END OF SIX MONTHS' FIGHTING IN THE WEST
There were few military movements on the French battle front during
December, 1914, along the Aisne, the Oise and in the northern Champagne.
The fighting was mostly artillery duels and skirmishes by separate
units. In the Argonne, however, the Crown Prince of Germany was active
and there, as well as along the Moselle and on the heights of the
Vosges, many engagements were fought out resulting in varying advantages
to either opponent. Both sides had been strongly intrenched and the
ground was covered by snow to great depths, making progress impossible
except upon skis and snowshoes.
On December 3, 1914, the French captured Burnhaupt, a hill east of
Muelhausen in Upper Alsace, only to give up their advantage after a
German counterattack. On December 16 the Germans attacked in the Woevre
region and in Alsace; but were repulsed the following day. On December
31, 1914, the French attacked Steinbach in Alsace, but were driven out
again.
The New Year of 1915 opened gently along the battle front in France
below Arras. The first large movement in 1915 began on January 8, at
Soissons. This city lies on both banks of the river Aisne and was in the
possession of the French. The French forces attacked during a drenching
rain, pushing up the rising ground to the north with their heavy guns,
regardless of the soft ground which rapidly turned to deep mud and
slush. They succeeded in carrying the first line of German trenches on a
front a mile wide, thus gaining the top of the hill, which gave them an
excellent position for their artillery. The next day the Germans
counterattacked, but failed to dislodge the French.
Nothing occurred on Sunday, January 10, 1915, but on Monday, about noon,
January 11, the Germans came on with great force. The delay on the part
of the Germans was due to their awaiting reenforcements then on the road
to Soissons. For four days there had been a steady downpour of rain
which had not even stopped at this time. The River Aisne was much
swollen and some of the bridges had been carried away, cutting off all
supplies for the French, who were slowly giving way but fighting
desperately.
On January 12, 1915, and on the 13th the French were driven down the
slopes in a great rush. This predicament was a terrible one--the
onrushing Germans 500 feet in front of them and the swollen river making
successful retreat impossible, with the ground between almost impassable
with mud and slush. French reserves had improvised a pontoon bridge
across the Aisne at Missy, in the rear of their now precarious position.
This bridge was just strong enough to carry the men and ammunition; but
not the heavy guns. The retreat turned into a rout--a general stampede
for the bridge and river.
The slaughter was terrible, the river swollen as it was seemed choked
with floating soldiers. The few who safely got across the bridge and
those who were successful in reaching the farther bank of the Aisne
alive, reached Soissons eventually. The German gain in prisoners and
booty was enormous and their gain in ground advanced their line a full
mile, on a front extending five miles to Missy and a little beyond. The
Germans strongly intrenched their new position without loss of time.
Farther along this front, in the neighborhood of Perthes, a less
important engagement took place. The Germans, under General von Einem,
opposed General Langle de Cary and his French forces. The results of
this engagement were negligible.
On January 18, 1915, a savage attack by the Germans was successfully
repulsed at Tracy-le-Val and on the 19th the French made an assault upon
the German position at St. Mihiel, in the Verdun section without gaining
any ground. Farther north on this section the French pressed on and
gained a little ground near the German fortress Metz; but the very
vicinity of this fortress counterbalanced this gain.
On January 21, 1915, the Germans recaptured the Le Pretre woods near St.
Mihiel, and next day the belligerents fought a fierce engagement in the
Vosges without advantage to either side. Prince Eitel, the second son
of the Kaiser, commanded an attack upon Thann in Alsace on January 25,
1915, but was repulsed by the French defenders.
On January 28, 1915, the Germans made some gains in the Vosges and in
Upper Alsace, but in their attempt to cross the River Aisne on the 29th
they were unsuccessful.
January 30, 1915, brought some successes to the Germans in the Argonne
forest, where throughout the month the most savage fighting was going on
in thick underbrush and from tree tops.
PART II--NAVAL OPERATIONS
CHAPTER XXXII
STRENGTH OF THE RIVAL NAVIES
Sea fights, sea raids, and the hourly expectation of a great naval
battle--a struggle for the control of the seas between modern
armadas--held the attention of the world during the first six months of
the Great War. These, with the adventures of the _Emden_ in the waters
of the Far East, the first naval fight off Helgoland, the fight off the
western coast of South America, the sinking of the _Lusitania_, and the
exploits of the submarines--held the world in constant expectancy and
threatened to involve neutral nations, thus causing a collapse of world
trade and dragging all the peoples of the earth into the maelstrom of
war.
This chapter will review the navies as they gather for action. It will
follow them through the tense moments on shipboard--the days of watching
and waiting like huge sea dogs tugging at the leash. Interspersed are
heroic adventures which have added new tales of valor to the epics of
the sea.
The naval history of the great European conflict begins, not with the
first of the series of declarations of war, but with the preliminary
preparations. The appointment of Admiral von Tirpitz as Secretary of
State in Germany in 1898 is the first decisive movement. It was in that
year that the first rival to England as mistress of the world's seas,
since the days of the Spanish Armada, peeped over the horizon. Two years
before the beginning of the present century, Von Tirpitz organized a
campaign, the object of which was to make Germany's navy as strong as
her military arm. A law passed at that time created the present German
fleet; supplementary laws passed in 1900 and 1906 through the Reichstag
by this former plowboy caused the German navy to be taken seriously, not
only by Germans but by the rest of the world. England, jealous of her
sea power, then began her maintenance of two ships for each one of her
rival's. Germany answered by laying more keels, till the ratio stood
three to two, instead of two to one.
Two years before the firing of the pistol shot at Sarajevo, which
precipitated the Great War, the British admiralty announced that
henceforth the British naval base in the Mediterranean would be
Gibraltar instead of Malta. Conjectures were made as to the significance
of this move; it might have meant that England had found the pace too
great and had deliberately decided to abandon her dominance of the
eastern Mediterranean; or that Gibraltar had been secretly reequipped as
a naval base. What it did mean was learned when the French Minister of
Marine announced in the following September that the entire naval
strength of France would thereafter be concentrated in the
Mediterranean. This was the first concrete action of the _entente
cordiale_--the British navy, in the event of war, was to guard the
British home waters and the northern ports of France; the French navy
was to guard the Mediterranean, protecting French ports as well as
French and British shipping from "the Gib" to the Suez.
What was the comparative strength of these naval combinations when the
war started?
From her latest superdreadnoughts down to her auxiliary ships, such as
those used for hospital purposes, oil carrying and repairing, England
had a total of 674 vessels. Without consideration of ages and types this
total means nothing, and it is therefore necessary to examine her naval
strength in detail. She had nine battleships of 14,000 tons displacement
each, built between 1895 and 1898--the _Magnificent_, _Majestic_,
_Prince George_, _Jupiter_, _Caesar_, _Mars_, _Illustrious_, _Hannibal_,
and _Victorious_--with engines developing 12,000 horsepower that sent
them through the water at 17.5 knots, protected with from nine to
fourteen inches of armor, and prepared to inflict damage on an enemy
with torpedoes shot from under and above the water, and with four
12-inch guns, twelve 6-inch guns, sixteen 3-inch guns, and twenty guns
of smaller caliber but of quicker firing possibilities.
Her next class was that of the _Canopus_--the _Goliath_, _Vengeance_,
_Ocean_, _Albion_, and _Glory_--2,000 tons lighter than the first class
named above, but more modern in equipment and construction, having been
built between the years 1900 and 1902. Their motive power was heavier,
being 13,500 horsepower, and their speed was almost a knot faster.
Increase in the power of naval guns had made unnecessary any increase in
the thickness of their armor, and consequently ranged from 6 to 12
inches in thickness. Their armament was about the same as that of the
older class, but each carried two more torpedo tubes.
[Illustration: Map of German and English Naval positions.]
Discussion in naval circles throughout the world turned then to the
question of whether it were better to build heavier ships with heavier
armament, or to build lighter and faster ships designed to "hit and get
away." The British authorities inclined toward the former view, and
between 1901 and 1904 the British navy was augmented with the
_Implacable_, _London_, _Bulwark_, _Formidable_, _Venerable_, _Queen_,
_Irresistible_, and _Prince of Wales_--each of the heretofore unheard-of
displacement of 15,000 tons. In spite of their size they were
comparatively fast, having an average speed of 18 knots; they did not
need, and were not equipped with heavier armor, having plates as thin as
3 inches and as thick as 12. They were built to "take punishment," and
therefore they had no greater armament than the vessels previously
named. The naval program of 1908 and 1904 also included the _Duncan_,
_Albemarle_, _Russell_, _Cornwallis_, and _Exmouth_, each 1,000 tons
lighter than the ships of the _Implacable_ type, but with the same
equipment, defensive and offensive, and of the same speed. And in the
same program, as if to offset the argument for heavier and stronger
ships, there were included the lighter and faster ships, _Swiftsure_ and
_Triumph_, displacing only 11,500 tons, but making 19 knots. Their speed
permitted and necessitated lighter armor--10 inches through at the
thickest points--and their armament was also of a lighter type, for
their four largest guns were capable of firing 10-inch shells.
Germany was becoming a naval rival worthy of notice, and the insular
position of England came to be a matter of serious concern by 1906.
Britain has never considered the building of land forts for her
protection--her strength has always been concentrated in floating war
machines. She now began to build veritable floating forts, ships of
16,350 tons displacement. By the end of 1906 she had ready to give
battle eight ships of this class, the _King Edward VII_, _Commonwealth_,
_Dominion_, _Hindustan_, _Africa_, _Hibernia_, _Zealandia_, and
_Britannia_. Speed was not sacrificed to weight, for they were given a
speed of 18.5 knots, developed by engines of 18,000 horsepower. Their
thinnest armor measured 6 inches, and their heavy guns were protected
with plates 12 inches thick. The 12-inch gun was still the heaviest
piece of armament in the British navy, and these eight ships each
carried four of that measurement, as well as four 9.2-inch guns, ten
6-inch guns, fourteen rapid-fire guns of 3 inches, two machine guns, and
four torpedo tubes.
Now that it was seen that ships of enormous displacement could also be
swift, England committed herself to the building of ships of even
greater size. In 1907 came the first of the modern dreadnoughts,
so-called from the name which was given to the original ship of 17,900
tons displacement. The _Dreadnought_ made the marvelous speed (for a
ship of that size) of 21 knots, which she was enabled to do with turbine
engines of 23,000 horsepower. Her armor measured from 8 to 11 inches in
thickness, and her great size enabled her to carry as high as ten
12-inch guns. Her minor batteries were strong in proportion.
Then, as if taking her breath after a stupendous effort, England in the
following year built two ships of 16,000 tons displacement, the _Lord
Nelson_ and the _Agamemnon_, with speed, armor, and armament much lower
than those of the _Dreadnought_. But having taken a rest, Britain was
again to make a great effort, launching in 1909 the _Temeraire_,
_Superb_, and _Bellerophon_, monsters displacing 18,600 tons. With
engines of 23,000 horsepower that could drive them through the seas at
21 knots, ready to ward off blows with armor from 8 to 11 inches thick,
firing at the same time volleys from ten 12-inch guns down to sixteen
4-inch rapid firers.
Naval architecture had now taken a definite turn, the principal feature
of which was the tremendous size of the destructive floating machines.
England, a leader in this sort of building, in 1910 built the
_Vanguard_, _Collingwood_, and _St. Vincent_, each displacing 19,250
tons. Nor were they lacking in speed, for they made, on an average, 21
knots. The 20,000-ton battleship was then a matter of months only, and
it came in the following year, when the _Colossus_, _Hercules_, and
_Neptune_ were launched. It was only in the matter of displacement that
these three ships showed any difference from those of the _Vanguard_
class; there were no great innovations either in armament or armor. But
in the same year, 1911, there were launched the _Thunderer_, _Monarch_,
_Orion_, and _Conqueror_, each of 22,500 tons, and equipped with armor
from 8 to 12 inches thick, for the days of 3-inch armor on first-class
warships had gone forever. These had a speed of 21 knots, and were the
first British ships to have anything greater than a 12-inch gun. They
carried as a primary battery ten 13.5-inch guns, and sixteen 4-inch
guns, along with six more of small caliber as their secondary battery.
