Intelligence in War: The Value--And Limitations--Of What the Military Can Learn About the Enemy

by John Keegan

  Japan began its war against Germany by laying siege to Tsingtao on 2 September. It was to last until 7 November. The garrison, which knew resistance was hopeless, nevertheless fought with great tenacity. Two local defence gunboats, S.90 and Jaguar, engaged the landing fleet; the defenders manned the redoubts, only gradually giving ground under heavy bombardment. The fortress commander had been cut off from the outside world since 14 August, when the British cable ship Patrol had cut the cables to Shanghai and Tschifu.16 His garrison, mainly naval infantrymen, had also lost any hope of escape with the departure of the East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron some weeks earlier. Admiral Graf von Spee, after an exchange of dinners with his British counterparts, had parted from them on 14 June, on the friendliest terms, to cruise the German Pacific islands with the heavy ships. In the last weeks of July, as news of the heightening crisis in Europe reached him, he persuaded Berlin to cancel an order for Nürnberg to return to Tsingtao, calling her instead to meet him at Ponapé, an outlier of the Caroline Islands. There, on 4 August, he learnt that Britain had declared war but also that “Chile is a friendly neutral” and that “Japan will remain neutral.”17

  On this partially correct information, von Spee now decided his immediate course of action. Before leaving Tsingtao, he had instructed von Müller, captain of the Emden, that his principal role was to protect the colliers which assured the squadron’s mobility. In the event of “strained relations,” they were to leave Tsingtao and proceed to Pagan Island, in the Marianas. Emden was to seek to rejoin him. In the knowledge that Britain’s forces on the China station included a battleship and that HMAS Australia, capable of obliterating his whole squadron, was operating to the south, he set course for Pagan on 5 August and there on the 12th was joined by Emden, the armed merchant cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich and the provision ship Yorck. They brought four colliers; it was a warning of the dangers surrounding them that four others had been sunk or captured on passage by the British battleship Triumph and the armoured cruiser Minotaur—aboard which von Spee had dined companionably in June.

  The northwestern Pacific was clearly becoming too dangerous a theatre for the East Asiatic Squadron; it was shortly to become even more dangerous when, on 23 August, Japan entered the war. The Imperial Japanese Navy, which had defeated the Russian with spectacular completeness in 1905, now comprised three dreadnoughts and four battlecruisers, all recently built in Japanese yards, seven heavy cruisers and scores of other cruisers and destroyers. Japan was not yet quite a first-class naval power, as she would become within twenty years. She could, nevertheless, devour Germany’s Asiatic fleet. It was time for von Spee to be off. With the British to the west and south, the Japanese to the north and the Australians to the south, he correctly decided to head southeast, towards Chile, where there were many German nationals and businesses, much sympathy for Germany’s cause and a labyrinth of uncharted inlets in which a marauding fleet might hide.

  Before departing, however, von Spee agreed to a division of his force. Dividing force is a violation of a cardinal military principle. It was one that applied particularly strictly to von Spee. By keeping his ships together, he obliged his enemies to do likewise, which reduced their chances both of finding him and of falling upon German merchantmen plying the ocean. With only four ships—Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nürnberg and Emden—under command, and while awaiting Leipzig and Dresden to join, logic required he maintain the strongest possible force. Nevertheless, he succumbed to the persuasion of Emden’s captain. Von Müller argued that, by cruising detached with the squadron’s fastest ship into the Indian Ocean, he could spread widespread confusion and do serious damage to Britain’s interests, particularly along the coasts closest to its greatest imperial possession, India. On the afternoon of 13 August, von Spee sent von Müller a written order: “You are hereby allocated the Markommania [a collier] and will be detached on the task of entering the Indian Ocean and waging cruiser warfare as best you can.”18 Thus began the Emden epic, as dramatic as any passage in the history of Nelson’s frigate captains and a story that was to electrify friend and foe alike in the coming months of naval operations.

  It was therefore with only three warships that von Spee set out on his traverse of the Pacific, across 120 degrees of longitude, to offer his challenge to Britain’s naval power in the southern oceans; also in company were the armed merchant cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, eight colliers and supply ships and the armed merchantman Cormoran, formerly the Russian ship Ryaezan, captured by Emden on passage from Tsingtao and equipped with guns taken from a redundant coastal warship. The squadron’s first destination after leaving Pagan on 13 August was Eniwetok, in the Marshalls, nearly forty years later to be the scene of an American nuclear test. Von Spee coaled in the atoll’s lagoon between 19 and 22 August, then sailed for Majuro, also in the Marshalls. En route he detached Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Cormoran to raid commerce; the former was to rejoin him later; the latter, out of coal, was forced to seek internment in the American island of Guam. He also sent Nürnberg to Honolulu, already an American possession, with signals to be forwarded by cable to Berlin. His calculation here was sharp. As Nürnberg had last been seen by outsiders on the Mexican coast, and news of her joining the main squadron had not been broadcast, her arrival at Honolulu would not reveal his whereabouts.

