A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  By the time war between Britain and Germany had been declared, and British forces, now reinforced by the French cruiser Dupleix, were back on Jerram’s intended deployment, the Emden, the auxiliary cruisers, and the colliers had sailed. Jerram knew she was out and assumed she was heading for Yap in the Carolines. He tried to cut her off and was unsuccessful. The Minotaur and Newcastle were detached to destroy the powerful German wireless station on Yap by gunfire, which they successfully accomplished on the 12th. Although the German surveying ship Planet managed to partially repair the wireless and resume transmitting on the 22d, the new transmissions were much shorter in range. Spee was therefore cut off from another means of direct communication with Germany since Yap was linked by cable to Tsingtau and Shanghai. The Emden, however, had gotten away, and the arrival of the British and French forces off Tsingtau was akin to locking the barn door after the horse had been stolen. The responsibility for altering Jerram’s plans lay directly with the Admiralty and their unfortunate tendency to try and control distant operations. Churchill undoubtedly played a major role. The first lord apparently was concerned at the narrow margin of British superiority over Spee in Asiatic waters and wanted to make sure Jerram had the battleship Triumph with him.17

  The question of naval supremacy in Asiatic waters was decided on 15 August when the Japanese delivered an ultimatum to Germany, followed by a declaration of war on the 23d. Jerram was now free to leave Chinese waters in pursuit of either Spee or the Emden. The fate of Tsingtau was quickly settled. The kaiser ordered that Tsingtau be defended to the bitter end, but the German government could do nothing to help beyond the kaiser’s personal message “God be with you in the difficult struggle. I think of you, Wilhelm.” The Japanese had their own ambitions in China, and on 30 August a Japanese expedition landed on the Shantung Peninsula. The British battleship Triumph and destroyer Usk joined the Japanese Second Fleet, the naval force attacking Tsingtau. It included three old battleships, two coast-defense ships, three armored cruisers, and a destroyer flotilla with a cruiser leader. A single British battalion, later supplemented by an Indian battalion stationed in China, joined the siege. It was a purely symbolic participation. The Japanese were definitely in control of these waters. The Japanese First Fleet, consisting of a dreadnought, two semidreadnoughts, four light cruisers, and a destroyer flotilla, patrolled the southern portion of the Yellow Sea to block any potential intervention on the part of Admiral Spee, and then escorted the expeditionary force. To the south the Japanese Third Squadron—a light cruiser and two first-class and four second-class gunboats—patrolled the Formosa Strait and northern approaches to Hong Kong. Jerram therefore did not have to worry about waters to the north of Hong Kong.

  The Germans put up a stout defense. On the night of 17 October, S.90 sortied and torpedoed and sank the old Japanese cruiser Takaschio (employed as a minelayer), evaded the blockade, and scuttled herself along the Chinese coast. The outcome of the siege, however, was never in doubt, and on 30 October—the emperor’s birthday—the Japanese began a massive artillery assault and a week later broke through the German defenses. The collection of German warships trapped in the port, as well as the Kaiserin Elisabeth, were scuttled before Tsingtau surrendered on 7 November.18

  There is no guarantee Jerram would have stopped the Emden if he had been able to follow his original plan. There are too many uncertainties in war at sea, and he was going to institute a line of patrols, not a close blockade of Tsingtau. But the damage was done, and Müller was now on the loose. The Emden was the most modern of Spee’s cruisers, completed in 1909, with a contract speed of 24 knots and armed with ten 4.1-inch (10.5 cm) guns and two torpedo tubes. Müller also tried to alter the Emden’s profile by constructing a dummy fourth funnel, two dimensional, but from a distance a successful simulation of the four-funneled British cruisers on station.

  Müller intended to avoid the usual steamer routes and proceeded southward to enter the Indian Ocean by means of the Molucca and Buru straits and the Banda Sea through the maze of islands of the Netherlands East Indies. The Germans may have been unpleasantly surprised by the fact that the Dutch intended to rigorously enforce their neutrality. They had the strength to do so: their squadron in the East Indies included the coast-defense ships De Zeven Provinciën, Tromp, Koningin Regentes, and Hertog Hendrik and six destroyers.19 The major concern of the Dutch was probably to avoiding giving the Japanese any pretext to intervene in their colonies, but they definitely served as a brake on German freedom of action. The Tromp (two 9.4-inch and four 5.9-inch guns) which the Emden met at Tanahjampea on 27 August, was clearly superior to the German cruiser—and what was even worse, had just sent the collier Müller was expecting to find there away for lingering too long in territorial waters. Müller found that the prewar German plan to send supply ships to neutral ports to await further orders was impractical because of the Dutch attitude. He did make use of the island of Simaloer south of Sumatra, but after another polite but firm encounter with Dutch officials, he was careful to anchor just outside of territorial waters when he returned to those waters in the future.

