A PROBLEM IN CONTROL
There are several features in these operations that are of great interest. To begin with, the destruction of a ship by the indirect fire of another ship had not, so far as I know, been systematically attempted before. There was indeed a story of Queen Elizabeth having sunk a Turkish transport by a shot fired clean over the Gallipoli peninsula. In the case of the Queen Elizabeth’s victim the target was not only incredibly far off but actually under way. But this must be regarded as amongst the flukes of war, if indeed that may be called a fluke when the right measure had been taken to ensure success. Still, it was more probable that the attempt might be made a hundred times without a hit being made than that the first shot fired should have landed straight on the target. But here on the Rufigi the monitors had gone up after making ample preparations and after full practice, to achieve a particular object. It was to destroy a very small ship at a range which, for the gun employed, must be considered extraordinarily great. Ten thousand yards is relatively a longer range for a 6-inch gun than is, say, 18,000 for a 15-inch. But while in this respect the task proposed was extraordinarily difficult, there was one element present that would distinguish it from almost any other known use of naval guns. In engaging land forts, both on the Belgian coast and off Gallipoli, there had been ample experience with a stationary target engaged by a stationary ship. But here the firing ship was not only stationary in the sense that it was moored, but was practically at rest in that it was lying in smooth water with no roll or pitch to render the gun-layers’ aim uncertain. The current did cause a certain veering, but not a sufficient movement to embarrass laying. But if in this respect the conditions were easy, they were extraordinarily difficult in every other. The monitors, for instance, were as much exposed to Koenigsberg’s fire as was Koenigsberg to that of the monitors, and whereas Koenigsberg’s guns could be spotted from a position on shore the monitors’ fire had to be spotted by aeroplane. The whole of the operations of Severn and Mersey then were not only carried out under fire, but under an attack that on the second day as well as the first was extraordinarily persistent and extraordinarily accurate. That in the course of two days only one of our ships was hit, and that one only once, must be considered a curiosity, for so good were the gunnery arrangements of Koenigsberg that each monitor when under fire was straddled again and again by salvoes, and when not straddled had the 4.2 shells falling in bunches either just short or just over them. The explanation of her having failed to get more hits than she did, while ultimately Severn’s was completely effective, does not lie in any inferiority of skill, but almost entirely in the fact that the range, if exceptionally great for a 6-inch gun, was almost fabulous for a 4.2, and next that Koenigsberg was a much larger target than either Severn or Mersey. Koenigsberg was probably aground, and therefore showing from three to four feet more of her side than she would at sea. Monitors are a craft with a very, very low freeboard, with a comparatively small central house built up amidships. As a point-blank target Koenigsberg would probably be more than twice the superficial area that either Mersey or Severn would present. The contrast between them as virtual targets, that is, the target that would be presented to the shell as it descended from a height upon the ship, would not, of course, be so great, because the monitors were each of them wider than the German cruiser, but even as a virtual target the Koenigsberg was much more favourable for the British guns.
But the master difficulty of the situation was for the men on the spot, without previous experience of indirect fire, and unaided apparently by any advice from headquarters as to the result of service experiments elsewhere, to extemporize all the processes for finding and keeping the range of a target invisible from the ship. The two essential elements in these processes were (1) for the observer in the aeroplane to note where each shot fell, and (2) to inform the ship that fired it exactly what the position of the impact was, whether to the right or to the left, over or short, and an approximate measurement in yards of its distance from the target. No one of those concerned had ever engaged in any similar operation. The aviators had not only never carried observers to spot naval gunfire, they had none of them ever even flown in the tropics, where the conditions of flight differ altogether from those in more temperate zones. The observers were even more new to the work than the aviators. Apparently some of them had never been in flying machines before. They not only had to learn the elements of spotting, they had to become familiar with the means of sending communications. There seems at one time to have been considerable doubt as to the best means to employ for communication. The means would have to include not only a system of sending messages, whether by wireless, by lights flashing a Morse code or otherwise, but the production of a code as well. When these points were settled, the preliminary practices of Mafia Island gave what appeared to be sufficient experience to show that right principles were being followed. Only when this practice had given satisfactory results was the first attempt of July 6th made.
