NEITHER French friends nor German foes fully understood the significance of the Royal Navy. The French were, not unnaturally, critical of the meagre strength of the B.E.F.; by the end of 1914 it still numbered only ten divisions, including two Indian. French soldiers and politicians were inclined to believe, and say, that Britain was taking only a small part in the war.
Her role was in fact already a big one. So long as the Royal Navy could hold open the Atlantic trade routes it made Britain virtually invulnerable. The risk of invasion was there, but it was slight. And the Royal Navy—with aid from the French—placed France in the same position as Britain, except that it could not make an island of her. While Britain survived, France—anyhow more nearly self-sufficing in food than Britain—could not be starved; could not be deprived of arms, equipment, horses and mules obtained in the western hemisphere; and could not be defeated, except by land armies.
At the same time, the denial of the seas to German freighters, the blockade of Germany, and the control of goods consigned to European neutrals was as much to the benefit of France as of Britain. Command of the sea enabled Britain and France to bring to the Western Front important land forces from overseas with a minimum of danger. Germany had none to summon home, but she would have been glad to send small bodies of troops to her colonies in hope of tying down larger numbers of Britons, Frenchmen, and Belgians. She never could do so, though it must be owned that, even without that power, she tied down a large number at small cost. Command of the sea enabled the Entente to send its land forces where it would, whereas the Central Powers could send theirs only to destinations to be reached by land routes.
Yet too many British historians and self-styled experts in strategy have, especially when dealing with this war, made preposterous claims for sea power, claims both contrary to common sense and founded on distortion of history. Britain, they say, should not have gone so deeply into this continental war; she should not have created a mass conscript army; she should have stood off, kept the seas, and blockaded the enemy. This, they add, was her traditional policy.
It may have been the policy she had hankered after in selfish moments, but it had never been pursued for long. Time after time Britain—a country with a small population, and therefore a small army, before the nineteenth century—had been forced to send land forces to the Continent to prevent her allies from collapsing. It was not merely that they might be routed and driven out of the war by sheer force of arms. They might walk out. They might decide that it would be better to take such terms as the enemy would give rather than see their people condemned to all the sufferings of war while their partner fought her war sitting on a cushion and keeping her boots clean. There can be no shadow of doubt that, if Britain and the British Empire had not raised the vast armies which they did build up, France would have been crushed and forced to surrender.
The war opened with a striking exhibition of the value of sea power. It has already been mentioned that the B.E.F. was transported to France without interference—and chiefly to Havre, nearly 120 miles from Southampton, as against the 28 miles from Dover to Calais. In fact no troopship or leave-boat was sunk in the Channel from the start of the war to the finish. The passage through the Mediterranean of troops from the ports of Algeria and the Moroccan protectorate was equally successful. France drew good Arab and Berber infantry from these sources. Later on she brought over a large number of battalions of Negroes, known by the name of ‘Senegalese’, though coming from other regions of tropical west Africa also: stout shock troops but without the rudiments of education and so ill suited to the climate of northern France that their employment at the front in winter had to be abandoned.
The main British naval force, by far the strongest in the world, was the Grand Fleet, of four battle squadrons, a battle cruiser squadron, two cruiser squadrons and a light cruiser squadron. It was stationed at Scapa Flow, a miniature inland sea in the Orkney Islands, and at Rosyth, near Edinburgh. This position was suitable for engaging the German High Seas Fleet if it put to sea. It could not be engaged otherwise because its bases from the Jade to the Elbe were strongly fortified and the island of Heligoland was full of long-range artillery. At Harwich was a cruiser squadron and on the south coast the Channel Fleet, including the 5th Battle Squadron. No convoy system in the Atlantic was established for a long time to come. However, cruisers ranged out widely for the protection of trade and before the end of 1914 twenty-three ‘patrol areas’ were organized in home waters, four with bases in the Channel and eight with Irish bases. The British battle-cruiser squadron in the Mediterranean was based on Malta. Its area was the eastern basin; that of the main French fleet was the western, with base at Toulon.
