by Deborah Lake
Stock Force started to settle. Auten and Grey walked to the dinghy. They paddled across to a torpedo boat. At 2125, the collier went down. Torpedoed at 1645, 27 miles from land, she was within 8 miles of the shore when she finally succumbed.
Despite the conviction of every man on board that they had sent their opponent to the bottom of the sea, the Admiralty was not completely convinced. Other apparently doomed U-boats had returned home. This did not, though, detract from the gallantry of Lieutenant Harold Auten and his men. Of forty-four men on board, twenty-three received medals or were Mentioned in Despatches. Auten himself received the highest honour. The London Gazette, in sparse words, notified the world that he was awarded the Victoria Cross for his action against ‘an enemy submarine’.
On 28 July 1918, Admiral Reinhard von Scheer arrived at German Supreme Headquarters at Spa in Belgium. He came to discuss the proposal to extend the U-boat blockade to the United States of America. Only three boats from the U-cruiser flotilla were available for the job. Scheer protested. He wanted them in mid-Atlantic, finding convoys, calling up the smaller boats to attack them in concerted actions nearer land.
A compromise that left the big boats cruising up and down the US coastline did little to help the dying war effort. They sank a considerable number of ships, for it was just like the old days before convoys. They fatally mined the cruiser USS San Diego, although the battleship USS Minnesota, holed but afloat, made it to safety.
No matter how often the U-boats patrolled, they had failed one major test. The ships that brought American troops, American supplies across the Atlantic stayed largely unscathed. The great strategic concept of a blockade degenerated into a series of isolated attacks on stray steamers.
And it showed.
SEVENTEEN
A NICE CUP OF ENGLISH TEA
In August 1918, the German army on the Western Front reeled backwards at the Battle of Amiens. On 8 August, Haig’s armies spawned, in Ludendorff’s bitter phrase, the ‘black day of the German Army in the history of the war’. The Fourth Army took 22,000 prisoners and more than 400 field guns. It was a devastating reverse. It shook the Kaiser. ‘We have nearly reached the limit of our powers of resistance,’ he glumly declared. ‘The war must be ended.’
Worse followed. The British Third Army, in the Battle of Bapaume on 21 August, captured 34,000 prisoners and 270 guns. On 26 August 1918, the First Army entered the fray.
In September the fissures deepened. The Allies worked in concert to hit the enemy in successive attacks, not only in the west. Germany’s weaker allies came under the cosh. Turkey, Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary reeled under deadly assaults.
What Keyes’ raid failed to do in April came with the success of Douglas Haig’s troops. The German army could not hold Flanders. The Kaiserliche Marine abandoned the harbours of Zeebrugge and Ostend, along with the repair shops and dockyard at Bruges. Ships and U-boats that could not be moved were scuttled. Among them was Captain Fryatt’s Brussels. Moored alongside the Zeebrugge Mole, she had spent the two previous years as classrooms for the Flanders Flotilla.
The Hindenburg Line, that bastion of German defences, fell. At Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, the Kaiser broke down when he heard the news. ‘Our army is at the end of its tether,’ he wailed to a group of startled dinner guests. ‘The senior officers have all gone. It means nothing more or less than that we have lost the war!’
The Kaiser felt unable to swallow more than a few morsels. Even more startling to his entourage, he spoke hardly a word before he went early to bed. He stayed there the next morning.
Hindenburg issued a manifesto. It appeared in the press and on posters throughout Germany:
‘We are engaged in a relentless battle with our foes. If numerical superiority alone guaranteed victory, then Germany would long have lain crushed in the earth. The enemy knows, though, that Germany and her allies will not be defeated by arms alone. . . . He wants to poison our will and believes that the German sword will be blunted if Germany’s spirit is corroded.’
On 12 September, Pershing launched the US offensive against the St Mihiel Salient, the blunted spearhead that pointed at Paris. By 14 September, the Americans had bagged 16,000 prisoners, 443 guns and vast quantities of supplies.
The next day, a combined British–French–Serbian–Greek force on the backwater of the Salonika Front smashed through the Bulgarian lines. Their German stiffening had already left for the Western Front. Aware that the Allies were going to win the war, the Bulgarians fled in huge numbers.