  The British assumed the Emden was with Spee’s squadron, and Müller achieved complete tactical surprise when he appeared in the Bay of Bengal on the Colombo-Calcutta track. Traffic here had resumed the normal peacetime routine, the presence or likelihood of a raider unsuspected. Between the 10th and 14th of September Müller sank six steamers, captured and retained another two as colliers, and released a third to carry the crews of his prizes. These sinkings were technically in the East Indies station, but the commander in chief East Indies, Rear Admiral R. H. Peirse, had his hands full with the Indian convoys and the threat of the German light cruiser Königsberg in the western portion of the Indian Ocean. The hunt for the Emden was therefore taken up by the ships of Jerram’s China Squadron, with the Minotaur, Hampshire, and Yarmouth joined by the second-class battle cruiser Ibuki (four 12-inch, eight 8-inch, and fourteen 4.7-inch guns, but only 20.9 knots speed) and light cruiser Chikuma of the Japanese navy. The Russian cruisers Zhemchug and Askold, the old French cruiser D’Iberville, auxiliary cruisers Empress of Asia and Empress of Russia, and the Japanese light cruiser Yahagi were all ships eventually involved in operations against the Emden, and at the moment she was finally destroyed Vice Admiral Tochinai was at Singapore with the armored cruisers Tokiwa and Yakumo to form a Japanese squadron to work in the eastern half of the Bay of Bengal.

  Müller, despite the forces gathering against him, kept the initiative, and after cruising off Rangoon, recrossed the Bay of Bengal and on the night of 22 September bombarded the oil-storage tanks at the port of Madras, destroying two, thoroughly upsetting trade in the Bay of Bengal for the second time, and, needless to say, doing immense damage to British prestige. Müller then steamed to the Minikoi focal point—a coral island 400 miles west of Colombo—and between the 25th and 27th of September sank another four ships, captured and retained a fifth as a collier, and released another captured ship with the crews from his prizes. The Emden disappeared to the south to coal in the Maldives and then proceeded farther south to remote Diego Garcia, where she rested and executed repairs, assisted by the fact that the islanders had not yet heard of the outbreak of the war. The British missed the Emden, but the Yarmouth captured and sank the faithful collier Markomannia, caught coaling from Müller’s Greek prize the Pontoporos off Simaloer on 12 October. The latter was rescued from German control.

  Müller returned to the Minikoi area and between 16 and 19 October sank another five steamers, retained another as a collier, and released another with the crews from his prizes. Müller, after eluding his pursuers once again, embarked on what was probably his boldest stroke. He steamed eastward and raided Penang at the entrance to the Malacca Strait. Using the dummy funnel, Emden surprised and sank by gunfire and torpedo the Russian light cruiser Zhemtchug and was on the verge of capturing a British steamer loaded with explosives when interrupted by the returning small French destroyer Mousquet, which w
as promptly sunk.

  Müller had therefore added two Allied warships to his score, caused renewed consternation, and delayed the sailing of the large convoys from Australia and New Zealand, which now had to be given strong escorts. However, he had exhausted his share of luck. The forces hunting him in the Indian Ocean were increasing, and Müller decided to steam southward again to raid the remote Cocos Islands and destroy the cable and wireless station on Direction Island. The Emden appeared off the island on 9 November, and a landing party promptly set about the work of destruction. However, the island had managed to send off a warning that was picked up by the escorts of the Australian convoy only 52 miles away. Müller had no idea of the existence of the convoy, whose sailing his activities had delayed. The convoy commander detached the Australian light cruiser Sydney, commanded by Captain John Glossop, who reached the scene around 9:00 A.M. The Emden had to leave her landing party and give battle, but the Sydney, with eight 6-inch guns, was superior in armament, and the battered Emden was eventually run ashore on nearby Keeling Island and burnt out.20 The odyssey was not quite over. Kapitänleutnant von Mucke, the Emden’s first officer in charge of the landing party, escaped with his men in the small schooner Ayesha, sailed to Padang in the Dutch East Indies, transferred to the German steamer Choising, and eventually reached Yemen, where after surviving bedouin attacks, they managed to reach the railhead and arrive in Constantinople to a hero’s welcome in June of 1915.21