The Austrian Navy was in a difficult situation after the declaration of Italian neutrality. It was based on Pola, near the head of the Adriatic. Outside that sea it could scarcely hope to venture far; indeed it could not move far from its base unless assured that the main Franco-British forces could not intercept it. The main Russian fleet in the Baltic was no better off. Russia’s allies were prevented by German submarines from sending naval forces into the Baltic—except a few British submarines—and, without a single modern battleship completed, the Russians had to be very wary. The Germans employed little strength in the Baltic, though they did for a time strongly escort their East Prussian convoys.
One early incident of the naval war stung instructed British opinion like a whiplash and was long and angrily debated. In the Mediterranean were two German warships, the cruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau. On the eve of war between Britain and Germany they were very much the concern of the British commander, Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Berkeley Milne.
It was an amazing affair, a nightmare of naval war. On the British side the confusion was appalling, yet much of it was unavoidable, and it was all but impossible to fix the final responsibility for the rest. Delay in the transmission of messages played a part. The news of Italy’s declaration of neutrality came late to Milne; this was a big factor because until then it seemed that the Allies might have to face the combined Austrian and Italian fleets. Milne was also late in learning what his French colleague, Admiral Boué de Lapeyrère, was doing; this was another big factor because Milne’s first duty was to aid in the protection of the French troop transports from North Africa, the sailing of which had actually been postponed by the French Admiral owing to the presence of the German cruisers.
The German Admiral von Souchon was in a quandary. His chances of getting out of the Mediterranean were not worth a roter Heller. However, he was a mettlesome man, very bold, very keen to do all the damage he could, even if his ships were sent to the bottom. The Goeben was a fine modern cruiser, at her best after an overhaul in the Austrian naval dockyard at Pola. The Breslau was also modern and fast. Souchon was, like other German commanders who gave trouble on the open seas, from Graf von Spee downward, a masterly handler of colliers, and tactical skill in coaling at sea was a great asset in this sort of war. On quitting the Adriatic, Souchon sailed west to bombard Algerian ports in order to damage transports and delay the sailing of the troops. The gods were laughing at this naval comedy. Souchon had no more need than Milne to worry about the colonial troops. Boué de Lapeyrère was not going to start them until he had made up convoys.
Then came the climax of the drama. At 6 p.m. on 3 August, as his ships sped through the water for their dash at the Algerian ports, Souchon received a wireless order to make for Constantinople. There had been an arrangement with Turkey. He did not turn back. No, he had set out to bombard Bône and Philippeville, and he held on through the night to do it. He did it early on 4 August. The results were trifling.
Then he turned east. The comedy changed to farce when he met two British ships. Neither side saluted—but neither opened fire. Yet Souchon came red-handed from bombarding French towns, where he had at least killed a fair number of civilians. To put the situation straight, we have to go back to dates and times.1 Germany had declared war on France at 6.45 p.m. on 3 August—and Souchon knew it. Britain had sent her ultimatum to Germany on 4 August, to expire at midnight. Therefore the United Kingdom and the German Empire were not at war when their ships met, though France and the German Empire were.
In the rest of the strange story there are only two further outstanding points. The light cruiser Gloucester (Captain Howard Kelly) tracked the Goeben with great skill and courage, alone and at deadly risk to herself, on 7 August. And just when Souchon thought he had a fine chance of reaching safety he was refused a passage through the Dardanelles because of opposition within the Turkish Government. He hung about the Aegean. Once more he seemed to be doomed. Yet nothing could go wrong for this bold man. The pro-German Turks triumphed and the Goeben and Breslau entered the Dardanelles at 8.30 p.m. on 10 August. Milne’s senior subordinate was brought before a court-martial. He was acquitted on the ground that he had acted in accordance with his orders and instructions.
The significance of the incident was not so much the escape of the German cruisers as the part played by their Admiral in bringing Turkey into the war three months later. Yet, as will appear, Turkey was already pledged to fight on the German side. She might conceivably have defrauded Germany, as she failed her allies in a later war, but the probability is that the Germans, who were troubled by few scruples, would have ended her shivers on the brink by pushing her in, even had Souchon and his cruisers not been present. At all events it was he who did push her in.
