A Naval History of World War I
Page 44
The Germans, thanks to their conquest of Romania, had sufficient oil for their submarines in the Black Sea. The Germans eventually managed to get three of the UB.II-class submarines—UB.42, UB.45, and UB.46—through the Dardanelles to Constantinople in the second half of 1916. A fourth boat sailed from Cattaro for the Dardanelles and was never heard from again; its fate remains unknown. The smaller new boats replaced the large U.33 and U.38, which had better prospects in the Mediterranean. The arrival of the submarines had been delayed by Allied mining off the Dardanelles, which for a time during the summer made them too dangerous for a submarine to pass. German submarines in the Black Sea continued to accomplish little; from the beginning of August to the end of the year they only claimed four steamers and two sailing craft. Their losses almost equalled their success: UB.7 disappeared after sailing from Varna at the end of September, UB.45 was mined off Varna on 6 November, UC.15 was never heard from after sailing from Constantinople later that month, and UB.46 was mined 30 miles off the Bosphorus on 7 December.58
It was an accident, rather than mines, torpedoes, or gunfire, that caused the Russians’ worst loss of the war. On 20 October a fire broke out in the forward 12-inch gun magazine in the flagship Imperatritsa Maria while she was anchored off Sebastopol. The ship blew up and capsized with a loss of approximately two hundred dead and seven hundred injured. Inevitably there were strong suspicions of sabotage, but the cause was likely an accident or negligence involving powder that had become unstable.59 The incident was probably similar to the disasters the Royal Navy suffered during the war when the dreadnought Vanguard, battleship Bulwark, and armored cruiser Natal were lost to explosions. The Russians hoped to replace the lost dreadnought with the third of the class, the Imperator Alexander III, which with enormous difficulty they were working to complete sometime in 1917. The ship’s British-made turbines had been brought to Archangel and then laboriously carried south over the internal system of waterways to Tsaritsyn and then by rail to Yersk on the Sea of Azov. The transports carrying the turbines to Nikolaiev, from 20 to 22 October, received very heavy protection after passing through the Kertch Strait: an inner line of four minelayers, an outer line of four destroyers, and the Imperatritsa Ekaterina and an escort of destroyers providing distant cover.60
The same pattern of events continued throughout the first half of 1917. Turkish and German naval operations were at a low ebb. The Germans could have had little enthusiasm for sending more submarines to the Black Sea after the experience of 1916, and when the Germans turned to unrestricted submarine warfare, the Mediterranean offered far more attractive possibilities. Here they also had much more opportunity to inflict damage on their greatest enemy at sea—the British. The Black Sea therefore received a very low priority in German naval planning.
For much of 1917 the Russians planned a major amphibious operation in the region of the Bosphorus.61 They increased their naval aviation striking force when they acquired from Romania in 1916 four small passenger liners that they converted into seaplane carriers. The Regele Carol I (2,368 tons), Dakia, Imperator Trajan, and Rumyniya (all 4,500 tons) could carry four to seven seaplanes, and when joined to the carriers already in service, gave the Russians a carrier force of six. They used them in March and early April to reconnoiter the Romanian coast and the possible landing sites in the vicinity of the Bosphorus. The Imperator Alexander I, Imperator Nikolai I, and Rumyniya, escorted by destroyers, conducted aerial reconnaissances of Constanza and the coast north of it on 11 March and Lake Terko on the coast of Rumelia on 26 March. In the latter operation, the Russians launched twelve seaplanes divided into three groups, one to take aerial photographs, one to bomb a water works on the lake, and a third to provide cover for the carriers and their escorts. One of the Russian seaplanes suffered a damaged fuel tank and was forced to land at sea. The two-man crew captured a Turkish schooner, removed the compass and a machine gun from the plane, and towed it to their carrier’s last anchorage. After finding the ships gone, they towed the seaplane to Russian waters where they were finally picked up by a Russian destroyer and taken to Sebastopol. On 4 April there was a similar reconnaissance of the Bosphorus, in which the seaplanes bombed a coastal battery and the seaplane carriers were, in turn, attacked by seven German aircraft.62
DECLINE AND COLLAPSE OF THE BLACK SEA FLEET
The Russian navy was clearly on top in the naval war in the Black Sea when plans were disrupted by political events and the turmoil following the March revolution. At first the Black Sea Fleet seems to have avoided the worst excesses that accompanied the revolution in the Baltic Fleet. The fact that the fleet was winning and that the big ships were not ice bound for several months probably helped. There were no massacres of officers, and discipline seems to have remained better, at least for awhile. There was wholesale changing of ships’ names: the Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya became Svobodnaya Rossiya, the Imperator Alexander III became Volya, the carrier Imperat or Alexander I became Respublikanets, the Imperator Nikolai I became Aviator, and the Panteleimon reverted to the name under which it had gained fame with the 1905 mutiny, Potemkin (shortly afterward altered to Boretz Za Svobodu).
