A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  The German army entered Windau on 18 July and soon extended its control along the entire southern shore of the Irben Strait and much of the southern part of the Gulf of Riga. Naval operations on the flanks of the army grew in importance, and the vast Gulf of Riga for more than two years became the focal point of surface operations in the Baltic. The Russians also strengthened their naval forces: there would eventually be 4 gunboats, whose shallow draught facilitated support of the seaward flank of the army; a minelayer; 6 submarines; 25 destroyers and torpedo boats; the seaplane carrier Orlitsa (with 4 aircraft); the new forward base at Rogokul; an airfield on the island of Runö; new coastal batteries; and, of course, the inevitable minefields. As the German threat to the Gulf of Riga developed, the Russians added the old battleship Slava to the defense. Moon Sound had not yet been dredged to a sufficient depth for the battleship to enter the gulf from the north, and she therefore had to come in through the southern entrance at the Irben Strait. This meant leaving the Gulf of Finland and entering the Baltic. The move was made at night, under heavy destroyer escort and with the new dreadnoughts Gangut and Petropavlovsk entering the Baltic for the first time to cover the operation.

  The inherent mobility of sea power enabled the Germans to establish unchallenged superiority in the Baltic any time they cared to detach sufficient forces from the North Sea to do so. The Germans might have had control of the sea in the Baltic, but the Russian navy could have claimed control of the Gulf of Riga. The Germans found it difficult to bring their superior force to bear here, and the Russians proved to be difficult to dislodge.

  Vice Admiral Schmidt had developed plans for the Gulf of Riga that called for the southern and central channels of the Irben Strait to be swept clear of mines, allowing his battleships and cruisers to enter the gulf, defeat Russian naval forces, and permit the Deutschland to block the southern entrance to Moon Sound with mines. The Germans also intended to sink blockships in the harbor of Pernau and shell Dünamünde. Schmidt hoped his operations against the Gulf of Riga might also succeed in drawing the Russian fleet out of the Gulf of Finland and into the Baltic. The Germans therefore detached powerful forces from the High Sea Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Hipper. They included eight dreadnoughts (the Ostfriesland, Thüringen, Helgoland, Oldenburg, Rheinland, Posen, Nassau, and Westfalen) of the First Squadron; the battle cruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann of the First Scouting Group; the Second Scouting Group with four light cruisers; and the cruiser Kolberg leading three and a half flotillas of thirty-two destroyers. A mine-hunting division of thirteen boats joined the minesweeping forces of the Baltic.

  The Germans estimated their operations in the Gulf of Riga would take two days, and the sweepers began their work at dawn on 8 August. The sweeping took much longer than anticipated; the Russian forces including the Slava (four 12-inch, twelve 6-inch guns) and the gunboats Khrabri and Grozyashchi, as well as aircraft, resisted stoutly. The battleships Braunschweig and Elsass kept the Slava at bay, but Schmidt decided to break off the action when it was apparent that even if they succeeded in breaking through the minefields, the Deutschland would not be able to block Moon Sound during the moonless night and if they waited until the following morning the Germans would be exposed to submarine attacks from boats certain to be sent from Revel and Helsingfors. The number of German torpedo craft available for escort was dwindling, and if Schmidt waited until the next day to break into the gulf his light craft would be running low on coal. The unsuccessful operation cost the Germans two mine hunters, and a destroyer and the cruiser Thetis were damaged by mines.

  Schmidt was determined to try again. In the meantime, on 10 August the cruisers Roon and Prinz Heinrich bombarded the Russian positions at Zerel at the tip of the Sworbe Peninsula, the southernmost tip of Osel Island, the northern shore of the Irben Strait. The Russian destroyers at anchor off Zerel were surprised, and one was damaged. The same day Hipper sent one of his battle cruisers, the Von der Tann, and the cruiser Kolberg to bombard Utö in the skerries to the north of the entrance to the Gulf of Finland. The operation was broken off because of repeated reports of submarines. The Russians were not idle during this period either. The minelayer Amur and the destroyers continued to lay mines in the Irben Strait, restoring areas cleared by the Germans on the 8th.

