Portuguese gunboat Patria 1903-1931

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Built with the funds of the Great National Subscription after the 1890 British Ultimatum when Portugal claimed a large area between her colonies Mozambique and Angola covering most of Zimbabwe and Zambia and a large part of Malawi resulting in witdrawing Portuguese forces from areas which both countries claimed. Launched at Lisbon, Portugal on 27 June 1903, sent to the Macau Naval Station in 1908 and sold to China in 1931. 

The Portuguese naval shipbuilding program according to the Dutch newspaper Goessche Courant dated 15 February 1890

According to the newspaper Diario of Lisbon intended the Portuguese government to reorganise the navy and the army and to buy 4 cruisers and 4 torpedo boats. Another Dutch newspaper the Middelburgsche Courant of the same date confirmed this item. At that moment was the daily life in Portugal quite disturbed and king Carlos and his conservative government unpopular among the common people. The main reason for the new measures was the distension between Portugal and England caused by what happened in Africa.(1)

Note

1. The British Lord Salisbury demanded on 11 January 1890 that Portugal withdrew her troops from Mashina and Matabeleland (later known as Rhodesia and nowadays as Zimbabwe) and the Shire-Nyasa area (later known as Malawi) because there Portuguese and British interests collided. Portugal intended since several years to consolidate her colonial interests in Africa while claiming a stretch of land extending form the East side of Africa to the West side. England was in fact doing the same although in the North-South direction.

Australian soldiers send with transport Chicago to Beira according to the Dutch newspaper Vlissingse Courant dated 4 April 1900

An item dated Cape Town 2 April reported that the transport Chicago was sent to Beira with on board of the Australian corps (2), horses, mules and materials for the Rhodesia railways.(3) War stores and victuals were also underway to Beira (1). The newspaper De Zeeuw dated 5 April confirmed the sending of troops from Cape Town via the Portuguese harbour Beira towards Rhodesia [Zimbabwe]. With the transport Chicago was a part of the so-called Australian bushmen corps send with horses, mules and material for the Rhodesian railways. The newspaper believed that the Boers would regarded Portugal not longer neutral in this war allowing England using Beira.

Notes
1. The town Beira was in 1890 under the name Chiveve founded by the Portuguese royal Mozambique Company (Companhia de Moçambique) and became the main port in this Portuguese colony.
2. For more details about the Australians in the Anglo-Boer War see the following link http://www.bwm.org.au/site/Background.asp
3. The website http://www.geoffs-trains.com/Museum/history.html mentioned that the construction of this railway temporarily was stopped as the Anglo-Boer War broke out when materials was used for the Beira line.