WAR IN THE UNDERSEAS
[Illustration:
The Last of a Pirate
G. H. Davis
]
WAR IN THE UNDERSEAS
BY
HAROLD F. B. WHEELER
F.R.Hist.S.
AUTHOR OF
‘DARING DEEDS OF MERCHANT SEAMEN’
‘STIRRING DEEDS OF BRITAIN’S SEA-DOGS’ ETC.
FOUNDER OF ‘HISTORY’
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Printed in Great Britain
by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_
DEDICATED
TO
GEOFFREY CHARLES TASKAR KEYES
IN THE SINCERE HOPE THAT IF OPPORTUNITY BE HIS HE MAY
EMULATE THE DARING OF HIS FATHER, WHOSE ACHIEVEMENT AT
ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND WILL BE RELATED BY OLD BOYS TO
THEIR JUNIORS UNTIL THE OCEAN HIGHWAY IS AS DRY AS A
DUSTY ROAD
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Foreword_
Sea-power strangled Germany and saved the world. Even when the Kaiser’s
legions were riding roughshod over the greater part of Europe its grip
was slowly throttling them. Despite the murderous mission of mine and
U-boat, it kept the armies of the Allies supplied with men and
munitions, and scoured the world for both. When the British Fleet took
up its war stations in the summer of 1914 it became the Heart of Things
for civilization. It continued to be so when the major portion of the
swaggering High Sea Fleet came out to meet Beatty under the white flag
in the chilly days of November 1918. It remains so to-day.
The officers and men of the Royal Navy whose march is the Underseas
played a perilous and noble part in the Great Conflict. British
submarines poked their inquisitive noses into the wet triangle of
Heligoland Bight three hours after hostilities were declared; they
watched while the Men of Mons crossed the Channel to stay the hand of
the invader; they pierced the Dardanelles when mightier units remained
impotent; they threaded their way through the icy waters of the Baltic
despite the vigilance of a tireless enemy; they fought U-boats, a feat
deemed to be impossible; they dodged mines, land batteries, and surface
craft, and depleted the High Sea Fleet of many valuable fighting forces.
In addition, they had to contend with their own peculiar
troubles—shoals, collisions, breakdowns, and a hundred and one ills
which a landsman never suspects. Some set out on their duties and failed
to come back. They lie many fathoms deep. Their commanders have made
their last report. Sea-power has its price.
I am under special obligation to several officers of British submarines
for assistance willingly rendered, despite the arduous nature of their
duties. Their generous enthusiasm exhibits that “real love for the Grand
Old Service it is an honour and pleasure to serve in,” as Admiral Beatty
wrote to me the other day.
HAROLD F. B. WHEELER
_Contents_
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CLEARING THE DECKS 13
II. LIFE AS A LATTER-DAY PIRATE 52
III. GERMANY’S SUBMERSIBLE FLEET 69
IV. PYGMIES AMONG GIANTS 84
V. TRAGEDY IN THE MIDDLE SEAS 105
VI. HORTON, E 9, AND OTHERS 120
VII. SUBMARINE _v._ SUBMARINE 137
VIII. A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 148
IX. SEA-HAWK AND SWORD-FISH 165
X. U-BOATS THAT NEVER RETURNED 192
XI. DEPTH CHARGES IN ACTION 209
XII. SINGEING THE SULTAN’S BEARD 222
XIII. ON CERTAIN HAPPENINGS IN THE BALTIC 241
XIV. BLOCKADING THE BLOCKADE 272
XV. BOTTLING UP ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND 297
XVI. THE GREAT COLLAPSE 310
_Illustrations_
PAGE
THE LAST OF A PIRATE _Frontispiece_
UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE 48
THE INTERIOR OF A GERMAN SUBMARINE 72
THE SECOND EXPLOIT OF E 9 126
“KAMERAD! KAMERAD!” 154
A SEAPLANE OF THE R.N.A.S. 188
THE DESTROYER’S SHORT WAY WITH THE U-BOAT 218
C 3 AT ZEEBRUGGE MOLE 298
ENTRY OF THE SURRENDERED U-BOATS INTO HARWICH 310
CHAPTER I
_Clearing the Decks_
“_Society must not remain passive in face of the deliberate provocation
of a blind and outrageous tyrant. The common interests of mankind must
direct the impulses of political bodies: European society has no other
essential purpose._”—SCHILLER.
Surprise is the soul of war. The submarine illustrates this elemental
principle, and its astounding development is the most amazing fact of
the World Struggle. Given favourable circumstances it can attack when
least expected, pounce on its prey at such time as may be most
convenient to itself, and return to its lair without so much as being
sighted. What has become a vital means to the most important military
ends was once described by the British Admiralty as “the weapon of the
weaker Power.” To a large extent, of course, it is _par excellence_ the
type of vessel necessary to bidders for Sea Supremacy who would wrest
maritime predominance from a stronger Power. On the other hand, it has
rendered yeoman service to the British Navy, as many of the following
pages will show. Germany, a nation of copyists but also of improvers,
diverted the submersible from the path of virtue which previous to the
outbreak of hostilities it was expected to pursue. It is safe to say
that few people in Great Britain entertained the suspicion that
underwater craft would be used by any belligerent for the purpose of
piracy.