In 1912 and 1913 there was only one type of warship launched having
23,000 tons displacement with 31,000 horsepower, a half a knot faster
than previous dreadnoughts, and carrying, like the previous class, ten
13.5-inch guns, along with some of smaller caliber. The ships of this
class were the _King George V_, _Ajax_, _Audacious_, and _Centurion_.
The year 1914 saw even more terrible machines of death launched. Two
types were put into the water, the first that of the _Iron Duke_ class,
of which the other members were the _Benbow_, _Emperor of India_, and
_Marlborough_. They showed great improvement in every point; their speed
was 22.5 knots, their displacement 25,000 tons, and their torpedo tubes
five. Like their immediate predecessors, they carried a primary battery
of ten 13.5-inch guns, along with the smaller ones, and their armor
measured from 8 to 12 inches in thickness. The second type of the year
was that of the _Queen Elizabeth_ and _Warspite_ class. They surpassed
all the warships when they were built. Their speed for their size was
the greatest--25 knots. They had the largest displacement among
warships--27,500 tons; they had the thickest armor, ranging from 8 to
13.5 inches; they had the most improved form of engines--oil burners,
developing 58,000 horsepower; and most marvelous of all was their
primary battery, which consisted of eight 15-inch guns. The largest gun
yet made had been the 16-inch gun, for use in permanent position in land
forts, and, with the German army, for a mobile force. It now was shown
that the modern warship could carry a gun as heavy as any on land. There
were in the course of construction when the war broke out eight more
such monsters, the _Malaya, Valiant_, and _Barham_, sister ships of the
_Queen Elizabeth_, and the _Royal Oak_, _Resolution_, _Royal Monarch_,
_Ramillies_, and _Renown_, each of 29,000 tons displacement, but having
the same armament as the _Queen Elizabeth_. All of these were hastened
to completion as soon as war was declared.
At the time of the declaration of war England had, in addition to these
greatest ships, a number of supporting ships such as the ten battle
cruisers, _Indomitable_, _Invincible_, _Indefatigable_, _Inflexible_,
_Australia_, _New Zealand_, _Queen Mary_, _Princess Royal_, _Lion_, and
the _Tiger_. Their displacements ranged from 17,250 to 28,000 tons, and
their speeds from 25 to 30 knots, the last being that of the _Tiger_.
Their speed is their greatest feature, for their armament and batteries
are much lighter than those of the first-line ships.
Next, there were ready thirty-four high-speed cruisers of quite light
armament and armor. There were six of the _Cressy_ type, four of the
_Drake_ type, nine of the same type as the _Kent_, six of the same class
as the _Antrim_, six like the _Black Prince_, three of the same class as
the _Shannon_, together with seventeen heavily protected cruisers, of
which the _Edgar_ was the prototype. The rest of the British navy needs
no detailed consideration. It consisted at the outbreak of the war of 70
protected light cruisers, 134 destroyers, and a number of merchant ships
convertible into war vessels, together with submarines and other small
ships.
The navy of France stood fourth in the list of those of the world powers
at the time the war started. There were eighteen old vessels, built
between 1894 and 1909, including the _Carnot_ class (corresponding to
the British ship _Magnificent_), the _Charlemagne_, _Bouvet_, _Suffren_,
_Republique_, and _Democratie_ classes. The most modern of these types
displaced no more than 14,000 tons, made no more than 18 knots, and
carried primary batteries of 12-inch guns.
Some improvement was made in the six ships of the _Danton_ class which
were built in 1911 and 1912. They displaced 18,000 tons, had armor from
9 to 12 inches thick and carried guns of 12-inch caliber. They
correspond to the British ship _Temeraire_. In 1913 and 1914 were
launched the _Jean Bart_, _Courbet_, _Paris_, and _France_ of the
dreadnought type, but much slower and not so heavily armed as the
British ships of the same class. In eight ships which were incomplete
when war was declared the matter of speed received greater attention,
and they are consequently faster than the older vessels of the same
type. It is in the nineteen French armored cruisers--France has no
battle cruisers--that the French showed better efforts as builders of
speedy ships, for they made 23 knots or more. In the list of French
fighting ships there are in addition two protected cruisers, the
_D'Entrecasteaux_ and the _Guichen_, together with ten light cruisers.
But the French "mosquito fleet," consisting of destroyers, torpedo boats
and submarines, is comparatively large. Of these she had 84, 135, and
78, respectively.
After the Russo-Japanese War the battle fleets of Russia were entirely
dissipated, so that when the present conflict came she had no ships
which might have been accounted worthy aids to the navies of England and
France. In so far as is known, her heaviest ships were the _Andrei
Pervozvannyi_ and the _Imperator Pavel I_, each displacing only 17,200
tons, and of the design of 1911.
Against these fighting naval forces of the allied powers were ranged the
navies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The former had, at the outbreak
of hostilities, 36 battleships, 5 battle cruisers, 9 armored cruisers,
and 48 cruisers. Instead of giving attention to torpedo boats she gave
it to destroyers, of which she had 130. And of submarines she had 27.
In detail her naval forces consisted, first, of the _Kaiser Friedrich
III_, _Kaiser Karl der Grosse_, _Kaiser Barbarossa_, _Kaiser Wilhelm
II_, and _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, all built as a result of the first
agitation of Von Tirpitz, between the years 1898 and 1901. They each
displaced 10,614 tons, had a speed of 18 knots, required 13,000
horsepower, were protected with from 10 to 12 inches of armor, and
carried four 9.4-inch guns, fourteen of 5.9 inches, twelve of
3.4-inches, and twenty of smaller measurement. Roughly they corresponded
to the British ships of the _Canopus_ class, both in design and time of
launching.
Following this class came that of the _Wittelsbach_, including also the
_Wettin_, _Zaehringen_, _Mecklenburg_, and _Schwaben_, built between 1901
and 1903, displacing 11,643 tons, making 18 knots, protected with from 9
to 10 inches of armor and carrying a primary battery of four 9.4-inch
guns, eighteen 5.9-inch guns, and a large secondary battery. The similar
type in the British navy was the _Canopus_--for England was far ahead of
Germany, both in the matter of displacement and primary battery. During
the same years England had launched ships of the type of the
_Implacable_.
In 1904 came the German ships _Hessen_, _Elsass_, and _Braunschweig_,
and in 1905 and 1906 the _Preussen_ and _Lothringen_. They were well
behind the English ships of the same years, for they displaced only
12,097 tons, made 18 knots, carried armor of from 9 to 10 inches in
thickness, and a primary battery of four 11-inch guns, fourteen 6.7-inch
guns, and twelve 3.4-inch guns, together with rapid firers and other
guns in a secondary battery. England at this time was putting 12-inch
guns in the primary battery of such ships as the _King Edward VII_.
Still Germany kept up the race, and in 1906, 1907, and 1908 launched the
_Hannover_, _Deutschland_, _Schlesien_, _Schleswig-Holstein_, and
_Pommern_, with 12,997 tons displacement, 16,000 horsepower, a speed of
18 knots, and only 11-inch guns in the primary batteries. Whereas
England, at the same time, was building ships of the dreadnought type.
Next came four ships of the _Vanguard_ class--the _Westfaelen_, _Nassau_,
_Rheinland_, and _Posen_, built in 1909 and 1910. Their heaviest guns
measured 11 inches, while those of the English ships of the same class
measured 12 inches. The displacement of these German fighting ships was
18,600 tons. In point of speed they showed some improvement over the
older German ships, making 19.5 knots. Germany, like England, was now
committed to the building of larger and larger ships of the line. The
_Helgoland_, _Thueringen_, _Oldenburg_, and _Ostfriesland_, which were
put into the water in 1911 and 1912, were consequently of 22,400 tons
displacement, with a speed of 20.5 knots and carrying twelve 12-inch
guns, fourteen 5.9-inch rapid-fire guns, fourteen 3.9-inch rapid-fire
guns, a few smaller guns, and as many as six torpedo tubes.
While England was maintaining her "two to three" policy, and while the
United States stood committed to the building of two first-class
battleships a year, Germany, in 1913, put five of them into the water.
These were the _Koenig Albert_, _Prinz Regent Luitpold_, _Kaiserin_,
_Kaiser_, and _Friedrich der Grosse_, each capable of speeding through
the water at a rate of 21 knots, displacing 23,310 tons and carrying an
armament of ten 12-inch guns, fourteen 5.9-inch guns, and a large number
of rapid-fire guns of smaller measurement. Their armor was quite heavy,
being 13 inches thick on the side and 11 inches thick where protection
for the big guns was needed.
The largest ships in the German navy which were launched, fitted, and
manned at the time that the war began, were those which were built in
1914 and which had a displacement of 26,575 tons. These ships were the
_Koenig_, _Grosser Kurfuerst_, and the _Markgraf_. The corresponding type
in the British navy was that of the _Iron Duke_, built in the same year.
The British ships of this class were 1,000 tons lighter in displacement,
a bit faster--making 22.5 knots to the 22 knots made by the German
ships--and their armament was not so strong as that of the German type,
for the German ships carried ten 14-inch guns, whereas the English
carried ten 13.5-inch guns.
In addition to these first-class battleships, Germany had certain
others, individual in type, such as the _Von der Tann_, _Moltke_,
_Goeben_, _Seydlitz_, _Derfflinger_, _Fuerst Bismarck_, _Prinz Heinrich_,
_Prinz Adalbert_, _Roon_ and _Yorck_, _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_,
_Bluecher_, _Magdeburg_, _Strassburg_, _Breslau_, _Stralsund_, _Rostock_,
and _Karlsruhe_. These may be reckoned as scout cruisers, for they
showed much speed, the fastest making 30 knots and the slowest 19 knots.
The oldest dates from 1900, and the newest from 1914. Germany had, also,
thirty-nine more fast protected cruisers which were designed for scout
duty.
In destroyers she was well equipped, having 143 ready for service when
war was declared. Her twenty-seven submarines were of the most improved
type, and much about their construction and armament she was able to
keep secret from the rest of the world. It is probable that even their
number was greater than the intelligence departments of foreign navies
suspected. The best type had a speed on the surface of 18 knots and
could travel at 12 knots when submerged. The type known as _E-21_, of
the design of 1914, measured 213 feet 8 inches in length and had a beam
of 20 feet.
Austria, though not renowned for her naval strength, had certain units
which brought up the power of the Teutonic powers considerably. She had
nine first-class battleships, the _Erzherzog Karl_, _Erzherzog Ferdinand
Max_, _Erzherzog Friedrich_, _Zrinyi_, _Radetzky_, _Erzherzog Franz
Ferdinand_, _Teggethoff_, _Prinz Eugen_, and _Viribus Unitis_. These, at
the time Austria went to war, ranged in age from nine years to one year,
and varied in displacement from 10,000 tons to 20,000 tons. The largest
guns carried by any of them measured 12 inches, and the fastest, the
_Prinz Eugen_, made 20 knots. Of secondary importance were the
battleships _Kaiserin Maria Theresia_, _Kaiser Karl VI_, and _St.
Georg_. The register of battleships was supplemented with ten light
cruisers of exceptionally light displacement, the highest being only
3,966 tons. Scouting was their chief function. Austria had, also, 18
destroyers, 63 torpedo boats, and 6 submarines.
