THE HELIGOLAND AFFAIR
Towards the end of August, 1914, the submarines under Commodore Roger
Keyes discovered a _rôle_ of quite unexpected utility. Their immediate
function had been to watch the approaches to the Channel, so as to stop
any attempt by the German Fleet to interfere with the transport of the
Expeditionary Force into France. In doing this, they found that they
had exceptional opportunities for observing the enemy’s destroyers
and light craft, and, as soon as the safety of the transports seemed
assured, they constituted themselves the most efficient scouts
possible. They soon found themselves in possession of an extensive
knowledge of the habits of the Germans. It was this knowledge that led
to the decision to sweep the North Sea up to Heligoland and cut off as
many of the enemy’s light craft, destroyers, and submarines as possible.
The expedition included almost every form of fast ship at the
Commander-in-Chief’s disposal. First the submarines were told off
to certain stations, presumably to be in a position to attack any
reinforcements which might be sent out from Wilhelmshaven or Cuxhaven.
Then, in the very earliest hours of the morning, the two light cruisers
_Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ led a couple of flotillas of destroyers into
the field of operations. The _Arethusa_ flew the broad pennant of
Commodore Tyrwhitt. The _Fearless_ was commanded by Captain Blount.
The two flotillas, with their cruiser leaders, swept round towards
Heligoland in an attempt to cut off the German cruisers and destroyers
and drive them, if possible, to the westward. Some miles out to the
west, Rear-Admiral Christian had the squadron of six cruisers of the
_Euryalus_ and _Bacchante_ classes ready to intercept the chase.
Commodore Goodenough, with a squadron of light cruisers, attended
Vice-Admiral Beatty, with the battle-cruisers, at a prearranged
rendezvous, ready to cut in to the rescue if there was any chance of
_Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ being overpowered.
The expedition obviously involved very great risks. It took place
within a very few miles of bases in which the whole German Fleet of
battleships and battle-cruisers was lying. It was plainly possible that
the attempt to cut the German light cruisers off might end in luring
out the whole Fleet, and one of the conditions contemplated was that
Admiral Beatty, instead of administering the quietus to such German
cruisers as survived the attentions of the two Commodores, might find
himself condemned to a rearguard action with a squadron of German
battleships. That he took this risk cheerfully, well understanding the
kind of criticism that would meet him, if in the course of such an
action he lost any of his ships, was the first indication we got of the
fine fighting temper of this Admiral.
_Arethusa_, _Fearless_, and the destroyers found themselves in action
soon after seven o’clock with destroyers and torpedo-boats. Just
before eight o’clock two German cruisers were drawn into the affray,
and _Arethusa_ had to fight both of them till 8:15, when one of them
was drawn off into a separate action by _Fearless_, which in the
ensuing fight became separated from the flagship. By 8:25 _Arethusa_
had wrecked the forebridge of one opponent with a 6-inch projectile,
and _Fearless_ had driven off the other. Both were in full flight for
Heligoland, which was now in sight. Commodore Tyrwhitt drew off his
flotillas westward. He had suffered heavily in the fight. Of his whole
battery only one 6-inch gun remained in action, while all the torpedo
tubes were temporarily disabled. Lieutenant Westmacott, a gallant
and distinguished young officer, had been killed at the Commodore’s
side. The ship had caught fire, and injuries had been received in the
engines. _Fearless_ seems now to have rejoined, and reported that the
German destroyer Commodore’s flagship had been sunk. By ten o’clock
Commodore Roger Keyes, in the _Lurcher_, had got into action with the
German light cruisers and signalled to the _Arethusa_ for help. Both
British cruisers then went to his assistance, but did not succeed in
finding him. All _Arethusa’s_ guns except two had meantime been got
back to working order.