No fighting beyond the exchange of a few salvoes had occurred in this affair. The next was an extremely hard-fought naval action. Its only resemblance to the other was confusion which was equally plentiful on a larger scale. Now, as in the Mediterranean, the confusion proved to be to the advantage of the man who was trying to do something definite rather than of those who were trying to prevent it. The man was Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty. He was as bold as Souchon and a far greater personality.
Beatty had before him a general and a special object. He was to assert British command of the North Sea ‘right up to the enemy’s gates’.1 The second object was a naval ‘ambush’. It was designed to take advantage of the practice of German light cruisers meeting the returning destroyer guard about daybreak. Beatty with the battle cruisers was ready to intervene. Submarines were also to take part. They might hope for some fine opportunities, but their presence might, on the other hand, lead to accidents. The whole conception was daring, since Beatty risked facing not merely the German battle cruisers, which he outnumbered, but the battleships of the High Seas Fleet, though his speed was superior to that of the latter.
Few had fully foreseen the disorder and obscurity likely to occur in naval warfare owing to the increased speed of warships, the increased range of guns and torpedoes, the vast area covered by fleets, and the frequent use of smoke for concealment. On 28 August moreover, the North Sea was overcast and gloomy. A great deal that could go wrong went wrong at one time or another. British submarines were troublesome to their own side, which was scared of sinking them and nervous lest they should attack British surface ships in error. Constant mistakes of identity, some of them hair-raising, occurred, and, needless to say in the circumstances, many chances were lost.
At first contact the British were outnumbered and outgunned. The situation changed completely when the Admiral appeared with his battle cruisers. By then British superiority was crushing. Yet the risks Beatty accepted in pressing into the Heligoland Bight to aid his flotilla would have daunted many an admiral whose country’s fate was so tightly bound to that of her fleet. Three German light cruisers, the Coln, Mainz, and Ariadne, and one destroyer, were sunk in the action. On the British side only one cruiser, the Arethusa, was at all badly hit. The moral effect was splendid. The Germans might declare with truth that their cruisers fought with great gallantry, but they also had to admit that the leadership had been faulty and that the cruisers had not supported the destroyers quickly enough. The German battle cruisers did come out, but after a delay owing to low water over the bar at Wilhelmshaven, and they were not even seen by the British.
The comfort brought to the British was needed and indeed did not go very far to meet the depression caused by events which followed this brilliant raid. On 22 September, the old cruiser Aboukir was sunk by a torpedo off the Dutch coast. The same U-boat then sank the Hogue and Cressy. Losses were huge, especially in the case of the Cressy, because her boats were some way off, picking up survivors of the other two. On 27 October the battleship Audacious struck a mine off the Ulster coast and sank. There was little to show on the British side in repayment, but for the sinking of four torpedo boats seeking to mine the Thames estuary.
Then came another affair arousing widespread controversy. Though this debate has in the nature of things been generally forgotten, it still creates differences of opinion among those who recall it. The German squadron on the China Station under Admiral Graf von Spee had crossed the Pacific. He had no base, but as he approached the Chilean coast along latitude 32 he coaled from colliers at the lonely island of Mas-a-Fuera, five hundred miles west of Valparaiso. Meanwhile Vice-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock had been ordered ‘to be prepared to have to meet’ the enemy and to ‘search’ for him.1 He had picked up the Canopus, an obsolete battleship, but armed with 12-in. guns. If he kept her with him, however, she would reduce his speed to 15 knots and to bring Spee to action would be out of the question. The First Lord, Mr Churchill, afterwards contended that Cradock would have been safe with the Canopus in company, but this argument was questioned. The Admiralty’s final message to him was that he was being sent another cruiser and was not expected to act without the Canopus. This message did not reach him. And, at the critical moment, the old tub needed a twenty-four-hours’ repair and was left behind.
