Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: Last year, when we took our podcast strip to Barcelona,
Speaker 2: during some of our kind of unscheduled time in Barcelona,
Speaker 2: my spouse and I walked down to the Maritime Museum
Speaker 2: and there were some submarine models there that really caught
Speaker 2: my eye. They had been designed by cattleum inventor Narcis Material,
Speaker 2: and I found them to just be really beautiful and intriguing.
Speaker 2: They looked kind of like a very well made wine barrel,
Speaker 2: but if a wine barrel was shaped more like a
Speaker 2: torpedo or a fish. And based on the very brief
Speaker 2: descriptions on the signs there, it seemed like these submarines
Speaker 2: worked a little bit better than a lot of other
Speaker 2: submarines of their era. So, like so many other things
Speaker 2: that went on the list, Narcis Monturial lived through a
Speaker 2: lot of the nineteenth century upheavals in Spain and Catalonia
Speaker 2: that we talked about in our episode on Manjuiq Castle
Speaker 2: that came out on December sixth of last year. We
Speaker 2: don't rerun episodes that recent as Saturday Classics, but I
Speaker 2: do feel like it helps kind of contextualize some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that was going on in a lot more
Speaker 2: detail than we're going to get into today. But that
Speaker 2: does mean before we get to the really cool submarines,
Speaker 2: we are going to talk about Monturial's time fighting for
Speaker 2: ideals like equality and freedom and progress in the middle
Speaker 2: of just a ton of social and political chaos.
Speaker 1: Narcis Monturial Yestariol was born in September of eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: Some sources say on the twenty eighth, and others say
Speaker 1: on the twenty ninth. He was born in Figettes in
Speaker 1: northern Catalonia, northeast of Barcelona. He was one of five children.
Speaker 1: Their father was a cooper, so in other words, a
Speaker 1: barrel maker. Under the inheritance laws of the day, Narcis's
Speaker 1: older brother was the one who would inherit their father's business.
Speaker 1: So the plan for Narcis, which was the plan for
Speaker 1: a lot of second sons, was that he would join
Speaker 1: the priesthood. So to that end, he studied at a
Speaker 1: monastery in Figaris and then at the University of Servera.
Speaker 1: At the time This was the only university in Catalonia,
Speaker 1: and some sources describe the education that he got there
Speaker 1: as more comparable to today's high schools than to college.
Speaker 1: But he just wasn't all that interested in the subjects
Speaker 1: that would have been most relevant to going on to
Speaker 1: joining the priesthood, things like philosophy, Latin and Greek. In
Speaker 1: terms of academics, he was more interested in things like
Speaker 1: science and medicine. Before long, he was also more interested
Speaker 1: in revolution than in schoolwork. In eighteen thirty three, either
Speaker 1: on his fourteenth or day or the day after, King
Speaker 1: Fernando the seventh of Spain died, as we discussed in
Speaker 1: the Monjuique episode from last December, Fernando's heir was his daughter,
Speaker 1: Isabella the Second, who was only three. But Isabella was
Speaker 1: only in line for the throne because of a decree
Speaker 1: her father had issued that allowed for a woman to
Speaker 1: become the Spanish monarch. Fernando's brother Carlos would have been
Speaker 1: next in line without that decree, and Carlos declared himself king.
Speaker 1: This led to the First Carlist War, which continued until
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine. Broadly speaking, Isabella's side was more liberal
Speaker 1: and progressive while the Carlists were more conservative, and people
Speaker 1: who wanted to go even farther than a more liberal
Speaker 1: monarchy also started a movement for democracy in Spain. By
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen, Narcis had moved to Barcelona, where
Speaker 1: his social circle was filled with revolutionaries and activists. One
Speaker 1: of his friends and frequent collaborators was Abdo Tore, who
Speaker 1: had been born in Figaris as well. Abdo Taradas was
Speaker 1: a socialist who advocated for Spain to become a republic.
Speaker 1: The University of Barcelona was re established in eighteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: and Narci seems to have enrolled there to study law,
Speaker 1: but there are some discrepancies about whether he graduated. He
Speaker 1: never described himself as a lawyer or practiced law, and
Speaker 1: there were times in his life when he really needed money,
Speaker 1: and it seems like if he'd had a law degree
Speaker 1: he might have had more opportunities to earn it. At
Speaker 1: the same time, the style and quality of his writing
Speaker 1: suggests that he had more advanced education than he would
Speaker 1: have gotten at the University of Savera, which had been
Speaker 1: declining in quality and ultimately closed in eighteen thirty five.
Speaker 1: Some sources say he never graduated from the University of
Speaker 1: Barcelona because he was so focused on his activism, and
Speaker 1: others say it was because he kept giving his tuition
Speaker 1: money to support the cause. Kind of two different flas
Speaker 1: of the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, between eighteen thirty five and eighteen fifty five,
Speaker 2: So for twenty years, Monturial launched or worked out a
Speaker 2: whole series of radical and revolutionary periodicals, and this was
Speaker 2: an ongoing cycle. He and some compatriots would start a
Speaker 2: newspaper or a journal or a publishing house. Then they
Speaker 2: would print a whole bunch of material criticizing the Carlists
Speaker 2: or the government or Baldemiro s Bartero, who was Queen
Speaker 2: Isabella's regent, or advocating for socialism or democracy or revolution.
Speaker 2: Soon the police would show up and shut down the
Speaker 2: press and arrest everybody, sometimes also storming their homes or
Speaker 2: their businesses. At various points, Monturial was fled or was
Speaker 2: sent into exile, first to Girona, then to his hometown
Speaker 2: of Figaris, and then to the coastal town of Katakaise.