In the course of that day’s firing the observers reported eight possible hits during the first phase of the firing, and none afterwards. Once or twice smoke was seen to issue from Koenigsberg and in the course of the day the number of guns in her salvo fell from five to three, and ultimately she was employing only a single gun. The monitors had fired approximately 500 rounds to obtain these hits, and had probably double this number fired at them. Opinions differed as to the result, but that some thought Koenigsberg had finally been destroyed is apparent from the character of the Rear-Admiral’s message to the Admiralty. Reflection, however, appears to have made it clear that Koenigsberg was very far indeed from being really out of action, and it became necessary to inquire why there should have been any uncertainty in the matter. The crux of the position was this. Fire had opened at seven in the morning and continued till nearly half-past four in the afternoon. But when the character of the messages transmitted by the observers came under critical examination, it seemed almost certain that no hits were made at all after the first hour. Every kind of explanation for so indecisive and disappointing a result was examined. It was disappointing because it had been shown that it was quite practical to make hits, and it seemed as if there must be something wrong if the hitting could not be continued. Every possible cause of breakdown was put under examination. Had there been anything wrong with the wireless transmitters in the aeroplanes? Had the receiving gear in the monitors broken down? Were the observers too inexperienced, hasty, or unreliable? Had the guns become worn or too hot? Were the sights at fault? But when it came to the point each of these criticisms broke down. There was no reason to distrust the observers, and as all the ships in the offing had received the messages, the transmitting gear must have been above suspicion. Then the monitors’ records tallied with the ships’ records, so that there was nothing wrong with the receivers. When the observers themselves were put through their paces, it seemed that over an area of at least half a mile, say 600 yards short of the target and 200 over, there was really no possibility of making mistakes about where the shots fell, for in this area it was all either open water or dry sand. But outside of this comparatively narrow area there was thick bush, and to an observer at the height of between 3,000 and 4,000 feet even a bursting shell falling in a forest whose trees ran from between 70 to 150 feet high, affords a very uncertain mark. And after 8 P.M. it seemed that only very few shells fell in the belt where their impact was visible, and that sometimes, for very considerable periods, every shot seemed to go into the forest. Could the guns have suddenly become absolutely unreliable? But tests were made, and the guns proved to be quite as accurate as they were before the firing began, and indeed the exactitude of the results precluded this form of error from explaining the failure to complete the business.
At last, when the firing times of the two ships were compared with the observers’ records of the pitching of the shell, the true explanation leapt into sight. The whole show had broken down over the old difficulty of the identification of shots. The people in the aeroplanes could not tell whether a particular shot had been fired by Mersey or Severn, and as both ships got the message, neither could tell whose shot had been observed. It followed therefore that the consequent correction was often put on to the wrong gun. Thus, for example, suppose Mersey had fired a shot 300 yards over the target that fell in bush and was invisible to the observers, while Severn had fired one that was 200 yards short and visible. The observers would wireless 200 short, whereupon the Mersey would think that this message was intended for her, and raise her sight by this amount. Her next round, of course, would go still farther into the bush, and suppose this was visible or partially visible to the observer, who might perhaps have missed Severn’s next round, he might telegraph back 500 or 600 over, a correction that Severn might take to herself, and lose her next shot in the bush short of the target. The men on the Rufigi in short discovered for themselves, by their experiences on this first arduous day against the Koenigsberg, that the problem of correcting the fire of two separated batteries by the work of a single observer is so exceedingly difficult of solution as to make it hardly worth attempting. The lessons so painfully brought home were put to immediate and most successful use. It was resolved on the second attempt that only one monitor should fire at a time. This was not of course the only experience of value obtained in the first day’s operation for when all the results were collated and compared, a pretty exact knowledge of the actual range from the chosen anchorage to the target was obtained, so that on the second day there were fewer initial rounds lost before shell began to fall in the immediate surroundings of the enemy, where the position of each could be verified. When all ambiguity as to the meaning of corrections was removed, the process of finding the target and keeping the range became exceedingly simple.
