WW1 at Sea

Victoria Carolan

• Publisher: Pocket Essentials
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781843440987
• eBook ISBN: 9781843440994
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

Now in paperback, a history of a neglected yet vital aspect of World War I history

Images of World War I in the popular consciousness normally involve the bloody attrition of trench warfare, the miles of mud, the shattered earth, and the tangled miles of barbed wire. However there was another significant arena of war—the battle for control of the sea. In 1914 at the beginning of the war, Britain's maritime supremacy had remained unchallenged for around 100 years. Many expected another Battle of Trafalgar but advances in technology saw a very different kind of warfare with the widespread use of mines, submarines, and torpedoes. This book examines the events that led to war and the naval arms race between Britain and Germany. It traces the events of the war at sea looking at the major battles as well as the effects of unrestricted submarine warfare and the sinking of the Lusitania. It also profiles key figures such as Fisher, Beatty, Tirpitz, and Graf von Spee.

The Surface Raiders and the Battles of Coronel and the Falklands

The Surface Raiders

At the beginning of the war, Britain’s merchant fleet was by far the largest in the world and Britain was reliant upon her imports, which included two thirds of her food as well as essentials such as iron ore. Such reliance necessarily made Britain vulnerable to attacks on her merchant fleet. The sheer size of the fleet meant that protection for it had to be stretched worldwide. Commerce was an obvious target for the Germans and, later in the war, they would make extensive use of submarines in attacking allied shipping. Over the first six months or so, however, they used surface raiders. The sinking of merchant vessels was not the only aim in striking at commercial shipping. It was also hoped that it would force marine insurance costs so high that they would become prohibitive and halt trade. The British devised a contingency plan for this eventuality before the war, the essence of which was that the government would reinsure 80% of all risks during the war and receive 80% of the premiums. It also meant that merchant vessels were subject to Admiralty directions in respect of all routes and ports of call.

The British efforts to close off exits from the North Sea at the outbreak of war were also part of the plan to protect commercial shipping so that hostile vessels could not reach the main trade routes and only German vessels already stationed abroad could be utilised. In addition, merchant ships were instructed to disperse from their usual routes, so it was clear that there was no intention of protecting them by convoy, the traditional policy. It was felt that, with steam instead of sail, merchantmen had a better chance of fleeing an enemy by taking a route of their own choice, as they did not have to rely on wind directions. In addition, the development of the telegraph made it much more difficult to keep a convoy secret and could give the enemy a chance to prepare an attack. The smoke generated by a large number of ships together would also make them much more visible. The only exception was the use of convoys to protect troopships transporting soldiers from Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand, and this was mostly the result of pressure from the dominion governments. The Admiralty may well have preferred to deploy their ships hunting the German cruisers. In fact, the Germans had very few ships abroad at the start of the war and these were widely scattered in the Atlantic and Pacific. Although the Germans had the second largest merchant marine in the world it was way below the size of the British fleet and they also suffered a major disadvantage in their great lack of overseas bases. This presented a problem in coaling for German vessels, since the regulations of the 1907 Hague Convention limited the amount of coal that could be obtained in a neutral port to that sufficient to allow a ship to reach the nearest port of her own country. Ships were then not allowed to use the same neutral area again for three months.

At the outbreak of war there were two German light cruisers, Dresden and Karlsruhe, in the West Indies, the light cruiser Leipzig was off the American west coast, and the light cruiser Königsberg was on the east coast of Africa. In addition there were other minor craft, such as gunboats and survey vessels, which would not really be of any use in an engagement. However the most dangerous force was the heavy-armoured German East Asiatic Squadron, based at Tsingtao, China, under the command of Vice Admiral Count Maximilian von Spee. The squadron was made up of two armoured cruisers, Spee’s flagship the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, and the light cruisers Emden, Leipzig and Nürnberg. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were new sister ships each with eight 8.2 inch and six 5.9 inch guns, and they had won Imperial Navy prizes for their gunnery. The squadron was spread out when the war began. Spee was in the Caroline Islands with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the Emden was in Tsingtao and the Leipzig was off the Pacific coast of Mexico with Nürnberg on her way to relieve her.

The dispersed German force did not appear particularly threatening, especially since Britain and her allies had far larger resources to call upon, including an up-to-date dreadnought, the Australia, about 12 armoured cruisers, and some 20 light cruisers. The entry of Japan into the war on 23 August on the side of the Allies significantly increased this power. However, even a lone enemy cruiser could cause havoc by turning up to attack an unsuspecting merchant vessel. In the vast arenas of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, it needed a considerably larger force to track the enemy down. The British were also nervous about the large number of German merchant vessels that were abroad at the start of the war in neutral ports all over the world; and about the possibility that they could be converted and put to sea, or used as colliers to supply German cruisers. The danger from these potential auxiliary cruisers turned out to be overestimated although some did get through and cause losses to the Allies. These losses might have been much worse if it had not been for their surveillance.

At the outbreak of war Spee recalled Nürnberg and headed for the Marianas in the north-western Pacific, where he met with the Emden and decided to dispatch her to the Indian Ocean to hamper trade. Emden left the base at Tsingtao to avoid being trapped there and, in fact, she might well have been, had the Admiralty not overturned the original war plans of Vice Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram’s China Squadron. He was to have been stationed at the mouth of the Yangtze where he would have also been in a position to prevent Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from returning to Tsingtao from the south. The Admiralty sent him to Hong Kong instead, much to the dismay of Jerram who even considered ignoring the order. Subsequently, forces were sent to cover Jerram’s original position but it was a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. Ultimately, British, Japanese, French and Russian forces would all be employed to hunt down the Emden.