Speaker 2: As soon as he could, he would make his way
Speaker 2: back to Barcelona, and he would just do that all
Speaker 2: over again. He also published treatises of his own, including
Speaker 2: one that advocated against the death penalty in eighteen forty four.
Speaker 2: He was also a member of La Melisia Nacionale, or
Speaker 2: the National Militia, which fought against the Spanish military during
Speaker 2: a number of popular uprisings and other unrest. We talked
Speaker 2: about several of these in the Monjuique episode. He was
Speaker 2: involved in two different uprisings that authorities dealt with, in
Speaker 2: part by bombarding the city of Barcelona from the castle
Speaker 2: at Montuique.
Speaker 1: In the middle of all.
Speaker 2: This, Monturial also tried to find ways to make money.
Speaker 2: He learned to paint from his friend Ramun Marty Alcina,
Speaker 2: who was considered to be one of the most important
Speaker 2: painters in Catalan realism, and from time to time he
Speaker 2: made some money as a portrait artist. He also invented things,
Speaker 2: including a printing machine that could print and cut the
Speaker 2: lined paper used for children's notebooks. Another invention was a
Speaker 2: cigarette rolling machine which could make forty five cigarettes a
Speaker 2: minute and then put them into a box. Monturial also
Speaker 2: worked as a tutor, including tutoring his landlord's daughter. Her
Speaker 2: name was Emilia, and as has been the case several times,
Speaker 2: on the show recently, their relationship gets a yikes when
Speaker 2: it's seen through a modern lens. In addition to the
Speaker 2: fact that he was her tutor. When Narcis and Emilia
Speaker 2: got married, he was twenty six and she was sixteen.
Speaker 2: The two of them had very similar social and political views,
Speaker 2: and they seem to have had a happy and loving
Speaker 2: relationship that lasted for the rest of their lives. With
Speaker 2: all of Narcis's various exiles and other travels, they were
Speaker 2: sometimes separated for long periods, and their letters to one
Speaker 2: another during these times are very loving and devoted, although
Speaker 2: there were times, especially later in Narcisa's life, when their
Speaker 2: circumstances did seem to cause them some strain. Emilia and
Speaker 2: Narcis would go on to have eight children together, although
Speaker 2: only three of those children lived to adulthood. The year
Speaker 2: they got married, Montoreal started publishing a journal called La
Speaker 2: Madre de Familia, which promoted the role of women in
Speaker 2: families from kind of a proto feminist perspective. This was
Speaker 2: definitely underpinned by the idea that women had a natural
Speaker 2: family role, but he also called for equal legal and
Speaker 2: political rights and access to education for women, and for
Speaker 2: women to have protections against men who could mistreat or
Speaker 2: harm them. This journal, like so many of Monturial's periodicals,
Speaker 2: was short lived, though it lasted for only eight weeks.
Speaker 2: When it closed, he started another one called La Fra Trinidad,
Speaker 2: which advocated for the advancement of all of humanity, regardless
Speaker 2: of sex. In eighteen forty seven, Monturial was introduced to
Speaker 2: the work of French philosopher and writer Ettienn Kabe. Kabe
Speaker 2: was a communist who had written a utopian novel called
Speaker 2: Voyage to Acarias years before. Cab thought that for most
Speaker 2: of history a small wealthy minority had been exploiting everyone else,
Speaker 2: with that exploitation taking a series of forms including serfdom, slavery,
Speaker 2: and unfair economic structures. He thought communism was the only
Speaker 2: way to resolve this, and he wanted to establish a
Speaker 2: communist utopia called Akaria, like in his novel In the
Speaker 2: real world. We might talk more about this later, as
Speaker 2: in during a whole different episode. Yeah, this is not
Speaker 2: even It doesn't even scratch the surface of Ettien Caabe
Speaker 2: really uh. Montoreal helps translate Cabay's book and published and
Speaker 2: periodical for Cabay's followers The Montoreals also contributed some money
Speaker 2: to Kabay's efforts to buy land and Texas for his
Speaker 2: utopian project. After Kabe and his followers departed for the
Speaker 2: US in eighteen forty eight, Monturial continued to promote his
Speaker 2: idea in Catalonia. Of course, these writings also once again
Speaker 2: caught the attention of authorities, especially as a series of
Speaker 2: revolutions swept across parts of Europe in eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 2: and Monturial once again went into exile, this time in France.
Speaker 2: Montoreal returned to Barcelona in eighteen forty nine, possibly because
Speaker 2: an amnesty had been announced at the end of the
Speaker 2: Second Carlist War. From here, his activism became slightly more tempered.
Speaker 2: While he had previously been part of the militia, his
Speaker 2: rhetoric became more pacifist. He still advocated for a revolution,
Speaker 2: but not a violent one. That didn't stop authorities from
Speaker 2: shutting down his publications, though, including his pro democracy El
Speaker 2: Padre de Familia Father of the Family, that was shut
Speaker 2: down by judicial order in eighteen fifty. Around this time,
Speaker 2: Monturial started spending a bit more time studying science and nature,
Speaker 2: but he didn't entirely stop his radical publishing. He founded
Speaker 2: a secret publishing circle called El Coorto in eighteen fifty three,
Speaker 2: and when he once again fell under suspicion, they disbanded.
