A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  The work of the northern patrols was also to a large extent bound up with diplomacy. There was something of an adversarial relationship between the Foreign Office and the Admiralty over the enforcement of the blockade. The men often felt as if they were being let down by the authorities in Whitehall. In this the men of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron were in a similar situation to the German submariners and German diplomats. But there was a major difference. British blockade measures caused inconvenience and loss of property; German measures generally led to loss of life. In Britain the civilian arm of government had the final say and was firmly in control. Diplomatic considerations at times had to take precedence over purely military ones. There is no space here to give an account of the changing definitions of contraband or the legal measures enforcing the blockade, but their complexity often resulted in a ship that had been brought into Kirkwall being allowed to proceed.53

  The work of these northern patrols can be sketched in this volume only in very broad terms.54 The Tenth Squadron, after being steadily reduced, was finally abolished at the end of November 1917, for by then the United States, the source of much of the contraband, was safely in the war on the Allied side, and there was relatively little work for the squadron. By then 12,979 vessels had been intercepted, 1,816 sent in under armed guard, and an additional 2,039 reported voluntarily at British examination ports. The squadron failed to intercept 642 vessels. Seven of the armed merchant cruisers were lost to submarines, one was sunk in action with a raider (the Alcantara and the raider Grief, which also was sunk), and two foundered in heavy weather.55 Rear Admiral Reginald Tupper, who succeeded de Chair as commander of the squadron in March 1916, proudly quoted the words of the First Lord Sir Eric Geddes shortly after the close of the war. Geddes remarked that in every case where an armistice was signed with their enemies, and even before, the one cry that went up was to release the blockade. Geddes declared: “If anything more strikingly demonstrating the value of sea power can be given, I do not know of it.”56

  Neither Tupper nor his predecessor de Chair ever forgot that the many facets of sea power were linked. The armed merchant cruisers were extremely vulnerable, and de Chair noted that if at dawn they had ever spotted a German battle cruiser in proximity, they would have been quickly sunk. Their only solution would have been to steam full speed straight at the enemy in the hope of getting within range before their guns were knocked out. A single battle cruiser could have sunk the entire blockading squadron. De Chair concluded, “Providentially, the Germans were afraid to risk a first class ship on such a venture although it would have paid them well to do so.” Tupper also recognized that one properly built and commissioned German cruiser could have wiped out within twenty-four hours the whole squadron enforcing the strangling blockade of Germany. Tupper knew the reason why they never did. The German cruiser could not pass Scapa Flow: “the battleships at Scapa Flow prevented hostile cruisers from getting out to the Atlantic; thus they permitted the Tenth Cruiser Squadron to exist and carry on its work.”57

  Tupper may have been oversimplifying, but he made the essential point. The many facets of British sea power were linked; the armed merchant cruisers did the actual work, but it was the menacing presence of those great dreadnoughts, always ready to intervene if challenged, which enabled them to work undisturbed. The British also went to sea often, accepting the inevitable risks. In 1918 Geddes remarked at an Allied conference that the Grand Fleet had probably steamed more miles in a month than the Italian fleet had since the beginning of the war. By that steady, relentless work, innumerable sweeps and exercises, the British gained an intangible advantage in confidence and expertise, manifest in the morale of their officers and men, which would distinguish the Royal Navy in the course of the war. Ships were made to be risked within reason, not hoarded in port as a “fleet-in-being” or as bargaining chips for a future peace conference. There was something different about the Royal Navy—a mixture of tradition, confidence, and seamanship—hard to quantify, but definitely there.

  3

  THE MEDITERRANEAN: 1914–1915

  The opening of the war in the North Sea had proved to be anticlimactic. The long-awaited battle for command of the sea that many had expected did not take place. Given the respective strategies of the British and the Germans, the ratio of forces, and the realities of modern warfare, this is less surprising in retrospect than it might have appeared at the time. But what of the Mediterranean? The Triple Alliance Naval Convention had originated in hopes that a combination of the rival but allied Austro-Hungarian and Italian fleets with the Mittelmeerdivision just might be enough to wrest control of the sea from the French fleet and whatever British forces were left in the Mediterranean after the British had concentrated their strength in the north. This hope may have been unrealistic, but at least on paper it was a possibility. The contingency of joint action by the Triple Alliance forces was a very real one for all parties concerned in the opening hours of the war.