On the afternoon of I November the two squadrons sighted one another off Coronel, on the Chilean coast. Cradock doubtless believed that his orders left him with no alternative but to fight. His flagship, the Good Hope, carried two 9.2-in. guns, but they were opposed to sixteen of the most modern 8.2-in. in Spee’s heavy cruisers, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Cradock must have known that, barring incredible luck, he was facing destruction. The odds were greater than he realized because the German gunnery was the better and Spee secured the inshore station, so that the afterglow of the sunset outlined the British ships. He naturally extended the range when Cradock strove to close it. The Good Hope and the 6-in. cruiser Monmouth were sunk. It was pitch dark and blowing so hard that the Germans could not lower boats, but in any case they saw neither ship go down. The light cruiser Glasgow ran for it on the Admiral’s orders and escaped. The Scharnhorst was hit twice and the Gneisenau four times, with trifling damage.
For Britain it was a disaster, not in the loss of the two cruisers, which could be replaced, but in their loss with not a single survivor, which struck people with horror at that early stage of the war. It also brought with it a grave loss of prestige. Germany, of course, ‘went to town’ on her victory, the results of which were spread all over the world without one out of ten of those who received the news realizing the disparity in the strength of the opponents.
However, it was no good mourning or even tilting at Mr Churchill. The thing was to repair the damage. That he and his new First Sea Lord, the ebullient Admiral Sir John Fisher, proceeded to do, so far as it lay in their power. With admirable resolution they detached two battle cruisers, the Invincible and Inflexible, under command of Vice-Admiral Sir F. Doveton Sturdee, and sent them out to wring victory from Germany’s hands. Spee’s squadron, after being feted by the Germans at Valparaiso, rounded the Horn at midnight 1/2 December. He intended to cross the South Atlantic, but on 8 December could not resist the bait of the wireless station in the Falkland Islands and the docks and stores at Port Stanley, which he decided to destroy. Sturdee was coaling within.
Some critics have suggested that if Spee had attacked forthwith after this surprise—brought off by pure chance—he might have won a victory. It is unlikely, though he would assuredly have caused greater loss than he did. As it was he fled. Sturdee came out in almost leisurely pursuit and did not draw level till it suited him. His superiority was as great as Spee’s had been over Cradock and he kept the range extended to favour his 12-in. guns. The only difference in the results of the two actions was that the German cruisers got more hits than had those of Cradock. Even so, British casualties were minute in numbers. Both the German heavy cruisers were sunk. The same fate awaited the small cruisers Nürnberg and Leipzig which were caught by the British cruisers. The only one to escape was the fast Dresden. She was the last German cruiser at sea and survived until March 1915, when she was sunk off the island of Juan Fernandez, not far from Mas-a-Fuera, where the German squadron had coaled before the action of Coronel.
The lesson was that superior range and weight of shell were overwhelming in the then relation between gun and armour. Graf von Spee, a capable commander, had behaved recklessly. To be ambushed by a foe in port is odd, but to be ambushed by a foe seeking nothing of the kind is fantastic. He may have thought it unlikely that reinforcements of superior gun-power had been sent, but at least there had been ample time to do so since the news of Coronel had reached the British Admiralty.
Had he so chosen, Spee might have done far more damage by dispersing his squadron. Before crossing the Pacific, he had sent one little cruiser, the Emden, into the Indian Ocean. Her haul of prizes had been amazing and her cheeky bombardment of Madras and Penang had provided fine material for German humorists at British expense. There was nothing humorous about her end. She was caught by the Australian cruiser Sydney in the Cocos Islands and quickly turned into a slaughter-house.
Other naval events of 1914 include the destruction of the light cruiser Magdeburg, which grounded in the Baltic and was caught by the Russian Fleet; the shelling of Scarborough and the Hartlepools on the English east coast by German battle cruisers on 16 December; and the loss of the new French battleship Jean Bart, sunk in the straits of Otranto by an Austrian submarine on Christmas Day. The exploits of the Goeben and Breslau in the Black Sea belong to another chapter.
Lay opinion on the Allied side and among neutrals found this record unimpressive, with the Heligoland Bight the one bright spot. German naval officers did not. The German flag had been swept from the seas. All over the world German freighters had taken refuge in neutral ports, whereas British were going about their tasks. And between British and French ports the vital traffic was uninterrupted. The transports, cargo-boats and leave-boats could ply ‘as securely as the motor-buses between Fleet Street and the Fulham Road’.1 The British Navy had done its work.