  Müller and the Emden sank the warships Zhemchug (whose captain and first officer were later court-martialed and sentenced to prison for their lack of preparedness) and Mousquet, captured the Rjasan and converted her into the auxiliary cruiser Cormoran, and sank sixteen British steamers, representing 70,825 gross tons. He appears to have behaved with scrupulous correctness toward his captures, invariably making careful provision for the safety of the passengers and crew of his prizes, and has on the whole received a very good press. The British, at least until the submarine war turned bitter, seemed to have had some of that same high regard for him that they would later show toward Rommel in the Second World War.22 The official histories written shortly after the war, however, are inclined to take the line that the Emden’s career was helped by laxness and luck, that some captures would never have taken place had elementary precautions been observed, and that she was very lucky, narrowly missing capture on at least three occasions. They also point out that the losses represented a very small portion of the vast amount of British trade and had little bearing on the war, and imply that the destruction of the Emden was inevitable.23 The Admiralty statements early in the war had the same tone. They had always considered there would inevitably be some losses and apparently did not respond when the thoroughly alarmed Bengal Chamber of Commerce in October had urged the establishment of a system of convoys. The Admiralty, busy with escorting troop convoys, expected the situation to improve when the convoys were accomplished and more cruisers could be released for hunting purposes. They considered it undesirable to impose on trade the delays and restrictions associated with convoys.24 The destruction of the Emden and the neutralization of most of the other German surface raiders by the end of the year seemed to justify this attitude. However, when the Admiralty looked at the question in the midst of the Second World War, the results were less inspiring:

  The naval measures taken to deal with the Emden’s attack on trade consisted in employing numerous cruisers in searching anchorages and areas in which she had been reported or was suspected of operating. . . . Some of these cruisers were slower than the Emden so that even if they had located her, she would probably have escaped like the Karlsruhe did. In any case frequent changes in the theatre of operations usually rendered the intelligence, on which they acted, misleading or out-of-date.

  The system did not effectually protect the trade or succeed in bringing the Emden to action. Her eventual destruction was due to a lucky chance that the Sydney, escorting troop transports from Australia, happened to be in the vicinity when she raided the Cocos Islands. If the attack had been timed a few hours earlier or later she might have escaped.

  The Admiralty calculated that out of the ten times the Emden had coaled during her raid, five had been from her prizes. The most effective method of protection from surface raiders was the same as that from submarines. The Admiralty concluded:

  There can be little doubt that convoy on the principal trade routes in the Indian Ocean would have greatly reduced the losses and deprived the Emden of coal from captured colliers on which she largely depended. It is true that convoy would have slowed up the normal flow of trade but not to the extent that actually happened. Uncertainty as to the Emden’s movements led to shipping being held up for long periods in Bombay, Calcutta, Aden and Singapore, so that trade was seriously dislocated throughout the Middle and Far East.25

  The situation in the Indian Ocean was complicated by the presence of the light cruiser Königsberg (completed in 1907, ten 4.1-inch [10.5-cm] guns, 24 knots) on the East Africa station. Fregattenkapitän Looff’s orders in the event of war were to attack traffic at the entrance to the Red Sea.26 He sailed from Dar es Salaam on the evening of 31 July and eluded the Hyacinth, Astraea, and Pegasus, which were patrolling off the port. Rear Admiral King-Hall, commander in chief of the Cape Squadron, had been ordered to watch the Königsberg in the period preceding hostilities, but as was the case with the Goeben and Breslau in the Mediterranean, the elderly cruisers of the Cape Squadron were not fast enough to keep up with their potential German foe.