Such were the respective strengths of the opponents on that day in July,
1914, when the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary lost his life. For ten
years the officers of the navy created by the German Admiral von Tirpitz
had at all dinners come to their feet, waved their wine glasses and had
given the famous toast "Der Tag"--to the day on which the English and
German naval hosts would sally forth to do battle with each other. "Der
Tag" found both forces quite ready, though the British naval authorities
stole a march on their German rivals in the matter of mobilization.
It had been the custom for years in the British navy to assemble the
greater part of the British ships during the summer at the port of
Spithead, where, decorated with bunting, with flags flying, with
visitors in holiday spirit, and with officers and men in smart dress,
the vessels were reviewed by the king on the royal yacht.
But in the eventful year of 1914, perhaps by accident, perhaps by
design, for the truth may never be known, the review had a different
aspect. There was no gaiety. The number of ships assembled this time was
greater than ever before--216 actual fighting ships passed slowly before
the royal yacht--there were no flags, no bunting, no holiday crowds, no
smart dress for officers and men. Instead, the fleet was drawn up ready
for battle, with decks cleared, guns uncovered, steam up, and magazines
replenished. During the tense weeks in which the war clouds gathered
over southern Europe this great fighting force remained in the British
home waters, and when, at fifteen minutes after midnight on August 4,
"Der Tag" had come, this fleet sailed under sealed orders. And
throughout the seven seas there were sundry ships flying the Union Jack
which immediately received orders by cable and by wireless.
Of the disposition of the naval forces of Germany less was known. Her
greatest strength was concentrated in the North Sea, where the island of
Helgoland, the Gibraltar of the north, and the Kiel Canal with its exits
to the Baltic and North Seas, furnished excellently both as naval bases
and impenetrable protection. Throughout the rest of the watery surface
of the globe were eleven German warships, to which automatically fell
the task of protecting the thousands of ships which, flying the German
red, white, and black, were carrying freight and passengers from port
to port.
The first naval movements in the Great War occurred on the morning of
August 5, 1914. The British ship _Drake_ cut two cables off the Azores
which connected Germany with North and South America, thus leaving these
eleven German fighting ships without communication with the German
admiralty direct. And the war was not a day old between England and
Germany before the German ship _Koenigin Luise_ was caught sowing mines
off the eastern English ports by the British destroyer _Lance_.
CHAPTER XXXIII
FIRST BLOOD--BATTLE OF THE BIGHT
The Germans had taken heed of the value of mines from lessons learned at
the cost of Russia in the war with Japan, and set about distributing
these engines of destruction throughout the North Sea. The British
admiralty knowing this, sent out a fleet of destroyers to scour home
waters in search of German mine layers.
About ten o'clock on the morning of August 5, 1914, Captain Fox, on
board the _Amphion_, came up with a fishing boat which reported that it
had seen a boat "throwing things overboard" along the east coast. A
flotilla, consisting of the _Lance_, _Laurel_, _Lark_ and _Linnet_, set
out in search of the stranger and soon found her. She was the _Koenigin
Luise_, and the things she was casting overboard were mines. The _Lance_
fired a shot across her bow to stop her, but she put on extra speed and
made an attempt to escape. A chase followed; the gunners on the British
ship now fired to hit. The first of these shots carried away the bridge
of the German ship, a second shot missed, and a third and fourth hit her
hull. Six minutes after the firing of the first shot her stern was shot
away, and she went to the bottom, bow up. Fifty of her 130 men were
picked up and brought to the English shore.
The first naval blood of the Great War had been drawn by Britain on
August 5, 1914. The _Koenigin Luise's_ efforts had not been in vain. She
had posthumous revenge on the morning of August 6, when the _Amphion_,
flagship of the third flotilla of destroyers, hit one of the mines which
the German ship had sowed. It was seen immediately by her officers that
she must sink; three minutes after her crew had left her there came a
second explosion, which, throwing debris aloft, brought about the death
of many of the British sailors in the small boats, as well as that of a
German prisoner from the _Koenigin Luise_.
All the world, with possibly the exception of the men in the German
admiralty, now looked for a great decisive battle "between the giants"
in the North Sea. The British spoke of it as a coming second Trafalgar,
but it was not to take place. For reasons of their own the Germans kept
their larger and heavier ships within the protection of Helgoland and
the Kiel Canal, but their ships of smaller type immediately became
active and left German shores to do what damage they might to the
British navy. It was hoped, perhaps, that the naval forces of the two
powers could be equalized and a battle fought on even terms after the
Germans had cut down British advantage by a policy of attrition.
A flotilla of German submarines on August 9 attacked a cruiser belonging
to the main British fleet, but was unable to inflict any damage. The
lord mayor of the city of Birmingham received the following telegram the
next morning: "Birmingham will be proud to learn that the first German
submarine destroyed in the war was sunk by H. M. S. _Birmingham_." Two
shots from the British ship had struck the German _U-15_, and she sank
immediately.
The German admiralty, even before England had declared war, suspected
that the greatest use for the German navy in the months to come would be
to fight the British navy, but they ventured to show their naval
strength against Russia beforehand. Early in August they sent the
_Augsburg_ into the Baltic Sea to bombard the Russian port of Libau, but
after doing a good bit of damage the German ship retired. It is probable
that this raid was nothing more than a feint to remind Russia that she
continually faced the danger of invasion from German troops landed on
the Baltic shores under the cover of German ships, and that she must
consequently keep a large force on her northern shores instead of
sending it west to meet the German army on the border.
Among the German ships which were separated from the main fleet in the
North Sea, and which were left without direct communication with the
German admiralty after the cutting of the cables off the Azores by the
_Drake_, were the cruisers _Goeben_ and _Breslau_. When England declared
war these two German ships were off the coast of Algeria. Both were very
fast vessels, having a speed of 28 knots, and they were designed to go
6,000 knots without needing replenishment of their coal bunkers.
On the morning of August 5, after having bombarded some of the coast
cities of Algeria they found themselves cut off on the east by a French
fleet and on the west by an English fleet, but by a very clever bit of
stratagem they escaped. The band of the _Goeben_ was placed on a raft
and ordered on a given moment to play the German national airs after an
appreciable period. Meanwhile, under the cover of the night's darkness
the two German ships steamed away. After they had a good start the band
on the raft began to play. The British patrols heard the airs and
immediately all British ships were searching for the source of the
music. To find a small raft in mid-sea was an impossible task, and while
the enemy was engaged in it the two Germans headed for Messina, then a
neutral port, which they reached successfully. The Italian authorities
permitted them to remain there only twenty-four hours.
Before leaving they took a dramatic farewell, which received publicity
in the press of the whole world, and which was designed to lead the
British fleet commanders to believe that the Germans were coming out to
do battle. Instead, they headed for Constantinople. They escaped all the
ships of the British Mediterranean fleet with the exception of the
cruiser _Gloucester_. With this ship they exchanged shots and were in
turn slightly damaged, but they reached the Porte in seaworthy
condition, and were immediately sold to the Turkish Government, which
was then still neutral. The crews were sent to Germany and were warmly
welcomed at Berlin. The officers responsible for their escape were
disciplined by the British authorities.
Both Germany and England, the former by means of the eleven ships at
large, and the latter by means of her preponderance in the number of
ships, now made great efforts to capture trading ships of the enemy.
When England declared war there was issued a royal proclamation which
stated that up to midnight of August 14 England would permit German
merchantmen in British harbors to sail for home ports, provided Germany
gave British merchantmen the same privilege, but it was specified that
ships of over 5,000 tons would not receive the privilege because they
could be converted into fighting ships afterward. But on the high seas
enemy ships come upon were captured.
The German admiralty on August 1 had issued orders to German merchantmen
to keep within neutral ports, and by this means such important ships as
the _Friedrich der Grosse_ and the _Grosser Kurfuerst_ eluded capture. In
the harbor of New York was the _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_, a fast steamer
of 23.5 knots. She left New York on July 28 carrying a cargo of
$10,000,000 in gold, and was on the high seas when England declared war.
Naturally she was regarded by the British as a great prize, and the
whole world awaited from day to day the news of her capture, but her
captain, showing great resourcefulness, after nearly reaching the
British Isles, turned her prow westward, darkened all exterior lights,
put canvas over the port holes and succeeded in reaching Bar Harbor,
Me., on the morning of August 5.
Similarly the _Lusitania_ and the French liner _Lorraine_, leaving New
York on August 5, were able to elude the German cruiser _Dresden_, which
was performing the difficult task of trying to intercept merchantmen
belonging to the Allies as they sailed from America, while she was
keeping watch against warships flying the enemies' flags. Still more
important was the sailing from New York of the German liner _Kaiser
Wilhelm der Grosse_. This ship had a speed of 22.5 knots and a
displacement of 14,349 tons. During the first week of the war she
cleared the port of New York with what was believed to be a trade
cargo, but she so soon afterward began harassing British trading ships
that it was believed that she left port equipped as a vessel of war or
fitted out as one in some other neutral port. The continued story of the
German raids on allied trading ships must form a separate part of this
narrative. It was only a month after the outbreak of hostilities that
the fleets of the allied powers had swept clean the seven seas of all
ships flying German and Austrian flags which were engaged in trade and
not in warlike pursuits.
The first naval battle of the Great War was fought on August 28, 1914.
"A certain liveliness in the North Sea" was reported through the press
by the British admiralty on the 19th of August. Many of the smaller
vessels of the fleet of Admiral von Ingenohl, the German commander, such
as destroyers, light cruisers, and scouting cruisers, were sighted.
Shots between these and English vessels of the same types were exchanged
at long range, but a pitched battle did not come for still a week.
Meanwhile the British navy had been doing its best to destroy the mine
fields established by the Germans. Trawlers were sent out in pairs,
dragging between them large cables which cut the mines from the
sea-bottom moorings: On being loosened they came to the surface and were
destroyed by shots from the trawlers' decks.
On the 28th of August came the battle off the Bight of Helgoland. The
island of Helgoland had been a British possession from 1807 till 1890,
when it was transferred to Germany by treaty. It was seen immediately by
the Germans that it formed an excellent natural naval base, lying as it
does, thirty-five miles northwest of Cuxhaven and forty-three miles
north of Wilhelmshaven. They at once began to augment the natural
protection it afforded with their own devices. Two Zeppelin sheds were
erected, concrete forts were built and 12-inch guns were installed. The
scene of the battle which took place here was the Bight of Helgoland,
which formed a channel eighteen miles wide some seven miles north of the
island and near which lay the line of travel for ships leaving the ports
of the Elbe.
British submarines which had been doing reconnaissance work on the
German coast since August 24 reported to the British commander, Admiral
Jellicoe, that a large force of German light cruisers and smaller craft
were lying under the protection of the Helgoland guns, and he
immediately arranged plans for leading this force away from that
protection in order to give it battle. Briefly the plans made provided
that three submarines were to proceed on the surface of the water to
within sight of the German ships and when chased by the latter were to
head westward. The light cruisers _Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ were
detailed to run in behind any light German craft which were to follow
the British submarines, endeavoring to cut them off from the German
coast, and these two vessels were backed by a squadron of light cruisers
held in readiness should the first two need assistance. Squadrons of
cruisers and battle cruisers were detailed to stay in the rear, still
further to the northwest, to engage any German ships of their own class
which might get that far.
It was at midnight on August 26 that Commodore Keyes moved toward
Helgoland with eight submarines accompanied by two destroyers. During
the next day--August 27--this force did nothing more than keep watch for
German submarines and scouting craft, and then took up its allotted
position for the main action. The morning of the 28th broke misty and
calm. Under half steam three of the British submarines, the _E-6_,
_E-7_, and _E-8_ steamed toward the island fortress, showing their hulls
above water and followed by the two detailed destroyers.
The mist thickened. Still more slowly and cautiously went the British
submersibles, and while they went above water, five of their sister
craft traveled under the surface. Here was the bait for the German ships
under Helgoland's guns. Would they bite?
