49.Gayer, “German Submarine Operations,” 634.
50.Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, 121–22.
51.Herwig, “Luxury Fleet,” 158–59. The terminology was widespread enough to reach the chief of the Mittelmeerdivision in distant Constantinople. Souchon to his wife, 3 October 1916, Nachlass Souchon, N156/18.
52.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 48; Fayle, Seaborne Trade 2:26, 37–38.
53.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 53–54; Fayle, Seaborne Trade 2:127–29, 167–69; Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 5:362–63.
54.Stegemann, Die Deutsche Marinepolitik, 32; Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 54.
55.Gayer, “German Submarine Operations,” 635.
56.Tarrant, U-Boat Offensive, 25–26; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 234–37; Michelsen, La Guerre sous-marine, 37–40; Bell, Blockade of Germany, 585–90; German policy is followed in detail in May, World War and American Isolation, chap. 11; on Kophamel, see also Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 201–2.
57.Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 202–3; Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, 133–44; May, World War and American Isolation, 236, 246–49.
58.Operational totals cited by Tarrant, U-Boat Offensive, 26–27; details on U-boat orders and Admiralstab memorandum from Rössler, The U-Boat, 53–59, 63–65.
59.May, World War and American Isolation, 249–52; Tarrant, U-Boat Offensive, 29–30; Ambrose Greenway, A Century of North Sea Passenger Steamers (London: Ian Allan, 1986), 97–98, 102, 105; Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter 3:172–77; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 242.
60.Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 5:362–63. These figures include the Baltic and Black Sea, but the sinkings in these areas were few and have little effect on the total. British figures from Fayle, Seaborne Trade 2:268–69, 3:465.
61.Fayle, Seaborne Trade 2:269, 271.
62.Losses from Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 183; Ritchie, Q-Ships, 81.
63.Lundeberg, “German Naval Critique,” 110–12; Gayer, “German Submarine Operations,” 640–41; Tarrant, U-Boat Offensive, 30.
64.Schmalenbach, German Raiders, 46–49, 71, 132, 137; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:266–72; Fayle, Seaborne Trade 2:253–57. Full details of each voyage in Raeder and Mantey, Der Kreuzerkrieg, vol. 3. Details on the Greif’s interception in Hezlet, Electronics and Sea Power, 111.
65.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 242–43.
66.Groos, Krieg in der Nordsee 5:27–32; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 96–103.
67.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:275–76; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 107.
68.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 113–17; Hezlet, Electronics and Sea Power, 110–11; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:288–89.
69.Jellicoe to Balfour, 25 January 1916, Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 1:203; Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, 49. Details on Vindex in Layman, Before the Aircraft Carrier, 50–51.
70.Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, 50; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:273–74, 290–96; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 118–19.
71.Jellicoe to Jackson, 12 April 1916, in Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 1:232–34; Jellicoe to Beatty, 11 April 1916, reproduced in Ranft, The Beatty Papers 1:301–2.
72.Beatty to Jellicoe, 14 April 1916, in Ranft, The Beatty Papers 1:302–4. A shorter version is also printed in Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 1:235–37.
73.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:301–9, 316–17; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 124–29; Patterson, Tyrwhitt, 156–59.
74.Jellicoe, The Grand Fleet, 47–48, 78–79; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 2:432–35.
75.Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, 51–52; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:309–11; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 2:427–28.
76.Rival plans discussed in Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 2:443–45; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 134–35; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 3:320–23.
77.On the misinterpreted signal, see especially Beesly, Room 40, 152–56; Roskill, Beatty, 152–54; and Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:46–48. All subsequent references to volume 3 are from the second revised edition.
78.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:50–51.
79.Roskill, Beatty, 154–55.
80.Campbell, Jutland, 39; Roskill, Beatty, 157–58. In general my account of the battle is based on Campbell, Roskill, and Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. 3. The role of aircraft is from Hezlet, Aircraft and Sea Power, 56–57.