Speaker 2: After almost two decades of this of just like starting
Speaker 2: things and being shut down and being exiled, and starting
Speaker 2: and shut down and exiled over and over, he was
Speaker 2: starting to get discouraged, and for a while he thought
Speaker 2: about joining the Akarians in the United States. Ultimately, though,
Speaker 2: he decided to stay in Barcelona. In eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 2: Spain embarked on a period of reform called the Biennio
Speaker 2: Progressista or the Progressive Biennium. For a very brief moment,
Speaker 2: Monturial was able to openly advocate for many of his
Speaker 2: ideals without the threat of arrest or exile. He was
Speaker 2: a speaker at the first meeting of a newly established
Speaker 2: Republican party, where he steered clear of the idea of
Speaker 2: communism and focused on topics like freedom, equality, and the
Speaker 2: separation of church and state. His speech there was well received,
Speaker 2: but the Progressive Biennium was short lived, ending just a
Speaker 2: year later when Conservatives retook control. After that, Monturial was
Speaker 2: once again exiled. This exile really changed his life, which
Speaker 2: we will get to after a sponsor break. After the
Speaker 2: end of the Progressive biennium, Narcis Material went into exile
Speaker 2: in the seaside town of Kutacase, while his wife, Amelia
Speaker 2: and their two daughters went to live with his mother
Speaker 2: in Figueris. He tried to make ends meet there by
Speaker 2: painting portraits. He also wrote poetry, and he grieved. By
Speaker 2: this point, he and his wife had lost two children.
Speaker 2: Emilio had died in eighteen forty an at the age
Speaker 2: of twelve months, and Filamina in eighteen fifty four at
Speaker 2: the age of four years. Abdo Tarraras and Ettien Kabe
Speaker 2: also both died in eighteen fifty six. They had each
Speaker 2: been enormously influential on Montorial and on his work and ideals,
Speaker 2: so with their deaths really pretty close together, he lost
Speaker 2: two of his biggest inspirations and collaborators. While in Katacase,
Speaker 2: Monturial also spent time watching divers collect Mediterranean red coral.
Speaker 2: This coral was used as a gemstone, including polishing and
Speaker 2: shaping it to make jewelry, beads and artwork. Of course,
Speaker 2: red coral has its own much bigger story. One that
Speaker 2: is connected to slavery, globalization, environmentalism, and a range of
Speaker 2: spiritual and religious beliefs and practices. But Monturial's focus was
Speaker 2: on the divers and the dangers of their work. These
Speaker 2: were usually men who worked from boats. In pairs, one
Speaker 2: would dive to the seafloor, sometimes as deep as twenty
Speaker 2: meters below, and stayed down for as long as they
Speaker 2: could hold their breath, cutting and breaking pieces of coral
Speaker 2: to then carry back to the boat. Then the other
Speaker 2: would dive in and repeat the process. This all carried
Speaker 2: obvious risks of injuries or drowning, and sometimes there were
Speaker 2: also sharks in the water. During one of his earlier
Speaker 2: periods of exile, in Kaida case in eighteen forty five,
Speaker 2: Montreal had reportedly saved a diver who had been pulled
Speaker 2: out of the water and was not breathing. In the
Speaker 2: account of this, Montreal lifted the man up by his
Speaker 2: feet so that gravity would force the water out of
Speaker 2: his lungs. This can force some water out of a
Speaker 2: person's lungs, but this is not what's typically advised in
Speaker 2: cases of drowning today because it can cause vomiting and
Speaker 2: delay the start of CPR or rescue breathing. So this
Speaker 2: experience led Montreal to start thinking about a way to
Speaker 2: make a vessel that could go totally underwater, equipped with
Speaker 2: arms and a basket so that people could gather coral
Speaker 2: from safely inside of it and then now back in Katakis.
Speaker 2: A decade later he started actually working on this. This
Speaker 2: involved learning everything he could about existing technologies for surviving underwater.
Speaker 2: This started with diving bells, which date back to at
Speaker 2: least the fourth century BCE. We talked about this more
Speaker 2: in our episode on the history of diving technology, which
Speaker 2: ran as a Saturday Classic in November of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: And then from there Monturial learned about the work of
Speaker 2: English mathematician William Bourne, who served in the Royal Navy
Speaker 2: and wrote on ideas for controlling buoyancy in a completely
Speaker 2: submerged boat, something that is critical to the successful operation
Speaker 2: of a submarine. He also studied descriptions of a submarine
Speaker 2: called the Turtle, developed by David and Ezra Bushnell of Connecticut,
Speaker 2: which was used in attempts to attach mines to British
Speaker 2: warships during the American Revolution. The Turtle had an air
Speaker 2: filled chamber to help control its depth in the water,
Speaker 2: and it had a propeller that was driven by treatles
Speaker 2: or cranks. This was actually the first known use of
Speaker 2: a propeller on a watercraft.
Speaker 1: Monturial also knew about the work of Robert Fulton, better
Speaker 1: known for inventing the first practical steamship. Fulton built a
Speaker 1: submarine called the Nautilus for Napoleon in eighteen hundred, and
Speaker 1: then there was Vilhelm Bauer, who built submarine prototypes for
Speaker 1: several nations starting in eighteen fifty one. Bowers two primary
Speaker 1: prototypes both failed, one after unexpectedly sinking to the seafloor
Speaker 1: and starting to leak, and the other after getting stuck
Speaker 1: on the seafloor after intentionally coming to rest there. In
Speaker 1: both cases, the crews managed to escape, and Monturial knew
Speaker 1: about Bower's work as well, which was as useful as
Speaker 1: much for his innovations as for picking apart what had
Speaker 1: gone wrong and how to prevent those problems. Monturial's plans
Speaker 1: for his submarine were ambitious. These names that we just
Speaker 1: mentioned were only a very few of the people who
Speaker 1: had worked on some kind of submersible vessel, and by
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, there were a lot of people in
Speaker 1: a lot of.