The Germans soon gave the answer. First there crept out a German
destroyer which took a good look at the situation and then gave wireless
signals to some twenty more of her type, which soon came out to join
her. The twenty-one little and speedy German boats bravely came out and
chased the two British destroyers and three submarines, while a German
seaplane slowly circled upward to see if the surrounding regions
harbored enemies. Presumably the airman found what he sought for he
soon flew back to report to Helgoland. The peaceful aspect of the waters
to the east of the island immediately changed, as a squadron of light
cruisers weighed anchor and put out after the retiring Britishers.
Before a description of the fighting can be given it is necessary to
understand the plan of the fight as a whole. Assuming that the page on
which these words are printed represents a map of the North Sea and that
the points of the compass are as they would be on an ordinary chart, we
have the island of Helgoland, half an inch long and a quarter of an inch
wide, situated in the lower right-hand corner of this page, with about
half an inch separating its eastern side from the right edge of the page
and the same distance separating it from the bottom. The lower edge of
the page may represent the adjoining coasts of Germany and Holland, and
the right-hand edge may represent the coast of the German province of
Schleswig and the coast of Denmark.
At seven o'clock on the morning of August 28 the positions of the
fighting forces were as follows: The decoy British submarines were
making a track from Helgoland to the northwest, pursued by a flotilla of
German submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats, and a fleet of light
cruisers. On the west--the left edge of the page, halfway up--there were
the British cruisers _Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ accompanied by flotillas,
and steaming eastward at a rate that brought them to the rear of the
German squadron of light cruisers, thus cutting off the latter from the
fortress. In the southwest--the lower left-hand corner of the
page--there was stationed a squadron of British cruisers, ready to close
in when needed; in the northwest--the upper left-hand corner of the
page--there were stationed a squadron of British light cruisers and
another of battle cruisers, and it was toward these last two units that
the decoys were leading the German fleets.
The _Arethusa_ and _Fearless_ felt the first shock of battle, on the
side of the British. The German cruiser _Ariadne_ closed with the
former, while the latter soon found itself very busy with the German
cruiser _Strassburg_. For thirty-five minutes--before the _Fearless_
drew the fire of the _Strassburg_--the two German vessels poured a
telling fire into the _Arethusa_, and the latter was soon in bad
condition, but she managed to hold out till succored by the _Fearless_,
and then planted a shell against the _Ariadne_ which carried away her
forebridge and killed her captain. The scouting which had been done by
the smaller craft of the German fleets showed their commanders that
there were other British ships in the neighborhood besides the two they
had first engaged, and it was thought wiser to withdraw in face of
possible reenforcement of the British, consequently the _Strassburg_ and
_Ariadne_ turned eastward to seek the protection of the fortress. The
_Arethusa_, a boat that had been in commission but a week when the
battle was fought, was in a bad way; all but one of her guns were out of
action, her water tank had been punctured and fire was raging on her
main deck amidships. The _Fearless_ passed her a cable at nine o'clock
and towed her westward, away from the scene of action, while her crew
made what repairs they could.
The flotillas of both sides had meanwhile been busy. At the head of the
squadron of German destroyers that came out of the waters behind
Helgoland was the _V-187_. Without slacking speed she steamed straight
for the British destroyers, her small guns spitting rapidly, but she was
outnumbered by British destroyers, which poured such an amount of steel
into her thin sides that she went under, her guns firing till their
muzzles touched the water and her crew cheering as they went to their
deaths. A few managed to keep afloat on wreckage, and during a lull in
the fighting, which lasted from nine o'clock till ten, boats were
lowered from the British destroyers _Goshawk_ and _Defender_ to pick up
these stranded German sailors.
The commanders of the German fleet, perceiving these small boats from
afar, thought that the British were resorting to the old principle of
boarding, and the German light cruiser _Mainz_ came out to fire upon
them. Two of the British small boats had to be abandoned as their mother
ships made off before the oncoming German. They were in a perilous
position, right beneath the guns of the fortress. But now a daring and
unique rescue took place. The commander of the British submarine _E-4_
had been watching the fighting through the periscope of his craft, and
seeing the helpless position of the two small boats, he submerged, made
toward them, and then, to the great surprise of the men in them, came up
right between them and took their occupants aboard his boat.
Repairs had been made on the _Arethusa_ which enabled her to go into
action again by ten o'clock. Accompanied again by two light cruisers of
ten four-inch guns and the _Fearless_, she turned westward in answer to
calls for assistance from the destroyers _Lurcher_ and _Firedrake_,
which accompanied the submarines and which reported that they were being
chased by fast German cruisers. Suddenly the light cruiser _Strassburg_
again came out of the mist and bore down on the British cruisers. Her
larger guns were too heavy and had too long a range for those of the
British craft, and the latter immediately sent out calls which brought
into action for the first time certain ships belonging to the squadron
of British light cruisers, which had been stationed to the
northwest--the upper left-hand corner of the page.
The vessels which answered the calls were the light cruisers _Falmouth_
and _Nottingham_ with eight eight-inch and nine six-inch guns
respectively, but before arriving the _Strassburg_ still had time to
inflict more damage on the _Arethusa_. The cruisers _Koeln_ and _Mainz_
joined the _Strassburg_, and the British vessels were having a bad time
of it when their commander ordered the _Fearless_ to concentrate all
fire on the _Strassburg_. This, and a concentrated fire from the
destroyers, proved too strong for her and she turned eastward,
disappearing in the mist off Helgoland. The _Mainz_ then received the
attention of all available British guns, including the battle cruiser
_Lion_, and soon fire broke out within her hold. Next her foremast,
slowly tottering and then inclining more and more, crashed down upon her
deck, a distorted mass. Following that came down one of her funnels. The
fire which was raging aboard her was hampering her machinery, and her
speed slackened; the moment to strike with a torpedo had come, and one
of these "steel fishes" was sent against her hull below water. In the
explosion which followed one of her boilers came out through her deck,
ascended some fifty feet and dropped down near her bow; her engines
stopped, and she began to settle slowly, her bow going down first.
It was now noon. From behind the veil of the surrounding mist came the
_Falmouth_ and _Nottingham_, which with the guns in their turrets
completely finished the hapless _Mainz_, and their sailors openly
admired the bravery of her crew, which, while she sank, maintained
perfect order and sang the German national air.
There was yet the _Koeln_ with which the _Arethusa_ had to do battle. But
by now the heavy British battle cruisers _Lion_ and _Queen Mary_ had
also come down from the northwest to take part in the fighting, and
letting the _Arethusa_ escape from the range of the light cruiser
_Koeln_, they went for the German, which, overpowered, fled toward
Helgoland. While the chase was on the _Ariadne_ again made her
appearance and came to the aid of the _Koeln_, but the light cruiser
_Ariadne_ carried no gun as effective in destructive power as the
13.5-inch guns of the _Lion_, and she, too, had to seek safety in
flight. The British ships then finished the _Koeln_; so badly was she hit
that when the British small boats sought the spot where she quickly sank
they found not a man of her crew afloat. Every man of the 370 of her
crew perished.
The afternoon came, and with its advent the mist, which had kept the
guns of Helgoland's forts out of action, had cleared off the calm waters
of the North Sea. By the time the sun had set only floating wreckage
gave evidence that here brave men had fought and died. By evening the
respective forces were in their home ports, being treated for their
hurts. The Germans had lost the _Mainz_, _Koeln_, and _Ariadne_, and the
_Strassburg_ had limped home. The loss in destroyers and other small
craft in addition to that of the _V-187_ was not known. The loss on the
British side had not entailed that of a large ship, but the _Arethusa_
when she returned to her home port was far from being in good condition,
and some of the smaller boats were in the same circumstances.
Admiral von Ingenohl was committed more strongly than ever, as a result
of this engagement, to the belief that the best policy for his command
would be to keep his squadrons within the protection afforded by
Helgoland and that the most damage could be done to the enemy by picking
off her larger ships one by one. In other words, he again turned to the
policy of attrition. He immediately put it into force.
On the 3d of September the British gunboat _Speedy_ struck a mine in the
North Sea and went down. It was only two days later that the light
cruiser _Pathfinder_ was made the true target of a torpedo fired by a
German submarine off the British eastern coast, and she, too, went to
the bottom. But the British immediately retaliated, for the submarine
_E-9_ sighted the German light cruiser _Hela_ weathering a bad storm on
September 13 between Helgoland and the Frisian coast. A torpedo was
launched and found its mark, and the _Hela_ joined the _Koeln_ and
_Mainz_. Up to this point the results of attrition were even, but the
Germans scored heavily during the following week.
On September 22 the three slow British cruisers _Cressy_, _Hogue_, and
_Aboukir_ were patrolling the waters off the Dutch coast, unaccompanied
by small craft of any kind, when suddenly, at half past six in the
morning, the _Aboukir_ crumpled and sank, the victim of another
submarine attack. But the commander of the _Hogue_ thought she had been
sunk by hitting a mine, and innocently approached the spot of the
disaster to rescue such of the crew of the _Aboukir_ as were afloat. The
work of mercy was never completed, for the _Hogue_ itself was hit by two
torpedoes in the next few moments, and she joined her sister ship. The
commander of the _Cressy_, failing to take a lesson from what he had
witnessed, now approached, and his ship was also hit by two torpedoes,
making the third victim of the German policy of attrition within an
hour, and Captain Lieutenant von Weddigen, commander of the _U-9_, which
had done this work, immediately became a German hero.
CHAPTER XXXIV
BATTLES ON THREE SEAS
So stood the score in the naval warfare in the North Sea at the end of
the second month of the Great War. But while these events were taking
place in the waters of Europe, others of equal import had been taking
place in the waters of Asia. On August 23, 1914, Japan declared war on
Germany and immediately set about scouring the East for German craft of
all kinds.
Japan brought to the naval strength of the Allied powers no mean unit.
Hers was the only navy in the world which had seen the ultramodern
battleships in action; the Russian navy which had had the same
experience was no more. Eight of her first-class battleships were, at
the time of her entrance into the Great War, veterans of the war with
Russia. The _Fugi_, _Asahi_, _Kikasa_, and _Shikishima_ had gone into
the former war as Japanese ships, and the remaining four had gone into
it as Russian ships, but had been captured by the Japanese. These were
the _Hizen_, _Sagami_, _Suwo_, and _Iwami_. Their value was not great,
for the _Fugi_ had been launched as far back as 1896. Nevertheless she
carried 12-inch guns and displaced 12,300 tons. But her speed was only
17 knots at the most. She had been built in England as had the _Asahi_
and _Shikishima_, which were launched in 1900 and 1901. They also
carried 12-inch guns and had a speed of 18.5 knots. Their tonnage was
15,000. Admiral Togo's former flagship, the _Mikasa_, was also of the
predreadnought type, having been built in 1900, and carrying a main
battery of 12-inch guns. Her speed was 18.5 knots.
Of the former Russian ships the rechristened _Iwami_ was of French
build, protected with Krupp steel armor to the thickness of 7.5 inches.
Her displacement was 13,600 tons, and her speed 18 knots. Like the other
ships of this class in the Japanese navy, she carried a main battery of
12-inch guns. The _Hizen_ was an American product, having been built by
Cramps in 1902. Her displacement was 12,700 tons, made a speed of 18.5
knots, was also protected with Krupp steel and carried four 10-inch
guns. She was a real veteran, for she had undergone repairs necessitated
by having been torpedoed off Port Arthur and had been refloated after
being sunk in later action there. The _Sagami_ and the _Suwo_ had been
built in 1901 and 1902. They displaced 13,500 tons, had a speed of 18.5
knots, and carried as their heaviest armament 10-inch guns.