81.Detailed discussion in Campbell, Jutland, 64–67.
82.Ibid., 106.
83.Cited by Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:88 and n. 69.
84.There is a very full discussion of the pros and cons in Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:100–108.
85.Campbell, Jutland, 155.
86.The debate is well summarized and, indeed, continued in Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:120–26; and Roskill, Beatty, 172–73.
87.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 155; Groos, Krieg in der Nordsee 5:310–12; see also Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:126–29.
88.Weizsacker, Memoirs, 33.
89.Philbin, Hipper, 130.
90.For extensive detail, see Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:132–40.
91.Roskill, Beatty, 178–79; Campbell, Jutland, 256.
92.Jellicoe to Jackson, 5 June 1916, Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 1:271.
93.Hezlet, Electronics and Sea Power, 121–22.
94.Roskill, Beatty, 182. See also Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:185–86.
95.Roskill, Beatty, 186.
96.Beesly, Room 40, 159–62.
97.Casualty figures from Campbell, Jutland, 338–41.
98.Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, 170–71; Herwig, “Luxury Fleet,” 187–88. For the views of the German official history, see Groos, Krieg in der Nordsee 5:6, 444–45, 450, 452–54.
99.On the Jutland controversy, see Roskill, Beatty, chap. 15; on battleship names, Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:248.
100.Jellicoe to Beatty, 13 June 1916, Ranft, The Beatty Papers 1:338.
101.Campbell, Jutland, 337. For abundant material on the commander’s dispatches, reactions, and measures taken after the battle, see Ranft, The Beatty Papers, vol. 1, pt. 5; and Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 1:285–308, 2:20–31, 47–61, 95–98. Part 4 of vol. 2 is devoted to the postwar Jutland controversy, and the controversial “Harper Report” on the battle is printed as an appendix.
102.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:127–28, nn. 47–50.
103.Campbell, Jutland, 369 ff.; see also Campbell’s perceptive comparison of British and German battle cruiser design in his Battle Cruisers.
104.Campbell, Jutland, 385–87; for the shell problem, see Lord Chatfield, The Navy and Defence, chap. 16; on the post-Jutland revolution, see Roskill, Beatty, chap. 9, and Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. 3, chap. 7.
105.A. P. P. [Comdr. Anthony Pellew], “‘Something Wrong with Our Bloody Ships,’” Naval Review 64, no. 1 (January 1976): 17–21.
106.On these points, see especially Sumida, Defence of Naval Supremacy, 299–305.
107.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 168–69.
108.Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, 171–72; Herwig, “Luxury Fleet,” 189–90.
109.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:237 n. 10.
110.The account when not otherwise noted is essentially based on Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 179–86; and Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:289–96.
111.Gladisch, Krieg in der Nordsee 6:30. On British intelligence, see Beesly, Room 40, 165–66.
112.Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat, 161–62.
113.Quoted in Patterson, Tyrwhitt, 171–72. Tyrwhitt’s navigation officer reported that when the moon rose on their way back, it was indeed as bright as day. Quoted in Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:296.
114.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VII, 124.
115.Jellic
oe to Admiralty, 24 August 1916, and Admiralty to Jellicoe, 9 September 1916, Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 2:61–65.
116.Beatty to Jellicoe, 6 September 1916, and Jellicoe to Admiralty, 14 September 1916, Remarks by Oliver, n.d., Admiralty to Jellicoe, 25 September 1916, in Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 2:71–76; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VII, 129–31.
117.Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 3:222–25.
118.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 186–87, 190.
119.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 73. On the German “E-Dienst” (Entzifferungsdienst), or decrypting service, at Neumünster, see Beesly, Room 40, 32–33, 167.
120.Gladisch, Krieg in der Nordsee 6:147–48.
121.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VII, 196–98; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:67–68; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 191–94; Hezlet, Electronics and Sea Power, 137.
11. THE SUBMARINE CRISIS: 1917
1.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 63–64. Submarine sinkings from Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 5:362–63.