Up to August 1914 the submarine was intimately associated in the public
mind with death and disaster—death for the crew and disaster for the
vessel. It is so easy to forget that Science claims martyrs and Progress
exacts sacrifice. These are two of the certainties of an uncertain
world. The early stages of aviation also were notable for the wreck of
hopes, machines, and men. To-day aircraft share with submarines and
tanks the honour of having altered the aspect of war. The motor-car,
once the laughing-stock of everybody other than the enthusiast, and now
grown into a Juggernaut mounting powerful guns, is the foster-father of
the three, for the perfection of the internal combustion engine alone
made the submarine and the aeroplane practicable.
For good or for ill, the underwater boat has passed from the
experimental to the practical. In the hands of the Germans it became a
particularly sinister and formidable weapon. The truth is not in us if
we attempt to disguise the fact. When there was not so much as a cloud
the size of a man’s hand on the European sky, and the Betrayer was
pursuing the path of peaceful penetration all undisturbed and almost
unsuspected, the submarine was regarded by many eminent authorities as a
somewhat precocious weakling in the naval nursery. They refused to
believe that it would grow up. Even Mr H. G. Wells, who has loosed so
many lucky shafts, unhesitatingly damned it in his _Anticipations_. He
saw few possibilities in the craft, and virtually limited its use to
narrow waterways and harbours.
There were others, however, who thought otherwise, and the controversy
between the rival schools of thought was brought to a head by a fierce
battle fought in Printing House Square. Sir Percy Scott, who had
previously held more than a watching brief for the heavy fathers of the
Fleet, bluntly told the nation through the columns of the _Times_ that
the day of the Dreadnought and the Super-Dreadnought was over. With a
scratch of the pen he relegated battleships to the scrap-heap—until
other experts brought their guns to bear on the subject. Almost on the
conclusion of this war of words the war of actuality began. I do not
think I am wrong in saying that the former ended in an inconclusive
peace. Practice has proved the efficiency of both surface and underwater
craft, but particularly of vessels that do not submerge.
Admiral Sir Percy Scott’s prophecy remains unfulfilled. The big-gun ship
has asserted itself in no uncertain language. It is interesting to note,
however, that the ruling of one who took part in the discussion, and
whose personal experience in the early stages of the evolution of a
practical submarine entitled him to special consideration, has been
entirely negatived. Rear-Admiral R. H. S. Bacon,[1] the principal
designer of the first British type, asserted that “the idea of attack of
commerce by submarines is barbarous and, on account of the danger of
involving neutrals, impolitic.” It is obvious from this that the late
commander of the Dover Patrol never contemplated any departure from the
acknowledged principles of civilized warfare. The unexpected happened,
as it is particularly liable to do in war. One of the main purposes of
the enemy’s submarines in the World War was piracy, unrestrained,
unrestricted, and unashamed. It failed to justify Germany’s hope.
Probably Lord Fisher was the first seaman holding high position to
actually warn the British Government of the likelihood of Germany’s
illegitimate use of the submarine. Early in 1914 he handed to Mr Asquith
and the First Lord of the Admiralty a memorandum pointing out, among
other things, that the enemy would use underwater boats against our
commerce.[2] His prescience was forestalled thirteen years before by
Commander Sir Trevor Dawson, who had prophesied that the enemy would
attack our merchant fleet in much the same way as the Boers were then
attacking the army in the Transvaal. “Submarine boats,” he told a
meeting of engineers, “have sufficient speed and radius of action to
place themselves in the trade routes before the darkness gives place to
day, and they would be capable of doing almost incalculable destruction
against unsuspecting and defenceless victims.”
Originally Germany was by no means enamoured of the new craft. Her first
two submarines did not appear until 1905–6; Great Britain’s initial
venture was launched at Barrow-in-Furness in 1901. The latter, the first
of a batch of five, was ordered on the advice of Lord Goschen. Even then
the official attitude was sceptical, not altogether without reason. Mr
H. O. Arnold-Forster, speaking in the House of Commons on the 18th
March, 1901, after admitting that “there is no disguising the fact that
if you can add speed to the other qualities of the submarine boat, it
might in certain circumstances become a very formidable vessel,” adopted
what one might call a misery-loves-company attitude. “We are comforted,”
he averred, “by the judgment of the United States and Germany, which is
hostile to these inventions, which I confess I desire shall never
prosper.”
