The Great War at Sea: 1914-1918

by Richard Hough

  The expedition put some spine into the Belgian troops, who had been about to surrender, and delayed the fall of the city by a few days -long enough, Churchill later claimed, to secure Dunkirk and Calais. But the naval losses were severe, and some 1,500 ratings were forced to seek shelter in neutral Holland where they were interned. Asquith was furious. ‘I can’t tell you what I feel of the wicked folly of it all’,(2) he wrote to his friend Venetia Stanley. Richmond wrote in his diary, ‘It is a tragedy that the Navy should be in such lunatic hands at this time.’ And from the Battle Cruiser Squadron, Beatty regretted that Churchill had made ‘such a darned fool of himself over the Antwerp débâcle. The man must have been mad to have thought he could relieve [Antwerp]… by putting 8,000 half-trained troops into it.’(3)

  But there was an even more vulnerable figure than Churchill for the sacrificial fire – his professional partner. There was no question that Prince Louis of Battenberg had been a good peacetime First Sea Lord and partner for his swashbuckling and intemperate First Lord. Battenberg the administrator demonstrated a fine intellect and orderly mind. His judgement was beyond criticism, and, rare among his contemporaries, he understood the historical meaning of sea power no mean achievement for an officer from the land-locked German Grand-Duchy of Hesse, which was renowned for its military rather than naval traditions.

  Battenberg was burdened with a handicap which was to prove fatal. He was German-born and suffered from two characteristic German weaknesses: he was over-sensitive to criticism, and lacked imagination. Throughout his long and honourable career in the British Navy, Battenberg had failed to conform to the service’s style of conduct, its affected amateurism and disdain for ostentatious success. His royal connections proved a handicap and he possessed too much pride and too little imagination to change his name, and dispense with his title and his German properties which he visited frequently and for long periods. His German accent remained pronounced. In a decade of increasing German hostility and naval competition, Battenberg made no effort to distance himself from his numerous German relations, including his brother-in-law Prince Heinrich of Prussia, High-Admiral in the German Navy and brother to the Kaiser.

  When Fisher, his great admirer, told Churchill that Battenberg had only three friends, including Churchill and himself; he was exaggerating as usual. But he did not have many in the Navy. Nor did he have many enemies, though the most bigoted (like Beresford) called him ‘the Hun’ and did their utmost to retard his promotion. These same officers, all elderly and mostly retired, opened the chorus of defamation the moment criticism could be levelled at the management of naval affairs in wartime. They were supported by the prejudiced, jingoistic, and half-educated middle classes, whose letters poured into the newspaper offices.

  ‘We receive day by day a constantly growing stream of correspondence’, ran an editorial in the moderate Globe, ‘in which the wisdom of having an officer who is of German birth as the professional head of the Navy is assailed in varying terms. We would gladly dismiss all these letters from our mind, but we cannot. They are too numerous, too insistent, and too obviously the expression of a widespread feeling.’ Responsible newspapers came to Battenberg’s rescue, the gutter Press predictably whipped up the already aroused rumour that a German in the Admiralty was the cause of the Navy’s losses and failure to bring about a great victory in the Nelsonian manner. ‘Blood is said to be thicker than water,’ John Bull claimed, ‘and we doubt whether all the water in the North Sea could obliterate the blood-ties between the Battenbergs and the Hohenzollerns when it comes to a question of a life and death struggle between Germany and ourselves.’(4)

  At the first hints of this sort of criticism, Battenberg’s spirit and effort faltered. Where Fisher would have called down the Gods upon his enemies and fought harder, Prince Louis was soon shattered in mind and spirit. His one great act for the Navy in keeping the Fleet mobilized was also his last. He became increasingly inconsolable in his grief. Two days after the sinking of the Audacious he wrote to Churchill, ‘I beg of you to release me. I am on the verge of breaking down & I cannot use my brain for anything.’(5)

  Churchill arranged with Asquith an exchange of letters between himself and Battenberg. Battenberg’s began, ‘I have lately been driven to the painful conclusion that at this juncture my birth and parentage have the effect of impairing in some respects my usefulness to the Board of Admiralty.’ Churchill replied gracefully and generously, expressing ‘publicly my deep indebtedness to you, and the pain I feel at the severance of our three years’ official association’. Unable to accept that this was the end of his naval career, Battenberg, according to Churchill, wrote ‘stating that the Mediterranean was his great desire as the finale of his naval service’(6) after the war, and asked that he be made a Privy Counsellor as confirmation that the nation still trusted him. Churchill recommended that both these requests should be met. PC was added to the long list of initials after Battenberg’s name, and he was promoted Admiral of the Fleet, but otherwise he was totally forgotten. He was never even invited to the surrender ceremony of the German Fleet in 1918, and died three years later – one more commander broken by the first few weeks of war.