Speaker 2: Different countries who had at least built some kind of
Speaker 2: submarine prototype. Most of these were meant to stay fairly
Speaker 2: close to the surface of the water. For example, Robert
Speaker 2: Fulton considered the Nautilus to be safe to a depth
Speaker 2: of about eight meters or roughly twenty six feet, so
Speaker 2: not nearly as far down as those coral divers would
Speaker 2: go that we talked about earlier. Montoreal wanted to build
Speaker 2: a submarine that could go all the way down to
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean, which he estimated to be
Speaker 2: about eight thousand meters deep. That's much deeper than the
Speaker 2: act average ocean depth of three thousand, six hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty two meters, but not nearly as deep as the
Speaker 2: deepest parts of the ocean, which are more than ten
Speaker 2: thousand meters deep. In addition to giving coral divers a
Speaker 2: safer way to work, he thought such a vessel could
Speaker 2: help fishers, salvage, operators, and other people who worked on
Speaker 2: the sea. He also imagined the ocean as a whole
Speaker 2: new continent to explore. He thought of this submarine as
Speaker 2: something that would bring scientific and social progress a new
Speaker 2: way to promote his earlier ideals of social justice and equality.
Speaker 2: So many submarine projects up to this point had been
Speaker 2: done for military purposes, and he understood that what he
Speaker 2: was working on could have a potential military use, but
Speaker 2: he thought of his submarine as something that would have
Speaker 2: only a defensive role. He was so idealistic about all
Speaker 2: of this, and I really kind of love it about him.
Speaker 2: Working on the submarine really became his entire focus. While
Speaker 2: he still supported progressive political causes and the idea of
Speaker 2: democracy for Catalonia and Spain, he was now trying to
Speaker 2: do this through science and imagination. He started looking for
Speaker 2: people to fund his project, and by eighteen fifty seven
Speaker 2: he had twenty backers. He made his way back to Barcelona.
Speaker 2: He reunited with his family and they found a place
Speaker 2: to live near the shipyard. In eighteen fifty eight, he
Speaker 2: presented his research on what he called submarine navigation to
Speaker 2: his backers. This synthesized everything into a plan for a
Speaker 2: vessel that would include navigational systems, propulsion, and a renewable
Speaker 2: air supply. Monturial knew that the strongest material in shape
Speaker 2: for his submarine would be a sphere made of metal,
Speaker 2: but a sphere wasn't practical for the size of vessel
Speaker 2: he wanted to build, and he just didn't have enough
Speaker 2: money for something that was made entirely of metal, so
Speaker 2: he designed his submarine to have a double hull, the
Speaker 2: first known submarine to be built this way, and this
Speaker 2: combination of an outer hydrodynamic hull and an inner pressure
Speaker 2: hull is still used in a lot of submarines today.
Speaker 2: The inner hull of Monturial's submarine was an ellipsoid shape,
Speaker 2: not quite as strong as a sphere, but still pretty close.
Speaker 2: It was made of olive wood staves with oak supports,
Speaker 2: covered in copper two millimeters thick so that it would
Speaker 2: be water tight. The outer hull was also made of wood,
Speaker 2: about seven meters long and roughly resembling a fish with
Speaker 2: a propeller and the tail. The crew turned this propeller
Speaker 2: using a screw. On the inside of the vessel. There
Speaker 2: were also fins to steer and portholes for visibility. The
Speaker 2: space between these two hulls would be flooded with sea
Speaker 2: water when the vessel submerged, so only the inner hull
Speaker 2: had to be able to withstand the pressure of the ocean.
Speaker 2: The water filled space in between the two hulls was
Speaker 2: also home to the ballast tanks and what Montreal described
Speaker 2: as flotation bladders. These air bladders used the interplay between
Speaker 2: water pressure and air pressure to adjust the vessel's buoyancy.
Speaker 2: There was a movable weight inside the vessel that could
Speaker 2: adjust its center of gravity, and weights mounted to the
Speaker 2: outside that could be released so that the submarine could
Speaker 2: still surface again if something went wrong with those flotation bladders.
Speaker 2: Montreal thought this vessel could safely withstand the ocean's pressure
Speaker 2: down to a depth of about five hundred meters, but
Speaker 2: for the sake of safety, he approved it only to
Speaker 2: fifty meters. Montreal also wanted to find a way to
Speaker 2: provide oxygen and fresh air to his submarine while submerged.
Speaker 2: He studied fish physiology to see if he could figure
Speaker 2: out a way to extract oxygen from the surrounding sea water.
Speaker 2: He did not find a way to do that, and
Speaker 2: the method he found to produce oxygen on board involved
Speaker 2: a chemical reaction that involves furic acid that was unsafe,
Speaker 2: so he limited his dives to the amount of time
Speaker 2: that his crew of five or six people would have
Speaker 2: enough oxygen, supplemented with bottled oxygen for longer dives. The
Speaker 2: interior of the submarine was also lit by a candle,
Speaker 2: which also used up some of the oxygen, but the
Speaker 2: size and color of the flame also gave a visual
Speaker 2: indication of when that oxygen was about to run out.
Speaker 2: While he had to set aside his method for oxygen production,
Speaker 2: he did develop a way to scrub the exhaled carbon
Speaker 2: dioxide from the air inside a submarine. The air inside
Speaker 2: the sub was pumped through a container of calcium hydroxide
Speaker 2: and that would cause the carbon dioxide to precipitate out
Speaker 2: of it as calcium carbonate. To be clear, while these
Speaker 2: were Monturial's ideas and designs, he did not build.
Speaker 1: This ship all by himself. He had a lot of
Speaker 1: support from people who were affiliated with the Barcelona Industrial School.