As will be seen from the narrative, the serious work of the second day began when Severn opened fire about half-past twelve. Nine minutes later, after quite deliberate fire, she obtained her first hit, and from then on continued hitting with great regularity. But before she had been firing ten minutes the spotting aeroplane was disabled and came down. Though the Koenigsberg herself was invisible, the columns of lyddite fumes and smoke sent up by the hits could be seen over the trees, and such columns indicated that hits were being made very frequently. Within a quarter of an hour of the first hit, Koenigsberg ceased her return fire, and shortly after this a huge volume of smoke of a totally different colour from that sent up by lyddite indicated that there had been a great explosion in the ship. When the second aeroplane came out to resume the work of spotting, Mersey took up the work of firing in Severn’s place. Severn had ceased fire at 1:35 and Mersey opened at a quarter past two. But it soon became clear that it was unnecessary for her to proceed with the work, and that with the explosion at 1:15 the business of the Koenigsberg was finished.
What two ships firing continuously for eight hours on July 6th had failed to achieve, a single ship had accomplished in probably fifteen minutes. It was the most perfect exemplification imaginable of the difference in results that wrong and right systems of gunnery produce. The skill shown on the second day was no better than on the first. It was a change of method that made the difference.
What is of special interest is this. Up to the year 1909 it appeared quite premature to discuss methods of concentrating the fire of several ships on a single distant target, until right methods had been discovered for making sure of hitting it with the guns of a single ship. But by the winter of 1909 there seemed to be sufficient experience to show that a complete solution of the simpler problem was assured, and that the time had come for considering how two or more ships could combine their armament. The difficulty of the matter was soon made obvious. While great guns do not all shoot exactly alike, it is possible to ascertain by experiment the individual differences of all the guns in a single ship, and to vary the sight scales so that, at all critical ranges, they should give identical results. But what can be done for a single battery of eight or ten guns cannot be done by experiment for two units of such batteries. If then two ships are to be employed at the same target, it was the very essence of the matter if two processes were carried on simultaneously to obtain one result, that each process should be so organized as to run as if the other were not going at all. Now ships’ guns at sea can be corrected only from positions high up in the masts. It therefore became clear that if the firing ship allowed a fixed interval, say three or four seconds, to elapse after a sister ship had fired, before sending her own salvo at the enemy, it would be quite easy, by keeping a record of the time of flight of the projectiles, to pick out her own amongst the salvoes falling in rapid succession on the target, so that there should be no possibility of her mixing up her own shells with her neighbours’. It is now many years since it was suggested that gongs driven by a clockwork device, which could be set to the time of flight, would simplify this method of identification. Suppose the time of flight to be twelve seconds, the gong would be set to this interval and the clockwork started into motion simultaneously with the firing of the salvo. The observers watch the target and pay no attention to any shots that fall, except those whose incidence coincided with the ringing of the gong.
The essence of this system was the ear-marking, so to speak, of each separate salvo as it went away. But it was manifestly not a principle on which observers placed at a distance from a ship could work. If they were to do their work they must employ some totally different means of identification. Else indirect firing could only be carried on by one ship at a time.
My correspondence in 1909 and 1910 shows that these principles were fully grasped by many gunnery officers in the navy in these years. And I must confess I was extremely astonished when our proceedings at the Dardanelles in March and February and April showed that there was no common practice in the matter throughout the navy. At last, in the month of May 1915, I set out these elementary principia of indirect firing in Land and Water. “The difficulty in correcting the fire of a multitude of ships is, it may be added, twofold, because each salvo must be identified as coming from a particular ship, and then that ship be informed of the correction. There is apparently no escape from the necessity of having a separate spotter for each ship. If the spotter is in an independent position, the obstacles in the way of this double task are considerable. And aeroplanes are not a satisfactory substitute. At best an aeroplane can help one ship only.” It will be observed that in July the officers at the Rufigi had to work them all out again for themselves!