  The departure of Battenberg placated the Admiralty’s critics for the time being, and Churchill survived this crisis by a hair’s breadth. The choice of a successor to Battenberg taxed the judgement of everyone from Asquith to George V, but not Churchill. He had set his heart on working in harness with Fisher whom he regarded as the perfect partner. Asquith favoured the choice, the King was appalled. George V did not trust or like Fisher and predicted that his return to power would open up old wounds. The King wanted Hedworth Meux or Doveton Sturdee. Churchill told him that he was perfectly prepared to leave the Admiralty and fight in France; and he added, to Asquith, that he would certainly resign if he did not get Fisher. Asquith then told the King that Churchill’s ‘services in his present position could not be dispensed with or replaced’. That was that. George V had no alternative but to agree, though with all sorts of fears for the future. For the record, he approved the appointment ‘with some reluctance and misgivings’.

  One or two lowlier admirals expressed their dismay, too. But on the whole the Navy regarded the choice as a welcome one. At least there would now be positive leadership. Beatty wrote to his wife that the choice was ‘the best they could have done, but I wish he was ten years younger. [Fisher] still has fine zeal, energy, and determination, coupled with low cunning, which is eminently desirable just now.’(7) The Times approved warmly, too – ‘undoubtedly the country will benefit’.

  The style and pace of the Admiralty’s workings changed on 30 October 1914 when Fisher once again pounded into the Admiralty, his heart high, his mind racing with plans. Within hours, heads rolled. Wthin three days a meeting was held at which a new navy – no less was planned: 600 ships in all. Submarines were the first item on the agenda. According to Keyes, Fisher ‘opened the meeting by telling us his intentions as to future submarine construction, and turning to the Superintendent of contracts, he said that he would make his wife a widow and his house a dunghill, if he brought paper work or red tape into the business; he wanted submarines, not contracts’. He wanted them in eight months (usual time two and a half years) and he would commit hara-kiri if he did not get them. When someone muttered, ‘Now we know exactly how long he has to live’, Fisher fixed Keyes ‘with a ferocious glare, and said, “If anyone thwarts me, he had better commit hara-kiri too."’(8)

  Shipbuilding had been more or less moribund since the start of the war. Now things were to be changed, and at breathtaking (if not life-taking) speed. A new spirit infused naval affairs. The instant despatch of the Defence to reinforce Cradock was only the earliest evidence of the new decisiveness controlling naval movements and policy, and the new steadying hand on Churchill’s shoulder.

  Churchill had wanted to be rid of Battenberg and have Fisher at his side since the first signs of Battenberg’s demoralization. Churchill worked bette
r with someone who would stand up to his belligerent ways, someone with the instinct for the positive which he admired all through his life. Fisher, out of office, had taught Churchill nine-tenths of what he knew about naval strategy, tactics and matériel. Churchill loved to be with the clever, wily, ruthless old veteran; he warmed to the quips and quotations, the uncompromising judgements, the feeling of pace and accomplishment. For all Churchill’s vanity and arrogance, he was much too clever not to allow himself to be overruled or shown to be wrong by someone with Fisher’s weight of experience and intellect. At no time was this better illustrated than in Fisher’s first days in office.

  Within one hour of the receipt of the confirmed news of Cradock’s defeat, Fisher and Churchill were planning countermeasures. All evidence pointed to Admiral von Spee proceeding either north or south from the scene of his triumph: north to destroy British trade on the west coast of South America, then through the Panama Canal to create havoc in the West Indies and North Atlantic before attempting to break through the North Sea blockade to home; or south and then north again to prey on British shipping off the Plate, then perhaps east where the effect of his presence would be equally devastating, and would additionally give great support to the German colonial forces fighting the South Africans.

