The thing sounded so futuristic and to such an extent it seemed taken from an Asimov novel, that if modernity had not already arrived with the Beatles or Armstrong’s moonwalk by force, it had to do so with that. In 1980, the US and the USSR fought over copper to see which of the two would first manufacture a “death ray”, a jet of energy or atomic particles that would mean – and this was what the press pointed out at the time – the “checkmate”. ” Definitive on the Cold War chessboard.
What they probably did not know either in Washington or in the Kremlin is that such an idea had the same novelty as the Zaragozano Calendar. Eight decades earlier, when Spain was still digesting the disaster of 1898 and the traumatic loss of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, which for practical purposes meant the collapse of its overseas empire, a Catalan inventor —from Vilanova i la Geltrú, to be precise—he had already considered a very similar proposal.
Of course, for a much more Spanish purpose: defend the Strait of Gibraltar.
His name: Isidoro Cabanyes.
Mission: Defend Gibraltar
If it did not belong to the field of biographies and were well documented, that of Isidoro Cabanyes Olzinelles (1843-1915) would seem like a life taken from the best pages of Jules Verne, from that trunk of genius from which Captain Nemo or Phileas Fogg peeked. Tables are not lacking, of course. Throughout his life, Cabanyes, an engineer, soldier, inventor and scientist, became one of the great pioneers of electricity in Spain and a precursor of alternative energies.
From his work table came out —and beware, what follows is just a sample— plans for a compressed gas tram, a prototype submarine torpedo, an electrochemical accumulator, a battery for instantaneous lighting of incandescent lamps, an experimental airplane and a gasoline-carburetted air generator that he devised with lighting or heating in mind and which he called “Photogenic”. Also a “solar-air engine” which already combined solar and wind energy in 1905.
Perhaps of all his creations, the most worthy of Verne’s pages, however, is the one he proposed to the Ministry of War in 1899: neither more nor less than an artificial lightning generator (sic) to defend the country’s coasts. His idea — details the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) — was based on an electric motor of between 750 and 1,500 CV powered by an alternating current dynamo and two transformers located at high points and connected by antennas.
Torpedo-submarine designed by Cabanyes and Bonet in 1885.
“As soon as the set is running, an electrical gap is established between the poles of both antennas, enough to make the a spark with all the effects of lightning”, Cabanyes himself wrote in his proposal, and concluded, in a line that surely would have astonished the engineers who in 1980 left their eyelashes in a “death ray” for the USSR and the USA: “Optorously using the lines of fire […] There will be no isolated mass or assembled squad that, being within the network of said lines, avoids being destroyed in a very short time”.
In case that was not clear enough and to make his approach more didactic, Cabanyes accompanied him with a sketch, a very basic and schematic plan, but in which he already showed how a defense network of the Strait of Gibraltar could be assembled with electrodes. distributed between Ceuta and the south of the peninsula, in Tarifa, Algeciras, Estepona or Marbella.
Its objective —as detailed by the OEPM itself— was to weave “a network of facilities to control the Strait of Gibraltar and attack ships with lightning generated by electrodes.” Why the Strait of Gibraltar? Probably due to a “cocktail” of factors: first, due to its own configuration, ideal for Cabanyes’ purpose; second, for his strategic role as a door between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean; and third, and fundamental, because since long ago, at the beginning of the 18th century, the enclave of Gibraltar was no longer under Spanish control, but rather that of the English.
To understand Cabanyes’ motivation, it is also convenient to handle at least two dates. The first, 1885, when the Carolinas Crisis revealed the weakness of the Spanish fleet. The second, 1898, the year of the signing of the Treaty of Paris that put the finishing touch on the war with the United States, dealt the coup de grace to what was left of the empire and marked an entire generation.
Beyond its military use and the attack on enemy ships, Cabanyes was convinced that his “lightning” could also be used to condense water vapor and generate rain.
In the mouth of another inventor from the late 19th century, the idea might sound crazy, but Cabanyes was not a charlatan: his proposal was based on studies carried out years before by the Frenchman Éleuthère Mascart and he himself was a benchmark in the field of electricity. in Spain. His workshop in Lagasca was perhaps the first place in Madrid to have permanent electric light and between 1882 and 1883 he had even contributed to the installation of electric lighting in the capital.
Airplane prototype designed by Cabanyes in 1899.
Whether it sounded more or less far-fetched, whether they had more or less faith in their results, Cabanyes’s idea and its civil applications were liked enough for the Academy of Sciences to consider it to be of “true scientific interest”. Of course, before mounting huge antennas, they proposed that polished in the laboratory. His caution is understandable: in his tests Mascart used small spheres, barely three centimeters in diameter, and separated by no more than fifteen, very far from the dimensions that Cabanyes proposed to reach with his lightning generator.
Shortly after the report from the Academy of Sciences, around the middle of 1901, Cabanyes received the green light to start an international tour to find out about the latest developments from the main European manufacturers —Siemens, Breguet, Oerlikon or Brush— and “to study the latest advances in electricity, especially those related to the establishment of very high potential currents”.
His tourné —a correspondent already hinted at that time— was related to an “amazing invention” that could “decisively influence military art”.
Whether or not it really would have been capable of striking down enemy battleships in the Strait of Gibraltar is something that, yes, remains for science fiction novels. As detailed by Jesús Sánchez Miñana in Quaderns d’Història de l’Enginyeria, there is no further news on the matter and shortly after the inventor moved to Cartagena to take over the direction of the artillery park.
What we keep is your proposal.
That of his nineteenth-century “death ray” and his huge portfolio of inventionswhich make him a pioneer in aeronautics, underwater navigation and even solar energy.
Although that is a story for another day.
Images: Royal Academy of History and OEPM
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