After scouting several places in order to build blast furnaces, Jean Curtius finally found the ideal location in Liérganes. The businessman found in that Cantabrian corner a vigorous river, a good number of iron mines and stone quarries and piers within a very short distance. With these elements and the support of the State, that industrialist from Flanders – at that time belonging to the Hispanic Crown – would begin the construction of the first metallurgical industry in the country in 1618.
Curtius had already explored Bizkaia to initiate an innovative plan that the Crown had long desired, but, after being rejected in the neighboring land due to local suspicions and fear of competition, he set course for a territory known as The Mountain.
In Liérganes, he and a handful of Flemish technicians rented a mill and forges and began building forges and two furnaces, in addition to acquiring forests and iron mines. By obtaining the monopoly on the production of cast iron through a royal decree in 1622, Curtius saw the promises received fulfilled when he left his home for this adventure.
Curtius's initial success, however, was marred by continuous disbursements, which put him in debt and forced him to sell the facilities to a group of businessmen, among whom was Georges de Bande. That same year, 1628, the factory was commissioned to produce its first two hundred cannons of the twenty-six thousand that came to populate the seas of the entire planet.
Upon receiving the first pieces two years later, the captain general of Artillery did not hesitate to praise their quality. Those cannons, he said, were “of better manufacture than those imported from England and Germany.”
The Spanish Empire used bronze cannons, lighter than iron ones, but ten times more expensive. Not only was it an unaffordable expense, but Germany, Sweden and Switzerland were ahead in already using cast iron. The famous forges of Spain forged iron using hammer blows, so the new techniques of the European masters were going to revolutionize the manufacturing processes.
These processes began to consist of melting the metal and pouring it into buried molds. The blast furnaces made it possible to reach very high temperatures with charcoal thanks to a system of bellows that introduced large jets of air. These boats were moved by a wheel propelled by water, a mechanism that required diverting the river to the ovens to use its power.
After the benefits derived from the first order, the foundry began to receive orders from the Navy: if in the first half of the 1930s nearly two hundred cannons had been manufactured, in the following five years a thousand were cast.
The expansion of the factory in La Cavada contributed to the impressive takeoff, a move that allowed production to multiply. In this neighboring town, just four kilometers downriver, two ovens were built with chimneys twelve meters high, unheard of dimensions. Furthermore, to blow in the necessary air and raise the temperatures to 1,538 degrees, the melting point of iron, a dam and a 1,500-meter channel were built with the water that moved the wheels of the mechanism and heated the casting.
Over time, both factories would be unified and known as the Royal Artillery Factory of La Cavada, more than sixty hectares surrounded by high walls that enclosed furnaces, workshops, schools of mineralogy, metallurgy and mathematics, housing for employees, offices, a barracks. or stables.
If Liérganes and La Cavada stood out so much, it was because of their technology. One of the first achievements of Georges de Bande, with the help of the Sevillian engineer Julio César Firrufino, had been the reduction in the weight of the cannons by a third.
To do this, they mixed the iron extracted from the mines of Cabárceno, Pámanes or Vizmaya, around the facilities, with that of Somorrostro, in Bizkaia. The new alloy made it possible to equip ships that could carry up to one hundred and forty cannons on board with lighter artillery.
The future of the La Cavada factory was always linked to the country's drift. In the middle of the 17th century, Spain was at war with half the world, and territorial losses imposed a decline in the export of cannons and bullets. Towards the end of the century, however, artillery production reached a new splendor with the accession of Philip V to the throne.
The first Bourbon king set out to maintain his dominions, and that meant increasing the budget for fleet and artillery. From then on, the factories began to serve more clients and received important orders, such as the more than three thousand pipes they cast for the gardens of Aranjuez and La Granja de San Ildefonso.
The next half century faced an agony that included the nationalization of the foundries under the command of Charles III. The cannons, for the first time in 150 years, failed tests before being delivered, and even burst when tested. The decision was to entrust the management of the factory to the Navy, which recovered the traditional methods and the old glory.
Wood was one of the most precious goods in the countryside, essential for building cabins, farming implements, carts or wheels. The interests of the Royal Shipyards of Guarnizo, whose existence had benefited the foundry (ships built between 1720 and 1790 had been equipped with 2,700 La Cavada cannons), clashed with those of the factory at a time when wood was scarce. The kilns had swallowed up the surrounding forests, and the charcoal extracted from the trees was presented as an increasingly rare commodity.
In 1718, an endowment of forests had been created that gave the forests in a radius of about 28 kilometers exclusively to the foundry. Among the demanding regulations, towns were obliged to repair and maintain roads so that the factory could access the forests.
The factory depleted 50,000 hectares of the 140,000 hectares it was entitled to by law. In a circular from 1796 it is read that "the mountains of its endowment are exhausted and ruined", a description that is not surprising if one takes into account that, to cast a cannon weighing two tons - and here they were cast in three–, five hectares of wood were needed.
In the last attempt to feed the blast furnaces with charcoal, Wolfgang de Mücha created the Miera Company, whose plans included the construction of a 1,500-meter slide to throw the trees felled in the north of Burgos into the river. But the engineer's calculations had not taken into account the absence of flow force in summer, when the forests were cut down, and the expenses to compensate for it stifled the company.
At the gates of the 19th century, with Liérganes on the verge of closing and La Cavada in clear decline, the only thing that could be attempted was to smelt mineral coal to replace the scarce vegetable fuel. Asturian coking coal cost half as much as that extracted from trees and provided twice as many calories.
After several experiments that failed, the director of the factory, José Valdés, informed the Minister of the Navy of his inability to face the challenge. Valdés was replaced by Fernando Casado de Torres, an engineer who emphasized the need to innovate in mineral coal technology in the wake of the European powers.
To do this, a greater amount of air was needed in the furnaces through innovations that the State was not going to make, while encouraging the search for coal mines. The task of searching the surroundings of the factory and finding a seam of coal seemed impossible, the beginning of the end.
The sinking of La Cavada, despite the mirage under the reign of Carlos III, was inevitable. Debts were suffocating the company, fewer ships were launched, which decreased the demand for cannons, charcoal was scarce, and there were no nearby coal mines. The factory closed in 1835, but the legend of a miracle that took the Spanish steel industry to the top for two hundred years still stands.
This text is part of an article published in number 667 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