At eleven o’clock _Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ engaged their third enemy,
this time a four-funnelled cruiser. _Arethusa_, it must be remembered,
still had two guns out of action. The Commodore therefore ordered
a torpedo attack, whereupon the enemy at once retreated, but ten
minutes later he reappeared, when he was engaged once more with guns
and torpedoes, but no torpedo hit. The Commodore notes an interesting
feature of this cruiser’s fire: “We received a very severe and most
accurate fire from this cruiser. Salvo after salvo was falling between
twenty and thirty yards short, but _not a single shell_ struck.” We
shall find this happened several times in the different engagements.
The Commodore continues: “Two torpedoes were also fired at us, being
well directed but short.”
[Illustration: The action off Heligoland up to the intervention of
Commodore Goodenough’s Light Cruiser Squadron]
At this point the position was reported to Admiral Beatty. This cruiser
was finally driven off by _Fearless_ and _Arethusa_, and retreated
badly damaged to Heligoland. Four minutes after, the _Mainz_ was
encountered. _Arethusa_, _Fearless_, and the destroyers engaged her
for five-and-twenty minutes, and when she was in a sinking condition
Commodore Goodenough’s squadron came on the scene and finished her off.
_Arethusa_ then got into action with a large four-funnelled cruiser at
long range, but received no hits herself, and was not able to see that
she made any.
It was now 12:15. _Fearless_ and the first flotilla had already been
ordered home by the Commodore. The intervention of the battle-cruisers
was very rapid and decisive. The four-funnelled cruiser that had been
the last to engage _Arethusa_ was soon cut off and attacked, and within
twenty minutes a second cruiser crossed the _Lion’s_ path. She was
going full speed, probably twenty-five knots, and at right angles to
_Lion_, who was steaming twenty-eight. But both _Lion’s_ salvoes took
effect, a piece of shooting which the Vice-Admiral very rightly calls
most creditable to the gunnery of his ship. The change of range must
have been 900 yards a minute. I know of no parallel to this feat,
though it must be remembered that the range was short. _Lion’s_ course
was now taking her towards known mine-fields, and the Vice-Admiral
very properly judged that the time had come to withdraw. He proceeded
to dispose of the cruiser he first attacked--which turned out to be
_Köln_--before doing so.
The expedition had been a complete success. Three German cruisers had
been sunk and one destroyer. Three other cruisers had been gravely
damaged, and many of the German destroyers had been hit also. Our
losses in men were small, and we lost no ships at all. _Arethusa_ had
perhaps suffered most, though some of the destroyers had been pretty
roughly handled. But all got safely home, and none were so injured but
that in a very few days or weeks they were fit again for service.
The affair was in every respect well conceived and brilliantly carried
out. The two essential matters were to begin by employing a force
sufficiently weak to tempt the enemy to come out, and yet not so small
nor so slow a force as to risk being overwhelmed. If something like a
general action amongst the small craft could be brought about, the plan
was to creep up with a more powerful squadron in readiness to rescue
the van, if rescue were necessary, at any rate to secure the final and
immediate destruction of as many of the enemy’s ships as possible. But
there was no squadron fighting at all. Goodenough’s light cruisers, and
Beatty’s battle-cruisers did, no doubt, keep in formation, but they
found no formed enemy. There were no obvious tactical lessons.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the business is to be found not
in what did happen, but in what did not. The German Commander-in-Chief
must have known long before eight o’clock in the morning that fighting
was going forward within five-and-twenty or thirty miles of him. He
could have got to the scene with his whole force before ten o’clock.
But beyond sending in a few more light cruisers and U-boats, he appears
to have done nothing either to rescue his own ships or to attempt to
cut off and sink ours. It is more than probable that he suspected the
trap that was indeed laid for him. But the opportunity had been given
of appearing in the North Sea in force, and the opportunity was not
taken. It seemed very clear to most observers after this that the
German Fleet would not willingly seek a general action, or even risk
a partial action in the North Sea, except under conditions entirely
of their own choosing. It seemed obvious that if such action was not
sought in the early days of the war, it certainly would not be sought
later, when the balance of naval power would be turning increasingly
against them.