Dr Flamm, Professor of Ship Construction at the Technical High School at
Charlottenburg, who should and probably does know better, has aided and
abetted certain other publicists in foisting on the public of the
Fatherland the presumption that the submarine is a German invention.
This is not the place for a full history of the underwater craft from
its early to its latest stages, but perhaps it is permissible to give a
few particulars regarding the toilsome growth of this most formidable
type of vessel.
The first underwater craft of which there is anything approaching
authentic record was the invention of Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman who
forsook his own country for England. According to one C. van der Woude,
writing in 1645, Drebbel rowed in his submerged boat from Westminster to
Greenwich. Legend or truth has it that this “Famous Mechanician and
Chymist” managed to keep the air more or less sweet in his craft by
means of a secret “Chymical liquor,” and that the structure was covered
with skin of some kind to make it watertight. Drebbel, who also
professed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, is stated
to have hit upon the idea of his invention by the simple process of
keeping his eyes open. He noticed some fishermen towing behind their
smacks a number of baskets heavily laden with their staple commodity.
When the ropes were not taut the vessels naturally rose a little in the
water. He came to the conclusion that a boat could be weighted in much
the same way to remain entirely below the surface, and propelled by
means similar to a rowing-boat. It is even said that King James
travelled at a depth of from twelve to fifteen feet in one of the two
vessels constructed by Drebbel, whose invention is referred to in Ben
Jonson’s _Staple of News_.
The submarine may be said to have remained in this essentially
elementary stage until 1775, when David Bushnell, an American, launched
a little one-man submarine after five years of planning and preparation.
The shape of the vessel resembled a walnut held upright, the torpedo
being carried outside near the top. At the bottom was an aperture fitted
with a valve for admitting water, while a couple of pumps were provided
for ejecting it. About 200 lb. of lead served as ballast, which could be
lowered by ropes for the purpose of giving immediate increase of
buoyancy should emergency require it. “When the skilful operator had
obtained an equilibrium,” Bushnell writes, “he could row upward and
downward, or continue at any particular depth, with an oar placed near
the top of the vessel, formed upon the principle of the screw, the axis
of the oar entering the vessel; by turning the oar one way he raised the
vessel, by turning it the other way he depressed it.” A similar
apparatus, worked by hand or foot, whichever was the more convenient,
propelled the submarine forward or backward. The rudder could also be
utilized as a paddle.
Bushnell provided his little wooden craft with what he called a crown
and we should designate a conning-tower. In this there were several
glass windows. Neither artificial light nor means of freshening the air
was carried, though the submarine could remain submerged for thirty
minutes before the condition of the atmosphere made it necessary to
ascend sufficiently near the surface to enable the two ventilator pipes
to be brought into action. The water-gauge and compass were rendered
discernible by means of phosphorus.
The torpedo—Bushnell termed it a magazine—was an oak box containing 150
lb. of gunpowder and a clockwork apparatus which was set in operation
immediately the affair was unshipped. It was attached to a wooden screw
carried in a tube in the brim of the ‘crown.’ Having arrived beneath an
enemy vessel, the screw was fixed in the victim’s hull from within the
submarine, and the ‘U-boat’ made off. At the time required the mechanism
fired what to all intents and purposes was a gun-lock, and the torpedo
blew up.
The wooden screw was the least successful of the various appliances. An
attempt was made in 1776 to annihilate H.M.S. _Eagle_, then lying off
Governor’s Island, New York. The operator apparently tried to drive his
screw into iron, and quite naturally failed. Writing to Thomas Jefferson
on the subject, Bushnell suggests that had the operator shifted the
submarine a few inches he could have carried out his operation, even
though the bottom was covered with copper. Two other unsuccessful trials
were made in the Hudson River. Owing to ill-health and lack of means,
the inventor then abandoned his submarine, though in the following year
he attempted to ‘discharge’ one of his magazines from a whaleboat, the
object of attack being H.M.S. _Cerberus_. It failed to reach the British
frigate, and blew up a prize schooner anchored astern of her. Washington
was fully alive to the possibilities of Bushnell’s invention, but was
evidently of opinion that it was too crude to warrant his serious
attention. Writing to Jefferson, he says: “I thought, and still think,
that it was an effort of genius, but that too many things were necessary
to be combined to expect much from the issue against an enemy who are
always upon guard.” Incidentally this was a remarkable testimonial to
the men on look-out duty on the British vessels. Keen sight is still a
recognized weapon against submarine attack.
In 1797 Robert Fulton, also an American, brought his fertile brain to
bear on the submarine, possibly on hearing or reading of David
Bushnell’s boat. One would have anticipated that the era of the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars would be propitious for the
introduction of new plans and methods calculated to bring a seemingly
never-ending state of hostilities to an end. Novel propositions were
certainly brought forward; few were utilized. Fulton, an artist by
profession, simply bubbled over with ideas connected with maritime
operations. Moreover, he had extraordinary tenacity and enthusiasm.
