A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  The great limitation on the exercise of French naval superiority was of course the submarine. The k.u.k. Kriegsmarine had a mere seven in service in the autumn of 1914, with the two oldest suitable only for local defense or training. The French continued to provide large targets for Austrian submarines with their periodic sweeps into the Adriatic to cover supplies sent to Montenegro. Finally, on 21 December U.12 torpedoed Lapeyrère’s flagship Jean Bart. The torpedo struck the bow, and the dreadnought’s watertight compartmentation prevented her from sinking. Lapeyrère drew the inevitable conclusion—sweeps into the Adriatic were not worth the risk—and the French blockade became a distant one of the Strait of Otranto.30 The French armored cruisers patrolled a line along the parallel of Paxos (north of Corfu), accompanied by destroyers when winter weather permitted. The French made a brave effort with their own submarines, and on 8 December the Curie was sunk in a daring attempt to penetrate Pola. She was salvaged and put into service as the Austrian U.14.

  Political and diplomatic pressure forced the French to continue sending at least some supplies to Montenegro, and Lapeyrère eventually tried to use small neutral Italian steamers to run up to the little Albanian port of San Giovanni di Medua. Antivari, farther to the north, was too dangerous, and the French lost their first ship in the Adriatic, the destroyer Dague, to a mine off Antivari on 24 February. The port became very hazardous because of Austrian naval raids and bombing by Austrian aircraft. It grew much safer, although it took longer and was more difficult, to send supplies to Montenegro by means of Salonika, then by rail north to Ipek in Serbia, and then overland to Montenegro.

  The French also remained vulnerable. Anticipating Austrian naval activity as a result of Allied negotiations with Italy in April 1915, Lapeyrère moved his patrol line farther to the north. On the night of 26–27 April the Austrian submarine U.5, commanded by Linienschiffsleutnant Georg Ritter von Trapp (later well known in the United States as the father of the Trapp family singers of The Sound of Music), torpedoed and sank the French armored cruiser Léon Gambetta, which went down with the loss of 684 lives. The French cruiser patrol was moved back south of the parallel of Georghambo on Cephalonia, except for indispensable sweeps made at high speed to the mouth of the Adriatic. The heavy use of Malta at this time for the needs of the Dardanelles expedition meant the French cruisers would have to go all the way to Bizerte to coal, reducing still more the effectiveness of the French blockade of the Strait of Otranto.31 The situation in the Adriatic was a stalemate. The larger French warships could not operate without considerable risk, and lacking a convenient base, the French submarines could not operate effectively either. The Austrians could not get out, assuming they wanted to. The major question by the end of April 1915 was whether the entry of Italy into the war on the side of the Allies would change the situation (see chapter 6).

  The other major event of significance for the Mediterranean in 1914 was the entry of Turkey into the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. This had serious repercussions for the British and French. It would cut off easy access to Russia through the Black Sea and probably reduce Russia’s effectiveness as an ally. It would also require substantial forces to protect the Suez Canal and Mesopotamian oil fields (see chapter 5). The maintenance of those forces would also require significant maritime commitments that were felt when the submarine campaign developed later. On the other hand, the fact that the Ottoman Empire was now an enemy provided the British, French, and Russians with new opportunities for imperial gains at Turkey’s expense. The common wisdom had been that the escape of the Goeben and Breslau brought about Turkey’s entry into the war with Constantinople held under the threat of the big German guns. This is an overstatement; the situation was far more complex than that, and as previously stated, the Goeben probably facilitated but did not necessarily cause the Turkish action.32

  Initially Souchon felt frustrated by Turkish neutrality, longing to get at the Russians with his ships. Command of the Turkish fleet was a dubious honor. The major units were the two old former German battleships Hairredin Barbarossa and Torgud Reis, launched in 1891 and purchased from Germany in 1910. There were two protected cruisers, both launched in 1903 and rather slow for working with the Goeben and Breslau, and eight relatively modern French- or German-built destroyers. German officers and men from the Mittelmeerdivision, and later sent out from Germany, were seconded to the Turkish ships. The destroyer flotilla received a German officer as commodore and would probably offer the Germans their best opportunities. Two German liners, the General and Corcovado, served as depot or accommodation ships. Somewhat awkwardly, the British naval mission to the Turkish fleet under Admiral Sir Arthur Limpus remained in Constantinople after the outbreak of war. The members were relegated to shore duties until finally expelled in mid-September.33