2.Hurd, The Merchant Navy 2:350–51, 357–58; Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 116, 133; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:251–52.
3.For a full account see Messimer, The Merchant U-Boat.
4.Admiral Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 264–67. The British official history makes much of the American reaction; an American diplomatic historian rather downplays it. See Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:249–50; and May, World War and American Isolation, 337–38.
5.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 63, 65–66. Trotha’s remark cited by Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 245.
6.The German viewpoint is given in Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 3:361–71; and Reichskriegsministeriums, Der Weltkrieg, vol. 11, chap. 11 (pt. A). An extremely detailed diplomatic account is in Birnbaum, Peace Moves and U-Boat Warfare.
7.Herwig, “Luxury Fleet,” 194–97. The English-speaking reader can follow the crisis within the German government in detail in Ritter, The Sword and the Scepter, vol. 3, chap. 8.
8.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 248–52. An apparently earlier (January 1915) paper by Professor Levy is reproduced in Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 1:225–26.
9.Müller’s firsthand account is in Görlitz, The Kaiser and His Court, 228–31. For a succinct summary, see also Tarrant, U-Boat Offensive, 44–47.
10.Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 4:2–3.
11.Rössler, The U-Boat, 75–76; see also Gayer, “German Submarine Operations,” 653.
12.Quoted in Rössler, The U-Boat, 78.
13.Ibid.
14.Details from Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1906–1921, 149–50, 155–56.
15.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 174–75; Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 137–38 (and chart).
16.Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 307–8.
17.The sequence of events may be followed in May, World War and American Isolation, chap. 19. On the Zimmermann telegram, see Beesly, Room 40, chap. 13.
18.Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen, ed., Chronology of the Great War (3 vols., London: 1918–20; reprinted [3 vols. in 1], London: Greenhill, 1988), 179, 185, 195. The United States did not declare war against Austria-Hungary until 7 December 1917.
19.Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 5:364–65.
20.Hezlet, The Submarine and Sea Power, 88–89; Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 184–85; Fayle, Seaborne Trade 3:92–93.
21.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:385.
22.Fayle, Seaborne Trade 3:42–45.
23.Waters, “Notes,” par. 17., Copy in Naval Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, London.
24.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 24–25.
25.Technical History Section, TH 30. Control of Mercantile Movements, 6.
26.Jellicoe, The Submarine Peril, 2–10. Jellicoe’s memorandum on the submarine menace (29 October 1916) is reproduced in Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 2:88–92.
27.Ritchie, Q-Ships, 115–18, 125–28.
28.P-boats were 613-ton, 244-foot patrol boats equipped with twin screws and capable of 20 knots. They were handy craft with a low silhouette, fitted with a ram bow of hardened steel. Their armament included a 4-inch and 2-pounder gun and two torpedo tubes, later replaced by depth charges. The 44 P-boats served at Dover, the Nore, and Portsmouth. Details from Dittmar and Colledge, British Warships, 98.
29.For a very detailed account see Hackmann, Seek & Strike, chaps. 2–4.
30.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 107.
31.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 107–9; Beatty to Admiralty, 31 January 1917, Ranft, The Beatiy Papers 1:394–97; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:87 and n. 28.
32.Jellicoe to Beatty, 4 February 1917, Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 2:142–43.
33.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:87–88; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 87–88, 390.
34.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 389–90; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part IX, 131; Grant, U-Boats Destroyed, 49–54; Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 72–79; Beesly, Room 40, 267–68.
35.Grant, U-Boats Destroyed, 74; Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten 4:504–6.
36.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 187–89; Gladisch, Krieg in der Nordsee 6:147–48, 219–20.
37.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:55–63. The missing bow of the Nubian was later replaced by that of another Tribal-class destroyer, the Zulu, which had lost her stern to a mine, the combined ship named Zubian.
38.Quoted in Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:64.
39.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 3:308–11; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VII, 189–90; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:66–67.
40.Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 189; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:69–70; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:311–12.