In Palestine, the same day, Allenby swept aside the Turkish army with his troops. The end was clearly near.
Scheer continued blithely to plan for 1919, when the planned production of U-boats would be twenty-three per month. On 24 September, the Kaiser, voluble once more, visited the U-boat school at Eckernförde. Mere words failed to turn the tide of war. On 5 October 1918, the Reichstag learned from the Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, that the government had asked President Woodrow Wilson to arrange ‘the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land, water and in the air’.
The U-boat arm did this request no favours. News reached the White House of a torpedo attack off Ireland on SS Harano Maru, a liner, in which 292 died. Less than a week later, another torpedo doomed the Irish mail boat Leinster. As she sank, a further torpedo slammed into her. With 527 dead in that attack, Woodrow Wilson turned the screw. In a formal reply, he declared that neither the United States nor its allies would
. . . consent to consider an armistice as long as the armed forces of Germany continue the illegal and inhumane practices which they still persist in. At the very time that the German Government approaches the Government of the United States with proposals of peace, its submarines are engaged in sinking passenger ships at sea – and not the ships alone but the very boats in which their passengers and crews seek to make their way to safety.
Berlin had no choice. On 20 October 1918, Germany replied in suitably humble terms. She denied strongly, for the honour of the Imperial Navy, that the U-boats destroyed either lifeboats or their occupants.
‘The Cabinet’, Ludendorff recorded, ‘had thrown in the sponge.’
On 21 October, Scheer ordered all U-boats home. The offensive had failed. Germany had lost the war.
The bitter irony that accompanies conflict did not fail at the last. Fifty miles out to sea, on the murky autumn afternoon of 15 October 1918, HMS Cymric chased after the fleeing U 6. Rumours of the war nearing its end would not save this survivor from the Kaiserliche Marine.
She rapidly caught her. The submarine, stern down, was sinking. Her wireless chattered frantically sending out a series of calls for help. Cymric arrived to find the submarine’s small boat out. Men struggled in the water. British submariners. From J6, based at Blyth. The decoy picked up thirty survivors. One died before Cymric reached port.
The Court of Inquiry convened the next day. At the conclusion of the hearing, the Court recorded its opinion that Cymric’s commanding officer ‘was not justified in opening fire before he established her identity, J6 being in full buoyancy, men on conning tower, mast up, ensign flying, gun unmanned and not acting in any way suspiciously’.
The papers went up the line. The Commodore (S), Sydney Hall, expressed his opinion coldly:
It does not appear reasonable that an officer whose particular business it was, should be capable of mistaking the silhouette of J6 for U 6, even if he did not know that U6 had sunk 3 years ago.
The CO of Cymric seems to have expected J6 to challenge and to be unaware that it is clearly laid down that the surface craft should challenge, and the submarine only reply.
To expect a German submarine in this position to have mast up and colours flying, gun not manned and men on deck in low visibility shows a further want of judgement – particularly as he was in an area where he must have known that British submarines are constantly on passage.
The Admiralty deliberated. Commodore Hall made a further submission:
The ‘J
6’ should not be confusable with ‘U6’ at 1,200 to 1,800 yards. The silhouette is as unlike that of any U as one submarine can be unlike another and this should have been immediately evident to the CO of Cymric if he had known his business.
Taken in conjunction with the mast being up, flag flying, men on deck, gun not manned and his being off Blyth where J Class have always been based, also that he waited whilst her bearing changed from ahead to abaft the beam, and her range altered from 2½ to 3 miles, to 1,200, to 1,800 yards, the action of CO of Cymric showed a great want of judgement and knowledge of his duty.
The Admiralty decided.
On 19 January 1919, the Senior Naval Officer at Granton received the official letter. The commanding officer of HMS Cymric would face no further action. The letter stressed that the officer had ‘done excellent service and the fact that officers and men of HM Service have lost their lives through his action is sufficient punishment’. Too many lives had been ruined during the war. To stain another was unnecessary.