Set-backs seemed to give him added momentum. He tried to do business
with Napoleon in France, with Pitt in England, with Schimmelpenninck on
behalf of Holland, not always without success, before returning to the
United States and running the steamer _Clermont_ at five miles an hour
on the Hudson.
At the end of 1797 the enterprising American proposed to the French
Directory to construct a submarine, to be christened the _Nautilus_, or,
as he frequently spelled it, the _Nautulus_. So great was his faith in
the project for “A Machine which flatters me with much hope of being
Able to Annihilate” the British Navy, that he was willing to be
remunerated by results, viz., 4000 francs per gun for every ship of
forty guns and upward that he destroyed, and half that amount per gun
for smaller vessels. All captures were to become the property of “the
_Nautulus_ Company.” A little chary of being caught red-handed by the
enemy and dealt with as a pirate, he asked that he might be given a
commission in the Service, which would ensure for him and his crew the
treatment of belligerents. Pléville le Pelley, Minister of Marine,
deeming that such warfare was “atrocious,” and yet not altogether
unkindly disposed toward it, refused the latter request, which would
obviously give the submarine official sanction. The proposed payment by
results he reduced by fifty per cent. All the arrangements were
subsequently cancelled.
Nothing further was done until July 1798, when Bruix was Minister of
Marine. Fulton renewed his proposition, and certain inquiries by
scientists of repute were made at the instigation of Bruix. The report
was distinctly favourable, but again there was disagreement as to terms.
Fulton, impatient of delay, built the _Nautilus_. This little vessel,
twenty feet long and five feet beam, was launched at Rouen in July 1800.
On the trial trip the inventor and two companions made two dives in the
boat, the time of submersion varying from eight minutes to seventeen
minutes. Proceeding to Havre, Fulton made various improvements in the
_Nautilus_, including the introduction of a screw propeller worked by
hand, and the addition of wings placed horizontally in the bows for the
purpose of ascending or descending. While at Havre the submarine
remained below over an hour at a depth of fifteen feet with her crew and
a lighted candle. On another occasion the _Nautilus_ was submerged for
six hours, air being supplied by means of a little tube projecting above
the water.
For sailing on the surface the boat was fitted with a single jury-mast
carrying a mainsail jib, which could be unshipped when submarine
navigation was required. By admitting water she sank to the required
depth, and was then propelled by the method already referred to. A glass
dome, a compass, a pump for expelling the water when necessary, and a
gauge for testing depth, which Fulton called a bathometer, constituted
the ‘works.’ The torpedo was an apparatus made of copper filled with
gunpowder, “arranged in such a manner that if it strikes a vessel or the
vessel runs against it, the explosion will take place and the bottom of
the vessel be blown in or so shattered as to ensure her destruction.”[3]
The weapon was to be fixed to the bottom of the victim by means of a
barbed point on the chain used for towing it.
Fulton approached Napoleon, who authorized Forfait, the latest Minister
of Marine, to advance the sum of 10,000 francs for the purpose of
perfecting the _Nautilus_. He also granted Fulton an interview. When, in
the autumn of 1801, he expressed a wish to see the submarine, the vessel
had been broken up. Here the matter ended, and the ingenious American
turned his thoughts in the direction of steam navigation. The _Nautilus_
was his one and only experiment in underwater craft.[4]
The first ship to be actually sunk during hostilities by submarine was
the Federal 13–gun frigate _Housatonic_, of 1264 tons. She went down off
Charleston on the 17th February, 1864, during the American Civil War, as
the result of being attacked by a spar-torpedo carried by the
Confederate submarine _Hunley_, so named after her designer, Captain
Horace L. Hunley. Unfortunately the underwater boat was also a victim,
and she carried with her her fourth crew to meet with death as a
consequence of misadventure. On the first occasion the boat was swamped
and eight men were drowned, on the second a similar disaster overtook
her, with the loss of six of her crew, on the third she descended and
failed to come up. Small wonder that the _Hunley_ came to be known as
‘the Peripatetic Coffin.’
The shape of the _Hunley_ was cylindrical. For’ard and aft were water
ballast tanks operated by valves, and additional stability was given by
a sort of false keel consisting of pieces of cast iron bolted inside so
as to be easily detachable should it be necessary to reach the surface
quickly. On each side of the propeller, worked by the hand-power of
eight men, were two iron blades which could be moved so as to change the
depth of the vessel. The pilot steered from a position near the fore
hatchway.
The torpedo, a copper cylinder containing explosive and percussion and
primer mechanism, was fired by triggers. It was carried on a boom,
twenty-two feet long, attached to the bow. The speed was seldom more
than four miles an hour on a calm day. As there was no means of
replenishing the air other than by coming to the surface and lifting one
of the hatchways, it was obviously a fair-weather ship.