Spee wanted to distance himself from Japan, fearing her entry into the war, and sailed with the rest of his squadron eastwards to rendezvous with the Leipzig at Easter Island as Emden left for her mission. Emden was under the command of an exceptionally talented officer, Karl von Müller, and his presence in the Indian Ocean, at the Bay of Bengal (on the Colombo-Calcutta route) came as a total surprise to the Allies who presumed that he was together with Spee and the rest of the squadron. The Emden was a modern cruiser, capable of speeds up to 24 knots, and had ten 4.1 inch guns and two torpedo tubes. Müller attempted to disguise his ship with a dummy fourth funnel which was only two-dimensional but, from a distance, resembled four-funneled British cruisers. He wasted no time in carrying out his mission and, between 10 and 14 September 1914, he managed to sink six steamers, caught two to serve as colliers and a third to carry captured crews. Normally it would have fallen to Rear Admiral Peirse of the East Indies Station to pursue Muller but he was occupied with transports from India and the German light cruiser Königsberg in the west of the Indian Ocean. Therefore it was the ships Minotaur, Hampshire and Yarmouth from Jerram’s squadron, Ibuki, Chikuma and Yahagi of the Japanese Navy, Zhemchug and Askold of the Russian Navy and the French D’Iberville that were gathering to pursue Emden.

Müller was tenacious and on 22 September he bombarded the Port of Madras, destroying two oil-storage tankers, before sailing to the Minikoi 400 miles west of Colombo, sinking another four ships and taking one other as a collier. Again a sixth was captured and released with crews from the prize vessels. Emden then hid futher south at the island of Diego Garcia (so remote that news of the outbreak of war had not yet reached the inhabitants) to attend to repairs and to coal. She had eluded the British, although Yarmouth managed to sink one of the German colliers and rescue a Greek ship that had been taken under enemy control. It was not long before Müller was at large again, returning to the Minikoi area and repeating his pattern of sinkings and captures. This time he sank five steamers, retaining one as a collier and releasing another with the crews. Brimming with confidence, Müller headed for Penang and raided the entrance to the Malacca Strait. Using the false funnel, he sank the unsuspecting Russian light cruiser Zhemtchug and was about to seize a British steamer carrying explosives when he was distracted by the return of the French destroyer Mousquet, which he immediately sank. As a consequence of this latest incident the troop convoys from Australia and New Zealand were delayed so that a more powerful escort could be assembled to protect them. Müller moved on with a mission to raid and destroy the cable and wireless station on Direction Island, and the Emden duly arrived on 9 November. A party was sent ashore to sabotage the wireless but, unknown to Müller, the Australian convoy was only 52 miles away, and a warning message had already gone out from the island. The Australian light cruiser Sydney, under the command of Captain John Glossop, was sent from the convoy and sailed directly to Direction Island. When the two ships engaged, the Sydney had the advantage with her eight 6-inch guns and the Emden was run ashore on Keeling Island and burnt out. The landing party had been left behind and managed to escape in a small schooner. They sailed first to Padang where they boarded a German steamer for the Yemen. They then travelled overland, beset by attacks from Bedouins, and did not reach safety in Constantinople until June 1915. In retrospect, the Admiralty felt that convoy protection, despite its inherent problems, would have been a better solution to the threat of the Emden.

In the Indian Ocean at the start of the war the Allies were facing a similar threat from the Königsberg, a light cruiser with ten 4.1-inch guns, under the command of Captain Looff, based on the East Africa station. Looff’s mission was to hinder trade at the entrance to the Red Sea. On 31 July he set sail and managed to avoid a British patrol under the command of Admiral King-Hall, Commander of the Cape Squadron. Unfortunately King-Hall’s cruisers were older vessels and their speed capacity could not match the 24 knots of the more modern Königsberg. However, the German cruiser was not nearly as successful as the Emden, largely because the British hampered her ability to coal. Her collier was kept from leaving port and the British, with some foresight, prevented her from sourcing coal in Portuguese East Africa by buying it up in advance. As a result, only one merchant vessel was sunk before the monsoon season limited the Königsberg’s effectiveness even further. She was forced to hide on the African coast, begging coal from any friendly colliers that she encountered. On 20 September, she nevertheless managed to sink an old light cruiser, the Pegasus, lowering morale and proving that she was still a threat. On 30 October, the Dartmouth, making use of intelligence gathered from a captured supply ship, discovered the Königsberg six miles up the Rufgi River. A collier was sunk to block the exit of the river but the gun range of the British ship could not reach Königsberg and, as there were other routes of escape, an expedition had to be organised to finally destroy her. The Royal Naval Air Service attempted to bomb the ship but did not manage to hit her and, in any case, the size of bombs that it was possible for the planes to carry was simply too small. Two monitors, Mersey and Severn, which were designed for river use, were sent in on 16 July 1915 with aircraft cover and managed to inflict some damage but, although the German ship had been out of action for some time, she was still able to fire and held off the monitors. It took a second attempt on 12 July to finally destroy Königsberg. Although ultimately the Königsberg did not cause much physical damage, she nevertheless tied up a number of vessels that could have been useful elsewhere and the threat of he...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Title
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• The War Begins
• The Surface Raiders and the Battles of Coronel and the Falklands
• Turkey and Mesopotamia
• Submarines and the Baltic
• The Battle of Jutland
• Defeating the U-Boat and the Final Stages of the War
• Profiles
• Chronology
• Selected Bibliography
• Copyright