The battle-cruisers in this action had some exciting adventures with
submarines. They had, for instance, to wait for some hours before the
moment came for their intervention, and while at the rendezvous they
were repeatedly attacked by them. From the Vice-Admiral’s despatch,
it would appear that this attack was frustrated partly by rapid
manœuvring, partly by sending destroyers to drive the U-boats off.
Later in the day, when the squadron was engaged in sinking _Köln_ and
_Ariadne_, it was once more attacked by submarines, and _Queen Mary_
(Captain W. R. Hall) turned his ship, not to avoid the submarine, but
its torpedo, which was seen approaching. We got very early warning,
therefore, of the truth of the prophecy that the first result of
the employment of the torpedo in fleet actions would be compulsory
movements of the attacked ships. It was a prompt reminder that if
manœuvring meant loss of artillery efficiency, that the enemy had it
in his power, by submarine and destroyer onslaughts, to extinguish our
gunfire from time to time.
Alone of the actions which have taken place in this war, the firing
was all within comparatively short range. Six thousand yards was the
limit of visibility. There are not sufficient data to judge whether
the British gunnery was greatly superior to the German. But Commodore
Tyrwhitt draws attention to a fact, already familiar to us, viz. that
a German cruiser can send salvo after salvo, all within a few yards of
the target, without securing a hit. It proved later to be a feature
common to all engagements.
[Illustration: The action off Heligoland. The course of the
battle-cruisers]
THE NORTH SEA
The engagement off Heligoland had no successor until the spring of
1916, when the attack on the island of Sylt took place. A second sweep
some days after the first was made in the same waters, but nothing of
the enemy was seen. Whether such sweeps were repeatedly made in 1915
without the public being informed, we do not know. By this I do not
imply that no incursions into German waters were made--I mean only that
we heard of none, and presumably that, if any were made, there was no
result.
But two points in this connection may be borne in mind. The affair off
Heligoland took place on August 28, 1914. After losing three cruisers
by exposing them to Sir David Beatty’s and Commodore Goodenough’s
forces, the Germans managed their affairs very differently. Perhaps
from this time on no German craft ventured into the North Sea at all,
except when the whole fleet came out in force. And they did not come
out in force very often, nor at all, except at night or when the
weather was clear enough for the fleet’s scouts, either in the form of
airships, destroyers, or cruisers, to give long warning of the presence
of danger. The two raiding expeditions and Von Hipper’s excursion of
January 28 are undertakings of a very different character.
_The Bombardments._--Whatever the explanation, there was no more
fighting in home waters for exactly five months, but the Germans made
two expeditions in force right across to the English shores. Early
in November a squadron of cruisers appeared off Yarmouth, fired at
the _Halcyon_, let off some rounds, without doing any damage, on the
town, and retreated precipitately, dropping mines as they went. A
British submarine unfortunately ran foul of one of these and was lost
with all hands at once. _Halcyon_, perhaps the smallest and least
formidable vessel that ever crept into the “Navy List”, engaged the
enemy imperturbably when they fled, losing one man from a fragment of
shell, though practically unhurt herself. Private letters speak of
salvoes falling short and over in the most disconcerting manner, and of
the ship being so drenched with water as to be in danger of foundering.
The old story of the very accurate, but ineffective, fire of the German
ships, was thus repeated. But no official or detailed information
on this subject has been given. In December a second and much more
successful raid was made. Scarborough, the Hartlepools, and Whitby
were bombarded by a squadron, whose composition was never officially
announced. The American papers have printed letters from Germany
stating that the _Von der Tann_ and _Moltke_, the _Yorck_ and the
_Bluecher_, with smaller cruisers, constituted the force. The visitors
to Hartlepool experienced the hospitality of that flourishing port in
its warmest form. The garrison artillery dealt faithfully with _Von
der Tann_, and her disappearance was credibly attributed to injuries
sustained in a collison, which damage to her steering gear, effected
by the north country gunners, had prevented her evading. The squadron
that bombarded Yarmouth made off in the thick weather. It was obvious
from the terms in which the Admiralty announced the fact that the
bombardment had taken place that it was considered quite certain that
they could not escape a second time. Unfortunately, however, they did;
but they lost the _Yorck_ by a German mine when re-entering harbour.