In Germany, Scheer had attempted to use the High Seas Fleet in one last glorious assault on the Royal Navy. He planned to send his big ships to draw out the Grand Fleet to the south, towards the Firth of Forth. There the U-boats would wait. There the U-boats would strike the final blow. They had been forbidden to sink civilian liners but warships remained legitimate targets.
Scheer planned the operation for 30 October 1918. The chosen vessels of the High Seas Fleet duly assembled off Wilhelmshaven on 28 October. Unlike the men of the U-boat service, the surface sailors on the capital ships had spent more than two years in idleness. They had no stomach for a death-or-glory finale. When orders came to raise steam, late on the night of 29 October 1918, the officers of the Kaiserliche Marine learned, in no uncertain terms, where to put their epaulettes.
The destroyer and U-boat flotillas stayed loyal to the oath. And the last bitter pill came for Kapitänleutnant Johannes Spiess, the ‘Heinrich’ who stood with Otto Weddigen four years earlier, when U 9 showed the world what U-boats could do. Aboukir, Cressy, Hogue.
Now a captain himself, commanding U 135, Spiess finished the war with his U-boat’s torpedo tubes pointing directly at the battleship SMS Helgoland. In response, she trained her guns on the U-boat. The stand-off ended eventually when the most disciplined fleet in the world openly mutinied. The Red Flag replaced the Imperial Ensign.
Sunday 10 November 1918, at Witte Huis, Eijsden, a small Dutch village on the Belgian frontier near Maastricht, promised to be as uneventful as all the other Sundays before it. As in Jonchery, four years and fourteen weeks earlier, nothing ever happened on a Sunday. Everything changed at 0600hr. Hauptmann Sigurd von Ilsemann, an aide-de-camp to the Kaiser, recalled the arrival on the German-held side of the frontier:
In front of us was a great barrier of barbed-wire. The border! We had made it. Country bumpkin Bavarian militia rummaged around the cars. One of them looked in wonder at the travel-stained Imperial crest on our car and called over some others. My hand tightened on the butt of my carbine. If they did not let us through voluntarily, we would have to use violence. Those of us in the Kaiser’s vehicle stayed seated and did nothing to draw attention to ourselves. Frankenberg and Zeyss got out and spoke in a friendly manner to a few sleepy soldiers who emerged from the border post.
‘General von Frankenberg with some officers who have important business in Holland!’ That was clear. The armistice was obviously imminent. The gateway to peace was opened, a soldier jumped on to the running-board and soon afterwards the German Kaiser was on neutral ground. The German Supreme Commander could no longer fall into the mutinous hands of his own soldiers.
Six men of the 48th Landweerbataljon, the local militia, looked after the crossing on the Dutch side of the frontier. They came under the command of 25-year-old Sergeant Pieter Wilhelmus Hubertus Pinckaers. He had his orders. No Germans, bristling with weapons or not, could enter the country without permission. He explained to the general that nothing could be done until the checkpoint officially opened in one hour’s time. A collapsing Empire was no reason to open the office early. ‘Dat kan niet,’ Pinckaers declared and that was the end of the matter. As sergeants have done since the days of the Spartans, he then told higher authority. The border office had no telephone of its own, so he walked to a local factory. From there, he alerted Major van Dijl, garrison commander at Maastricht, to the arrival of the German Emperor.
Ilsemann described the scene:
Hardly anybody was about. . . . Presently, though, came signs of life. Soldiers and civilians appeared from the houses, curious about the German vehicles seeking safety. Several poked their heads into our car.
The Kaiser took out a cigarette. ‘Children, smoke if you wish. You have earned it.’ These were the first words he had spoken in about an hour. When he finished his cigarette, he suggested we got out.
Slowly the sun rose above the hills of a countryside that had been spared this terrible war. Church clock bells welcomed the Sunday morning. I said softly to Hirschfeld: ‘Hear that? Those are chimes of peace.’
The Kaiser, walking close by, put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Ilsemann, where are your parents now, and what news do you have of them?’
‘In Darmstadt, Your Majesty, but I don’t believe they will stay there because the French want to occupy the town.’