41.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:73–79; Patterson, Tyrwhitt, 176–80; Beesly, Room 40, 275.
42.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:352–55; Beesly, Room 40, 275; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 190–92.
43.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:361–68.
44.Gladisch, Krieg in der Nordsee 6:239–40, 291–93.
45.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 394–95; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:372–78; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:107–8; Reginald Pound, Evans of the Broke (London: Oxford University Press, 1963). The Germans attempted to continue the attacks on Dunkirk and on the night of 24–25 April sank the small French destroyer Etendard but were frustrated in their next raid on the night of 20 May by four French destroyers off Nieuport. They then ceased raids on Dunkirk for the next few months. See Thomazi, Guerre navale dans le Nord, 177–79.
46.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:73–74; Grant, U-Boats Destroyed, 44–49. Of the six U-boats sunk, two were rammed by patrol destroyers, two torpedoed by patrol submarines, one stranded, and only one was mined: ibid., 58
47.For an exhaustive account, see Bacon, The Dover Patrol; a short account is in Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 5:36–41, 45–48, 118–19; and Jellicoe, The Submarine Peril, 83–87.
48.Memorandum by Jellicoe for the War Cabinet on a project for attacking Ostend and Zeebrugge, June 1917, Patterson The Jellicoe Papers 2:171–72; Jellicoe to Beatty, 30 June 1917, ibid., 173.
49.Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 2:203–5; Patterson, Jellicoe, 185–86.
50.Gladisch, Krieg in der Nordsee 6:336.
51.On this point, see Roskill, “The U-Boat Campaign.”
52.See the excellent survey in Winton, Convoy, 12–16, chap. 2.
53.Patterson, Tyrwhitt, 168.
54.Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 5:29–32; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VII, 63–64; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:138.
55.Fayle, Seaborne Trade 3:473.
56.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VII, 243–44; Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part V
III, 30–33; Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 5:27–29; Fayle, Seaborne Trade 3:99, 149, 473.
57.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 69–73, 180–82.
58.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 359–66; see also Roskill, Beatty, 219–20.
59.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 370–76; see also Corbett and Newbolt, Naval Operations 4:382–83, 5:15–17.
60.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 184–85.
61.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 184–85; Waters, “Notes,” par. 14–15. See also Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:119–22; and the stimulating discussion in McKillip, “Undermining Technology by Strategy,” 18–37.
62.Report of meeting held at the Admiralty, 23 February 1917, Patterson, The Jellicoe Papers 2:149–50.
63.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 186–87, 187 n. 2.
64.Cited in Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:127.
65.Jellicoe, The Submarine Peril, 101–2, 111. For a critique of Jellicoe’s attitude, see especially Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:145 n. 43.
66.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 377–78; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow 4:150–52.
67.Naval Staff, Home Waters—Part VIII, 378–80.
68.Herwig, Politics of Frustration, 128–29.
69.Trask, Captains & Cabinets, 44–45.
70.In 1910 Sims had been reprimanded by President Taft for an indiscreet speech at the Guildhall in London that implied that in the event of an Anglo-German war, the United States and Great Britain would be allies.
71.See, for example, Trask, Captains & Cabinets, 131–32.
72.The quotation is from Sims’s 1920 testimony before the congressional committee investigating the naval conduct of the war. Cited ibid., 55.
73.On Benson’s views, see especially Klachko, Benson, 57–60. See also: General Board to Daniels, 5 April 1917, in Simpson, Anglo-American Naval Relations, 19–20. Unfortunately this excellent work appeared too late to be fully cited.
74.Sims, The Victory at Sea, 3–4; Morison, Sims, 339–41.
75.Klachko, Benson, 63–65; Trask, Captains & Cabinets, 62–65.
76.Sims, The Victory at Sea, 6–7.
77.Cable of 14 April 1917 reproduced in Sims, The Victory at Sea, 374–76; Trask, Captains & Cabinets, 65–68.
A Naval History of World War I Page 84