However, the fundamental problems remained. A British observer reported as others had:
Here [Sebastopol] I myself have noticed that there is no sympathy between officers and men, that, out of routine, the officers take no interest in the welfare of the men, no attempt to institute games to occupy their spare time and many such small items which all tend to make life on board ship like a large club with a mutual feeling of interest and respect between all ranks and ratings. When I first arrived, I suggested that I should start football, etc., but it was intimated to me that such barbaric and brutal pastimes could not be encouraged.
I have seen divisional officers inspecting divisions on Sunday mornings with broken boots, caps on the backs of their heads and hands deep in their trouser pockets, I have even remarked on it to personal friends amongst the officers, but naturally cannot interfere in any other way. Officers, as soon as they are free, at once proceed on shore, and there, their chief occupation is wine and the courting of women, the moral side of life and society at Sebastopol is remarked by the men, who are not unobservant, and this cannot fail to have a deteriorating effect on the respect of the men towards their superiors.63
There is no space here to discuss the progress of the Russian Revolution. The Russian naval officer corps now paid the penalty for its past neglect. The formation of councils or soviets within each ship and the breakdown of authority followed a similar pattern to that in the Baltic Fleet, although with far less violence. The Black Sea Fleet also remained far more active than the Baltic Fleet, although the tempo of operations began to decline as the inner turmoil of Russia was reflected in the yards, where ships were immobilized far longer than they had been in the past awaiting repairs. This was particularly true for destroyers and submarines, which had been hard worked in the preceding year. The Russians also lost one of their best submarines in May when the Morzh did not return from a patrol on the Anatolian coast. The boat may have been sunk by German seaplanes off Eregli, or possibly lost on a Russian mine.64
In early April the Turkish minesweeping forces at the Bosphorus were reinforced by the arrival of six minesweeping boats from Constanza and were eventually able to clear a channel through the Russian fields.65 Admiral Kolchak was determined, however, to maintain the pressure of the Russian blockade and to block the movements of the small, shallow-draft craft the Turks had been using. This led to one of the more daring Russian operations of the war. The Russians decided to use the small Rybka, or “Little Fishes,” mines that would prove so troublesome to the Germans in the Gulf of Riga. They were laid in the Bosphorus by specially adapted motor launches, drawn from the Russian battleships. The cruiser Pamiat Merkuria was fitted to carry the launches on her deck. The plan was for the cruiser, accompanied by two destroyers carrying 120 mines each, to bring the four launches to a point 30 miles from the entrance to
the Bosphorus. The launches would then be lowered, each draw 30 mines from the destroyers, and then, accompanied by a fast motorboat, proceed into the Bosphorus to lay the mines. The motor launches and their mother ship would then withdraw at daybreak and return to repeat the operation the following evening.