Still talking, the Kaiser walked with us up and down the village street. It was cold, almost icy, but gradually warming in the sunshine. Towards eight o’clock in the morning, the local district commandant, the major of police with his adjutant and a Dutch diplomat, Verbrugge van’s Gravendel, who had left Brussels at eleven o’clock the previous night to tell the commandant of the Kaiser’s arrival. Because we showed-up earlier, we had taken the border guards by surprise.
These gentlemen were most proper in the presence of His Majesty and suggested that we went to Eijsden station to wait for the royal train . . . an hour later the special train was on neutral ground. Until then, the Kaiser walked to and fro on the platform with the Dutch major.
People came from all around. There were continual shouts of ‘Ah, Kamerad Kaput!’ or ‘Vive La France!’ We saw shaking fists and looks of hatred and revulsion. There were catcalls and shrill whistles. I felt great sadness for the unfortunate Emperor. He, however, walked quietly to and fro, up and down the platform as if he saw or heard nothing. Photographers took snapshots. It was a mercy when the train arrived to protect the Kaiser from further humiliation. We took a small breakfast in the restaurant car but the blinds had to be lowered because the factory workers (mostly Belgian) continued their abuse. For a while, we feared that they might start throwing stones.
Finally, in the middle of the morning, soldiers and police on bicycles arrived to seal off the station and restore order so that we were shielded from further annoyance.
Telephone calls and telegrams buzzed between Eijsden, Maastricht and The Hague. A strict Sunday observance law hindered swift communication. Telephone calls could only be made during certain hours to allow the operators to observe the Sabbath.
Queen Wilhelmina held an emergency cabinet meeting. She personally felt great sympathy for the Kaiser’s plight. Some of her ministers worried what the Allies might do. The Belgians, the French and the British wanted revenge. Kaiser Wilhelm II, the All-Highest, the Supreme War Lord was a prime target for wrath. Wilhelmina won the day. By the late evening, Wilhelm knew that the Netherlands was prepared to grant him asylum.
Wilhelm took refuge with Count Godard van Aldenburg Bentinck, a man who had cousins on both sides of the conflict. Reluctant to become the Kaiser’s host, he gave way when Wilhelm, being Wilhelm, tartly reminded the Count of his duty. Wilhelm was Master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. Bentinck was a Knight of the Order. As such, they had taken an oath to succour any fellow knight in distress. Refusal was not an option.
Wilhelm arrived at Kasteel Amerongen on a cold, rainy day, a little over four hours after the guns fell silent across Europe. A sprightly
Kaiser rubbed his hands together after he had greeted his host.
‘What I would like now’, he said cheerfully, ‘is a nice cup of English tea.’
It all worked out rather well for the aristocratic Hauptmann Sigurd von Ilsemann, who stayed loyal to his emperor. He married one of the Count’s daughters in 1920.
EPILOGUE
The wrecks of merchant ships, decoys, warships and U-boats from what was once known simply as the Great War litter the seabeds around the British Isles. The sunken hulks, in shallower water at least, sometimes receive visits from amateur divers. Most lie undisturbed, which is right and proper, for many are the tombs of the men who once sailed in them.
Nobody knows precisely how many decoys, the Q-ships, actually saw service. Most estimates suggest that more than 200 roamed the seas in a search for U-boats. Some put the total as high as 400. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Some argue that Crisp’s Nelson, for instance, was not a Q-boat at all but a simple armed smack.
Whatever the definition, only two vessels associated with Q-ships remain.
Along London’s Victoria Embankment, the curious will find HMS President (1918). She is a ‘riverside venue’. The promotional literature describes her as ‘a boat’. Long ago, she bore the name HMS Saxifrage. Built to resemble a merchant ship, she served as a convoy sloop. In 1988 she was sold to a private company by a government perhaps a mite too contemptuous of tradition and history.
The remaining survivor is the schooner Result, otherwise known as Q23. She sits on dry land at Cultra, the home of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Built at Carrickfergus, she now resides not far from where she was made.
Of their opponents, even less survives. The original U 1 is preserved in Munich. She never went to war.