In addition to these eight ships Japan had also nine protected cruisers,
all of the same type and all veterans of the war with Russia. They were
of such strength and endurance that the Japanese admiralty rated them
capable of taking places in the first line of battle. These were the
_Nisshin_ and _Kasuga_, purchased from Italy and built in 1904,
displacing 7,700 tons, and making a speed of 22 knots; the _Aso_, French
built and captured from the Russians, and of the same design and
measurements as the other two; and the protected cruisers _Yakumo_,
_Asama_, _Idzumo_, _Tokiwa_, _Aguma_, and _Iwate_, built before the war
with Russia, slightly heavier than their sister ships but not as fast.
None of this type has been added to the Japanese navy since 1907. Japan
has, instead, given attention to scouting cruisers, with the result that
she possessed three excellent vessels of this class, the _Yahagi_,
_Chikuma_, and _Hirato_, with the good speed of 26 knots and displacing
5,000 tons. They were built in 1912. And not so efficient were the other
ships of similar design, the _Soya_, built in America, _Tone_ and
_Tsugaru_.
The veteran Japanese navy was supplemented with 52 destroyers and 15
submarines, all built since the war with Russia, and a number of heavier
vessels. Among the latter were the first-class battleships _Kashima_ and
_Katori_, completed in 1906, and displacing 16,400 tons. Their heavy
guns measured 12 inches, and they made a speed of 19.5 knots. There were
also the vessels _Ikoma_ and _Tsukuba_, individual in type, with
corresponding kinds in no other navy, and which might be called a cross
between an armored cruiser and battle cruiser. Though displacing no more
than 13,766 tons, they carried four 12-inch guns, and made the
comparatively low speed of 20.5 knots. In 1909 and 1910 the Japanese
added two more ships of this kind to their navy, the _Ibuki_ and
_Kurama_, slightly heavier and faster and with the same armament.
The dreadnought _Satsuma_ also came in 1910--a vessel displacing 19,400
tons, but making a speed of only 18.2 knots, and with an extraordinarily
heavy main battery consisting of four 12-inch guns and twelve 10-inch
guns. The _Aki_, launched in 1911, was 400 tons heavier than the
_Satsuma_, and was more than 2 knots faster, and her main battery was
equally strong. The dreadnoughts _Settsu_ and _Kawachi_, completed in
1913 and 1912 respectively, displaced 21,420 tons, but were able to make
not more than 20 knots. At this time the Japanese admiralty, perhaps on
account of lessons learned in the war with Russia, was building
dreadnoughts with less speed than those in the other navies, but with
much heavier main batteries. These two vessels carried a unique main
battery of twelve 12-inch guns, along with others of smaller
measurement. What the dreadnoughts lacked in speed was made up in that
of four battle cruisers launched after 1912. These were the _Kirishima_,
_Kongo_, _Hi-Yei_, and _Haruna_, with the good speed of 28 knots. Their
displacement was 27,500 tons, and they carried in their primary
batteries eight 14-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns.
At the time Japan entered the war she had in building four
superdreadnoughts with the tremendous displacement of 30,600 tons. These
vessels, the _Mitsubishi_, _Yukosaka_, _Kure_, and _Kawasaki_, had been
designed to carry a main battery of the strength of the U.S.S.
_Pennsylvania_, and to have a speed of 22.5 knots.
The first move of the Japanese navy in the Great War was to cooperate
with the army in besieging the German town of Kiaochaw on the Shantung
Peninsula in China, but the operation was soon more military than naval.
Japanese warships captured Bonham Island in the group known as the
Marshall Islands, and, having cleared eastern waters of German warships,
scoured the Pacific in such a manner as to chase those which escaped
into the regions patrolled by the British navy.
The German vessels which made their escape were among the eleven which
were separated from the rest of Germany's navy in the North Sea at the
outbreak of hostilities. They were, with the exception of the
_Dresden_, the _Leipzig_, _Nuernberg_, _Scharnhorst_, and _Gneisenau_. It
was weeks before they were first reported--on September 22 at the harbor
of Papeete, where they destroyed the French gunboat _Zelie_, and after
putting again to sea their location was once more a mystery.
On the evening of November 1 a British squadron consisting of the
vessels _Good Hope_, _Otranto_, _Glasgow_, and _Monmouth_, all except
the _Good Hope_ coming through the straits, sighted the enemy. The
British ships lined up abreast and proceeded in a northeasterly
direction. The Germans took up the same alignment eight miles to the
westward of the British ships and proceeded southward at full speed.
Both forces opened fire at a distance of 12,000 yards shortly after six
o'clock off Coronel near the coast of Chile. The _Gneisenau_ was struck
by a 9.2-inch shot from the _Good Hope_. The _Scharnhorst_ and
_Gneisenau_ picked the _Good Hope_ as their first target, but finding
that they could do no damage at that range and that they were safe from
the fire of the British ship, they came to within 6,000 yards of her.
Her fire in reply was augmented by that of the _Monmouth_. Excellent aim
on the part of the Germans soon had the _Good Hope_ out of action, and
fire broke out aboard her. Soon after general action her magazine
exploded.
The _Monmouth_ then received the brunt of the fire from the German
ships, and came in for more than her share of the destructive fire,
being put virtually out of action, and at the same time there occurred
an explosion on board the _Good Hope_ and she sank immediately, carrying
Admiral Cradock to his death.
There remained of the British force only the _Otranto_--a converted
liner and not really a battleship of the line--the _Glasgow_ and the
hopelessly disabled _Monmouth_ to continue the fight with an efficient
German force. The British commander ordered the former two to get away
by making speed, but the officer in charge of the _Glasgow_, paying no
heed to the order, kept in the fight.
[Illustration: The famous German raider "Emden" beached on one of the
Cocos Islands after being wrecked by the "Sydney's" shells.]
Dusk was then coming on and the _Glasgow_ sought to take advantage of it
by getting between the German ships and the limping _Monmouth_,
concealing the latter from them with her smoke. But the Germans had now
come to within 4,500 yards. To escape possible attack from torpedoes
the German ships spread out their line, but perceiving that such a
danger was not present, they again closed in to finish the crippled
British ships. All of the German ships now went for the _Glasgow_, and
she had to desert the _Monmouth_, which first sailed northward, in bad
condition, and later made an attempt to run ashore at Santa Maria, but
was unable to do so.
The inevitable "if" played its part in the battle. When the British
fleet first went after the Germans it had as one of its units the
battleship _Canopus_. But her speed was not up to that of the other
ships, and she fell far to their stern. By the time the action was on
she was too distant to take part in it. No attempt was made to go
together owing to the slowness of the battleship. The _Canopus_ was
never in the action at all, being 150 miles astern. Had Cradock not
desired to he need not have taken on the action but retired in the
_Canopus_. The setting of the sun also played its part; if daylight had
continued some hours more the British squadron might have held out till
the _Canopus_ brought up, for the almost horizontal rays of the sun were
in the eyes of the German gunners. But as it dropped below the watery
horizon it left the British ships silhouetted against a clear outline.
The _Canopus_ did not get into the fight, and the greatest concern of
the _Glasgow_ as she steamed off was to warn the British battleship to
keep off, for of less speed than the German ships, and outnumbered by
them, her appearance meant her destruction. The _Glasgow_, later joined
by the _Canopus_, arrived in battered condition at the Falkland Islands.
The _Monmouth_, after the main action was over, was found and finished
by the German squadron and went down. Seventy shots were fired at her
when she lay sinking, on fire and helpless, and unable to fire her guns.
Germany had evened the score in the second battle between fleets.
The _Dresden_ after the Falkland action took refuge in Fiordes of Terra
del Fuego and after being there for a couple of months proceeded to the
head of the Island of Juan Fernandez where she was found by the
_Glasgow_, _Kent_ and auxiliary cruiser _Orama_ and was destroyed.
Most remarkable had been the career of the German third-class cruiser
_Nuernberg_, which had joined the other German ships that went to make up
the German squadron which fought in this battle off Coronel. This
vessel, on the day after Germany and England went to war, was lying near
Yap, an island in the Pacific, that had been, until captured by the
Japanese, the wireless station of most importance to the Germans in the
Pacific Ocean. She immediately, after being apprised that she was part
of a navy engaged in a war, set sail and was not reported again until
the 7th of September, when she appeared at Fanning Island, a cable
station maintained by Britain, and from which cables run to Vancouver to
the east and Australia to the west. Here she hid her identity by
entering the harbor flying the tricolor of France and appearing as
though she was making a friendly visit. Officials on the island, happy
to think they would have such a visitor, saw two cutters leave the
warship.
Great was the surprise of those watching events from the shore when they
saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the visitor and in its
place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters were just about
reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this surprise came, and it
was augmented when, with the protection of the guns of the vessel, the
men in these cutters showed themselves to be a hostile landing party.
Her presence was not reported to the rest of the world for the good
reason that she cut all cables leading from the island. All the British
men there were put under guard, and after damaging all cable instruments
she could find, the _Nuernberg_, accompanied by a collier that had come
with her, again took to the high seas.
She next turned up at the island of St. Felix, 300 miles west of the
Chilean coast, but did not come to the harbor. During the night of
October 14 the inhabitants of that island saw the flash and heard the
roar of an explosion miles out to sea, and for a number of days later
they picked up on their beach the wreckage of what must have been a
collier. As has been related in preceding paragraphs, the _Nuernberg_
took part in that fight. The end of her career came in the battle off
the Falkland Islands, which will be dealt with later.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE GERMAN SEA RAIDERS
While British men-o'-war were capturing German merchantmen and taking
them to British ports, the German raiders which were abroad were earning
terrifying reputations for themselves because the enemy merchantmen with
which they came upon had to be destroyed on the high seas, for there
were no ports to which they could be taken. Prominent among these was
the _Koenigsberg_, a third-class cruiser. When the war came she was in
Asiatic waters and immediately made the east coast of Africa her "beat."
While patrolling it she came upon two British merchant ships, and after
taking from their stores such supplies as were needed she sent them to
the bottom. On September 20, 1914, she made a dash into the harbor of
Zanzibar and found there the British cruiser _Pegasus_, which on account
of her age was undergoing a complete overhauling. She was easy prey for
the German ship, for besides the fact that she was stationary her guns
were of shorter range than those of her adversary. Shell after shell
tore into her till she was battered beyond all resemblance to a fighting
craft. But her flag flew till the end, for though it was shot down from
the masthead, two marines held it aloft, one of them losing his life.
And when the _Koenigsberg_, her task of destruction complete, sailed off,
the lone marine still held up the Union Jack. The British ships in those
waters made a systematic hunt for her and located her at last, on the
30th of October. She was hiding in her favorite rendezvous, some miles
up the Rufigi River in German East Africa. The ship which found her was
the _Chatham_, a second-class cruiser, with a draft much heavier than
that of the _Koenigsberg_, and the difference gave the latter a good
advantage, for she ran up the river and her enemy could not follow. Nor
could the English ship use her guns with much effect, for the gunners
could not make out the hull of the German ship through the tropical
vegetation along the river banks. All that the British ship could do
was to fire shells in her general direction and then guess what effect
they had. But to prevent her escape, colliers were sunk at the mouth of
the river. She had come to as inglorious an end as her victim, the
_Pegasus_.
The account of another raider, the _Kronprinz Wilhelm_, which left New
York on the evening that England declared war, with her bunkers loaded
with coal and other supplies for warships, has already been related. The
mystery concerning this sailing was cleared up when she was caught
coaling the _Karlsruhe_ in the Atlantic. Both ships made off in safety
that time, and soon after a British cruiser reported that she had been
heard in wireless communication with the _Dresden_. Thereafter the fate
of this ship remained a mystery till she put in at Hampton Roads on
April 11, 1915.
Most spectacular was the career of the _Emden_, a third-class cruiser,
which sailed from Japanese waters at the same time as the _Koenigsberg_.