Speaker 1: Joseph Missey Castels acted as master boat builder, and naval
Speaker 1: architect Juan Mounuo worked on the design, basically turning Montoreal's
Speaker 1: ideas into plans the builders could follow to make us
Speaker 1: functioning submarine. Montreal called this submarine Actineo John from Greek
Speaker 1: words meaning fish vessel. He launched it for the first
Speaker 1: time in Barcelona on June twenty eighth, eighteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: and he had an immediate setback. Almost as soon as
Speaker 1: the submarine hit the water, it ran into hidden pilings
Speaker 1: that were under the water's surface, and it had to
Speaker 1: be repaired. He really didn't have the time or money
Speaker 1: or materials to do all of the repairs that he
Speaker 1: thought were necessary, so he did what he could, and
Speaker 1: then he limited the Actineos dives to twenty meters depth
Speaker 1: rather than fifty. Montreal took the Actineo through more than
Speaker 1: twenty test dives in the summer of eighteen fifty fifty nine.
Speaker 1: Many of these dives lasted more than two hours, and
Speaker 1: one lasted more than four with the crew provided with
Speaker 1: bottled oxygen, and people in Barcelona got really excited about
Speaker 1: this vessel. A public demonstration on September twenty third was
Speaker 1: carried out before huge, cheering crowds.
Speaker 2: Montreal still had a lot of really idealistic thoughts about
Speaker 2: the humanitarian possibilities of his submarine, and he was getting
Speaker 2: a lot of popular enthusiasm and support, including what were
Speaker 2: basically fan organizations that formed to try to raise money
Speaker 2: for him. But he recognized that to get the kind
Speaker 2: of funding he would need to build a ship that
Speaker 2: could really get all the way to the bottom of
Speaker 2: the ocean. He would need the backing of the governments
Speaker 2: or the Spanish Navy. He was envisioning something truly massive,
Speaker 2: with hundreds or even more than one thousand people on
Speaker 2: the crew. He started requesting govern funds by the end
Speaker 2: of eighteen fifty nine. Publicly he was still talking about
Speaker 2: the possibilities for exploration and research and scientific progress, but
Speaker 2: he tried to get the navy interested with the idea
Speaker 2: of a submarine as a defensive tool. If Spain had
Speaker 2: a vessel that could approach and destroy British ships completely undetected,
Speaker 2: then Britain might just stay away from Spain. By eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, Montreal and his ship were international news. English
Speaker 2: language newspapers in multiple countries carried a report that said
Speaker 2: quote a Spaniard named Signor Montreal is declared to have
Speaker 2: discovered the means of constructing a vessel by means of
Speaker 2: which he and a crew can live at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the sea. That same year, the Spanish government announced
Speaker 2: that it would fund the building of a new Octenneo.
Speaker 2: Montreal had some concerns about this announcement. He had been
Speaker 2: trying to get government funding, but he just wasn't confident
Speaker 2: that the government would actually follow through, and the announcement
Speaker 2: also put an end to all of those public fundraising efforts.
Speaker 1: Then the Actineo was destroyed in eighteen sixty two when
Speaker 1: a freighter accidentally ran into it while it was docked
Speaker 1: in Barcelona Harbor. So Montorial built a second submarine, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that after we pause for
Speaker 1: another sponsor break. When the Actennio was destroyed in Barcelona
Speaker 1: Harbor in eighteen sixty two, Narcis Montorial started working on
Speaker 1: a replacement, and he did so without that government backing
Speaker 1: that had been announced the year before. How many never
Speaker 1: actually materialized. Some of the generals who had been connected
Speaker 1: to all this were transferred to Havana, and that meant
Speaker 1: there was increasing interest in submarine technology in Cuba that
Speaker 1: did not actually help Montreal though he was still in Barcelona.
Speaker 1: The Acdenneo two was seventeen meters long, so ten meters
Speaker 1: longer than his earlier submarine. Aspects of the Acdennio two
Speaker 1: were similar to the Actennio one. It was once again
Speaker 1: a submarine with an inner and outer hull and a
Speaker 1: fish like shape. He also worked with Wan Manno and
Speaker 1: Joseph Mise again on getting this second one built.
Speaker 2: Since the new submarine had a bigger interior volume, there
Speaker 2: was more air available, so even with a crew of
Speaker 2: about sixteen rather than five or six, it could potentially
Speaker 2: stay submerged for a lot longer. But that longer time
Speaker 2: underwater increased the need to remove excess carbon dioxide from
Speaker 2: the air, as well as removing odors and microorganisms, so
Speaker 2: Montreal created a more sophisticated system to circulate and purify
Speaker 2: their including a different way he figured out to produce
Speaker 2: oxygen that was from a chemical reaction involving manganese dioxide
Speaker 2: and potassium chlorate. Monturial launched the Actineo two for the
Speaker 2: first time on October second, eighteen sixty four, and he
Speaker 2: continued to refine the design until May of the following year.
Speaker 2: From there, he took longer test dives, going to depths
Speaker 2: of about thirty meters for as long as seven hours.
Speaker 2: During one of these trials, on June sixteenth, the Actineo
Speaker 2: two developed a leak back on the surface. Monturial realized
Speaker 2: the iron screws holding the inner hulls copper sheathing together
Speaker 2: had rusted, and one of them had dislodged, something that
Speaker 2: had not been an issue on the Actinea Ie. At
Speaker 2: Shallower Depths, Montreal replaced all of the screws with ones
Speaker 2: made from copper or bronze. In December of eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: still hoping to get governments or military support, Montoreal mount
Speaker 2: to a cannon on the outside of the ACTINEO two
Speaker 2: and he tested it in the waters off of Barcelona,
Speaker 2: so the submarine would approach the surface, fire the cannon,
Speaker 2: and immediately dive again, kind of replicating what might happen
Speaker 2: during a stealth mission at sea. He apparently didn't really
Speaker 2: tell anybody he was going to do this or get
Speaker 2: permission for doing it, so officials did not find this intriguing.