  Nürnberg rejoined von Spee at the remote Christmas Island on 2 September, having meanwhile visited nearby Fanning Island to cut the British cable between Fiji and Honolulu. The action risked giving away his position and, indeed, during the next month, von Spee displayed an uncharacteristic recklessness. At Christmas Island he decided to sail to Samoa, now no longer German, since it had been captured by a New Zealand expeditionary force the previous month. He accepted that he might be confronted by superior force, perhaps even the Australia, but apparently took the view that, by approaching at dawn, he could prevail by the use of torpedoes, a very sanguine hope. In fact the harbour at Apia was empty and he sailed away, but left behind a trace of his presence. Another 500 miles to the east he called at Suvarov Island, hoping to coal, but was driven off by heavy seas, so proceeded to Bora Bora in the French Society Islands, where the inhabitants had not as yet heard of the war. They supplied him with fresh food while the ships coaled. His next objective was Papieté, capital of French Tahiti. There, however, news of the war had reached the garrison, which set fire to the coal stocks and put up resistance. There was no wireless station; but, as von Spee drew away, the governor sent a ship to Samoa with a report, which reached the Admiralty on 30 September.

  Berlin was out of touch with the squadron since, with the loss of Rabaul in the Bismarcks to the Australians, the rear link to Nauen had been broken. It had therefore decided not to attempt to control von Spee’s movements or strategy, but the German naval high command expected him to proceed to South America and perhaps thence, via Cape Horn, into the Atlantic. The British Admiralty, by contrast, was principally concerned by the danger that von Spee might move east, to operate in Australasian waters or the Indian Ocean, where the great “imperial convoys,” bringing Australian, New Zealand and Indian soldiers to Europe, were setting sail. Its anxieties were much heightened by the success of von Müller on Emden, who, while von Spee made his leisurely way eastward across the Pacific, was cutting a swathe through Britain’s merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean.

  Against the appearance of von Spee in the South Atlantic, the Admiralty began to dispose ships as early as the first week of September. Local circumstances, particularly the Mexican civil war, had brought about a concentration of ships in the Caribbean during August. Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, commanding on the North American station, signalled on 3 September, “Good Hope [armoured cruiser] . . . visiting St. Paul’s Rocks, and will arrive Pernambuco 5th September for orders, Cornwall [armoured cruiser] is in wireless touch proceeding south. Glasgow [light cruiser] reports proceeding with Monmouth [armoured cruiser] and Otranto [armed merchant cruiser] to Magellan Straits [Cape Horn], where number of German
ships reported, presumably colliers, and where concentration of German cruisers from China, Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean appears positive.”19 Cradock’s signal was a remarkably shrewd appreciation by a commander not privy to Admiralty intelligence. Pernambuco, the eastward point of Brazil, abutted the main trade routes from Argentina, whence came much of Britain’s beef. St. Paul’s Rocks, off Pernambuco, were an obvious coaling area for German commerce raiders; they were to be much used as a refuelling rendezvous by U-boats during the Second World War. South American ports were full of colliers chartered by local German agents to resupply the commerce raiders, as Cradock indicated.

  Cradock then became distracted by his inability to locate Dresden and another German light cruiser, Karlsrühe. About Karlsrühe he need not have worried; after disappearing from view among the remoter islands of the West Indies, she was blown up by a spontaneous explosion in her magazines on 4 November, a fact not known in Britain for three months, though speculation as to her whereabouts would continue to complicate Cradock’s thinking during September and October. Dresden remained a real menace. To guard against her entering the Pacific, Admiral Cradock sent Glasgow, Monmouth and Otranto to the Magellan Straits, at the tip of South America, in early September. Meanwhile, Dresden, having sunk a British collier off the River Plate, itself transferred to the Magellan Straits and then, on advice from the German Admiralty “to operate with the Leipzig,” sailed into the Pacific on 18 September. News of Dresden’s movements prompted Cradock, disastrously as it would turn out, to take Good Hope, his flagship, south to the Magellan Straits also, where he met Glasgow and Monmouth on 14 September.

  Communication between Europe and South American waters was complex. The British Admiralty used its intact cable network to send messages to Cerrito, in Uruguay, whence they were wirelessed onwards to the low-power wireless station in the Falkland Islands; that assured reasonably rapid touch with ships in the South Atlantic. Signalling into the South Pacific was more difficult. The Falklands station could not usually reach the Pacific, because of atmospherics and the barrier of the Andes, so warships had to be sent into port at regular intervals to collect cable telegrams, a tedious procedure entailing many delays. The Germans wirelessed from Nauen, as far as its range would carry, to their consuls, who then communicated by cable with German merchant ships in the port nearest to von Spee’s position. South American governments being lax about neutrality regulations, their merchant captains then wirelessed signals onwards and retransmitted those received by the same route homeward.