On the afternoon of the 17th February, 1864, the _Hunley_ set out on her
final trip. While attacking the submarine was only partly submerged, and
one of the hatches was uncovered; why will never be known. She made
straight toward the _Housatonic_, with the evident intention of striking
the vessel near the magazines with her torpedo. There was an explosion,
the ship heeled to port, and went down by the stern. When divers
examined the extent of her injuries the plucky little _Hunley_ was found
with her nose buried in the gaping wound in her victim’s hull. Her crew
were dead, but apparently the officer was saved.
Other submarines or partly submersible boats were used by the defenders
of the Southern cause. They were usually termed ‘Davids’ because they
were built to sink the Goliaths of the Federal Navy. The _New
Ironsides_, the _Minnesota_, and the _Memphis_ were all damaged as a
result of their operations.
The only weapon of the submerged submarine is the torpedo. The World War
brought no surprise in this direction. For surface work the calibre of
the guns mounted on the disappearing platforms has increased very
considerably. In 1914 a 14–pdr. was considered ample armament. With
added displacement, gun-power has grown enormously. Some German
underwater craft in 1918 carried 5.9–in. guns—that is to say, weapons
larger than those used by many destroyers.
During the past decade torpedoes and submarines have made almost
parallel progress. Of the various types of the former, the Whitehead is
first favourite in the Navies of Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and
Austria-Hungary, while France uses both the Whitehead and the Schneider,
and Germany was exclusively devoted to the Schwartzkopf (Blackhead). The
extreme effective range of each may be taken as from 10,000 to 12,000
yards. The essential difference between a torpedo and the usual run of
naval ammunition for guns is that the torpedo retains its propellant,
while the shell does not. The torpedo is really an explosive submarine
mine forced through the water at a rate varying from 28 knots to 42
knots by twin-screws worked by compressed air engines. Any deviation
from the course is automatically corrected by a gyroscope. Some
torpedoes are now fitted with an apparatus which causes the torpedo to
go in circles should it miss its mark and meet with the wash of passing
ships. There is the added possibility, therefore, that the weapon may
strike a vessel at which it was not aimed when a squadron is proceeding
in line ahead.
To a certain extent the submarine has enabled the torpedo to come into
its own. It is not at all an easy task to hit a rapidly moving ship from
a platform also ploughing the water at a great rate. Among other things
the speed and distance of the opponent have to be taken into
consideration, and the missile aimed ahead of the enemy so that it and
the target shall arrive at a given point at the same moment. The late Mr
Robert Whitehead’s invention, an improvement on that of Commandant
Lupuis, of the Austrian Navy, who had sold his patent to the former, was
tested by the British Admiralty at Sheerness in 1871. Although extremely
crude when compared with its successor of to-day, the sum of £15,000 was
paid for the English rights. It was first put to a practical test in the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877, when Lieutenant Rozhdestvensky, who afterward
suffered defeat at the hands of the Japanese in May 1905, sank a Turkish
warship by its means.
Viscount Jellicoe has told us that the arrival of the submarine led to
certain alterations in strategy. I quote from an interview which the
former First Sea Lord granted to a representative of the Associated
Press in the spring of 1917. Sir John, as he then was, said: “The most
striking feature of the change in our historic naval policy resulting
from the illegal use of submarines, and from the fact that the enemy
surface ships have been driven from the sea, is that we have been
compelled to abandon a definite offensive policy for one which may be
called an offensive defensive, since our only active enemy is the
submarine engaged in piracy and murder.” Mr Winston Churchill, First
Lord of the Admiralty in August 1914, put the matter a little more
bluntly. “But for the submarine and the mine.” he wrote, “the British
Navy would, at the outset of the war, have been able to force the
fighting to an issue on their old battleground—outside the enemy’s
ports.”
This did not mean that every other type of ship had been rendered
obsolete or even obsolescent by the coming of the vessel that can float
on or under the waves. Admiral von Capelle, Secretary of State for the
German Imperial Navy, told the Main Committee of the Reichstag that the
submarine was an “important and effective weapon,” but added that “big
battleships are not wholly indispensable. Their construction depends on
the procedure of other nations.”[5] For instance, the submarine has
emphasized the importance of the torpedo-boat destroyer, which some
seamen thought it would supersede. The T.B.D. has more than maintained
its own. Not only is it useful for acting independently, fighting its
own breed, but as the safeguard of the battleships and battle-cruisers
at sea, and also as the keenest weapon against submarines, the naval
maid-of-all-work has proved extraordinarily efficient.[6]
In the general operations of naval warfare it cannot be said that the
enemy U-boats were particularly successful. In the five battles that
were fought the work of German submarines was negligible so far as
actual fighting was concerned. In two of them, namely Coronel and the
Falklands, they were unrepresented on account of the actions taking
place many thousands of miles from European waters. This limitation of
range of action is a difficulty that time and experiment were beginning
to solve when hostilities came to an abrupt conclusion.