  The second German attack on the Irben Strait began at dawn on 16 August. Schmidt altered his plans slightly from those of the 8th. He did not take the Fourth Squadron or old armored cruisers of the Baltic forces with him. Instead, he used the dreadnoughts Posen and Nassau for the break into the gulf, because they enjoyed much better underwater protection. They were accompanied by the light cruisers Graudenz, Pillau, Bremen, and Augsburg; the large destroyers V.99 and V.100; three torpedo-boat flotillas (31 boats); the minelayer Deutschland; and the minesweepers and blockships. Hipper remained in the Baltic with the three battle cruisers, the four Helgoland-class dreadnoughts, the remaining two Nassau-class dreadnoughts, the two Braunschweig-class predreadnoughts, five cruisers, and three destroyer flotillas (32 boats). This time Schmidt allowed considerably more time for minesweeping, with the entire operation taking at least five days. All unnecessary ships were sent back to Libau, so those on the scene could be given better protection against submarines. The five old Wittelsbach-class battleships therefore remained in Libau.

  The Germans lost the minesweeper T.46 the first day, although the Posen and Nassau succeeded in keeping the Slava at a distance. After the first day’s operation, Admiral Schmidt sent the destroyers V.99 and V.100 to work their way around the minefields close to the coast and make a night attack against the Slava. The destroyers succeeded in getting into the gulf, but the Slava had been withdrawn behind net defenses in Arensburg Bay (Ösel). The Germans clashed with Russian destroyers a few times in the darkness, and on their return encountered the Novik joined by three more Russian destroyers. V.99 was hit and set on fire, and on trying to break out ran into a minefield, detonated two mines, and was lost. The minesweeping continued on the 17th, with the Nassau and Posen scoring three hits on the Slava, which withdrew from the scene to Moon Sound.

  The Germans finally steamed into the gulf on the morning of the 19th. Most of the Russian surface ships had withdrawn to Kuiwast anchorage in Moon Sound, approximately 80 nautical miles from the Irben Strait. The minelayer Amur laid a minefield to protect the southern entrance to Moon Sound. Some Russian ships were cut off. That evening the Augsburg, returning from a reconnaissance of Pernau, encountered the two gunboats Sivutch and Korietz attempting to escape to Kuiwast after having laid a minefield off Dünamünde the preceding night. The dreadnought Posen joined the duel, and the doomed Sivutch was sunk. The Korietz escaped in the darkness only to run ashore in Pernau Bay. Her crew blew her up the following day. The same night the Germans lost the destroyer S.31 to a mine just to the west of Runö. On the 20th, the Germans blocked the entrance to Pernau while the bulk of the German forces advanced to the entrance to Moon Sound, but after receiving reports of enemy submarines, Schmidt decided in the afternoon to forego laying mines and to retire. His ships lacked maneuverability in the constricted waters and difficult channels where mines were suspected and poor visibility made it hard to fix his position. He also realized that the Russians were now forewarned, and after the Germans left the gulf the minefield would not hinder them for more than three days. Poor visibility and the potential threat of the Slava in their rear also caused the Germans to abandon their intent to bombard Dünamünde. There were three Russian submarines in the gulf, but they did not achieve any success, and the Germans completed their evacuation without further loss. They nearly suffered a very serious loss outside of the gulf in the Baltic when Laurence in E.1 torpedoed the battle cruiser Moltke west of Dago on the morning of the 19th. The Moltke was hit in the bow but was in no immediate danger and could easily maintain 15 knots. German destroyers prevented Laurence from making a second attack.

  Prince Heinrich was satisfied that even though the Germans had not achieved
all their operational goals, such as destruction of the Slava or laying the minefield off Moon Sound, the operation was nevertheless a success if only from the point of morale. They had forced the powerful Russian position at Irben and had inflicted loss on Russian forces in the gulf. The Admiralstab did not agree, and the forces from the High Sea Fleet were sent back to the North Sea. Hipper was not sorry to leave the Baltic. He wrote of the operations: “To keep valuable ships for a considerable time in a limited area in which enemy submarines were increasingly active, with the corresponding risk of damage and loss, was to indulge in a gamble out of all proportion to the advantage to be derived from the occupation of the Gulf before the capture of Riga from the land side.”36 He did not favor repeating the operation until the army was ready to cooperate, a view shared by Schmidt and Tirpitz. The capture of Riga would have to wait for another two years. Colonel Max Hoffman, the brilliant staff officer with the German Eighth Army, noted in his diary on 28 August: “We must do without Riga—unless the Russians abandon it to us. We are too weak up there.”37

