BACK TO THE NORTH SEA
"Our trawlers mined the fairway.
Our cruisers spread the bait,
We shelled the Briton's seaside towns
To lure him to his fate,
We set the trap twice over.
We left him with his dead--"
"But now we'll play another game,"
The British sailor said.
With the destruction of von Spee's squadron nothing of Germany's navy
was left at large in the outer seas save one or two cruisers and armed
merchantmen, whose days of freedom were already numbered. Of these the
survivor of the Falkland Islands' Battle, the _Dresden_, was destroyed
in the following March at Juan Fernandez; the _Königsberg_, bottled up
in the Rufiji River in Africa, was finally disposed of a few months
later; while the _Kronprinz Wilhelm_, the _Prinz Eitel Friedrick_, and
the _Karlsrühe_ met with various fates during the same summer. That in
spite of the enormous calls upon the navy in the way of convoying
transports they were joined by no others from their home waters is the
best tribute to the efficiency of our floating cordon in the North Sea.
And yet its very success in this respect was largely responsible,
perhaps, for a {85} somewhat distorted picture of the actual
position--that of a sulky and immobilized German Fleet confronted with
an impenetrable British barrier.
That would have been hardly true even of each side's surface ships; but
it was as far as possible from the complete reality. For what had in
fact begun with the outbreak of war--what had never ceased day or
night--was a desperate and unceasing battle, none the less crucial
because it was so often silent. Some hint of its real nature might
have been gathered from the laconic Admiralty announcement, a day or
two after war had been declared, that the German passenger steamer,
_Königin Luise_, had been sunk, while mine-laying, by one of our
destroyer patrols; and this vessel had been at work, fortunately with
very little result, upon a subtle and long-prepared scheme of action.
It is true that after she had been sunk, the cruiser _Amphion_--the
leader of the Harwich Patrol that sank her--herself went down on one of
the _Königin Luise's_ mines; but the larger end aimed at remained
unachieved.
This was no less than the mining in of Harwich, and was part of a
deliberate and extensive plan, not only to cripple the northward
progress of our larger squadrons to their war-stations, but to block
the entrances of as many as possible of our chief naval bases. That
some such policy would be attempted had, of course, long been foreseen.
Germany's recalcitrant attitude at the Hague Conference toward the
question of mine-laying had pointedly suggested this; and it was known
that, prior to the outbreak of war, she had accumulated a store of at
least ten thousand {86} mines. To counter such measures steps had
already been taken in the formation, a few years previously, of a
trawler section of the Royal Naval Reserve, whose business it would be
to keep the channels clear; while a group of old gun-boats had been
assembled for the same purpose to act in conjunction with the Grand
Fleet.
It had become instantly clear, however, that the original provision of
eighty-two trawlers would be insufficient; and, by the end of August,
this had been increased to 250--to be yet further and immensely added
to as the busy months went by. Nothing in our naval record, indeed,
was more dramatic or so signal an evidence of the national sense of
admiralty than the gathering together of that vast auxiliary service of
fishermen, pilots, and amateur yachtsmen, and the enormous
responsibilities thrust into their hands to be so efficiently and
light-heartedly carried. Time after time, by the resource of our
fishermen, of sea-loving undergraduates, of amateurs of all sorts, what
might have been disasters of the first magnitude were averted or
overcome. Between the navy proper, with its thousands of other
problems, and these new and insidious dangers--the laying of minefields
by apparently innocent neutrals, the ever-present activities of enemy
submarines--the courage, the cunning, the native sea-instinct of these
otherwise untrained forces was the buffer. The fishermen of Galilee
became fishers of men. The fishermen of Britain became fishers of
mines. And the debt of human freedom to the latter is not immeasurably
less, perhaps, than to their predecessors.
{87}
This was the true picture then of the North Sea--an area nearly three
times the size of Great Britain--a Grand Fleet holding the exits and
entrances against every possible sortie in force, but itself so
threatened by submarines and minefields that at one time its
war-stations were actually changed, and so nearly paralyzed that there
were not a few hours when considerable units of it were practically
embayed. Thus, definite minefields were laid by the enemy at
Southwold, the mouth of the Tyne, and near Flamborough Head, and not
only there but off the north of Ireland, where it was hoped to destroy
or disorganize the Canadian transports. Nor were our most vital
waters, such as those of the Firth of Forth, free from the repeated
visits of those early submarines; and it is primarily as trapping
expeditions, leading us into prepared minefields, and only secondarily
as baby-killing bombardments, that such raids as those on Lowestoft,
Gorleston, and Yarmouth must in reality be considered.