Nothing could better illustrate the curious individualism which governs the organization of our sea forces. Each ship, each squadron, each fleet seems to come to the study of these things as if they were virgin problems, entirely unaided by advice or information from the central authorities, so that there is not only no uniformity of practice—in itself a not unmitigated evil—but what is really serious, a total absence of uniformity of knowledge. I am the last person in the world to suggest that all naval affairs should be regulated in every petty detail from Whitehall. There are quite enough forces at work to repress freedom of thought or restrict liberty to investigate and experiment in the fullest possible way. But there is surely the widest possible difference between a restraining tyranny and an intelligent system of communicating proved principles and the results of successful practice.
CHAPTER X
Capture of H.I.G.M.S. “Emden”
On November 11, 1914, the Secretary of the Admiralty issued a statement which, after referring to the self-internment of Koenigsberg in the Rufigi River, and the measures taken to keep her there, proceeded as follows:
“Another large combined operation by fast cruisers, against the Emden, has been for some time in progress. In this search, which covered an immense area, the British cruisers have been aided by French, Russian, and Japanese vessels working in harmony. His Majesty’s Australian ships Melbourne and Sydney were also included in these movements.
“On Monday morning news was received that the Emden, which had been completely lost after her action with the Jemchug, had arrived at Keeling, Cocos Island, and had landed an armed party to destroy the wireless station and cut the cable.
“Here she was caught and forced to fight by His Majesty’s Australian ship Sydney (Captain John C. T. Glossop, R.N.). A sharp action took place, in which the Sydney suffered the loss of three killed and fifteen wounded.
“The Emden was driven ashore and burnt. Her losses in personnel are reported as very heavy. All possible assistance is being given the survivors by various ships which have been despatched to the scene.
“With the exception of the German squadron now off the coast of Chile, the whole of the Pacific and Indian oceans are now clear of the enemy’s warships.”
The material news was that Emden had been caught and sunk. She was one of Germany’s small fast cruisers, armed like the rest with 4.2 guns, and therefore no very formidable match for the ship that met and encountered her. The work of her destruction, we afterwards learned, had been done by Captain Glossop of Sydney, with a rapidity and neatness unsurpassed in any naval engagement of the war before or, indeed, since. But at the moment when the news came, the method of the thing was of far less importance than the thing itself, for it is no exaggeration to say that at the end of the first week of November the spirits of the nation were at an exceedingly low ebb. There was a marked uneasiness as to the naval position. The successes of the Fleet had been achieved without fighting, and it looked as if, in the naval war, we were not only watching, almost abjectly, for the initiative of the enemy, but that we were unable to defeat that initiative when it was taken. The public therefore forgot that 98 per cent. of our trade was carrying on as before, that our sea communications with our armies were under no threat, that the enemy’s battle force was keeping completely within the security of its harbours. There had been but one active demonstration of British naval strength—the affair of the Bight of Heligoland. But a dropping fire of bad news had made our nerves acutely sensitive. It was submarines people feared most. Writing at the time, I summarized the general attitude of the public as it appeared to me:
“Long before the war began the public had been prepared by an active agitation to believe that the submarine had superseded all other forms of naval force, so that when one cruiser after another was sent to the bottom, almost within hail of the English coast, people really began to believe that no ship could be safe, and that (under a form of attack that was equally impossible to foresee, evade, or resist) our vaunted strength in Dreadnoughts must in time dwindle altogether away. Then there were not wanting circumstances that, superficially at least, looked as if the Admiralty’s war plans and distribution of the Fleet were not adequate to their purpose. In at least one conspicuous instance, the resources of our enemy had been too great either for the means or the measures of our admirals. War had not been declared more than a day or two before the Goeben and Breslau made their way through the Mediterranean and escaped unengaged to the Dardanelles. The public knew that we had two powerful squadrons of ships in these waters, one overwhelmingly stronger than the German force; the other, on almost every conceivable train of reasoning, at least a match for it.[B] It seemed utterly humiliating that, with the French Fleet as our allies, and with Germany having none, so important a unit as the Goeben should have got away scot-free. Then it was not long before we heard of the depredations of the Emden, and of British ships being chased and threatened in the North and South Atlantic by other German cruisers.