Speaker 2: They found it pretty alarming. It did not bring in
Speaker 2: the funding that he was hoping for.
Speaker 1: Then, in eighteen sixty six, even though he hadn't been
Speaker 1: writing revolutionary newspapers or fighting in a populist militia for
Speaker 1: more than a decade, he was arrested under suspicion of
Speaker 1: being involved in a plot against the Queen. He was
Speaker 1: eventually released, but this interrupted his work and his efforts
Speaker 1: to get funding.
Speaker 2: These efforts included writing to Gideon Wells, the US Secretary
Speaker 2: of the Navy, Monterrea was offering his services in the
Speaker 2: US Civil War. Montreal did not know until receiving Wells's
Speaker 2: reply that the war had actually already ended by that point.
Speaker 2: Montreal also patented his earlier invention of a cigarette machine,
Speaker 2: hoping that he could use this as a source of income.
Speaker 2: In eighteen sixty seven, he tried to establish a company
Speaker 2: to produce and distribute these machines, but he wasn't able
Speaker 2: to get the interest of cigarette manufacturers. Also, while Montreal
Speaker 2: had imagined this as a labor saving device that would
Speaker 2: help the people who rolled cigarettes by hand, to the
Speaker 2: workers who did those jobs, it was a machine that
Speaker 2: was going to replace them. By eighteen seventy two, he
Speaker 2: had one working machine that was destroyed in a factory riot.
Speaker 2: He was eventually compensated for its loss, but that took years.
Speaker 2: He later made a smaller tabletop version of this machine
Speaker 2: that did actually bring him a little bit of income.
Speaker 2: News was also continuing to spread about Monturial's work outside
Speaker 2: of Spain. In eighteen sixty six, this snippet was picked
Speaker 2: up in newspapers around the world. Quote a Madrid letter
Speaker 2: in the Paris Tempt states that M. Monturial, a Spaniard,
Speaker 2: has solved the problem of submarine steam navigation by the
Speaker 2: invention of a vessel which can remain for hours at
Speaker 2: a considerable depth, can discharge cannons from below, and even
Speaker 2: act as a ram for piercing ironclad ships. The Prise
Speaker 2: Sure Advertiser ran this with the heading wonderful if true.
Speaker 2: That seems like something that somebody would put on social media,
Speaker 2: with the screenshot of the news story big if true.
Speaker 2: The Liverpool Mercury also printed a letter from a JF
Speaker 2: asking if anyone had heard of a submarine demonstration a
Speaker 2: couple of years back. He described this public demonstration as
Speaker 2: something quote told by an eyewitness to him. This letter
Speaker 2: ended by saying the author did not recall seeing any
Speaker 2: mentioned of this in English newspapers and being very curious
Speaker 2: about it because such a thing seemed to violate the
Speaker 2: known laws of physics. This letter writer wrote, quote, and
Speaker 2: if what I have heard stated is practicable, might not
Speaker 2: the power obtained be applied to something useful In the
Speaker 2: search for the lost Atlantic cable for example, or the
Speaker 2: laying of a new one. If this lost Atlantic cable
Speaker 2: sounds intriguing, we have an episode on that which we
Speaker 2: ran as a Saturday Classic in May of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Like that other piece, this letter from JF was picked
Speaker 2: up in a lot of other English language newspapers.
Speaker 1: Back in Barcelona, Monturial was trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to give his submarine an engine, because, like the original Icdinio,
Speaker 1: it was very, very slow, and it required crew members
Speaker 1: to continually exert themselves. He had proposed the idea of
Speaker 1: a submarine with an electric motor years before, but at
Speaker 1: the time electric motors really weren't powerful enough for this purpose.
Speaker 1: The batteries needed to keep one running underwater also probably
Speaker 1: would have filled the entire vessel, so he tried to
Speaker 1: find a way to use a steam engine instead.
Speaker 2: Steam engines had become a primary source of power in
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, and Robert Fulton's North River steamboat, which
Speaker 2: we alluded to earlier, that had been launched way back
Speaker 2: in eighteen oh seven. But you could not just burn
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of coal in an enclosed, air tight
Speaker 2: vessel underwater. Montreal did outfit the Actineo II with a
Speaker 2: coal powered boiler, but that was only used when the
Speaker 2: submarine was traveling on the surface of the water and
Speaker 2: it was possible to move fresh air into the submarine
Speaker 2: and coal exhaust out of it. For underwater purposes, he
Speaker 2: used a chemical reaction instead. He experimented with thousands of
Speaker 2: combinations before arriving at proportions of zinc, manganese dioxide, and
Speaker 2: chlorate that produced both oxygen and heat, So that was
Speaker 2: going to give more oxygen to the interior of the
Speaker 2: submarine as well as the heat to run the boiler,
Speaker 2: and then it also produced zinc oxide, which could be
Speaker 2: collected and sold. He made these rod like fuel containers
Speaker 2: to deliver the chemicals into the boiler in very precise amounts.
Speaker 1: The engine that ran off this reaction was designed by
Speaker 1: Joseph Pasquali dop, who was also the first formally trained
Speaker 1: engineer to work on one of Montreal's projects. He also
Speaker 1: incidentally later married Monturial's oldest daughter. Getting this engine into
Speaker 1: the interior of the Actineo two was difficult. They had
Speaker 1: to take it apart and move it piece by piece
Speaker 1: through a hatch that was only about a foot and
Speaker 1: a half wide.