The first of these took place on November 3, 1914, the day following
the Admiralty proclamation in which it had been announced that from
November 5th the North Sea was to be considered a closed area. This
had become necessary, as was then publicly indicated, owing to the
persistent and indiscriminate sowing of mines; because peaceful
merchant-ships had already been destroyed by these on the main
trade-route between Liverpool and America; because these mines had been
laid by vessels flying neutral flags; and because exceptional measures
had in consequence now become imperative. For these reasons it was
{88} announced, therefore, that all vessels passing, from the fifth of
November onward, a line drawn from the northernmost point of the
Hebrides through the Faroe Islands to Iceland would do so at their own
peril. Traders to and from Norway, the Baltic, Denmark, and Holland,
were advised to use the English Channel and the Straits of Dover, and
were then assured that they would receive full sailing directions, and,
as far as Great Britain could secure it, a safe passage.
Meanwhile, in every dockyard, work was being pushed forward upon all
sorts of naval construction, and each new problem, as it arose, was
being considered and vigorously dealt with. To guarantee, however, in
all circumstances and at any given moment, the integrity of our whole
coast-line was plainly impossible, though every month saw its increase
of patrols and _personnel_; and, on December 16th, the enemy again
bombarded three of our seaside towns.
These were Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough, casualties being
inflicted in every case. It was a foggy winter morning when three
hostile cruisers were sighted off Hartlepool about 8 o'clock; and, a
quarter of an hour later, the bombardment began, lasting till ten
minutes to nine. The enemy agents in this case seem to have been two
battle-cruisers and one armoured cruiser; and, though Hartlepool itself
was an open town, land batteries in the neighbourhood endeavoured to
reply. Their fire was ineffective, however; several soldiers attached
to the Durham Light Infantry and Royal Engineers were killed and
wounded; the gasworks were set on fire; and the civilian casualties
amounted to nearly a hundred. {89} Almost at the same time, a
battle-cruiser and armoured cruiser approached and shelled Scarborough,
firing about sixty shots, while two battle-cruisers attacked Whitby,
civilians in both towns being killed and wounded.
Owing to the objectives chosen, the conditions of the weather, the
brevity of their visit, and their power and speed, the enemy squadrons
made port intact again, though a patrol of destroyers very pluckily
attacked them. In all nearly one hundred civilians were killed in
these three towns, about five hundred being wounded; the military
casualties amounted to thirty-four, and those on the three destroyers
to twenty-eight. The German battle-cruisers, employed in this
expedition were identified as the _Derfflinger_, _Seydlitz_, _Moltke_,
_von der Tann_, and _Blücher_, the three latter, it was believed,
having been also engaged in the previous raid upon the Norfolk coast.
Though, as we have said, it was quite impossible to give an absolute
guarantee against such incidents as these, they were certainly not
soothing to the feelings of the Grand Fleet and least of all to those
of its cruiser squadrons. In spite of the elaborate justifications
voiced in the German Press by such writers as Count Reventlow, they had
outraged every canon not only of international law but of decent
seaman-like feeling, and were an early indication of the horrible
license that German sea-policy was prepared to allow itself. That had
not yet staggered the world, as the sinking of the _Lusitania_ was to
stagger it, or such incredible atrocities as that to be associated with
the _Belgian Prince_; but it had opened up a vista to {90} every
clean-hearted sailor sufficiently dark as to have changed the character
of the war. It was now plain, for example, that such naval leaders as
Admiral von Spee and the captain of the _Emden_ were no longer to be
regarded as typical of the directing minds of Germany's navy. How
completely they were in the end to be disregarded was not yet manifest;
but it was already clear that the old and peculiar amenities, the
traditional chivalry of sea-warfare, were but poorly respected, even if
they were understood, by this latest aspirant to sea-power. It was
with a special satisfaction, therefore, that early on January 24, 1915,
a strong patrolling fleet, under Sir David Beatty, received news of a
powerful enemy squadron not far away to the south-south-east.