  As far as the western and central Pacific areas were concerned, the position had been secured by what were now overwhelming French-Japanese-Australian-New Zealand-British forces. Churchill suggested that the Atlantic could be made equally secure by the despatch of a dreadnought battle-cruiser to reinforce the mid-Atlantic squadron commanded by Admiral Archibald Stoddart, which already included the much-confused, much-abused Defence and three more armoured cruisers, his flag flying in the improved County Class Carnarvon.

  ‘But’, wrote Churchill, ‘I found Lord Fisher in a bolder mood.’(9) He proposed that the super-dreadnought 13.5-inch-gunned Princess Royal should proceed at once to cover the West Indies, and that two – not one – battle-cruisers should be sent into the South Atlantic. In the tradition of his hero, Nelson, he was seeking instant annihilation of the enemy not just a defeat or partial defeat. Where Churchill was previously content to send an ancient battleship, Fisher successfully persuaded him that three big ships, each alone capable of sending all von Spee’s squadron to the bottom, were essential for the task.

  And who was to command this massively powerful South Atlantic and South Pacific Squadron – the Invincible, Inflexible, four armoured cruisers, two light cruisers, and the much maligned Canopus? One of those whose head had rolled with Fisher’s arrival was the Chief of Staff and one of the King’s choices for First Sea Lord. Doveton Sturdee, fifty-five years old, was a fine seaman, and was highly regarded as a tactician and a gunnery officer. Because he read and studied history he was classed as a ‘brain’, with the result that, after commanding a cruiser squadron, he was appointed to the Admiralty War Staff in August 1914, and perhaps to his own surprise, as Chief. He was not in fact a clever man, and among his attributes that made him unsuitable for the job were inflexibility and inability to listen to advice from members of his Stan; like Richmond, who were markedly cleverer than he was. He enjoyed the power he wielded as Chief of Staff but did not, in principle, approve of the Staff system. He would have much preferred to be away at sea. One young commander on joining his Staff was told, ‘My motto is “Damn the staff.”’ Ten years after his appointment he wrote, ‘One of the disadvantages of the Staff system in the Navy is that there is too great a tendency of Senior Officers to consult their staff on vital questions instead of officers of riper experience holding responsible positions in the Fleet.’(10) The Fleet distribution and dispositions which led to the early disasters and near-disasters recommended to Churchill stemmed from Sturdee. Even after the loss of the Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy, Sturdee continued to press successfully for regular North Sea cruiser patrols. There is, however, a glimmer of evidence that he earlier proposed the despatch of a battle-cruiser from the Grand Fleet, but had been overruled as a result of Jellicoe’s protest.

  Sturdee had been well and truly in the Beresford camp in the vendetta against Fisher, and gave evidence in the enquiry that led to Fisher’s downfall. He had been Chief of Staff to Beresford, who described him as ‘one of the most brilliant, if not the most brilliant, officer of my acquaintance’. Sturdee’s rapid advancement was largely due to Beresford’s influence.

  With the sudden and unexpected arrival of Fisher at the Admiralty, Sturdee knew that he would not last for long in his job, but he put up a gallant fight when Fisher dismissed him. Knowing how politically vulnerable Fisher was and that George V had fought against his appointment and wanted himself as First Sea Lord, he refused to go. ‘Sturdee would not listen to Churchill’s appeals either, for he knew that his dismissal would be a confession by Churchill that Fisher had forced his hand because affairs had been so mismanaged.’(11) Quick as a flash, Churchill saw the way out of the impasse. Send Sturdee in command of the South Atlantic force!

  Fisher agreed at once. It would be hard to bear if Sturdee, that ‘pedantic ass, which Sturdee is, has been, and always will be!’(12), were to become a national hero, but there was a measure of justice in the prospect of the ex-Chief of Staff whose ‘criminal ineptitude’ (in Fisher’s view) had resulted in the sinking of Cradock’s armoured cruisers, himself becoming responsible for correcting the dangerous situation he had brought about. Sturdee, of course, accepted the challenge with alacrity. His flag would fly in the Invincible. It was hoped she would have better hunting this time.