Speaker 2: As Montreal was working on this, in August of eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven, he heard that police were coming to arrest
Speaker 2: him and he had to flee. This was again because
Speaker 2: his earlier political activities had made him a suspect in
Speaker 2: something recent that he wasn't actually involved with. He was
Speaker 2: able to return, but this was another disruption at a
Speaker 2: pretty critical time as he was trying to finish his
Speaker 2: work on the submarine.
Speaker 1: Work was finished on the coal burner for surface travel
Speaker 1: in October of eighteen sixty seven, and the underwater engine
Speaker 1: was finished that December, and both the chemical reaction and
Speaker 1: the engine powered by it worked, but it also made
Speaker 1: the inside of that submarine incredibly hot. While earlier dives
Speaker 1: had lasted up to eight hours with the underwater engine running,
Speaker 1: crews could only stay submerged for about twenty minutes. By
Speaker 1: that point, the temperature inside had climbed to about fifty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius or one hundred and twenty two degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 2: What Montoreal really wanted to do was to create a
Speaker 2: whole new submarine, one that was purpose built to work
Speaker 2: with this specific engine and fuel source. But he had
Speaker 2: already spent about four times as much money on the
Speaker 2: Octennao two as he had on the Octennio one. So
Speaker 2: he worked on plans for a cooling system with copper
Speaker 2: pipes that would be cooled by the ocean water that
Speaker 2: could be added to this existing submarine.
Speaker 1: But he didn't get a chance to carry out this modification.
Speaker 1: He and the company he'd established to do this work
Speaker 1: were deeply in debt, and other economic issues were playing
Speaker 1: out throughout Barcelona. A shipyard that had been the project's
Speaker 1: major financial backer demanded the debt be paid off, and
Speaker 1: there was nothing to pay it with. Montreal had to
Speaker 1: fire all of his employees. Near the end of December
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven, a court ordered his assets to be seized.
Speaker 1: The following February, the Octenny O two was sold for
Speaker 1: scrap and it's underwater engine was sent to a wheat
Speaker 1: processing plant where it was repurposed.
Speaker 2: Montreal was devastated. He really thought he would have gotten
Speaker 2: a submarine that could stay underwater indefinitely if only he
Speaker 2: had gotten enough money to cool the engine system. And
Speaker 2: the public was still really fascinated by the idea of
Speaker 2: underwater travel and exploration. Jules Vern's twenty thousand leagues under
Speaker 2: the Sea came out as a serial starting in early
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty nine, and Montreal's submarines are cited as one
Speaker 2: of the inspirations for Jules Verne's Nautilus. Monturial wrote a
Speaker 2: book about his efforts, titled Essay on the Art of
Speaker 2: Navigating Underwater. He finished that work in eighteen seventy, and
Speaker 2: while the writing process seems to have helped him recover
Speaker 2: emotionally from the end of his submarine project, at least somewhat,
Speaker 2: he couldn't find a publisher for it. Then, in late
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one and early eighteen seventy two, two of
Speaker 2: his children died of tuberculosis, seventeen year old Adelaida and
Speaker 2: thirteen year old Delfina. Queen Isabella the Second was driven
Speaker 2: into exile in eighteen sixty eight and abdicated in eighteen seventy.
Speaker 2: She was succeeded by Italian Prince Amadeo the First, who
Speaker 2: was then overthrown in eighteen seventy three, and then after
Speaker 2: that Spain was briefly a republic. Montreal served as a
Speaker 2: deputy in the first Republican Parliament. He moved to Madrid,
Speaker 2: where he was made a director at the National Factory
Speaker 2: of Stamps. In that role, he worked out a faster
Speaker 2: drying glue so that the factory could get enough stamps
Speaker 2: into production to meet a government ordered deadline involving a
Speaker 2: new tax.
Speaker 1: The Spanish monarchy was restored in eighteen seventy four, which
Speaker 1: was during the Third Carlist War. During this war, Montoreal
Speaker 1: designed a couple of cannons, one of which was destroyed
Speaker 1: in the process of testing it. The Third Carlist War
Speaker 1: ended in eighteen seventy six with a new constitution that
Speaker 1: established Spain as a constitutional monarchy. Two years later, apparently
Speaker 1: just desperate for work, Montreal took an administrative job at
Speaker 1: a monarchist newspaper called La Corona. Within a year, he
Speaker 1: had left and started working as a clerk at a brokerage.
Speaker 1: He developed emphysema, and then he died on September sixth,
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five, at the age of sixty five. He
Speaker 1: was buried alongside the five children whom he had survived.
Speaker 1: His book on his submarines remained unpublished until eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: Monturial left behind all kinds of notes and plans for
Speaker 1: his inventions and experiments. In addition to the ones that
Speaker 1: we've discussed. There were chemistry experiments involving winemaking techniques, a
Speaker 1: formula for wood glue, and a method for chemically preserving meat.
Speaker 1: He also worked on designing a sewing machine based on
Speaker 1: work that he'd heard was being done in the US.
Speaker 2: A nineteen oh three book on the history of submarines
Speaker 2: summed up Montreal's submarines this way, quote, such an invention
Speaker 2: should indeed have altered the world's history. Yet, strange as
Speaker 2: it may seem, el Ectineo, with all its perfection, affected
Speaker 2: nothing and was presently forgotten, as had been all its predecessors.