The first attempt, 25–28 April, was aborted because of bad weather. The second attempt took place on the night of 17 May. The Svobodnaya Rossiya and three seaplane carriers were at sea off the Romanian coast to cover the operation. The launches successfully laid their mines undetected and with their mother ship withdrew after daylight. Unfortunately, the attempt to repeat the operation the following night was not a success. The launches moved in before dark but were spotted and bombed by two German aircraft. With secrecy compromised, the Russian force withdrew.
The Russians repeated the operation on the night of 24 May. The Svobodnaya Rossiya and five destroyers were also at sea to cover the operation and a reconnaissance of Sinope by the seaplane carrier Aviator. The Russians varied their original plan slightly. The Pamiat Merkuria now brought the launches to within 12 miles of the Bosphorus in order to spare them the long haul to the minelaying area, and they were then towed by the destroyer Pronzitelni to the edge of the old minefield, roughly 7 miles from the entrance. The operation was successful, the mines were laid undetected. Unfortunately for the Russians, when the force returned the following night, a mine exploded in one of the launches, killing an officer and four seamen, sinking the launch, and badly damaging two of the launches following close astern. One of the latter subsequently sank while under tow by the fast motorboat. While recovering the surviving craft, the Pamiat Merkuria was attacked by a German aircraft. During the night the Turks had heard the sound of the explosion and the Russian motorboats, but could discover nothing with their searchlights. They recovered four bodies and wreckage, and later discovered a new field of 72 mines, which they set about clearing.66
While the mining operations were taking place against the Bosphorus, the former Romanian liners employed as seaplane carriers had been active from late April along the Turkish coast farther to the east. The Regele Carol and Dakia working in company with a pair of destroyers and an armed motor launch attacked factories, coastal installations, sailing craft, and a variety of other targets at Sinope, Samsun, Unye, and Ordu. It would be a bit misleading, however, to regard these operations in the same light as those of the carrier groups of World War II. A closer examination of the details reveals that although aircraft were used, bad weather frequently frustrated their operations, and most of the damage was inflicted by the guns of the destroyers and the seaplane carriers, which had been fitted with four 152-mm cannon. In this sense they operated more as traditional auxiliary cruisers than aircraft carriers. Still one might claim these operations, primitive as they might have been, were a distant—very distant—precursor of what was to come.
The Russians also did not give up on mining by small craft. They shifted, however, from the motor launches to fast motorboats, each of which carried ten of the small mines. This was only one-third what the ship’s launches had been able to carry, but the motorboats were much faster. The destroyers Pylki and Schastlivy towed four of the motorboats to Zonguldak, and on the night of 17 June they successfully laid their mines and repeated the operation the following night at the Bosphorus.
These operations demonstrate that the Black Sea Fleet remained aggressive and very active well after the Russian Revolution. Unfortunately, politics continued to intrude. There was growing friction between Vice Admiral Kolchak and the Central Committee at Sebastopol, culminating on 26 May with the commander in chief’s request to the minister of marine that he be relieved of his command.67 The disciplinary situation deteriorated rapidly, particularly when the Central Committee decided to appropriate all officers’ sidearms, swords, and dirks. Kolchak reportedly threw his sword overboard rather than surrender it; other officers broke their swords, and there was some violence against them. Kolchak was replaced, temporarily, by Vice Admiral Lukin. On 23 June the British liaison officer reported that at the Black Sea staff there was much evidence of great disorganization, many officers desired to resign, discipline was quite nonexistent, and the behavior of the men was completely out of control. When he visited the flagship, the sentries were sitting down, the quartermaster and the officer of the watch were not present, and sailors were lying about the quarterdeck.68
The Turks and Germans were anxious to demonstrate to the Russians that they were still capable of operations at sea. The first German submarine to operate in the Black Sea in 1917, UB.14, sailed at the end of May. German submarine success, however, remained as limited as it had been the preceding year. Souchon realized that the coal shortage ruled out operations in the eastern part of the Black Sea, and he looked for an objective closer to the Bosphorus. The Breslau was therefore ordered to lay a field of mines off the mouth of the Danube and destroy the wireless station on Fidonisi Island (Schlangen Island in German documents), roughly 23 miles from the mouth of the Danube. The Breslau laid 70 mines off the coast in the early morning hours of 25 June; laid another 10 off Fidonisi Island; destroyed the wireless station and lighthouse with gunfire; and put a landing party on shore, which returned with 11 prisoners. One of the German mines later sank the Russian destroyer Leitenant Zatzarenni on 30 June.
