Italian cruiser Umbria

Umbria was a protected cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) built in the 1890s. She was the lead ship of the class, which included five other vessels. All of the ships were named for current or former regions of Italy. The ship was equipped with a main armament of four 15 cm and six 12 cm guns, and she could steam at a speed of 18 kn.

Umbria spent much of her career abroad, including several years in American waters. In service during a period of relative peace, Umbria never saw combat. In 1911, she was sold to Haiti and renamed Consul Gostrück, though she did not serve for very long under the Haitian flag. Her crew was too inexperienced to operate the ship, and she foundered shortly after being transferred to the Haitian Navy

Design
Umbria was 84.8 m long overall and had a beam of 12.03 m and a draft of 5.35 m. She displaced up to 3110 MT at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of a pair of horizontal triple-expansion engines, with steam supplied by four cylindrical water-tube boilers. On her speed trials, she reached a maximum of 19 kn at 7400 ihp. The ship had a cruising radius of about 2100 nmi at a speed of 10 kn. She had a crew of between 213-78.

Umbria was armed with a main battery of four 15 cm L/40 guns mounted singly, with two side by side forward and two side by side aft. Six 12 cm L/40 guns were placed between them, with three on each broadside. Light armament included one 75 mm gun, eight 57 mm guns, two 37 mm guns, and a pair of machine guns. She was also equipped with two 45 cm torpedo tubes. Umbria was protected by a 50 mm thick deck, and her conning tower had 50 mm thick sides.

Service history
Umbria was built by the Odero-Terni-Orlando shipyard in Livorno. Her keel was laid down on 1 August 1888. Shortages of funding slowed the completion of Umbria and her sister ships. Tight budgets forced the navy to reduce the pace of construction so that the funds could be used to keep the active fleet in service. As a result, her hull was not ready to be launched until 23 April 1891, and fitting-out work took another almost three years to complete. Umbria finally joined the fleet on 16 February 1894. On 1 February 1897, Umbria was assigned to the Cruiser Squadron of the main Italian fleet, along with her sister ITALIAN CRUISER Liguria and the cruisers ITALIAN CRUISER Marco Polo and ITALIAN CRUISER Dogali.

In September 1904, Umbria stopped in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, to supervise the transfer of sailors who had been killed by a yellow fever outbreak on her sister ITALIAN CRUISER Lombardia in 1896. The men, 134 in all, had been buried in various cemeteries, but were re-interred in a large mausoleum in São Francisco Xavier. On 29 December, Umbria stopped in Valparaiso, where she met the German cruiser SMS Falke and the United States' cruisers USS New York (ACR-2) and USS Marblehead (C-11) and the gunboat USS Bennington (PG-4). In June 1905, Umbria represented Italy at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon. She was joined there by the United States' cruisers USS Chicago (1885) and USS Boston (1884). Umbria ran aground outside Kingston, Jamaica in July 1906, while en route from Puerto Rico. The salvage ship SS Premier assisted in pulling the ship free.

By 1910, the Regia Marina had decided to dispose of the obsolescent cruiser. Rumors that year of a potential sale to the Ecuadorian Navy prompted Peru to buy the old French cruiser FRENCH CRUISER Dupuy de Lôme, though Ecuador did not end up purchasing Umbria. Instead, in December 1910, the Regia Marina sold Umbria to the Haitian Navy, but she did not arrive in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, until 13 June 1911. After the sale, the ship was renamed Consul Gostrück. The ship was rumored to be carrying Cipriano Castro, the deposed president of Venezuela, though they later proved to be false. A German captain, Willy Meyer, was hired to take command of the ship upon its arrival in Haiti, but due to the lengthy delays, he quit. The cruiser sank shortly after entering service because her crew was not experienced in handling the ship.