  The Königsberg never lived up to her potential. Her operations were crippled by a lack of coal. The British prevented her collier Koenig from leaving Dar es Salaam, and through preemptive purchasing, blocked the Germans from obtaining coal in Portuguese East Africa. The Königsberg captured and sank only a single merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden. The monsoon season further hampered her activities, and a sortie to the vicinity of Madagascar proved fruitless. The Königsberg lived a fugitive existence, hiding on the African coast and scrounging for coal from any small German colliers that were available. She was a potential danger, however, and proved it on 20 September when she surprised and sank the old light cruiser Pegasus, which had been repairing defects in her machinery at Zanzibar. The psychological effects, especially when coupled with the activities of the Emden on the other side of the Indian Ocean, were probably more far-reaching than the actual damage. The New Zealand government delayed the sailing of its portion of the great troop convoy, which was in the process of gathering in Australian waters. The light cruisers Dartmouth, Chatham, and Weymouth, the latter specially detached from the Mediterranean, spent more than a month looking for her. The effect on trade did not appear to last long, however, due to the Königsberg’s inactivity, and even before she was located her presence had ceased to have any appreciable effect. The eventual discovery of the Königsberg was due more to a lucky accident than any of the British measures. On 19 October the Chatham discovered the small supply ship Präsident (1,849 tons) of the Deutsche Ost-Afrika line in the Lindi River, and papers found on board indicated that the preceding month she had carried coal to the Königsberg, which was in a branch of the swampy delta of the Ruflgi River. This area had previously been searched but was considered too shallow for the German cruiser. The new lead was enough. On 30 October the Dartmouth discovered the Königsberg 6 miles up the Rufigi. The British instituted a close watch, and on 10 November sank a collier to block the channel. The ship’s artillery could not reach the German cruiser and the British discovered there were other channels by which the ship might escape. The result was a small expedition, complete with monitors and aircraft, before the final destruction of the Königsberg was achieved in July 1915.27 It was another of those troublesome sideshows, absorbing men and ships that might have been employed elsewhere. The Königsberg’s crew, and some of her guns, which were landed, continued to fight with the German forces in East Africa. But that was almost irrelevant. She had ceased to be a factor in the naval war from the m
oment she was blocked in early November.28

  Of the other German cruisers abroad when the war began, the Karlsruhe gave the British and French as much trouble as the Emden, although her career, lacking a dramatic episode such as the raid on Penang, has not attracted the same amount of attention. The Karlsruhe was a new ship and had just completed her trials when she arrived in the Caribbean to relieve the Dresden as station ship on the East Coast of America station. She was armed with twelve 4.1-inch (10.5-cm) guns and capable of better than 27.5 knots, which gave her an advantage in speed over any of the British or French ships in these waters. Fregattenkapitän Erich Köhler, her commander, needed every bit of it on a number of occasions.

  Köhler began the war hiding in an isolated anchorage at Cay Sal Bank in the Florida Strait to the north of Cuba, where he had gone to hide once the warning messages that war was imminent had been received. After the hostilities began, the Karlsruhe met the North German Lloyd liner Kronprinz Wilhelm (14,908 tons) at a rendezvous in the open sea approximately 120 miles northeast of Watling Island in the Bahamas. The Kronprinz Wilhelm had slipped out of New York the evening of 3 August for the meeting with the Karlsruhe on the 6th. The Karlsruhe transferred two 3.4-inch (8.8-cm) guns, ammunition, a machine gun, and some ratings. Kapitänleutnant Paul Thierfelder, the Karlsruhe’s navigating officer, assumed command of the auxiliary cruiser. The Germans had just finished transferring the guns and were in the process of shifting ammunition when Rear Admiral Cradock arrived on the scene in the armored cruiser Suffolk. The British had been guided to the area by intercepting the Karlsruhe’s wireless messages to the Kronprinz Wilhelm. Both German ships made off in different directions. The Suffolk’s stokers made heroic efforts, but the Karlsruhe was out of sight by sunset. Köhler intended to make for Newport News in order to coal, but the light cruiser Bristol steaming down from the north was in a position to cut him off, and the two met that evening. There was an exchange of fire in the moonlight, but once again the Karlsruhe’s superior speed enabled her to get away. The Bristol had not been able to develop her full speed, possibly due to unsuitable coal. Once more, as with the Goeben and Königsberg, the British had failed to catch a German cruiser at the beginning of hostilities. And once again they would experience much trouble as a result.