Through the ability of her commander, Captain Karl von Mueller, she
earned the soubriquet "Terror of the East," for by using a clever system
of supply ships she was able to raid eastern waters for ten weeks
without making a port or otherwise running the risk of leaving a clue by
which British ships might find her. Her favorite occupation was that of
stopping enemy merchantmen which she sank. But her captain always
allowed one--the last one--of her prizes to remain afloat, and in this
he sent to the nearest port the officers, passengers, and crews of those
that were destroyed. At times he used prizes as colliers, putting them
under command of his petty officers.
By way of diversion, Captain von Mueller steamed into the harbor of
Madras in the Bay of Bengal and opened with his guns on the suburbs of
the town, setting on fire two huge oil tanks there. The fort there
returned the fire, but the _Emden_ after half an hour sailed away
unharmed. She had been enabled to come near the British guns on shore by
flying the French flag, which she continued to display until her guns
began to boom. She then left the waters of Bengal Bay, but not before
she had ended the journey of $30,000,000 worth of exports to India, and
had sent to the bottom of the sea some $15,000,000 worth of imports.
Twenty-one steamers had been her victims, their total value having been
about $3,250,000, and their cargoes were worth at least $15,000,000.
Very expensive the British found her, and they were willing to go to any
length to end her career. They curtailed her activities somewhat when
the _Yarmouth_ captured the converted liner _Markomannia_, which was one
of her colliers, and recaptured the Greek freighter _Pontoporos_, which
had been doing the same duty. This took place off the coast of Sumatra.
But Von Mueller was undaunted, even though his coal problem was becoming
serious. He knew that the _Yarmouth_ had sailed from Penang near Malacca
and that she was not at that base, since she was searching for his own
vessel. He therefore conceived the daring exploit of making a visit to
Penang while the _Yarmouth_ was still away. He came within ten miles of
the harbor on the 28th of October, and disguised his ship by erecting a
false funnel made of canvas upheld by a wooden frame, much like
theatrical scenery. This gave the _Emden_ four funnels, such as the
_Yarmouth_ carried. Coming into the harbor in the twilight of the dawn,
she was taken by those on shore to be the British ship, not a hostile
gun ready for her.
Lying in the harbor was the Russian cruiser _Jemchug_ and three French
destroyers and a gunboat. The watch on the Russian ship questioned her,
and was told by the wireless operator on the _Emden_ that she was the
_Yarmouth_ returning to anchor. By this ruse the German ship was enabled
to come within 600 yards of the Russian ship before the false funnel was
discovered. Fire immediately spurted from the Russian guns, but a
torpedo from the _Emden_ struck the _Jemchug's_ engine room and made it
impossible for her crew to get ammunition to her guns. Von Mueller poured
steel into her from a distance of 250 yards with terrible effect. The
Russian ship's list put many of her guns out of action, and she was
unable to deliver an effective reply. Another torpedo from the _Emden_
exploded her magazine. Fifteen minutes after the firing of the first
shot the Russian had gone to the bottom.
Von Mueller now put the prow of the _Emden_ to sea again, for he feared
that both the _Yarmouth_ and the French cruiser _Dupleix_ had by then
been summoned by wireless. Luck was with him. Half an hour after leaving
the harbor he sighted a ship flying a red flag, which showed him at once
that she was carrying a cargo of powder. He badly needed the ammunition,
and he prepared to capture her. But this operation was interrupted by a
mirage, which caused the small French destroyer _Mosquet_ to appear like
a huge battleship. When he discovered the truth, Von Mueller closed with
the Frenchman, who came to the rescue of the _Glenturret_, the powder
ship. Destroyer and cruiser closed for a fight, the former trying to get
close enough to make work with torpedoes possible, but the long range of
the _Emden's_ guns prevented this, and the _Mosquet_ was badly damaged
by having her engine room hit. Soon she was in a bad way, and Von Mueller
ordered his guns silenced, thinking the destroyer would now give up the
fight. But the Frenchman was valiant and refused to do so; he let go
with two torpedoes which did not find their mark, and was immediately
subjected to a withering fire, which caused his ship to sink, bow first.
One of the destroyers which had been in the harbor now came out to take
issue with the _Emden_, but it was the business of the latter to
continue destroying merchant ships and not to run the risk of having her
career ended by a warship, so she immediately put off for the Indian
Ocean. A storm which then came up permitted her to make a better escape.
It was not until the 9th of November that the world at large heard more
of her, and it proved to be the last day of her reign of terror. There
was a British wireless and cable station on the Cocos (Keeling) Isles,
southwest of Java, and Von Mueller had determined to interrupt the
communication maintained there connecting India, Australia, and South
Africa. Forty men and three officers, with three machine guns, were
detailed by him as a landing party to destroy instruments and cut the
cables. But such a thing had been partially forestalled by the British
authorities, who had set up false cable ends. These were destroyed by
the deceived Germans. When the _Emden_ had first made her appearance the
news had been sent out by the wireless operator on shore, not knowing
what ships would pick up his calls.
This time luck was against Von Mueller, for it so happened that a convoy
of troop ships from Australia was passing within one hundred miles. They
were accompanied by the Australian cruisers _Melbourne_ and _Sydney_.
The latter was dispatched to go to the Cocos Islands, and by getting up
a speed of 26 knots she reached them in less than three hours. Von
Mueller knew that escape by flight was impossible, for his ship had been
weeks at sea; her boilers were crusted, her machinery badly in need of
repair, and she had not too much coal. He therefore decided to give
battle, and went straight for the _Sydney_ at full speed. His object was
to meet her on even terms, for her advantage was that her guns had much
greater range than those of the _Emden_. If he could get close enough he
might be able to use his torpedo tubes. But Captain Glossop of the
_Sydney_ saw through this maneuver and maintained good distance between
the two ships. About the first shot from the _Emden_ killed the man at
the range finder on the fore bridge of the _Sydney_. Captain Glossop was
standing within a few feet of him at the time.
The replies from the Australian ship were fatal. The foremost funnel of
the _Emden_ crumpled and fell; her fire almost ceased, and then she
began to burn; the second funnel and the third fell also; there was
nothing left but to beach her, which Von Mueller did, just before noon.
While she lay there helpless the _Sydney_ shot more steel into her,
leaving her quite helpless, and then went off to chase a merchant ship
which had been sighted during the fighting and which, when caught,
proved to be the British ship _Buresk_, now manned by Germans and doing
duty as collier to the _Emden_. Returning to the latter, Captain Glossop
saw that she still flew the German flag at her masthead. He signaled
her, asking whether she would surrender, but receiving no reply after
waiting five minutes he let her have a few more salvos. The German flag
came down and the white flag went up in its place. The _Jemchug_ had
been avenged, and the terribly costly career of the _Emden_ brought to
an end. Von Mueller was taken prisoner, and on account of his valor was
permitted to keep his sword. But the landing party, which had cut the
false cables, was still at large. The adventures of these three officers
and forty men form a separate story, which will be narrated later.
CHAPTER XXXVI
BATTLE OFF THE FALKLANDS
The defeat of the British squadron back in the first week of November
had sorely tried the patience of the British public, and the admiralty
felt the necessity of retrieving faith in the navy. Von Spee was still
master of the waters near the Horn, and till his ships had again been
met the British could not boast of being rulers of the waves.
Consequently Admiral Fisher detailed the two battle cruisers
_Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ to go to the Falkland Islands. They left
England November 11, 1914, and on the outward journey met with and took
along the light cruisers _Carnarvon_, _Kent_, and _Cornwall_, the
second-class cruiser _Bristol_, and the converted liner _Macedonia_. The
_Canopus_ and the _Glasgow_, now repaired, all joined the squadron,
which was commanded by Admiral Sturdee. The vessels coaled at Stanley,
Falkland Islands, and while so engaged on December 8 were warned by a
civilian volunteer watcher on a near-by hill that two strange vessels
had made their appearance in the distance. British naval officers
identified them and other vessels which were coming into view as the
ships of Von Spee's squadron, the one which had been victorious off
Coronel.
During the interval that had elapsed since that engagement these German
ships had not been idle. Von Spee knew that the _Glasgow_ had gone to
the Falklands and that there were important wireless stations there, but
he put off going after those prizes and picked up others. The _Nuernberg_
had cut communication between Banfield and Fanning Islands. Two British
trading ships had fallen victims to the _Dresden_, and four more had
met the same end at the hands of the _Leipzig_. For coal and other
supplies Von Spee had been relying on the Chilean ports, but now came
trouble between him and the port authorities, for England was accusing
the South American nation of acting without regard to neutrality. It was
for this reason that Von Spee turned southward to take the Falkland
Islands. The world at large, and of course Von Spee, had no knowledge of
the ships which had set out from Plymouth for the Falklands on the
eleventh of the month, so he approached in full expectation of making
not only a raid but for occupation. He knew that he would have to
exchange shots with the _Glasgow_ and perhaps some small ships, and he
believed the islands weakly defended by forts, but there was nothing in
that to defer his attack. The result--the lookout near Stanley had
reported the oncoming warships _Gneisenau_ and _Scharnhorst_, followed
by the rest of the German squadron. German guns were trained on the
wireless station, and great was the surprise of the unfortunate Von Spee
and his officers when there was heard the booming of guns which they
knew immediately must be mounted on warships larger than their own.
Their scouting had been defective, and the presence of the _Inflexible_
and _Invincible_ had till then not been discovered. They then reasoned
that these were the guns of the _Canopus_--a critical and fatal error.
The _Canopus_ from behind the hills fired on the German ships in an
endeavor to protect the wireless station. Beyond the range of her guns
hovered the lighter German cruisers _Dresden_, _Leipzig_, and _Nuernberg_
to await the outcoming of the _Glasgow_. Both the _Gneisenau_ and
_Scharnhorst_ concentrated their fire on the _Canopus_, and when the
_Glasgow_, accompanied by the _Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_, and _Kent_, made
her appearance it did not change the battle formation of the Germans,
for the _Canopus_ was still the only large vessel they were aware of.
Now the _Leipzig_ came nearer in order to take up the fight with the
lighter British ships. By nine in the morning the German ships were
drawn out in single file, running parallel with the shore in a
northeasterly direction. At the head of the line was the _Gneisenau_,
followed by the _Dresden_, _Scharnhorst_, _Nuernberg_, and _Leipzig_, in
that order. They thought that this would entice what they believed to be
the whole of the British force present into coming out for a running
fight, and in which the old _Canopus_ would be left behind to be
finished after the lighter vessels were done for. But all this time the
_Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ were silent with their guns, though there
was bustle enough aboard them while their coaling was being hurried.
By ten o'clock these two larger ships were ready with steam up and decks
cleared, and they came out from behind the hill. Von Spee saw that
discretion was the better part of valor and gave orders for his ships to
make off at full speed. For a time the two squadrons kept parallel to
each other at a distance of twelve miles, with the British squadron--the
_Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ leading--north of the German ships. The
_Baden_ and _Santa Isabel_, two transports that had been part of the
German squadron, were unable to keep up with the others and headed
south, pursued by the _Bristol_ and _Macedonia_. The two British battle
cruisers were faster than any other ships in either squadron, and while
pulling up on the German ships were in danger of pulling away from their
own ships. To avoid the latter, Admiral Sturdee kept down their speed
and was content with taking a little longer to get within gun range of
Von Spee's ships. By two o'clock the distance between them was about
16,000 yards; the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_ had now left the rest of
the British squadron far behind and took issue with the _Scharnhorst_
and _Gneisenau_ respectively. The remaining British ships, with the
exception of the _Carnarvon_, gave attention to the three lighter German
cruisers and the _Eitel Friedrich_, which had broken from the first
formation and were now pointing southeast.