The Breslau’s raid coincided with another Russian operation against the Bosphorus planned for the night of the 26th. Three Russian groups were at sea, the seaplane carrier Regele Carol with two destroyers, three minelayers towing four Elpidif or-type minesweepers, and the cruiser Pamiat Merkuria with two destroyers. The dreadnought Svobodnaya Rossiya and the destroyers Gnevny and Schastlivy covered the operation. The Svobodnaya Rossiya sighted the Breslau’s smoke shortly after noon and ordered the Gnevny to investigate. The dreadnought altered course in an attempt to cut off the Breslau from the Bosphorus. The Breslau’s commander raced for the Bosphorus at full speed, the Russians in pursuit. The Svobodnaya Rossiya attempted a salvo with her forward turret at 2:15 P.M., but it fell short. The dreadnought fired nine salvoes during the chase but failed to hit. The Gnevny overhauled the Breslau but was driven off by the cruiser’s fire. In the course of the pursuit, the Breslau periodically used smoke and there were repeated exchanges of fire. The Russians pursued right up to the edge of the minefield, but the Breslau was able to return safely. The French-built destroyer Basra was sent out to assist, but as she could not steam faster than 18 knots, she was more of a hindrance. The submarine UC.23 had also just left the Bosphorus but was not in a position to get off a shot. Neither was the Russian submarine Nerpa, also waiting off the Bosphorus. The Russian mining proceeded without incident that night. This brush between the Breslau and Svobodnaya Rossiya and Gnevny was the last encounter between Russian and Turco-German warships in the Black Sea.69
The last major Russian mining operation against the Bosphorus took place on the night of 19 July. The Regele Carol and the minelayer Kseniya (2,700 tons) towed two Elpidifors and destroyers towed four SK-type submarine-hunting motor launches (14-ton craft built in the United States and assembled at Odessa) to approximately 30 miles north of the Bosphorus. The Elpidifors and motor launches were then cut loose; the motor launches laid their mines in the Bosphorus entrance, the Elpidifors laid theirs along the coastal route to the east. The Svobodnaya Rossiya and Pamiat Merkuria escorted by four destroyers covered the operation.
The tempo of operations along the Anatolian coast also began to slacken during the summer months. They continued, but they were more sporadic. On 24 August, 328 sailors and soldiers were landed at Ordu to destroy harbor installations, but through lack of discipline failed to accomplish the major objective, the destruction of a hangar. Turkish gunfire repulsed a landing attempt at Vona on the 27th. The provisional government in Russia still planned a major landing on the Turkish coast, although the growing chaos and disorganization of all aspects of Russian life made the likelihood of its execution less and less likely. The
collapse of the railway transportation system was particularly evident. The Russians considered a landing in the Dobrudja region, on the flank of their army, but at the end of August the prospects for this faded when the high command was forced to order the removal of landing equipment from the remaining transports so that the ships could be used to transport grain. In October the Russians were still contemplating a landing at Sinope. They originally thought of landing a full army corps, which, in a two and a half to three month campaign—designated Operation Nakhimov—would penetrate deeply into the interior of Anatolia to cut the Constantinople to Angora rail line. By October the Russians had scaled down the plan to a surprise raid of eight infantry battalions, eight squadrons of cavalry, and a cyclist battalion aimed at releasing British prisoners held near the coast.70