This consisted, as soon became clear, of the _Derfflinger_, _Seydlitz_,
_Moltke_, and _Blücher_, with six light cruisers and a strong force of
destroyers; and there was little doubt that they were once more en
route for a bombardment of some part of our coast. With Admiral
Beatty, who was flying his flag on the _Lion_, were the _Princess
Royal_, the _Tiger_, the _New Zealand_, and _Indomitable_, all powerful
vessels, the three former each carrying eight 13.5-inch guns, while the
_New Zealand_ and _Indomitable_ carried the same number of 12-inch
guns. In company with these, disposed on their port beam, were the
light cruisers _Southampton_, _Nottingham_, _Birmingham_, and
_Lowestoft_, and, scouting ahead--the two squadrons having met at
sea--were Commodore Tyrwhitt in the _Arethusa_, commanding three
flotillas of destroyers, and the two light cruisers _Aurora_ and
_Undaunted_.
{91}
It was Sunday morning; the day had broken clear at about a quarter to
seven, and it was a few minutes after this hour that the _Aurora_, then
travelling at twenty knots, sighted a two-masted, four-funnelled
cruiser accompanied by some destroyers. Half concealed by her smoke,
in the uncertain light, and at about four miles distance, the _Aurora_,
for a few moments, had been unable to determine her nationality; and it
was for these reasons that the enemy cruiser--afterward known to be the
_Kolberg_--was the first to open fire. No appreciable damage was
caused to the _Aurora_, however, who replied immediately and with such
good effect that, five minutes later, the _Kolberg_ changed course and
retired upon the stronger enemy forces that had now become visible.
The presence of these had at once been signalled to Admiral Beatty and
his cruisers, and the whole squadron at once worked up to its full
speed of 28-½ knots. When first sighted, the enemy vessels had been
steering northwest, but they immediately changed their course to the
southeast, the distance separating the two squadrons being then about
fourteen miles, and their position, at half-past seven, being about
thirty miles from the English coast.
From the outset it had been evident that the enemy did not mean to
engage, and that, if he were to be brought to action, it would only be
after a chase; and, although as a squadron we had the advantage in
speed, our superiority was not very great. Nor was Admiral Beatty's
problem in any other respect so simple as had been Sir Doveton
Sturdee's. Not only had Admiral Beatty always to bear in mind {92}
that he might be being led into some recently laid minefield, but he
knew that with every hour he would be nearly forty miles nearer to the
heavily guarded waters on the other side. Moreover, he had at all
times to be prepared for a torpedo-attack from the accompanying fleet
of enemy destroyers, while it was practically certain that, before the
action ended, he would find himself in the presence of hostile
submarines. He was further at a disadvantage in that, though he was
stronger in gun power, he was forced to rely upon bow fire only, and
this while travelling at full speed. That meant that, for the greater
part of the action, his leading battle-cruisers, the _Lion_, _Tiger_,
and _Princess Royal_ could only bring to bear four of their 13.5-inch
guns, while the _Seydlitz_ and _Moltke_, firing astern, could each use
eight of their 11-inch guns, the _Derfflinger_ four of her 12-inch
guns, and the _Blücher_ six of her 8.2's. It became a matter of
margins, therefore--and not very extensive ones--both in speed and
range, and of the British capacity to use these in the limited time
before the German cruisers could reach their own waters.
Some idea of what this meant can best be gathered, perhaps, from the
fact that, though travelling at thirty knots, it was almost an hour and
a half--during which time more than fifty miles of sea had been
covered--before the fourteen miles that separated the two squadrons had
been reduced to ten. This was just before nine o'clock, the enemy
being still on Admiral Beatty's port bow, his light cruisers ahead,
followed by the _Derfflinger_, _Moltke_, _Seydlitz_, and _Blücher_ in
single line, with a large number of {93} destroyers on their starboard
beam. Leading in the _Lion_, Sir David Beatty was followed by the
_Tiger_, the _Princess Royal_, and the _New Zealand_, the latter and
the _Indomitable_--both slower vessels--having broken all records,
thanks to their engine-room staffs.
Already a shot or two had been fired from the _Lion's_ forward guns,
taking the _Blücher_ as her target, and, a few minutes after nine, she
made her first hit on this cruiser, carrying away her bridge, according
to the prisoners afterward taken. At this range, with her 13.5's
tilted at an angle of some sixteen degrees and her big shells dropping
steeply, the fire of the _Lion_ seems, under the circumstances, to have
been remarkably accurate. About ten minutes later, the _Tiger_ came
into range and took up the attack on the _Blücher_, the _Lion_
transferring her attentions to the _Seydlitz_, the next ahead.
Meanwhile the enemy had begun to respond but without inflicting any
damage, and, a quarter of an hour later, the _Princess Royal_ was able
to join in the chorus, also taking the _Blücher_ for her first target.