The battles of Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank are profoundly
interesting to the student of War in the Underseas. Sir David Beatty,
who commanded the Battle Cruiser Squadron in the first big naval
engagement in which submarines were used, while admitting that he did
not lose sight of “the risk” from them, says in his dispatch that “our
high speed ... made submarine attack difficult, and the smoothness of
the sea made their detection comparatively easy.” These two antidotes
will be noted by the reader. The same distinguished officer, perched on
the fore-bridge of the _Lion_ in his shirt-sleeves while pursuing the
German Fleet near the Dogger Bank, personally observed the wash of a
periscope on his starboard bow. By turning immediately to port he
entirely upset the calculations of the enemy commander, who was not
afforded a further opportunity to torpedo the flagship. A like manœuvre
defeated a similar projected attack on the _Queen Mary_ in the Bight.
The helm is therefore a third instrument of defence. Apparently the
service rendered by enemy U-boats at these two battles was worthless. If
they fired at all they missed. On the other hand, any attempt to sink
them likewise failed.
In the dispatches on the Battle of Jutland, which a well-known Admiral
tells me were severely edited before publication, there are several
references to enemy submarines, none to our own. The first attempted
attack took place about half an hour after Sir David Beatty had opened
fire, and immediately following the entry of the 5th Battle Squadron
into the fight. The destroyer _Landrail_ sighted a periscope on her port
quarter. With the _Lydiard_ she formed a smoke-screen which “undoubtedly
preserved the battle-cruisers from closer submarine attack.” The light
cruiser _Nottingham_ also reported a submarine to starboard. We are also
informed that “_Fearless_ and the 1st Flotilla were very usefully
employed as a submarine screen during the earlier part of May 31.” The
_Marlborough_, flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney’s First Battle
Squadron, after having been torpedoed—whether by submarine or other
craft is not mentioned—drove off a U-boat attack while proceeding to
harbour for repairs. “The British Fleet,” adds Sir John Jellicoe,
“remained in the proximity of the battlefield and near the line of
approach to German ports until 11 a.m. on June 1, in spite of the
disadvantages of long distances from fleet bases and the danger incurred
in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and torpedo craft.”
In the British list of enemy vessels put out of action, one submarine
figures as sunk.
Admiral Beatty justly remarks that the German losses were “eloquent
testimony to the very high standard of gunnery and torpedo efficiency of
His Majesty’s ships.” Of the twenty-one vessels lost or severely
damaged, it would appear as though nine were accounted for by torpedoes,
although this does not necessarily mean that they had not been engaged
by gunfire as well. At Dogger Bank, it may be recollected, a torpedo
finally settled the _Blücher_, which had already been rendered _hors de
combat_ by shell fired from more old-fashioned weapons.
The German High Sea Fleet adopted a prolonged attitude of caution after
Jutland, but the All-Highest thought it well to issue an Imperial Order
calculated to inspire the officers and men of the submarine flotillas.
“The impending decisive battle” mentioned in the following message,
which is dated Main Headquarters, 1st February, 1917, evidently refers
to the ‘unlimited’ phase of U-boat warfare and not to a general action,
as one might imagine at first glance. This highly interesting document
runs:
TO MY NAVY
In the impending decisive battle the task falls on my Navy of
turning the English war method of starvation, with which our most
hated and most obstinate enemy intends to overthrow the German
people, against him and his Allies by combating their sea traffic
with all the means in our power.
In this work the submarine will stand in the first rank. I expect
that this weapon, technically developed with wise foresight at our
admirable yards, in co-operation with all our other naval fighting
weapons, and supported by the spirit which during the whole course
of the war has enabled us to perform brilliant deeds, will break our
enemy’s war designs.
WILHELM
The defensive policy of the Imperial Navy was summed up by a writer in
the _Deutsche Tageszeitung_ seven months after the publication of the
above. “Above all else,” he wrote, “the German High Sea Fleet has
rendered possible the conduct of the submarine war. Without it the enemy
would have threatened our submarine bases and restricted our submarine
warfare, or made it impossible.” It was not a valorous _rôle_ to play,
but there was wisdom in it.
The submarine campaign passed through several phases. In its earliest
stages it was mainly directed by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, the
predominant personality associated with the growth of the Imperial Navy.