  The defense of the Dardanelles was an obvious and major concern, and Souchon asked for experts from home. By early September approximately four hundred naval artillerymen and mine specialists were formed into a Sonderkommando under Admiral Guido von Usedom, who later received the title “inspector-general of coastal fortifications and minefields.” Souchon considered the Strait secure by 20 September.34

  The Ottoman government and the Allies were on a collision course. The British never really accepted the fiction of the “sale” of the Goeben and Breslau, and on 27 August the Admiralty ordered Troubridge, then commanding the British forces off the Dardanelles, to attack the ships if they came out, regardless of what flag they wore. Because of the known presence of Germans in other Turkish warships, the cabinet later ordered the sinking of any that tried to get out of the Dardanelles. After Limpus had been expelled by the Turks, Churchill and Battenberg wanted to take advantage of his local knowledge and give him command of the forces off the Dardanelles. This was vetoed by the Foreign Office, which still hoped to preserve Turkish neutrality and thought the action would be unnecessarily provocative. Limpus therefore replaced Vice Admiral Carden as admiral superintendent at Malta, and Carden took command off the Dardanelles.35 It is an intriguing question whether Limpus’s expertise would have made any difference to the subsequent Dardanelles campaign or what his qualities of leadership would have been. He proved to be an excellent and generally praised administrator at Malta.

  The French, at British request, sent two predreadnoughts to the Dardanelles in order to match the two battleships in the Ottoman fleet, and on 25 September the British tightened the blockade further by informing the Turks that, knowing German methods, any Turkish warships coming out of the Dardanelles under present conditions were to be regarded as having the intention of attacking some British interest. The British sent back a Turkish destroyer trying to enter the Aegean on the night of 26 September because Germans were found on board. The Turkish and German reply was predictable: they closed the last narrow channel through the Dardanelles minefields, and the route to Russia via the Black Sea was thereby completely cut off by the 29th.36

  The pro-German factions within the Young Turk government, whose best-known leader was the minister of war Enver Pasha, succeeded in maneuvering Turkey into the war during the month of October with the enthusiastic connivance of Souchon. On 22 October Enver provided Souchon with sealed orders to attack the Russian fleet wherever it was found. Souchon went beyond this, deciding to attack the Russian coast in advance of any encounter at sea.37 Souchon decided to leave the two slow old battleships in port but used all other Turkish warships fit for sea. On the evening of the 27th, the Ottoman fleet left the Bosphorus “for exercises,” steamed eastward to deceive a Russian postal steamer stationed off the Strait, and then separated into four parts. The Goeben, two destroyers, and a minelayer were to attack Sebastopol; the Breslau and a Turkish cruiser were to attack the strait at Kertsch and then Novorossisk; another Turkish cruiser was to attack Feodosia; and two destroyers and a minelayer were to attack Odessa. The attacks took place on the morning of the 29th. A Russian gunboat, the Donetz, was sunk at Odessa; the old minelayer Prut was sunk
off Sebastopol; a few Russian warships were damaged; and approximately six merchant ships were sunk or captured (see chapter 8). The Turkish-German force returned unscathed.38 Souchon, the man who had initiated hostilities in the Mediterranean, also initiated them in the Black Sea and boasted to his wife: “I have thrown the Turks into the powder-keg and kindled war between Russia and Turkey.”39