The _Blücher_, slower than her consorts, and already heavily damaged,
was now dropping astern and came under the guns of the _New Zealand_,
the _Princess Royal_ transferring her fire to the _Seydlitz_ with
immediate and visible results. The enemy's destroyers were now
throwing up dense columns of smoke to screen his wounded
battle-cruisers; but, by a quarter to ten, not only the _Blücher_, but
the _Derfflinger_ and _Seydlitz_ were on fire. Our own light cruisers
and destroyer flotillas had fallen back to port a little so as not to
obscure the range; and the position just {94} before ten exhibited the
_Lion_ confining her attentions to the _Derfflinger_, the _Tiger_
attacking the _Derfflinger_, and, when this was hidden from her by
smoke, the doomed and swiftly-flagging _Blücher_, the _Princess Royal_
shelling the _Seydlitz_, and the _New Zealand_ engaging the
_Blücher_--the _Indomitable_, in spite of her efforts, not having yet
drawn within effective range.
The condition of the _Blücher_, as was afterward learned from
prisoners, though it was to become worse, was already terrible enough.
Early in the action her electric plant had been destroyed, and her men
down below crept in darkness. Still too far to be raked, her decks
were being excavated by half-ton shells dropping from the sky. In the
narrow spaces below, apart from the shattering shell fragments, the
enormous air-displacement wrought destruction and death. Iron plates
were moulded by it as if they had been wax, and men tossed like apples
and crushed to pulp against them. Later, as the range narrowed, the
_Blücher_ became more helpless, and, as she came under the full force
of the British broadside fire, she staggered at each salvo, scarcely
recovering before another hurled her again on her side.
But the main battle had now swept on; and the fact that the _Blücher_
was left to her fate is the best indication, perhaps, of the injuries
already sustained by her speedier and stronger consorts. It was not
until a quarter to eleven, however, that the _Blücher_, then far
astern, definitely turned north out of the line; and, before this had
happened, the German light cruisers and destroyers had closed in from
the starboard and were threatening a torpedo attack. The {95} British
light forces were accordingly ordered up to prevent this, the _Lion_
and _Tiger_ also opening upon the enemy destroyers. The attack never
materialized, however; was possibly only a feint; and would in any case
have been checkmated by the admirable handling of the _M_ division of
destroyers under Captain the Hon H. Meade, and particularly, perhaps,
of the destroyer _Meteor_ under Lieutenant Frederick Peters.
This destroyer, with the _Lion_ and _Tiger_, was the only British
vessel to suffer material damage; and her position at one time, in the
full field of bombardment, was one that her crew are never likely to
forget. This was soon after eleven, when the _Lion_, who had drawn
more than her namesake's share of the German fire, had been struck by a
chance shot that reduced her speed to ten knots an hour. The rest of
the destroyers and light cruisers had by this time dropped astern
again, the majority on the starboard or disengaged side, while others,
on the port side, had turned northward after the _Blücher_. After the
_Lion_ had been hit, however, the _Meteor_ was ordered up to cover her,
thereby steaming under the salvos from both sides; and it is possible
to glean an idea or two of what this meant from the account of it
afterward written by one of her officers.
"We were absolutely in the line of fire," he said, "shells whistling
over and all around us, and now and again an enemy's broadside aimed
directly at us. Try and imagine a frail destroyer steaming thirty
knots, with four battle-cruisers on either side belching forth flame
and smoke continually, the screech of the {96} projectiles flying
overhead seeming to tear the very air into ribbons, 12-inch shells
dropping perilously near, and raising columns of water a hundred feet
into the air, a few yards away, the spray washing our decks and
drenching all hands. Picture the awful crashing noise, the explosions
and flashes, as shots took effect, the massive tongues of fire shooting
up, and the dense clouds of yellow and black smoke which obliterated
the whole ship from view as the shells burst on striking. And this, if
you can imagine it, will give you some idea of the _Meteor's_ position
in a glorious action. Its terrible imposing grandeur made one forget
personal danger. Of course, something had to happen. It was simply
inevitable. About eleven o'clock, the _Lion_ drew out of the line
temporarily, the _Princess Royal_ taking the lead, and it was not till
then that the _Indomitable_ opened fire and took her part in the
engagement. We had already been hit a couple of times, but without
doing any material damage, and half of us missed death by inches; but
it seemed as if we possessed a charmed life; it is truly miraculous,
nothing less, that we continued so long without being disabled; but
Providence must have been with us that day. Just about this time, the
_Blücher_ was in a terrible state; one funnel gone, the other two like
scrap-iron and tottering, both fore and main topmasts shot away, fore
turret carried clean over the side, and only part of her mainmast and
fore tripod mast left standing, and even these in a very shaky
condition. So she fell out of the line--a raging furnace amidships,
helpless, unable to steam; and her sister ships left her to her {97}
fate. The battering she had undergone was something incredible, and
she was in her death agony now, so we began to close her, and found she
was settling down, though still on an even keel. Now was our chance.