  The German official history takes the view that the assaults had their most decisive effect in confirming the Russian naval leadership in an essentially defensive attitude—preoccupied with establishing the “Forward Position” in the Gulf of Finland or fortifying the entrances to the Gulf of Riga—in an area that was for the Germans a secondary theater, to be held with what could be spared from the North Sea.38 But were the attacks on the Gulf of Riga necessary to accomplish this? One could seriously question whether the destruction of a pair of small gunboats and a few merchantmen in the gulf was worth the loss of two destroyers and a minesweeper and the even greater potential risks to capital ships involved, particularly if the Germans were not going to establish a permanent naval presence in the gulf. To do so would probably entail the capture of one or more of the islands (such as Ösel). The Germans would not make another serious attempt on Irben Strait until they took Ösel in October of 1917. In the meantime Russian naval forces in the gulf soon resumed their activities harassing the flank of the German army and, of course, restoring the mines cleared by the Germans. Russian cruisers also resumed minelaying in the Baltic, and at the end of August the Oleg and Bogatyr laid a field east of Gotland. The dreadnoughts Sevastopol and Gangut came out into the Baltic as far south as the 58th parallel to cover the operation, their farthest venture so far.

  THE BRITISH AND RUSSIAN SUBMARINE OFFENSIVE

  The Soviet official history of the war, in a manner reminiscent of the demands for a “second front now” during the Second World War, claims that despite Russian requests for help during the attack on the Gulf of Riga, the British fleet “remained a passive observer throughout the operation.”39 The Germans certainly did not exclude the possibility the British would intervene, and when their Baltic operations began, von Pohl and his flagship Friedrich der Grosse along with the Kaiser-class dreadnoughts of the Third Squadron were shifted to the Elbe for quick access to the Baltic if necessary.40 There is the inevitable question of just what the Grand Fleet could have done to influence Baltic operations short of a probably ill-advised attempt to break into the Baltic, which the Admiralty had rejected in the past. The British, in fact, did send more of what had proved to be a most effective weapon—submarines. The French also seriously considered doing so. Up to then the British submarines in the Baltic had been used essentially against naval targets. What of German trade? With the German flag virtually driven from the high seas, British submarines would have found few targets. However, within the closed waters of the Baltic, the Germans were able to carry on a substantial and vital trade, particularly in regard to iron ore from Sweden. This traffic finally became a major object after the summer of 1915.

  On 5 June Commander Grenfell, the naval attaché in Russia, recommended to the British ambassador that if the Admiralty could spare more submarines for the Baltic, they would very likely produce useful results, especially as the Germans came to realize their naval strength could not be employed effectively in the North Sea and would be tempted to employ it against the Russians. Initially the Admiralty were inclined to refuse; they had just sent reinforcements to the Dardanelles, and boats could not be spared from home waters. Moreover, the risks to them in their passage to the Baltic had considerably increased since 1914. However, Commander Laurence in a private letter to Commodore Hall (Commodore [S]) on 30 June, pointed out there was employment for plenty of submarines in the Baltic and that the Russians had only two boats—with another pair soon to join—that could be used for offensive action. The Admiralty, for reasons still not clear, reversed themselves, and E.8 (Lieutenant Commander F. H. J. Goodhart) and E.13 (Lieutenant Commander G. Layton) sailed for the Baltic on 15 August. Two more British submarines would follow when conditions were suitable. On 17 August, with the submarines on their way, Grenfell reported the Russian admiralty’s request for a diversion as German naval pressure on the Gulf of Riga grew.41

  Commander Laurence had suggested that a suitable action to facilitate the passage of more submarines into the Baltic would be a destroyer and cruiser raid through the Sound to attack the German forces guarding the southern entrance. The Admiralty examined the possibilities of some action of this sort in the autumn of 1915 but were not impressed with the possibilities. Destroyers lacked sufficient range for the operation and would have to be refueled, probably in sheltered waters in the Skaggerak or Kattegat. The British were certain to be spotted, giving the Germans sufficient time to lay their mines at the southern entrance to the Sound and escape. Light cruisers, if they entered the Baltic, would be more vulnerable to mines and liable to be cut off by German forces from Kiel. The cruisers would be forced to seek the shelter of Russian ports to refuel, their route flanked by the German flotillas, and the British were unlikely to see them again in the North Sea.42