Speaker 2: This was also true of Montreal's immediate successor in Spain,
Speaker 2: Isaac Perl E Cabarierro, who designed the first submarine to
Speaker 2: be officially commissioned by the Spanish Navy in eighteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: This submarine was also the first electrically powered submarine in
Speaker 2: the world. After a change in leadership, the Spanish Navy
Speaker 2: seemingly just lost interest and shelved this project. As all
Speaker 2: of this was happening, various people mentioned Montreal in their
Speaker 2: articles about the pedal submarine, or they wrote remembrances of him.
Speaker 2: Both of these men, though, were largely forgotten, just kind
Speaker 2: of a gap in people caring about submarines until shortly
Speaker 2: before World War One. Today, there are a couple of
Speaker 2: monuments to Narcis Montreal. One is in Barcelona, shaped like
Speaker 2: one of his submarines in kind of an irregular pillar.
Speaker 2: There's also a monument in his hometown of Figettas, and
Speaker 2: various streets and schools are named after him, including in
Speaker 2: places he lived or spent time in exile. If you
Speaker 2: want to know more about this, I know of one
Speaker 2: book written in English, and it is Montreal's Dream, The
Speaker 2: Submarine Inventor Who Wanted to Save the World, by Matthew Stuart.
Speaker 2: It was one of the many sources used in this episode,
Speaker 2: and I think it's very good. It also has just
Speaker 2: a ton more detail about what was happening in Barcelona
Speaker 2: and more broadly in Spain during all this. It also
Speaker 2: has more detail about Ettienkabe and the Akarians, which, again,
Speaker 2: the more I learned about that in the brief amount
Speaker 2: of focus that I spent learning about that, the more
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I'm reshuffling what's happening next on
Speaker 2: my calendar because we need to talk about another failed
Speaker 2: utopian experiment. It's been a while. Do you, in the
Speaker 2: meantime have English language listener mail? I do have English
Speaker 2: language listener mail. This is from Kelly, and Kelly wrote
Speaker 2: an email that is titled Jean Stratton Porter and My
Speaker 2: Family Legacy, and Kelly wrote, Hello Holly and Tracy. I
Speaker 2: want to first thank you for the countless hours of
Speaker 2: entertainment and learning you've gifted me. Facts I've learned from
Speaker 2: your podcast, have contributed answers to our trivia team numerous times,
Speaker 2: and we have a pretty winning team attached. You'll find
Speaker 2: a photo of my Gene Stratton Porter collection. It was
Speaker 2: passed from my great grandma to my Grams, then on
Speaker 2: to me with these and unless other books. They also
Speaker 2: passed to me a great love of reading. My grandparents
Speaker 2: read to me from infancy and turned me into a
Speaker 2: very early reader. Though my Grams was the busiest man
Speaker 2: I've ever known. You never saw him without a book
Speaker 2: in his hand. He read so intently and quickly, it
Speaker 2: was hard for him to keep reading material at hand,
Speaker 2: so he read anything and everything, even harlequins. In my
Speaker 2: adult years, we traded stacks of books at a time
Speaker 2: and loved to discuss them. My thirty year old daughter
Speaker 2: is the same kind of voracious reader. She happened to
Speaker 2: come in as I was snapping the photo of the
Speaker 2: books and exclaimed, oh, the Harvester, that is such a
Speaker 2: great book. She's read them all repeatedly. Also from a
Speaker 2: young age. I had to confiscate my Stephen King from
Speaker 2: that girl when she was too young for them. Anyway,
Speaker 2: that was my roundabout way of saying the Gene Stratton
Speaker 2: Porter episode brought back many memories of my grandpa and
Speaker 2: our reading adventures. I was also charmed by most of
Speaker 2: her story and find her so intriguing. Also is my
Speaker 2: pet tax Rebel. Rebel the pink nose Kitty is the
Speaker 2: oldest sister, followed by Scout, the very sweet torty. Their
Speaker 2: brothers are Andy, the Golden Retriever mix and Pilot the
Speaker 2: Australian cattle dog. I had to include an extra pick
Speaker 2: of Andy, who frisbeeed so hard he crass stained his head.
Speaker 1: Oh no, we may.
Speaker 2: Be empty nesters, but we have a very lively household
Speaker 2: with much gratitude. Kelly, Thank you so much, Kelly. So
Speaker 2: this picture of the Stratton Porter collection. We've got at
Speaker 2: the Foot of the Rainbow, Laddie, the Keeper of the Bees,
Speaker 2: a Girl of the Limberlost the Harvester, and Freckles. One
Speaker 2: of the things about getting older is it becomes less
Speaker 2: possible to really remember whether you're remembering something because you
Speaker 2: remember it, or whether you're remembering something just because you
Speaker 2: have been exposed to it so many times. And I
Speaker 2: could not for sure tell you whether Laddie is one
Speaker 2: of the books that was on the bookshelf at my
Speaker 2: grandmother's house when I was a kid, or if I
Speaker 2: just saw so many photos of Laddie while I was
Speaker 2: working on that episode that it seems familiar to me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't really know, so anyway, Yeah, these are, you know,
Speaker 2: just a collection of like the lovely old hardcover books
Speaker 2: with the you know, the the weathered covers. And then,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, just some adorable, adorable cats and adorable dogs,
Speaker 2: all of them making like the interested big eye, let
Speaker 2: me look at your face, and so picture number last,
Speaker 2: as referenced with frisbeeing too hard. We have a little
Speaker 2: puppy dog with just like one little blatch of grass
Speaker 2: stain right in.
Speaker 1: The middle of forehead.
Speaker 2: Love extremely cute, Thank you so much Kelly for this
Speaker 2: email and for sending all of these great pictures. If
Speaker 2: you would like to write to us about this or
Speaker 2: any other podcast or a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com,
Speaker 2: and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: app or wherever you like to get your podcasts. Stuff
Speaker 2: you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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