  The Italian Ministry of Marine, not fully cognizant of the exact terms of the Triple Alliance and its strictly defensive character, issued warning orders, and sealed orders went out on 29 July to various naval authorities outlining the circumstances under which Italian participation in the war on the side of Germany and Austria would take place.1 The Germans, after the kaiser on 5 and 6 July had warned the armed forces to be prepared for all eventualities, sent the battle cruiser Goeben into dry dock at Pola, and experts sent down from Germany worked feverishly to replace defective boiler tubes. Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, commanding the Mittelmeerdivision (consisting of the Goeben and new light cruiser Breslau), was determined to strike at French lines of communication regardless of any eventual combination with his allies. The primary interest of the Germans was to cut off the repatriation of French troops from North Africa.2 Cooperation with Germany’s allies could then follow.

  The opening shots of the war were fired by the monitors of the Austro-Hungarian Danube flotilla on 28 July, when the Dual Monarchy declared war on Serbia (see chapter 9). The fact that aggressive action came from the Austrian side and without prior consultation about altering the status quo in the Balkans provided the Italian government with the justification to remain neutral. It was in every respect a most sensible move. The Italian naval staff was highly aware of Italy’s long, vulnerable coastline, and the capo di stato maggiore, Vice Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, had a healthy respect for the improvements made by the French fleet in recent years. On 1 August he warned the Italian prime minister, Antonio Salandra, that if Great Britain should intervene on the side of the French, the Triple Alliance naval forces had scant possibility of victory and the Italian navy could not protect the exposed and vulnerable Italian coastal cities or keep open communications with the Italian colonies.3 There were a variety of reasons for Italy’s decision to remain neutral, but surely naval considerations must have had an important place among them. On 2 August the Italian government formally declared its neutrality, and with the Austrian fleet now hopelessly inferior to the French, the prospect of a great naval encounter in the Mediterranean disappeared and the Triple Alliance Naval Convention proved to be an illusion. The Italians had rendered one of their biggest services to the British and French during the war.

  Souchon was at Messina when he learned of the Italian declaration of neutrality. He was now in a vulnerable position. Anticipating the outbreak of war with France, he was at sea steaming for the Algerian coast when news of the formal declaration of war came by wireless on the evening of 3 August. Souchon fired the opening shots of the war in the Mediterranean at 6:08 A.M. on the 3d when the Goeben bombarded Philippeville for ten minutes while the Breslau fired at Bône. French coastal batteries returned the fire. The physical damage on shore was minor; the psychological damage far greater. That afternoon Souchon received orders by wireless to break through to Constantinople, for the Germans and Turks had just concluded an alliance. He could not reach the Dardanelles without replenishing his bunkers, and he therefore hea
ded back to Messina to coal. There was a tense moment when the Germans encountered the British battle cruisers Indefatigable and Indomitable steaming in the opposite direction. Great Britain and Germany were not yet in a state of war, and the British in this more-innocent age observed the traditional proprieties. The customary salutes were not exchanged, but the British could only turn and try to follow. Through the heroic efforts of the German engineers and stokers, the Goeben was able to take advantage of her speed and eventually outdistance them. Souchon was back at Messina on the 5th, but the Italian authorities gave him only twenty-four hours to remain in port. This was not sufficient time to refill his bunkers, and he had to arrange for a collier to meet him in the Aegean. Actually the Italian action may have been a blessing in disguise, for Messina was likely to become a magnet for British and French warships. Souchon also was alarmed to learn that a hitch had developed in obtaining Turkish permission to pass the Dardanelles, but, on learning the Austrian fleet would not be coming south to support him, he elected to gamble Turkish approval would be granted in time, and late on the afternoon of the 6th he left port for the dash to the east.

