastal surveillance during the Third Carlist War. It was roughly 24 meters long and 5 meters wide, armed with two guns mounted in a rotating turret. As its commander, Carranza was tasked with patrol duties along the Cantabrian Coast and the Bidasoa River on the border with France.
On 29 May 1895, Carranza anchored at Pasajes to examine the nearby inlet of Illurgita. As he approached Pasajes, he ordered the helm to port to avoid a large rock in the water. The helmsman warned that the rudder was not responding. Carranza ordered full reverse to avoid impact, but the ship's momentum carried it onto the rock. The collision opened the hull, and the gunboat began to sink rapidly.
Carranza ordered the immediate abandonment of the vessel, but remained aboard. One of the lifeboats reached the nearby shore, but the other capsized in the whirlpool created by the sinking. A fishing boat was able to rescue the sailors. All survived except one sailor, Enrique Lago, who drowned after the capsize. Carranza himself was later pulled from the water, unconscious.
While authorities investigated the sinking, Carranza was assigned to command the coastal patrol boats of the Basque Provinces and oversee surveillance along the French border. A formal court-martial convened in Ferrol on 16 August. After reviewing testimony and technical reports, the board unanimously acquitted Carranza of all responsibility. He then returned to Cádiz with his family on a two-month leave.
Cuban War of Independence
On 1 January 1896, at his own request, Carranza was posted to Havana, which was at that time the capital of Spanish Cuba. The Spanish Empire was embroiled in the Cuban War of Independence against the Republic of Cuba in Arms. Having served on over 50 ships at that point, Carranza understood that service in armed combat, naval or otherwise, offered greater prospects for distinction and promotion than patrol duties elsewhere. With the expansion of military operations in the Antilles, he was placed under the authority of the commander of the Cuban Armada, Marengo, and assigned to carry out regular inspection missions aboard vessels of the Compañía Trasatlántica.
On 18 May 1896, despite the vessel itself being noted as in very poor condition and nearing the end of its service life, Carranza was given command of the small, shallow-draft Activo class gunboat Contramaestre. Built in New York in 1869, with a displacement of 179 tons and measuring 32.51 meters long, the wooden-hulled Contramaestre was powered by machinery producing 137 horsepower, driving two shafts to achieve a speed of 8 knots. It had an operational range of 1,600 miles and carried a single 130mm muzzle-loading Parrott rifle as its primary armament. This was one of the several craft charged with patrolling the Cuban coastline to intercept smuggled arms and to respond to local uprisings of the Mambises and the Cuban Liberation Army.
On 15 October 1896, during one of these routine coastline patrols, the crew investigated reports of suspicious activity near the mouth of the Río de San Juan using a ship's launch, which came under fire from insurgent forces, suggesting that there might be a significant rebel stronghold here. Because the Contramaestre was unable to cross the river bar, the smaller launch Ardilla was used to enter the port despite sustained enemy fire. Carranza went ashore with a detachment of thirty-four men. On shore, outnumbered and surrounded, he and his men engaged and dispersed a force of roughly four hundred armed insurgents attempting to protect a cache of smuggled war supplies. After fighting through and driving the rebels from a stone-built defensive position, the landing party secured the hidden stock of arms and ammunition.
For his actions and courage under fire, Carranza was awarded the Cross of Naval Merit with red insignia, and two plaques of the Royal Order of María Cristina.
At some point, he returned to Cádiz. Spanish legation at Washington, D.C.
On February 15, 1898, the US Navy battleship USS Maine suffered a catastrophic explosion in Havana Harbor, resulting in the deaths of 261 of its 355 crew members. The American press and US government officials immediately placed blame on Spain, and the incident served as a direct catalyst to ramp-up tensions and stoke the war-fervor of the US citizenry. The Spanish naval commander in Cuba, Admiral Vicente Manterola, directed Captain Don Pedro del Peral y Caballero to conduct and adjudicate a formal investigation into the explosion, assisted by Lieutenant Don . Their findings concluded that the disaster was unequivocally due to an internal accident on the ship, fully clearing Spain of any responsibility. In contrast, American authorities in Cuba and the press magnate William Randolph Hearst's publications directly accused Spain of sabotage.
Traveling from Cádiz to Madrid at the time, Carranza received instructions from Práxedes Mateo Sagasta and Segismundo Bermejo, and was ordered to go to Havana to retrieve the investigative file on the Maine and hand-deliver it to the administration of President William McKinley. Although war seemed inevitable, the Spanish government was attempting to avert it. He arrived in Havana on March 24, where he consulted with numerous witnesses of the disaster. He then proceeded to Washington, D.C., with the file compiled by Peral and Salas.
On April 2, immediately upon his arrival, Carranza and the Spanish Ambassador Luis Polo de Bernabé presented the investigative report to Secretary of State John Sherman. They insisted that Spain did not fear war, but was not responsible for the Maine's destruction. Meanwhile, massive public demonstrations against Spain erupted in Washington and New York, fueled by the slogan, "Remember the Maine. To hell with Spain!"
Expecting to be returned to a posting aboard a ship at sea after the delivery of the documents, Carranza was instead appointed as the naval attaché to the Spanish Legation in Washington. This was a highly sensitive posting, given that the two nations were on the verge of war. Carranza was a top-ranked officer from his promotion, a torpedo specialist, already a decorated veteran of the Cuban conflict, and fluent in English. This made him highly sought-after by the Legation as a naval intelligence officer. The positing of Naval attaché has traditionally been used by many nations as a diplomatic cover for intelligence coordination since the late nineteenth century. Carranza did not enjoy the assignment, believing himself better suited as a sailor, and desiring of further advancement through combat. He maintained strong ties within the Spanish Admiralty and requested to participate directly in naval combat. He grew frustrated at being confined to intelligence duties, believing that Spain's chances of success depended on active engagement at sea rather than covert operations. Nevertheless, he performed his duties despite the hindrances of what he would later call the ineptitude of his superiors.As the unofficial director of Spanish naval intelligence in Washington, Carranza relied heavily on Spanish immigrantnetworks in the United States. Communities in Tampa, Key West, New Orleans, and Mobile provided potential recruits and logistical support for intelligence and propaganda operations. Pro-Spanish sympathizers in those cities had allegedly raised funds to purchase a small warship for Spain and to conduct reconnaissance of American naval installations along the Atlantic coast. US field operatives also reported sightings of suspected Spanish agents as far west as San Francisco, allegedly engaged in surveillance of military facilities in the Bay Area. American intelligence later reported that Segismundo Bermejo, Spain's Minister of the Navy, had authorized plans to sabotage U.S. naval bases on both coasts. There were also fears that Spanish agents had infiltrated the U.S. Army and might reveal troop movements.