Von Spee ordered the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ to turn broadside to
the enemy. Shells were falling upon the German ships with fair accuracy,
but their return fire could do little damage to the British ships,
because the range was a little too great for the German 8.2-inch guns.
Those of the _Inflexible_ and _Invincible_ were of the 12-inch type.
All four ships were belching forth heavy black smoke that hung low over
the water after it left the funnels. A moderate breeze carried it
northward, and Von Spee moved his ships this way and that till his smoke
blew straight against the guns of the British ships, making it almost
impossible for the British gunners to take aim and note effect. But the
superior speed of the two British battle cruisers stood them in good
stead, and their commanders brought them up south of the enemy--on their
other side. It was now the German gunners who found the smoke in their
faces, and the advantage was with the British.
By three o'clock in the afternoon fire had broken out on the
_Scharnhorst_ and Von Spee replied to Sturdee's inquiry that he would
not quit fighting, though some of his guns were out of action and those
which still replied to the Britisher did now only at intervals. There
was evidently something wrong with the machinery that brought shells and
ammunition to her guns from out of her hold, the fire probably
interfering with it. A 12-inch shell cut right through her third funnel
and carried it completely off the ship. She turned so that she could
bring her starboard guns into action, and they did so feebly. The fire
on board her grew worse and worse, and it could be seen blood-red
through holes made by the shells from the _Invincible_ whenever her hull
showed through the dense clouds of escaping steam that enveloped her.
Just at four o'clock she began to list to port, thus having her
starboard guns put out of action, for they pointed toward the sky, and
the shells which came from them described parabolas, dropping into the
water at safe distance from the English ship. More and more she listed,
till her port beam ends were in the cold waters of the South Atlantic,
and while in that position she sank some fifteen minutes later.
Meanwhile the duel between the _Gneisenau_ and _Inflexible_ had been
going on. A 12-inch shell from one of the British cruisers struck one of
the after gun turrets of the _Gneisenau_ and swept it overboard. The
German ship used the sinking _Scharnhorst_ as a screen and tried to take
on both British ships. Still she was able to plant some effective shells
against the _Invincible_ as a final reply. By half-past five she was
listing heavily to starboard and her engines had stopped. The British
ship, thinking she was surely done for, ceased firing at her and watched
her for ten minutes, while a single gun on board of her fired at
intervals. The three ships _Carnarvon_, _Inflexible_, and _Invincible_
now closed in on her and punished her till the flag at her stern was
hauled down. But the ensign at her peak continued to fly. Just at six
o'clock, with this color still in position, she suddenly heeled to
starboard, while the men of her crew made hastily up her slanting decks
and then climbed over on to the exposed part of her upturned port side.
Many of these unfortunate men had time to jump into the sea, but others
were caught when she suddenly disappeared beneath the surface.
There remained the task of picking up her survivors, but they were not
numerous, for the shock of the cold water killed a large number. Having
picked up those whom they could, the three British ships signaled the
news of their victories to the distant cruisers which were fighting it
out with the _Dresden_, _Leipzig_, _Nuernberg_, and _Eitel Friedrich_.
These lighter German cruisers had left the line of battle and had turned
southward at just about the time that the action between the
_Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ and _Inflexible_ and _Invincible_ began.
They started off with the _Dresden_ at the foremost point of a triangle
and with the other two at the two remaining points. The _Glasgow_,
_Cornwall_, and _Kent_ went after them, while the _Carnarvon_, because
her speed was not high enough to accompany them, remained with the
battle cruisers. The _Glasgow_ drew up with the German ships first, and
at three o'clock began to fire on the _Leipzig_ at a distance of 12,000
yards. As in the other action of that afternoon, the British ship took
advantage of the fact that her guns had longer range, and she drew back
from the German ships so that their guns could not reach her, though her
own shells began to fall upon their decks. It was her object to keep
them busy until she could be joined by her accompanying ships.
[Illustration: Plan--Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Surdee's Action off the
Falkland Islands. Dec 8, 1914.]
The _Cornwall_ by four o'clock was also near enough to the _Leipzig_ to
open fire on her, and three hours later the German cruiser was having a
time of it with a large fire in her hold. British faith in heavy
armament with long range had again been vindicated. There was something
of human interest in this duel between the _Glasgow_ and the
_Leipzig_. In their previous meeting, off Coronel, the German ship had
had all the better of it and now the men of the British ship were out
for revenge. Consequently the _Glasgow_ signaled to the other British
ships: "Stand off--I can manage this myself!" By eight o'clock in the
evening the _Glasgow_ had her in bad condition, and the _Carnarvon_ came
up to assist in raking her till there was nothing left but a mass of
wreckage on her decks. But her flag was still flying and the British
ships kept circling around her, thinking she still wished to fight, but
not coming near enough to permit the use of her torpedo tubes. Miserable
was the plight of the _Leipzig's_ crew, for the two hundred men who were
still alive were unable to get to her flag on account of the fire aboard
her, and they had to remain inactive while the _Carnarvon_ and _Glasgow_
poured round after round into their ship. Only twelve remained alive at
nine o'clock, when she began to list to port. Slowly more and more of
the under-water part of her hull showed above the sea, and she continued
to heel until her keel was right side up. In this position she sank, a
large bubble marking the spot.
When the _Nuernberg_ left the line of German ships at one o'clock, it was
the British cruiser _Kent_ that went after her, a vessel more heavily
armed than the German ship, yet about a knot slower. But by hard work on
the part of the engineers and stokers of the _Kent_ she was able, by
five o'clock, to get within firing distance of the _Nuernberg_. By a
strange trick of fate the _Kent_ was sister ship to the _Monmouth_ which
had fallen victim to one of the _Nuernberg's_ torpedoes in the battle off
Coronel. Here, too, was a duel with human interest in it. In their
desire for revenge, the men of the _Kent_ made fuel of even her
furniture in order to speed up her engines. Her 6-inch guns now began to
strike the German ship, and soon a fire broke out aboard her. She could
have ended the German vessel by keeping a fire upon her while remaining
too distant to be within range of the _Nuernberg's_ 4-inch guns, but dusk
was gathering and an evening mist was settling down upon the water.
Consequently the _Kent_ drew nearer to her adversary. The firing of the
_Nuernberg_ was then effective and more than twenty of her shells took
good effect on the British ship. It was only through prompt action on
the part of her crew that her magazine was kept from exploding, for a
shell set fire to the passage leading to it.
By seven o'clock in the evening the _Nuernberg_ was practically "blind,"
for the flames from the fire that was raging on her had reached her
conning tower. A member of her crew hauled down her flag, and the
_Kent_, thinking that the fight was over, came close to her. While
within a few hundred yards of her, however, she was greeted with new
firing from the German cruiser. But this ceased under a raking from the
_Kent's_ starboard guns, and once again the flag of the _Nuernberg_,
which had been run up on resumption of shooting, was hauled down.
Members of her crew then had to jump into the sea to escape death from
burning--the fire was quenched only when she went down at half past
seven. The overworked engineers and stokers of the _Kent_ were rewarded
for their hard work by being permitted to come on deck to watch the
_Nuernberg_ go down, and all were soon engaged in helping to save the
lives of the German sailors in the water. Just as the red glow of the
sinking _Nuernberg_ was dying down a large four-masted sailing ship, with
all sails set, came out of the mist, her canvas tinged red by the
flames' rays. Silently she went by, disappearing again into the mist, a
weird addition to an uncanny scene.
Chasing the various units of the broken line of German ships had taken
the British ships miles from each other, but after ten o'clock they
began to reach each other by wireless signals and all made again for
Stanley. It was not until the afternoon of the next day, however, that
word came from the _Kent_, for her pursuit had taken her farther than
any of the other British ships.
The _Bristol_ and _Macedonia_ had made good in their pursuit of the
_Santa Isabel_ and _Baden_, but in going after the _Dresden_ the
_Bristol_ was not successful; the German ship got away in the rainstorm
which came up during the evening, and the _Bristol_, which had hurried
out of the harbor at Stanley not quite ready for battle, was unable to
keep on her trail. The fast _Eitel Friedrich_, which as a merchant ship
converted into a man-o'-warsman had greater speed than any of the ships
on either side, was able to get away also. These two German ships now
took up their parts as raiders of allied commerce, and were not
accounted for till months later. There was now on the high seas no
German squadron.
CHAPTER XXXVII
SEA FIGHTS OF THE OCEAN PATROL
There were some minor naval operations in the waters of Europe which
have been neglected while larger actions elsewhere were recorded. During
the month of September, 1914, the British admiralty established a
blockade of the mouth of the River Elbe with submarines, and the German
boats of the same type were showing their worth also. On August 28,1914,
the day after the raid on Libau by the German cruiser _Augsburg_, the
date of the battle of the Bight of Helgoland, the two Russian protected
cruisers _Pallada_ and _Bayan_, while patrolling the Russian coast in
the Baltic Sea, were attacked by German submarines. Surrounded by these
small craft, which made poor targets, the two Russian ships sought to
escape by putting on full speed, but the former was hit by a torpedo and
sank. The other got away.
All of the Allies, with the exception of France, had by the beginning of
September, 1914, suffered losses in their navies. The navy of the
republic was engaged in assisting a British fleet in maintaining
supremacy in the Mediterranean, and kept the Austrian fleet bottled up
in the Adriatic Sea. French warships bombarded Cattaro on September 10,
1914, to assist the military operations of the Montenegrin Government.
These ships then proceeded to the island of Lissa and there destroyed
the wireless station maintained by Austria. The Austrian navy made no
appearance while the allied fleets scoured the lower coast of Dalmatia,
bringing down lighthouses, destroying wireless stations, and bombarding
the islands of Pelagosa and Lesina. On the 19th of September, 1914,
they returned to Lissa and landed a force which took possession of it,
thus establishing a new naval base against the Central Powers' navies.
Duels between pairs of ships took place in various seas. The career of
the raider _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, a fast converted liner, was
ended by the British ship _Highflyer_, a cruiser, near the Cape Verde
Islands, on August 27, 1914, after the former had sunk the merchantman
_Hyades_ and had stopped the mail steamer _Galician_. The greater speed
of the German vessel was of no advantage to her, for she had been caught
in the act of coaling. What then transpired was not a fight, for in
armament the two were quite unequal. She soon sank under the
_Highflyer_'s fire, her crew having been rescued by her colliers.
The next duel took place between the _Carmania_ and _Cap Trafalgar_,
British and German converted liners, respectively. They met on September
14,1914, in the Atlantic off South America. In view of the fact that at
the beginning of the war these two ships had been merchantmen and had
been armed and commissioned after the outbreak of hostilities, this
engagement was something of the nature of those between privateersmen in
the old days. In speed, size, and armament they were about equal. For
nearly two hours they exchanged shots between 3,000 and 9,000 yards, and
markmanship was to determine the victory. The shots from the _Carmania_
struck the hull of the other ship near the water line repeatedly, and
the British commander was wise enough to present his stern and bow ends
more often than the length of the _Carmania_'s sides. At the end of the
fight the German ship was afire and sank. Her crew got off safely in her
colliers, and the British ship made off because her wireless operator
heard a German cruiser, with which the _Cap Trafalgar_ had been in
communication, signaling that she was hastening to the liner's aid.
Only two days before this the British cruiser _Berwick_ captured the
converted liner _Spreewald_ in the North Atlantic, where she had been
trying to interrupt allied commercial vessels.
Germany kept up her policy of attrition by clever use of submarines and
mines. The British battleship _Audacious_, while on patrol duty off the
coast of Ireland in the early days of the war, met with a disaster of
some sort and was brought to her home port in a sinking condition. The
rigors of the British censorship almost kept the news of this out of the
British papers and from the correspondents of foreign papers. It was
reported that she had struck a mine, that she had been torpedoed, and
that she had been made the victim of either a spy or a traitor who
caused an internal explosion. The truth was never made clear. Rumors
that she had gone down were denied by the British admiralty some months
later, when they reported her repaired and again doing duty, but this
was counteracted by a report that one of the ships that was completed
after the start of hostilities had been given the same name.