  The threat of the Austrian fleet was very much on the minds of the British, for it had the potential to overwhelm their forces closing in on the Goeben. At 3:00 A.M. on the morning of 5 August the Austrian naval command received a somewhat garbled cable from Messina requesting the Austrian fleet to come at once, reporting British but no French ships off Messina, and asking the estimated time of arrival. The Germans had a clear assignment for the Austrians: proceed to Messina to the assistance of the Mittelmeerdivision. The Austrian naval commander did not consider this to be either wise or practical.

  Admiral Anton Haus had been Marinekommandant and chief of the Marinesektion of the Ministry of War since February 1913. The sixty-three-year-old Haus was certainly the best known man in the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine and had been designated in the Triple Alliance Naval Convention to command the combined Austrian, Italian, and German naval forces in the Mediterranean. He was acknowledged as brilliant but with little patience for fools and was noted for his biting sarcasm.4 Largely forgotten by all but specialists in Austrian or naval history, he easily could have had a significant place in history as winner or loser of a classic naval encounter in the Mediterranean had Italy not elected to remain neutral. On the outbreak of war with Serbia, Haus was concerned initially with the defense of Austria’s southernmost Dalmatian coast and the blockade of the rather restricted coastline of Montenegro, Serbia’s potential ally. The southern Austrian naval base in the Gulf of Cattaro was dominated by Montenegrin artillery on Mount Lovčen. The expansion of the war from a local to a general struggle, coupled with the defection of Italy, radically changed the situation. Haus was now faced with the need to counter suggestions by the chief of the Austrian general staff, Conrad von Hötzendorf, that the fleet move to the Dardanelles and operate with good effect against the Russians in the Black Sea before the overwhelmingly superior British and French could destroy it in the Adriatic. These suggestions were apparently instigated by the naval representative at Armeeoberkommando (AOK). Count Berchtold, the Austrian foreign minister, found the idea attractive, and for the next few days the Austrian Foreign Office pushed the proposal, hoping to delay a declaration of war with France and, possibly, to completely avoid a state of war with Great Britain. The Germans supported the proposal. This uncertainty over when and with whom Austria-Hungary would be at war added greatly to the concerns and influenced the actions of all the naval leaders in the Mediterranean.

  The proposal to send the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine or a substantial portion of it to Constantinople was totally unrealistic. There would have been no adequate base available for it at Constantinople or elsewhere in the Black Sea, the fleet would have lacked sufficient stocks of coal, the fleet train was only partially mobilized, and, finally, there was a great danger of being overwhelmed by the superior French and British forces on the way. Furthermore—and this alone would have been decisive—such a move would have left Austria’s coastline and security in the Adriatic at the mercy of the Italians. The Black Sea proposal was rejected out of hand.5

  The request to assist the Goeben at Messina was more difficult to refuse. Austrian mobilization on 5 August was not complete, but Haus could count on three dreadnoughts, three Radetzky-class semidreadnoughts, two armored cruisers, and at least twelve destroyers and high-seas torpedo boats. He knew the British were concentrating on Messina and his fleet would have been superior to them. But he did not know the location of the much larger French fleet (potentially two to four dreadnoughts, six semidreadnoughts, and five or more predreadnoughts), which he knew had sailed from Toulon early on the morning of the 4th. Haus estimated that the French could arrive off Messina twenty to twenty-four hours earlier than the Austrians, and French ships from Bizerte even sooner, for Bizerte is 350 miles closer to Messina than Pola is. He also had somewhat conflicting orders from the Austrian Foreign Ministry, anxious to escape war with Great Britain, to be very careful to avoid conflict with British warships and to support the Goeben and Breslau only when they were actually under the protection of the Austrian fleet in Austrian territorial waters.