  The Turkish-German aggression had failed to inflict any significant damage on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but it had the diplomatic effect the Germans wanted. The Russians did not accept the Turkish alibi that the Russians had attacked first and on 31 October declared war on the Turks. The British and French delivered an ultimatum, and on 1 November the British destroyers Wolverine and Scorpion were ordered to cut out a large armed yacht in the Gulf of Smyrna that was supposedly laying mines. The yacht was set afire by her own crew and blew up. The Admiralty ordered Carden to make a demonstration by bombardment against the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles without, however, risking ships and retiring before counterfire became effective. On 3 November the battle cruisers Indefatigable and Indomitable, joined by the French battleships Suffren and Vérité under Rear Admiral Guépratte, began the bombardment. The Suddel Bahr fort suffered considerable damage, and a magazine exploded. On 5 November the British declared war on Turkey.40

  One might argue that the opening shots of the Dardanelles campaign had been fired. This bombardment in early November was not followed up and has often been criticized as serving only to alert the Turks to the danger at the Strait. The argument is not really valid, however. The Germans were perfectly well aware of the danger and, as we have seen, had been working at making this obviously vital point secure.41

  The naval war in the Mediterranean had begun with mixed results for the British and French. They enjoyed unchallenged control of the sea as a result of Italy’s defection from the Triple Alliance, and that control would not be disturbed until the arrival of German submarines later in 1915. The Austrian fleet was bottled up in the Adriatic where, however, due to changed conditions of warfare the French were not able to effectively exert their superior strength. The chain of errors allowing the Goeben and Breslau to escape also led, at least indirectly, to Turkish entry into the war with the closure of the Black Sea route to Russia and potential threats to the Suez Canal. It remained to be seen in 1915 if the damage could be undone by the British and French expedition to the Dardanelles and if Italian entry into the war would alter the situation in the Adriatic.

  4

  SWEEPING THE SEAS

  THE DEFENSE OF ALLIED TRADE

  On the first of July 1914, 8,587 steamers and 653 sailing vessels representing approximately nineteen million gross tons flew the red duster—the British mercantile ensign. If one included the overseas dominions, the tonnage rose to twenty-one million, or approximately 43 percent of the world’s shipping. The Germans were a distant second with 2,090 steamers and 298 sailing vessels, approximately 5.5 million tons, or nearly 12 percent of the world’s tonnage.1 The United States, Norway, France, and Japan jockeyed for third place, but were far behind and at barely more than a third of the German total.

  The huge volume of British shipping, however, implied a certain vulnerability. The Germans did not have to look far to harm British interests; wherever they went on most shipping lanes, they were bound to find attractive targets flying the British flag. Furthermore, it was a well-known fact that Great Britain as an island nation had to import food to survive. In the five years before the war, nearly two-thirds of British foodstuffs came from abroad, and the proportion was particularly high in terms of cereals. The British also had to import sizable quantities of other essential commodities, iron ore, manganese, colonial products such as tin and rubber, and, of course, petroleum products.

  British interests were also worldwide. Not only was there much to protect, but it had to be protected all over the globe. Could the Germans hurt the British by striking at this trade? The answer was yes, they could and did inflict considerable damage. But the very volume of British shipping made it extremely difficult for the Germans to do enough damage in comparison to the vast amount of that trade to really hurt. The British successfully met the challenge of German surface attack on their trade in the first six months of the war. This resulted in a certain complacency still evident in British writing on the subject. The complacency vanished, however, once the Germans turned their submarines primarily against commerce.

  What was the extent of the threat the Germans could pose to British trade at the beginning of the war? The British and French blockade naturally sought to prevent German forces from breaking out of the confines of European waters. But what of German forces abroad when the war began? These were certainly a potential threat. The Germans had the third largest empire in the world in 1914, although the European population was small and the colonies were run at a deficit.

  Tsingtau was probably the most important of the German possessions from a naval point of view, for it was the base of the East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee. Spee’s flagship Scharnhorst and her sister ship Gneisenau were the newest of the armored cruisers, armed with eight 8.2-inch and six 5.9-inch guns, well protected and capable of 20 knots. They were also crack ships, winners of prizes for their gunnery. Spee’s squadron also included the light cruisers Emden, Nürnberg, and Leipzig.

