Ten years after the Spanish–American War of 1898, in which Spain lost Cuba and the Philippines, the Antonio Maura Government, in an attempt to restore the Spanish Navy and Spanish shipbuilding industry, hired the Spanish Society for Naval Construction, whose major investors were a British-Spanish-Association taking contracts In the following proportions: 40% Vickers Sons and Maxim, 30% Marquis of Comillas of the Spanish Transatlantic Company, 30% Biscay Furnace Company, all the previously state owned shipbuilding yards, workshops, foundries and dry docks at Ferrol were handed over to the technical expertise of some of finest British shipbuilders: John Brown, Vickers and Armstrong now in charge of building the new Spanish Fleet.