  Neither Jellicoe nor Beatty was best pleased at the loss of three battle-cruisers to hunt down two armoured cruisers on the other side of the world. Jellicoe was particularly sore at the loss of the Princess Royal, complaining that the New Zealand (an earlier 12-inch-gunned ship) should have been sent in her place because she had a more economical coal consumption and could dispose of Spee on her own anyway. He telegraphed and wrote several times to complain at his sudden deprival of strength. It was, he argued, ‘specially important not to weaken the Grand Fleet just now… I will of course do the best I can with the force at my disposal, but much is expected of the Grand Fleet if the opportunity arises, and I hope I shall not be held responsible if the force is unequal to the task devolving upon it…’(13) Fisher spared the C.-in-C. a soothing word or two before engaging in the task of getting his ‘ocean greyhounds’ away as rapidly as possible. The Invincible and Inflexible arrived for coal, stores, and repairs at Devonport on 8 November and the Admiral Superintendent assured the Admiralty they would be away by the 13th – a Friday ‘What a day to choose!’ exclaimed Fisher to Churchill, and insisted, against vehement protests, that they must sail not later than the 13th, if necessary with dockyard workers still on board. (They were.)

  Once at sea, the urgency of the mission appeared to be forgotten by Sturdee. The two battle-cruisers steamed at their most economical speed of 10 knots, and even hove to several times to check that neutral ships they met were not carrying contraband. He stopped for twenty-four hours at St. Vincente in the Cape Verde islands, lost another twelve hours when a target towing cable wrapped itself round one of the Invincible’s propellers, and then diverted from his course on hearing a rumour that a German raider might be not far distant. It took him until 26 November to reach Abrolhos Rocks off the coast of Brazil. Here he rendezvoused with the rest of his squadron, three armoured cruisers and two light cruisers. The crews began to ship stores and coal in a leisurely manner. Sturdee ordered Admiral Stoddart and all the captains to the Invincible for a conference. Among them was John Luce of the Glasgow.

  Since that terrible night when she had fled from the scene of the destruction of her consorts, the racket of jamming German wireless blotting out all other signals, the Glasgow had joined the Canopus and arrived back at the Falkland Islands on 8 November. At Port Stanley John Luce prepared a full report on the battle while his cruiser was coaled and provisioned and his men took a brief rest. He was then ordered to join Admiral
Stoddart at Montevideo, then be repaired and refitted at Rio de Janeiro, and finally steamed north under further orders to meet Sturdee. Among the big cruisers, the ‘blooded’ Glasgow was regarded with some awe and admiration; she was, after all, the only survivor of Spee’s impressive gunnery, her crew seasoned in battle, her upper works carrying the scars of Coronel.

  Luce was appalled when he heard that Sturdee intended to remain at Abrolhos for three days. The urgency of reaching the Falklands before Spee arrived was incontrovertible in his judgement.

  After some consideration and ‘in some trepidation’, Luce returned from the Glasgow to the flagship where he was received again by Sturdee.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming over, sir,’ he began, ‘and please don’t imagine I am questioning your orders, but thinking it over I do feel we should sail as soon as possible.’

  ‘But dammit, Luce,’ Sturdee replied, ‘we’re sailing the day after tomorrow, isn’t that good enough for you?’

  In the end, Sturdee relented, and – not with the best grace – he concluded with, ‘Very well, Luce, we’ll sail tomorrow…’(14)

  On the other side of South America, among the giant glaciers of the Gulf of Penas, southern Chile, and in a strongly contrasting temperature to that at Abrolhos, Spee was conducting his decorations ceremony. The Kaiser had telegraphed that 300 iron crosses should be distributed at Spee’s discretion. It took the best part of a day to complete the business, the Admiral being ferried in his barge from ship to ship, the cheers echoing hack, time and again, from the rocky cliffs and glacier faces.

  The squadron then faced the passage round the Horn, which Spee decided would be more likely to conceal their presence than if he passed through the Straits. The weather off the Fuegian islands and the Cape lived up to its reputation, recalling Drake’s terrible experiences of 1578. His squadron, like Drake’s, was scattered in the moutainous seas, and the light cruisers suffered badly and threatened to capsize as the little Marigold had done all those years ago. The commanders were, at one point, obliged to order the deck cargoes of coal, stacked to extend the range of their vessels, to be thrown overboard.