  When Souchon broke out of Messina, he was reported to be heading for the Adriatic, and the Admiralstab asked the Austrian fleet to come at least as far south as the parallel of Brindisi. This put the situation in a different light, and Haus sailed on the morning of 7 August. Morale was high in the Austrian fleet, but there was also considerable tension, because the position of the superior French fleet was still unknown. Were they too heading for the Adriatic?

  Souchon’s move toward the Adriatic had been only a feint, and when Haus was informed the Germans were actually headed east, he was off Cape Planka. He promptly returned to Pola. The major encounter between the Austrian, French, and British forces would never take place. The reluctance of the Austrians to rush out of the Adriatic to Souchon’s rescue at Messina or to send their fleet to Constantinople left a certain chill in Austro-German relations, with sarcasm or bitterness on the part of some German naval officers and a certain defensiveness in Austrian literature.6 Given the realities of the situation in August 1914, however, one cannot really fault the Austrians.

  The French fleet that had worried the Austrians so much was actually nowhere near Messina, for the commander in chief of the 1ère armée navale—the major French force in the Mediterranean—was preoccupied with the protection of the troop transport between Algeria and metropolitan France, and, from the information at his disposal, convinced the Germans would operate in the western rather than the central or eastern Mediterranean. Like Haus, Vice Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère would miss his place in naval history because of Italy’s decision to remain neutral. Lapeyrère would have commanded the French and British forces in a major naval encounter. There was nothing the sixty-two-year-old Gascon would have liked better, for he was offensively minded and as minister of marine from 1909 to 1911 and commander in chief of the 1ère armée navale since 1911 had played a major role in the renaissance of the French fleet and in training it for what he had assumed would be a classic naval battle against the forces of the Triple Alliance.7

  Unfortunately Lapeyrère’s intense desire to close with the enemy battle fleet conflicted with the primary objective of the French Ministry of War, the repatriation of the XIXème corps from North Africa. The problem was not new; the Ministries of War and Marine had been arguing over it for more than forty years.8 Lapeyrère objected to relegating his fleet to the role of convoy escort with the movements of transports determined by the fixed mobilization plans of the army. He naturally wanted to be free to assume the offensive at the beginning of the war. The Ministry of War, on the other hand, agreed to transports sailing independently instead of in convoy but insisted on the fixed timetable. Lapeyrère countered with the argument that only the naval commander in chief could determine when it would be safe for ships to sail. The question had supposedly been settled in May 1913 by
the Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale, which, not surprisingly, ruled that it was more important to get the troops needed for the anticipated decisive frontier battles to France as soon as possible. The transports would sail independently according to the fixed schedule, covered indirectly by the anticipated offensive of the French fleet, and more closely by a special division consisting of an old battleship and seven elderly protected or armored cruisers that would concentrate east of the line Toulon-Algiers, roughly halfway between the French and Algerian coasts. The effectiveness of this protection was questionable, especially by 1914, when it was obvious the Goeben and Breslau would remain in the Mediterranean. Their speed was a source of great concern to Lapeyrère, as was the powerful armament of the Goeben. There was nothing in the French fleet to match her.

  On 28 July, the day Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Lapeyrère proposed increasing the special division covering the transport to six old battleships that would escort two successive convoys sailing from Oran and Algiers, while he would pursue the enemy with the major portion of the French battle fleet. The Ministry of Marine, now thoroughly irate, replied that the agreed plan could not be changed at the last moment and that the transports would have to sail independently at the fixed dates. Lapeyrère, however, took advantage of a clause in his orders authorizing the formation of convoys if no significant delay resulted. This authorization was abrogated by the signal from the ministry announcing the outbreak of hostilities with Germany, which reached the fleet at 1:15 in the morning on 4 August. By then Lapeyrère was at sea, having sailed with the major portion of his fleet at 4 A.M. on the 3d. There was a series of signals exchanged between the ministry and Lapeyrère in which the commander in chief resisted demands to sail the transports independently. The transport was, however, very much on his mind in his subsequent actions.