[B] I should not say this now.
“Against all these things could be set more cheering incidents. Twice the North Sea was swept from top to bottom by the British Fleet, the first resulting in the sinking of three, if not four, cruisers and one destroyer, and in the driving off, apparently hopelessly crippled, of two other cruisers and a great number of smaller craft. The second sweep seemed to show that the entire German Fleet had sought safety in port. Then the Carmania sank the Cap Trafalgar, and the Undaunted, with a small flotilla of destroyers, ran down and sank an equal flotilla of the enemy’s. But these were not sufficient to outweigh the anxiety which the German submarine successes had caused nor did they restore public confidence in the dispositions of the Admiralty in distant seas, where there were still two powerful armed cruisers, a large number of light cruisers, and an unknown number of armed merchantmen still at large.
“The whole thing culminated in a series of very disturbing events. First it was announced that German mines had been laid north of Ireland, and that the Manchester Commerce had been sunk by striking one. Were any of our waters safe for our own battle squadrons, if the enemy could lay mines with impunity right under our noses? This was swiftly followed by our hearing that the Good Hope and Monmouth had been sunk by the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst off Coronel. Then came the sinking of the Hermes and the Niger, one in mid-Channel, the other lying in the anchorage at Deal. And just when nervous people were wondering whether the mine and submarine had really driven the English Fleet off the sea, only to find that ports were not safe, there came the startling news that a German squadron had appeared off Yarmouth.... To many it looked as if this was the last straw. We had sacrificed four cruisers to patrol the neutral shipping in these waters, and when, almost too late, it was discovered that our methods made them too easy targets for submarines, we announced the closing of the North Sea. The public undoubtedly understood by this that, if we closed the North Sea to neutrals, we had closed it to the German Fleet also, and the appearance of this squadron so soon after the announcement was made, and its escape back to its own harbours without being cut off and brought to action, made people ask if the closing of the North Sea had not really meant that Great Britain had resigned its possession to the enemy.”
It is difficult, this being the situation, to overrate how cheering was the news of Emden’s destruction.
If the Canadian naval contingent were the first of our Colonial subjects to shed their blood in this war, then certainly the Australian ship Sydney was the first to assert Great Britain’s command over distant seas, by the triumphant destruction of a ship that dared to dispute it. We began our debt to the Colonies early.
Captain Glossop’s despatch was not published till January 1, but a good many other accounts had been published before, and some have become available since the action.
A very interesting letter from an officer of the Sydney was printed in The Times of December 15. With this account was also published, later on, a plan of the action which, with certain corrections which I have reason to believe are required, is reproduced here. A second account, by another officer in the Sydney, has been sent to me so that it is possible to add some not uninteresting or unimportant details to Captain Glossop’s story. But of all of the accounts Captain Glossop’s is at once the most interesting and the most complete, and I print it in full, because it is in every respect a model of what a despatch should be.
“H.M.A.S. Sydney, at Colombo,
“15th November, 1914.“Sir:—I have the honour to report that whilst on escort duty with the Convoy under the charge of Captain Silver, H.M.A.S. Melbourne, at 6:30 A.M., on Monday, 9th November, a wireless message from Cocos was heard reporting that a foreign warship was off the entrance. I was ordered to raise steam for full speed at 7:0 A.M. and proceed thither. I worked up to 20 knots, and at 9:15 A.M. sighted land ahead and almost immediately the smoke of a ship, which proved to be H.I.G.M.S. Emden coming out towards me at a great rate. At 9:40 A.M. fire was opened, she firing the first shot. I kept my distance as much as possible to obtain the advantage of my guns. Her fire was very accurate and rapid to begin with, but seemed to slacken very quickly, all casualties occurring in this ship almost immediately. First the foremost funnel of her went, secondly the foremast, and she was badly on fire aft, then the second funnel went, and lastly the third funnel, and I saw she was making for the beach of North Keeling Island, where she grounded at 11:20 A.M. I gave her two more broadsides and left her to pursue a merchant ship which had come up during the action.