In December 1914 this Bluebeard of the Seas asserted that as England
wished to starve Germany, “we might play the same game and encircle
England, torpedoing every British ship, every ship belonging to the
Allies that approached any British or Scottish port, and thereby cut off
the greater part of England’s food supply.” The ‘game’ was started on
the 18th February, 1915, and enthusiastically applauded throughout the
German Empire. All the waters surrounding the United Kingdom, and “all
English seas,” were declared to be a war area. Every vessel of the
British Mercantile Marine was to be destroyed, “and it will not always
be possible to avoid danger to the crews and passengers thereon.”[7]
Peaceful shipping was warned that there was a possibility of neutrals
being “confused with ships serving warlike purposes” if they ventured
within the danger zone. Great Britain had declared the North Sea a
military area in November 1914, and every care was taken to respect the
rights of neutral shipping. The enemy, on the contrary, speedily showed
utter disregard of international law. The submarine programme was
started before the day advertised for the opening performance.
The sinking of the _Lusitania_ on the 7th May, 1915, with the loss of
1225 lives, showed in no uncertain way that the Germans intended nothing
less than an orgy of cold-blooded devilry. In the following month the
always strident German Navy League stated that the fleet which it had
done so much to bring into being “was not in a position to break the
endless chain of transports carrying munitions in such a manner as
blockade regulations had hitherto required.” To search ships was “in
most cases impossible.” In the same manifesto the sinking of the giant
Cunarder was ‘explained’ by arguing that as submarines had no means to
compel vessels to stop, and there was ammunition on board, sinking
without warning was justified. “Such must continue to be the case, and
the Army has a just claim to this service of the Fleet.”
As a protest against armed traders, the campaign was intensified on the
1st March, 1916. These ships were “not entitled to be regarded as
peaceful merchantmen.” The plain English of the move was that Germany
wanted some kind of excuse for ordering her submarines to sink vessels
at sight. According to her, none other than naval ships had the least
excuse to assume so much as the defensive. In President Wilson’s
so-called _Sussex_ note of the 18th April, 1916, attention is called to
the “relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce
by the use of submarines without regard to what the Government of the
United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of
international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity.”
The third phase was that of “unlimited submarine war,” announced on the
last day of January 1917. “Within the barred zones around Great Britain,
France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean, all sea traffic will
henceforth be oppressed by all means.” Neutral ships in those areas
would traverse the waters “at their own risk.” To a large extent they
had done so before. Notwithstanding repeated ‘regrets’ and pledges given
by Germany to the United States, murder on the high seas was now to be
an acknowledged weapon of German warfare. It culminated in a declaration
of war on the part of the United States on the 6th April, 1917, by which
time over 230 Americans had lost their lives by the enemy’s illegal
measures. The date is worth remembering; it will loom big in the history
books of to-morrow. Zimmermann, Germany’s Minister for Foreign Affairs,
had already expressed the opinion that ruthless submarine warfare
promised “to compel England to make peace in a few months.”[8] In this
expectation, as in several others, he miscalculated.
The Lord Chancellor declared that submarine warfare, as carried on by
the enemy, was absolutely illegal by international law, and was mere
piracy.[9] As to mines, which were also greatly favoured by the Huns and
sown by their U-boats, it may be mentioned that such weapons laid to
maintain a general commercial blockade are equally illegal, although
perfectly legitimate outside naval bases. This was a small matter to the
Kaiser and his satellites, who were out to win at any and all costs. No
British mines were placed in position until many weeks after the
declaration of hostilities, although the enemy had scattered them
indiscriminately in the trade routes either before or immediately
following the outbreak of war. When we resorted to the use of mines they
were anchored in all cases, and constructed to become harmless if they
broke loose.
The reply of England and of France to these measures was to stop
supplies from entering Germany by means of a blockade controlled by
cruiser cordon. “The law and custom of nations in regard to attacks on
commerce,” to quote the British Declaration to Neutral Governments,[10]
“have always presumed that the first duty of the captor of a merchant
vessel is to bring it before a Prize Court, where it may be tried, where
the regularity of the capture may be challenged, and where neutrals may
recover their cargoes.” With delicate consideration for the convenience
of neutrals, which some folk held to be wisdom and others lunacy, the
British Government declared their intention “to refrain altogether from
the exercise of the right to confiscate ships or cargoes which
belligerents have always claimed in respect of breaches of blockade.