  The Germans also had the light cruiser Königsberg on the east coast of Africa and the light cruisers Dresden and Karlsruhe in the Caribbean, where the turmoil in Mexico had attracted warships from other nations to protect their nationals. The Germans, like other colonial powers, also had the usual assortment of gunboats, surveying vessels, river gunboats, and other minor craft not fit for a real naval encounter. On the outbreak of war, those in the Far East either scrambled for the temporary security of Tsingtau—where the old torpedo boat S.90 gave a good account of herself—or, in the case of some river gunboats, were laid up in Chinese ports. Other German naval vessels led a fugitive existence but were eventually captured, sunk, or interned. They were not a serious naval factor.

  In addition to regular warships, the potential threat of German auxiliary cruisers was taken very seriously by the British. The Germans, with the second largest merchant marine in the world, possessed a number of fast liners that could have been converted into auxiliary cruisers and set loose on the trade routes. Before the war the naval powers provided subsidies for certain vessels to have their decks strengthened so that guns could be mounted after the outbreak of hostilities, and the prewar naval literature discussed the subject at length. Naval annuals such as Jane’s Fighting Ships regularly included silhouettes and particulars of liners capable of being employed as auxiliary cruisers. Aside from those that might be fitted out in German ports and then sent to break out into the high seas, the beginning of the war caught considerable numbers of German merchant ships far from home. The ships sought shelter in neutral ports, and the British and French feared they might secretly be converted, evade neutrality regulations, and put to sea. This meant that throughout the world, in places as scattered as Manila, Lisbon, Genoa, Buenos Aires, or New York, the British had to watch these liners as well as other interned merchantmen that might be used as storeships or colliers for raiders or for Spee’s squadron. This was primarily a British responsibility; the French helped wherever they could, but outside of the Mediterranean and English Channel, they had relatively few resources. The Russians also provided a little assistance in the Far East, but the realities of geography kept the great bulk of Russian naval forces in the Baltic or the Black Sea. The threat from auxiliary cruisers turned out to be exaggerated, but there were some and they did do damage, and had the Allies been less vigilant they might have accomplished much more.

  In conducting cruiser warfare, the Germans suffered from an almost insoluble problem—their lack of overseas bases. Unlike the great corsairs of the seventeenth or eighteenth century, which could keep to the sea for long peri
ods of time and need touch land only to replenish water and food, modern warships needed coal at regular intervals. The Hague Convention of 1907 restricted the amount of coal a warship could obtain in a neutral port to that necessary to reach the nearest port of her own country—which in practical terms usually meant full bunkers for German warships overseas—but the warship could not coal again in the same neutral territory for a full three months. The Germans could evade this by coaling at sea from supply ships. Coaling, though, was a laborious process, notorious in all navies, and the British had begun the strategic gamble of shifting to fuel oil in order to escape its limitations. Coaling was hard enough in port; the Germans would be forced at times to attempt it on the open sea. They would have preferred to use isolated anchorages in neutral waters, but these were not always available.2

  The Germans attempted to solve the potential difficulty before the war through the establishment of the Etappe system. Areas where cruiser operations were likely to take place were divided into zones. The Etappenoffizier in charge of each Etappe coordinated the activities in each zone directed at supplying cruisers or auxiliary cruisers with coal and provisions. German commercial representatives, particularly those involved with shipping concerns, also played an important role. Coal, fuel oil, drinking water, provisions, and other supplies were also dispatched to predetermined points, known to the captains of the German cruisers.3

  The Etappe system was an interesting attempt to circumvent the lack of overseas bases. It was only partially successful. The German officials constantly skirmished with the various neutral authorities over neutrality regulations, and after the war broke out, there was a cat-and-mouse game between the Germans and the diplomatic and mercantile representatives of the Allies in numerous neutral harbors who constantly sought to uncover their activities and protest them to the authorities. Neutral powers curtailed the export of coal in some places. Moreover, some of the German supply ships and colliers were caught by Allied warships. German commanders often had to coal from prizes, and coal in fact became their constant preoccupation, limiting the amount of time they could spend on the sea lanes.