The details of the arrangements made for anticipating them were quite
properly kept secret, but it became known that a sudden fog explained
why these arrangements did not succeed.
Both in the case of the Yarmouth and the Scarborough raids the enemy
appeared at daylight. He had evidently crossed the North Sea during
the night. From Whitby to the mine-fields off Heligoland is about 275
miles, a distance which each of the ships employed could cover quite
comfortably in thirteen or fourteen hours. Had the squadron left
Heligoland an hour before dark it could have fetched the English coast
by daylight, hardly using more than three-quarter power. If it started
for home at 8:30 it would have nine hours of daylight before it. At
twenty-five knots 225 miles could be covered. This would bring them
within fifty or sixty miles of the minefields, and it is probable that
at some greater distance from Heligoland than this a rendezvous for
submarines and destroyers had been arranged.
These raids were doubtless planned on the theory that the
battle-cruiser fleet would be based on some point so far north that no
difference in speed between the British and German ships would enable
the former to overtake them before the mine-fields, or at least the
waiting submarines and destroyers were met. And it may well have been
hoped that an exasperated English Admiral, if he came up with them
then, would not willingly give up the hope of an engagement. It may
have seemed a very feasible operation to draw him either on to the
mines themselves or within range of the submarines. It is, it seems to
me, not difficult to reconstruct the German plan for both the Yarmouth
and the Whitby raids.
It has often been pointed out--and with perfect justice--that in
shelling open and undefended towns, and even a commercial port like
Hartlepool that did have a 6-inch gun or two to defend it, the
Germans were employing their fleet to no _immediate_ military purpose
whatever. It has been suggested that there might have been the very
excellent military object of keeping our battle-cruisers in home waters
and so securing Von Spee a free hand abroad. What has not been so
often insisted on is that had there been any military centre, fort,
or magazine worth attack, the fugitive character of the bombardments
robbed them of any probable hope of hitting it.
There have been ample experiences during this war of ships bombarding
distant objects on shore. And it is finally proved to be one of the
most difficult operations conceivable. The case of the _Koenigsberg_
was altogether exceptional. And many as were the difficulties to be
faced in that action, there was yet this favourable element present,
that the people in the aeroplanes could not possibly make any mistake
as to the target that was to be bombarded, nor from the fact that it
was a small ship lying in a considerable expanse of water could the
observers, spotting all the different rounds, fail to give to the
fire-control parties on board very accurate indications how to correct
their sights for the next round. At the Dardanelles when isolated forts
were attacked on a point on land, where one ship could lie off nearly
at right angles to the line of fire and mark the fall of shot and the
firing ship correct the fire for line, exact corrections of the same
character as at the Rufigi were made possible. But when it came to
correcting the fire by captive balloons and aircraft, when forts and
gun positions had to be picked out in the folds of the hills, and still
more where forts had to be engaged with no other corrections than the
men in the control tops of the firing ship could supply, it became
practically impossible to ensure sustained effective firing.
When, therefore, the German ships lay off Lowestoft, Hartlepool,
Whitby, and Scarborough and bombarded for half an hour or so without
any attempt to select particular targets, or if such were selected,
to adopt any scientific means of directing their fire on to them, it
became perfectly clear that their military object was about as defined
as that of midnight bombing raids with Zeppelins. One is driven to the
conclusion, therefore, that the primary object of these adventures was
mere frightfulness, and that perhaps the secondary object was to draw
the pursuing ships into some catastrophic trap.