About the sinking of the _Hawke_ there was less conjecture. This vessel
had gained notoriety in times of peace by having collided with the
_Olympic_ as the latter left port on her maiden voyage to New York. On
the 15th of October, 1914, while patrolling the northern British home
waters she was made the target of the torpedo of a German submarine and
went down, but the _Theseus_, which had been attacked at the same time,
escaped.
Four German destroyers were to be the next victims of the war in
European waters. On October 17,1914, the _S-115_, _S-117_, _S-118_, and
_S-119_ while doing patrol duty off the coast of the Netherlands, came
up with a British squadron consisting of the cruiser _Undaunted_ and the
destroyers _Legion_, _Lance_, and _Loyal_. An engagement followed, in
which damage was done to the British small boats and the four German
destroyers were sunk. Captain Fox, senior British officer, had been on
the _Amphion_ when she sank the _Koenigin Luise_ and had been rescued
after being knocked insensible by the explosion of the mine that sent
the _Amphion_ to the bottom.
The exploit of Lieutenant Commander Horton in the British submarine
_E-9_ when he sank the _Hela_ has already been narrated. The same
commander, with the same craft, during the first week of October, 1914,
proceeded to the harbor of the German port of Emden, whence had sailed
many dangerous German submarines and destroyers that preyed on British
ships. He lay submerged there for a long period, keeping his men amused
with a phonograph, and then carefully came to the surface. Through the
periscope he saw very near him a German destroyer, but he feared that
the explosion of a torpedo sent against her would damage his own craft,
so he allowed her to steam off, and when she was 600 yards away he let
go with two torpedoes. The second found its mark, and the _S-126_ was no
more. He immediately went beneath the surface and escaped the cordon of
destroyers which immediately searched for him. By October 7 the _E-9_
was back in Harwich, its home port.
On the 31st of October, 1914, the cross-channel steamer _Invicta_
received the S. O. S. signal and went to rescue the crew of the old
British cruiser _Hermes_, which had been struck by two torpedoes from a
German submarine near Dunkirk. All but forty-four of her men were saved.
The next victim of a German submarine was the gunboat _Niger_, which, in
the presence of thousands of persons on the shore at Deal, foundered
without loss of life on November 11, 1914. But one of the German
submarines was to go to the bottom in retaliation. On the 23d of
November the _U-18_ was seen and rammed off the Scotch coast, and some
hours later was again seen near by. This time she was floating on the
surface and carrying a white flag. The British destroyer _Garry_ brought
up alongside of her and took off her crew, just as she foundered.
Three days later the _Bulwark_, a British battleship of 15,000 tons and
carrying a crew of 750 officers and men, was blown up in the Thames
while at anchor at Sheerness. It was never discovered whether she was a
victim of a torpedo, a mine, or an internal explosion. It is possible
that a spy had placed a heavy charge of explosives within her hull. Only
fourteen men of her entire complement survived the disaster.
It was in November, 1914, also, that the sometime German cruisers
_Goeben_ and _Breslau_, now flying the Turkish flag, became active
again. As units in a Turkish fleet they bombarded unfortified ports on
the Black Sea on the first day of the month. Retaliation for this was
made by the Allies two days later when a combined fleet of French and
English battleships bombarded the Dardanelles forts, inflicting a
certain amount of damage.
On the 18th of November, 1914, the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ engaged a
Russian fleet off Sebastopol. The composition of this Russian fleet was
never made public by the Russian admiralty, but it is known that the
Russian battleship _Evstafi_ was the flagship. She came up on the
starboard side of the two German ships and opened fire on the nearer,
the _Goeben_, at a distance of 8,000 yards. The latter, hit by the
Russian 12-inch guns was at first unable to reply because the first
shots set her afire in several places, but she finally let go with her
own guns and after a fourteen-minute engagement she sailed off into a
fog. Her sister ship the _Breslau_ took no part in the exchange of
shots, and also made off. The damage done to the _Goeben_ was not enough
to put her out of commission; the _Evstafi_ suffered slight damage and
had twenty-four of her crew killed.
The British submarine commander, Holbrook, with the _B-11_ upheld the
prestige of this sort of craft in the British navy. He entered the
waters of the Dardanelles on the 13th of December, 1914, and submerging,
traveled safely through five lines of Turkish mines and sent a torpedo
against the hull of the Turkish battleship _Messudiyeh_. The _B-11_
slowly came to the surface to see what had been the result of her
exploit, and her commander, through the periscope saw her going down by
the stern. It was claimed later by the British that she had sunk, a
claim which was officially denied by the Turks. Her loss to Turkey, if
it did occur, was not serious, for she was too old to move about, and
her only service was to guard the mine fields. The _B-11_ after being
pursued by destroyers again submerged for nine hours and came
successfully from the scene of the exploit.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
WAR ON GERMAN TRADE AND POSSESSIONS
With the exceptions of the deeds done by the German sea raiders the
remaining naval history of the first six months of the war had to do for
the most part with British victories. When Von Spee's squadron, with the
exception of the light cruiser _Dresden_, which was afterward sunk at
the Island of Juan Fernandez, was dispersed off the Falkland Islands
there was no more possibility of there being a pitched fight between
German and British fleets other than in the North Sea.
England began then to hit at the outlying parts of the German Empire
with her navy. The cruiser _Pegasus_, before being destroyed by the
_Koenigsberg_ at Zanzibar on September 20, 1914, had destroyed a floating
dock and the wireless station at Dar-es-Salaam, and the _Yarmouth_,
before she went on her unsuccessful hunt for the _Emden_, captured three
German merchantmen.
As far back as the middle of August, 1914, the capture of German Samoa
had been planned and directed from New Zealand. On the 15th of that
month an expedition sailed from Wellington, and in order to escape the
_Gneisenau_ and _Scharnhorst_, went first to French New Caledonia, where
the British cruisers _Psyche_, _Philomel_, and _Pyramus_ were met with.
On the 23d of the month, this force, which was augmented by the French
cruiser _Montcalm_ and the Australian battleships _Australia_ and
_Melbourne_, sailed first for the Fiji Islands and then to Apia on Upolu
Island off Samoa. They reached there on the 30th. There was, of course,
no force on the island to withstand that of the enemy, and arrangements
for surrender of the place were made by signal. Marines were sent
ashore; the public buildings were occupied, the telegraph and telephone
wires cut, the wireless station destroyed and the German flag hauled
down, to be replaced by the Union Jack. The Germans taken prisoners were
rewarded for the kind treatment they had accorded British residents
before the appearance of this British force, and were sent to New
Zealand.
The next German possession to be taken was that in the Bismarck
Archipelago. It was known that there was a powerful wireless station at
Herbertshoehen, the island known as New Pomerania. A small landing party
was put ashore on the island in the early morning of September 11, 1914,
and made its way, without being discovered, to the town. The surprised
inhabitants were too frightened to do anything until this party left to
go further on to the wireless station. By that time it met with some
resistance, but overcame it. A few days later another landing party had
captured the members of the staff of the governor of New Pomerania,
together with the governor himself, at Bougainville, Solomon Islands,
whence they had fled. The wireless stations on the island of Yap, in the
Carolines, and on Pleasant Island were destroyed during the following
month.
Perhaps the strangest operations of naval character ever performed were
the inland "sea" fights in Africa. The great Nyassa Lake in Africa was
the scene of this fighting. With its entire western shore in British
possession and with a goodly part of its waters within the territory of
German East Africa, it was not unnatural that fighting should take place
there. Both countries maintained small armed vessels on the lake. The
British ship _Gwendolen_, a 350-ton craft, had been built on the Clyde
and had been sent to Nyassa Lake in sections and there assembled and
launched in 1898. During August she fought with a German ship and
captured it. The fighting on the lake could not, however, determine the
success of the military operations taking place in those regions.
The preponderance of British naval strength was beginning to tell
severely upon German trade by the end of 1914, and her boast that
through her navy she would starve out Germany aroused the German
Government greatly. In answer to these British threats, Grand Admiral
von Tirpitz, German Secretary of Marine, in an interview given to an
American newspaper correspondent, hinted that Germany's retaliation
would be a war on British merchant ships by German submarines.
The interview at the time aroused but mild comment; the idea was a new
one, and the question immediately arose as to whether such action would
be within the limits of international law. For the time being, however,
Von Tirpitz's words remained nothing more than a threat. It was not
until months later that the threat was made good, and the consequences
must form a separate part of this narrative.
The seaplane, the newest naval machine at the time, and as yet an
untried factor, was to see maiden service first at the hands of the
British, when on the 25th of December a raid on Cuxhaven was made. Seven
naval seaplanes attacked a fleet of German cruisers and destroyers lying
off Schilling Roads near the German port. The men who thus made history
in aviation were Francis E. T. Hewlett, son of the famous novelist,
accompanied by seven pilots. A naval force consisting of a light
cruiser, a flotilla of destroyers and another of submarines brought up
near Helgoland during the morning. When this naval force was first
discovered by the lookouts on Helgoland, there immediately appeared
approaching from the German base two Zeppelins and a number of German
seaplanes, together with some submarines. Meanwhile, from the decks of
the British craft there went up the seven British seaplanes.
In order to give them a place for landing after they returned from their
raid, it was necessary for the British ships to remain in the vicinity
for three hours. The _Undaunted_ and _Arethusa_, with the rest of the
British force, had to "dance" about, dodging the submarines which were
attacking them from beneath the surface of the water and the aircraft
hovering over them. Bombs dropped from the latter failed to find their
targets, and by swift maneuvering the torpedoes shot at them were also
caused to go far wide of the mark.
The British airmen dropped their bombs on points of military importance
at Cuxhaven, but their effect was kept secret by the German authorities.
Six of the seven returned to the squadron and were picked up by
submarines. Three of the seaplanes were wrecked and had to be abandoned.
Fog not only prevented the British airmen from doing their best work,
but it kept the marksmen on the German aircraft also from hitting the
ships on the waters beneath them. This raid had been made in answer to
a great outcry that had gone up from the British public after German
warships had raided the eastern coast of England.
CHAPTER XXXIX
RAIDS ON THE ENGLISH COAST
During the first days of November, 1914, the Germans planned and carried
out a general surprise for the British navy. After the battle in the
Bight of Helgoland, back in August, the British thought that Germany
would continue to keep her navy within the protection of her coast
defenses, perhaps forever. But such was not her intention.
On the afternoon of November 2, 1914, there gathered off some part of
Germany's northern shore a squadron consisting of the battle cruisers
_Von der Tann_, _Seydlitz_, and _Moltke_, the protected cruisers
_Kolberg_, _Strassburg_, and _Graudenz_, the armored cruisers _Yorck_
and _Bluecher_, together with some destroyers. The slowest of these
vessels could make a speed of 25 knots, and the fastest, the _Graudenz_
and _Moltke_, could make 28 knots. The guns of the _Bluecher_ were the
heaviest in the squadron, those of her primary battery being 12-inch
cannon. Ten-inch guns were on the decks of the other ships.
The first that the rest of the world knew of the gathered force was at
evening, November 2, 1914, when a fleet of British fishermen hailed them
with friendly signs, thinking them British ships, not far from Lowestoft
some time after six o'clock. The fishermen started at once for their
home ports in order to apprise the British authorities, but they had not
gone far when the news was flashed to the British admiralty office from
the wireless room of the British gunboat _Halcyon_. But only the first
few words of the warning were able to get through, for the wireless
operators on the German ships "jammed" their keys, and a few shots from
the German guns were sufficient to bring down the wireless apparatus of
the gunboat as well as one of her funnels. She turned off and made for
her home port to report the news some hours later.