They restrict their claim to the stopping of cargoes destined for or
coming from the enemy’s territory.”[11]
Much ado was made about the stoppage of food for the civil population of
the Central Empires. It was barbarous, inhuman, and so on. Yet the
principle had been upheld by both Bismarck and Caprivi, and practised at
the siege of Paris. As Sir Edward Grey delightfully put it, this method
of bringing pressure to bear on an enemy country “therefore presumably
is not repugnant to German morality.”[12]
A great deal has been said and written to show that the Prussian
Government was not the German People, that instead of Representation
there was Misrepresentation. It is still extremely difficult to secure
reliable information on any subject connected with intimate Germany, and
the contemporary views of so-called neutrals are often more than
suspect. A study of German newspapers at the time certainly led one to
believe that opposition to the submarine campaign had been more or less
negligible. A change of view only came when the people realized that
ruthlessness did not pay, and it was the business of the British Navy to
demonstrate this—as it did. Meantime the German official accounts of
sinkings were grossly exaggerated, and the nation had no means of
discovering the loss of submarines other than when relatives serving in
them failed to return to their families. There was no one to contradict
the grossly exaggerated statement made by Dr Helfferich, Minister for
the Interior, that in the first two months of unrestricted U-boat
warfare over 1,600,000 tons of shipping had been sunk at the cost of the
loss of a mere half-dozen submarines.[13]
Dr Michaelis, a more noisy sabre-rattler than his predecessor in the
Chancellorship, asserted that “the submarine warfare is accomplishing
all, and more than all, that was expected of it.”[14] Like many other of
his countrymen, to him the crews of the Imperial Pirate Service were
more of the nature of soldiers than of sailors. Certainly their callous
behaviour suggested that they were strangers to the proverbial
comradeship of the sea, and one with the glorious band that hacked a way
through Belgium, drove their bayonets through babies, and crucified
their prisoners. Loud cheers followed the remark that “We can look
forward to the further labours of our brave submarine warriors with
complete confidence,” and also to a reference to greetings sent home to
the Fatherland by “our troops on all fronts on land and sea, in the air
and under the sea.”
As to the thoroughness with which commanders of U-boats performed their
task, there is no need to speak. There is plentiful evidence to prove
that so elementary a duty as that of examining a ship’s papers seldom
interested them. They had no respect for law or life. Witness a case[15]
that has a direct bearing on this matter. It arose in connexion with the
salving of the s.s. _Ambon_, a neutral vessel bound for the Dutch East
Indies, after having been torpedoed on the 21st February, 1916, when
about seven miles off Start Point. A shell was fired from an enemy
submarine. Immediately the engines of the steamship were stopped, a
lifeboat was lowered, and the chief engineer sent off with the ship’s
papers and instructions. The latter included a copy of a telegram from
the owners advising that the steamer was to call at a certain port on a
specified day, in accordance with an agreement between the Dutch and
German Governments. The German commander did not so much as look at the
documents, and peremptorily told the crew to leave the _Ambon_. “My
orders admit of no variation,” he remarked. They were “to sink every
ship in the blockade area.” The steamer was then torpedoed, but did not
founder, and was subsequently towed into Plymouth.
[Illustration:
Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
A U-boat gliding, submerged, over her victim.
Montague Black
]
No reliance whatever could be placed on Germany’s word, as neutrals
early discovered to their cost. Having provided a so-called ‘safe’ zone,
the Dutch steamer _Amsterdam_ was torpedoed within it. At Germany’s own
suggestion, an International Committee, composed of Dutch, Swedish, and
German naval officers, was formed to investigate the circumstances.
Their finding was that the vessel had been sunk in the ‘safe’ zone.
There was a time when the French authorities seemed to be in favour of
the submarine above all other types of naval ships. The result was that
France lost her position in the race for second place in the world’s
fleets, though it is to her credit that in 1888 she launched the
_Gymnote_, the first modern submarine to be commissioned. Nordenfeldt,
of gun fame, had already achieved a certain amount of success with
steam-driven underwater boats, but they had many disadvantages when
compared with those of Mr John P. Holland, who hailed from the same
country as Fulton. The first submarines built for the British Government
were of the Holland type, of 120 tons displacement when submerged, and
having a speed of five knots when travelling below. Germany’s pioneer
U-boat was built in 1890. In 1918 she boasted giant diving cruisers of
5000 tons, with a radius of action of 8000 miles, and mounting 5.9–in.
guns.
As to the vexed question of the number of submarines possessed by Great
Britain and Germany respectively at the beginning of the war, one can
only say that authorities differ. According to an interview granted by
Mr Winston Churchill to M. Hugues le Roux which appeared in _Le Matin_
in the first week of February 1915, we then had more underwater boats
than the enemy, but Lord Jellicoe afterward asserted that in August 1914
“the German Navy possessed a great many more oversea submarines than we
did.”[16] Unless there is a subtle distinction between the general term
used by the then First Lord and the oversea type referred to by the
former Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, it is impossible to
reconcile the two statements, for it is obvious that the leeway
mentioned by the latter cannot have been made up in five months.
According to the Berlin official naval annual _Nautilus_, published in
June 1914, the total number of completed German submarines up to the
previous month was twenty-eight. Commander Carlyon Bellairs, R.N., M.P.,
estimated them at “fifty built, building, and projected.” Austria had
six ready, four under construction at Pola, and five on the stocks in
Germany. In the five years immediately preceding the beginning of the
struggle Germany certainly spent more on underwater craft than Great
Britain, the figure for the former being £5,354,206, and for the latter
£4,159,670.