We approached her, circling around, but even then she was not dead,
for, at precisely 12.5 p.m., with the very last round she ever fired,
she sent an 8.2-inch shell into us, which killed four men and wounded
another. But what a sweet revenge was to come! Two minutes later, we
discharged our torpedo. It hit her nearly amidships. There was a
tremendously violent shock. She heeled completely over and sank in
eight and a half minutes, hundreds of men clambering over her sides and
standing there, just as if it were the upper deck, waiting for the
final plunge."
Not to be outdone, and consistent with her reputation, the _Arethusa_
was also in at the death, and had in her turn loosed a couple of
torpedoes at the _Blücher_ with terrific effect--one striking her aft
and one forward, reaching her magazine and causing a violent explosion.
It was the _Arethusa_, too, who subsequently embarked and brought home
to port the majority of the _Blücher's_ survivors, the rescuers and
rescued being alike bombed from the air by a German aeroplane that had
appeared on the scene.
Meanwhile the _Lion_, having pulled out of the line, not vitally
injured, but unfit for further action, the _Tiger_, _Princess Royal_,
and _New Zealand_ had continued the chase of the flying enemy, the
_Indomitable_ having been detailed to attend to the _Blücher_. Round
the wounded _Lion_, to protect her from submarine {98}
attack--submarines had already been sighted a few minutes before--had
closed one of our light cruisers and six destroyers, and, at half-past
eleven, Admiral Beatty called the destroyer _Attack_ alongside, boarded
her, and raced at full speed after his other three battle-cruisers.
So fast was the pace at which the action was being fought that not only
were these out of sight, but the _Blücher_, now in her death throes,
was also below the horizon. With her guns tilted, as she listed there
to port, and the "Engage the enemy more closely" signal still flying
from her mast, the _Lion_ had been suddenly wiped off the slate, as it
were, with what chagrin to those on board can be readily imagined. But
for that unlucky shot, the Battle of the Dogger Bank might have been as
complete a victory of its kind as that of the Falkland Islands, and it
was only by a hair's breadth that the other three German
battle-cruisers, lame and heavily damaged, contrived to reach harbour.
Headlong as he was travelling, it was not till noon that Sir David
Beatty met his returning cruisers, and, twenty minutes later, having
shifted his flag from the _Attack_ to the _Princess Royal_, he heard
from Captain Osmond de B. Brock of what had subsequently happened; that
the _Blücher_ had been sunk near Borkum Reef, a Zeppelin and aeroplane
bombing the vessels rescuing survivors; and that the other cruisers had
made their escape in an eastward direction. It was owing to the
increasing danger from mines thrown out of the fleeing vessels, and the
growing proximity of the German minefields, that the {99} action had in
the end been broken off; and whether it should, under those
circumstances, have been pressed further must remain an open question.
That quite apart, however, from its material advantages in the sinking
of the _Blücher_ and the disabling of her consorts, the victory of the
Dogger Bank had important moral results there is not a shadow of doubt.
It had once more re-affirmed the value of the battle-cruiser for which
the navy was chiefly indebted to Lord Fisher, and it proved to be the
grave of the big-scale raids upon our open east coast towns. More than
all that, however, it was a triumphant example of an instantly seized
opportunity; it demonstrated to the enemy that, in spite of his mines
and submarines, we maintained our full tactical liberty; and it was
further evidence that in Admiral Beatty we had found a naval leader of
the highest class.
Those were the recognitions behind the "Well done, David" of the
_Princess Royal's_ coal-blackened stokers as the Admiral climbed in
mid-sea from the little _Attack_ into the famous cruiser; and they
spoke again, on the following Tuesday morning, when the _Lion_ limped
up the Firth to her anchorage. Three miles away, in the Fifeshire
valleys, ploughman and farmboy heard those welcoming syrens.
{100}