  On 14 September, the Admiralty sent Cradock a long signal that laid the basis for his squadron’s and his own destruction:

  There is a strong possibility of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau arriving in the Magellan Straits or on the west coast of South America . . . Leave sufficient force to deal with Dresden and Karlsrühe. Concentrate a squadron strong enough to meet Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, making Falkland Islands your coaling base. Canopus is now en route to Albrohos, Defence is joining you from the Mediterranean. Until Defence joins, keep at least Canopus and one “County” class [i.e. Glasgow or similar] with your flagship. As soon as you have superior force, search the Magellan Straits with squadron, being ready to return and cover the River Plate or, according to information, search north as far as Valparaiso. Break up German trade and destroy the German cruisers.20

  This was a strategic rather than tactical directive, and of very wide scope. It committed Cradock to cover both the Atlantic coast of South America, as far north as the River Plate in Uruguay, a merchant shipping focal point, and the Pacific coast as far as the other focal point of Valparaiso in Chile. It instructed him to conduct both commerce warfare and an anti-cruiser campaign. It promised him a ship, Defence, which was later to be retained in the Mediterranean; had it come to him, he could not have been outgunned. It represented Canopus, an obsolete battleship, as an equivalent, which it was not. It implicitly expected Cradock to produce a victory.

  The signal, when sent, disguised the Admiralty’s complete ignorance of von Spee’s whereabouts. All it knew was that he was somewhere in the southeastern Pacific, between Fanning Island—a fact established by the destruction of that lonely island’s wireless and cable station—and Cape Horn, an exercise in location subject to error by a factor of thousands of miles and hundreds of degrees of longitude and latitude. On 16 September there was a correction: “situation changed. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Samoa on 14th September . . . left steering N.W. [back towards the Bismarcks] . . . German trade on west coast of America to be attacked at once . . . Cruisers need not be concentrated. Two cruisers and an armed liner would appear sufficient for Magellan Straits and West Coast. Report what you propose about Canopus.”21

  The report from Samoa was the outcome of von Spee’s ill-judged visit two days earlier. It might have resulted in disaster, had the Australian fleet been present. Two weeks later he had transferred to the remote Marquesa Islands, last outpost of the French empire in the Pacific. There he was able to coal again in sheltered waters and load fresh food, from islanders who had not yet heard of the European war. Then he set off to even more remote places, first Easter Island, then Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe’s legendary marooning place. At Easter Island he was joined by Dresden and Leipzig which, proceeding independently by guesswork, arrived there to meet him during 1–5 October. The first he knew of their approach was by intercepting wireless signals between them.

  Meanwhile Cradock, whose communications with the Admiralty were to be increasingly misunderstood, as theirs with him were to be also, was searching for Dresden along the Atlantic coast of South America. He was alerted to the fact that he was in the wrong ocean only when, on 25 September, he met a British ship which had been chased by her on 18 September, near Cape Horn. Feeling that he was now on the scent, Cradock immediately led his squadron to the Magellan Straits (the normal means of passage between the two great oceans) and put in at the Chilean port of Punta Arenas, where the British consul confirmed that Dresden had indeed been about, using nearby Orange Bay as a base. Finding nothing there, Cradock then reversed course; a complicated toing-and-froing followed, during which he returned in his flagship Good Hope to the Falklands, leaving his accompanying armed merchant cruiser Otranto behind, but, once arrived, almost immediately sent Glasgow and Monmouth back to join Otranto at Punta Arenas, with orders—in accordance with Admiralty instructions as he understood them—to conduct cruiser warfare on the Pacific coast of Chile. At the Falklands, however, Cradock heard by wireless from Otranto that she had overheard German naval wireless signals, which set her off again to Orange Bay, where German sailor scrawls of a “Kilroy was here” sort confirmed Dresden’s presence only a few days earlier. Finding no actual German presence, however, he returned once more to the Falklands.

  Cradock, who was to be widely blamed for future disaster, was in an unenviable situation. He was acutely aware of ambient danger—the presence of von Spee’s big ships, probably in the Pacific but perhaps seeking to break into the Atlantic; the lurking menace of the German light cruisers, preying on British trade; the lack of a British base anywhere in his theatre of responsibility, except the Falklands, which did not offer control of Pacific waters; the penetration of the whole Patagonian region by German settlers and officials, all willing and ready to resupply the Kaiser’s ships, shelter their colliers and spy on the Royal Navy; and, as a background to his difficulties, the awful Cape Horn weather which, even in what was the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, brought constant gales, sleet, snow and mountainous seas. To cap all, he was oppressed by his difficulties of communication with his masters in London. They in turn, oppressed by fear of a break-out by the High Seas Fleet, were trying to work a worldwide strategy without touching their gold reserve of modern battleships and battlecruisers locked up in northern Scotland, instead hoping that obsolete units left over from the Victorian navy could keep Germany’s best cruisers on overseas stations at bay. It did not help the management of British naval strategy tha
t the Admiralty’s political chief, Winston Churchill, was currently attempting to direct in person a private war on the north coast of Belgium or that the Royal Navy’s professional head, Louis of Battenberg, was under attack by the popular press as a German princeling, an attack which would shortly lead to his removal from office.

  In the circumstances, Cradock appears to have tried to straddle two oceans and two incompatible Admiralty demands: to protect British trade in the Atlantic and to destroy the East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron in the Pacific, if that was where it was. Little wonder that his movements in the first days of October appeared confused. However, on his return to the Falklands after his second search of Orange Bay, he received an Admiralty message on 7 October that at last threw light on von Spee’s whereabouts and gave him more or less clear instructions.