  E.13 did not make it through the Sound into the Baltic. On the night of 18–19 August, the submarine ran aground due to a defective gyrocompass in the shallows off Saltholm Island. Layton was in Danish territorial waters, and early the next morning the Danish torpedo boat Narhvalen arrived to inform Layton that according to international law, he had twenty-four hours to leave Danish territorial waters before he and his submarine would be interned. Layton then sent his first lieutenant in the Danish warship to Copenhagen to report the situation. Shortly afterward the torpedo boat G.132 (Oberleutnant zur See Graf von Montgelas) of the German Sound patrol arrived but steamed away when the Danish torpedo boats Støren and Søulven reached the scene. They were later joined by a third Danish torpedo boat, the Tumleren. Montgelas reported the situation by wireless and Rear Admiral Mischke, commanding the Baltic Coast Defense Division, ordered the submarine to be destroyed. Mischke felt he had to act at once as the Riga operation was at the crisis point and the report of the Moltke’s torpedoing had just been received. G.132 therefore returned to the scene with another torpedo boat (not mentioned in German accounts) and opened fire on the submarine, first with a torpedo that hit the bottom and exploded short of the target and then with shell fire. The submarine was hit repeatedly and had to be abandoned. The shelling continued, and the Danish torpedo boat Søulven prevented additional loss of life by placing herself between the submarine and the German ships. The Germans claimed the submarine had fired back and hotly denied firing at the men in the water. The Danes protested strongly. E.13 was subsequently refloated and interned along with the surviving officers and men for the duration of the war. Layton refused to give his parole and eventually escaped to Norway—as did his first lieutenant—and then home to resume the war.43

  The brutal German violation of international law was a clear indication of just how seriously they took the threat of those British submarines. Even worse from the German point of view, E.13’s companion E.8 reached Revel safely, although not without incident. Furthermore, two additional submarines, E.18 (Lieutenant Commander R. C. Halahan) and E.19 (Lieutenant Commander F. N. A. Cromie), sailed for the Baltic on 4 September. Both also arriv
ed safely, although E.18 had a particularly harrowing passage through the Sound, and the British were perhaps fortunate the German patrols were not yet equipped with depth charges.44 The Royal Navy now had five submarines in the Baltic, but it was apparent that further passages through the Sound might become prohibitively expensive.

  The Russians also were beginning to commission the Baltic submarines of their 1912 program. Their completion had been greatly delayed because portions of their equipment had originally been ordered from Germany and the Russians had to scramble for substitutes after war broke out. The Bars class was somewhat slower than the British E class but carried a more powerful torpedo armament. The torpedoes were, however, externally mounted, and on the whole the Bars class, although the most numerous Russian submarine class of the war, did not turn out to be very effective, largely because of its unreliable surface propulsion.45

  French submarines never operated in the Baltic. The French naval attaché in Petrograd first suggested that they be sent in December 1914 and repeated the request, this time more urgently, in June 1915 after the Russian loss of Libau and Windau, the German advance in Cour land, and the disasters in Galicia. He argued that a few more submarines in the Baltic would not give the Russians mastery of the sea, but would complicate German operations.46 Vice Admiral de Jonquières, chief of the naval staff, ordered Vice Admiral Fa vereau, commanding the Deuxième escadre légère in the north, to study the project. Fa vereau was dubious. The French would have to use their longest-range submarines in the north, the Brumaire class, and recent experiences with their diesel engines cast doubts on their robustness and endurance. Fa vereau considered their chances for success very uncertain and also believed their eventual departure would create gaps in his Channel flotilla, which had already been reduced below what was considered necessary. As long as the enemy was only 25 kilometers from Dunkirk and in a position to threaten Calais, Boulogne, and the northern coast of France, the Baltic could only be viewed by the French as a secondary objective.47 In July Admiral Roussin, chief of the Russian naval staff, formally asked the French naval attaché for French submarines to cooperate in Baltic naval operations. It must have been approximately the same time he made a similar request to the British. The French were forced to refuse. There was a suggestion about sending small submarines via Archangel to be transported by rail to the Baltic, but this would have involved old boats of little value. Moreover, de Jonquières, in his report to the minister of marine, rallied to Fa vereau’s belief that efficient submarines from the north could not be spared while the German threat to the Channel was so strong. The minister, Victor Augagneur, agreed.48 Once again, just as at the Dardanelles and in the Adriatic, the lack of suitable materiél in sufficient quantity had prevented French submariners from realizing their ambitions. However, when one considers the experiences of the unhandy French submarines at the Dardanelles and the nerve-wracking experiences of the much more capable British E class in passing the Sound, one must conclude it is fortunate they did not make the attempt.