2. “Although I had guns on this merchant ship at odd times during the action, I had not fired, and as she was making off fast I pursued and overtook her at 12.10, firing a gun across her bows and hoisting International Code Signal to stop, which she did. I sent an armed boat and found her to be the S.S. Buresk, a captured British collier, with 18 Chinese crew, 1 English steward, 1 Norwegian cook, and a German Prize Crew of 3 Officers, 1 Warrant Officer and 12 men. The ship unfortunately was sinking, the Kingston knocked out and damaged to prevent repairing, so I took all on board, fired 4 shells into her and returned to Emden, passing men swimming in the water, for whom I left two boats I was towing from Buresk.
3. “On arriving again off Emden she still had her colours up at mainmast head. I inquired by signal, International Code, ‘Will you surrender?’ and received a reply in Morse, ‘What signal? No signal books.’ I then made in Morse ‘Do you surrender?’ and subsequently ‘Have you received my signal?’ to neither of which did I get an answer. The German officers on board gave me to understand that the Captain would never surrender, and therefore though reluctantly, I again fired at her at 4:30 P.M., ceasing at 4:35, as she showed white flags and hauled down her ensign by sending a man aloft.
![[(LARGER)]](#7198634926806088604_i_158_large.jpg.id-6148694966910786363.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Plan of Sydney and Emden in action
4. “I then left Emden and returned and picked up the Buresk’s two boats, rescuing 2 sailors (5:0 P.M.), who had been in the water all day. I returned and sent in one boat to Emden, manned by her own prize crew from Buresk, and 1 Officer, and stating I would return to their assistance next morning. This I had to do, as I was desirous to find out the condition of cables and Wireless Station at Direction Island. On the passage over I was again delayed by rescuing another sailor (6:30 P.M.), and by the time I was again ready and approaching Direction Island it was too late for the night.
5. “I lay on and off all night, and communicated with Direction Island at 8:0 A.M., 10th November, to find that the Emden’s party consisting of 3 Officers and 40 men, 1 launch and 2 cutters had seized and provisioned a 70-ton schooner (the Ayesha), having 4 Maxims, with 2 belts to each. They left the previous night at six o’clock. The Wireless Station was entirely destroyed, 1 cable cut, 1 damaged, and 1 intact. I borrowed a Doctor and 2 Assistants, and proceeded as fast as possible to Emden’s assistance.
6. “I sent an Officer on board to see the Captain, and in view of the large number of prisoners and wounded and lack of accommodation, etc., in this ship, and the absolute impossibility of leaving them where they were, he agreed that if I received his Officers and men and all wounded ‘then as for such time as they remained in Sydney they would cause no interference with ship or fittings, and would be amenable to the ship’s discipline.’ I therefore set to work at once to transship them—a most difficult operation, and the ship being on the weather side of the Island and the send alongside[C] very heavy. The conditions in the Emden were indescribable. I received the last from her at 5:0 P.M., then had to go round to the lee side to pick up 20 more men who had managed to get ashore from the ship.
[C] I. e. the rise and fall of the sea.
7. “Darkness came on before this could be accomplished, and the ship again stood off and on all night, resuming operations at 5:0 A.M. on 11th November, a cutter’s crew having to land with stretchers to bring wounded round to embarking point. A German Officer, a Doctor, died ashore the previous day. The ship in the meantime ran over to Direction Island to return their Doctor and Assistants, send cables, and was back again at 10:0 A.M., embarked the remainder of wounded and proceeded for Colombo by 10:35 A.M., Wednesday, 11th November.
8. “Total casualties in Sydney: killed 3, severely wounded (since dead) 1, severely wounded 4, wounded 4, slightly wounded 4. In the Emden I can only approximately state the killed at 7 Officers and 108 men from Captain’s statement. I had on board 11 Officers, 9 Warrant Officers, and 191 men, of whom 3 Officers and 53 men were wounded, and of this number 1 Officer and 3 men have since died of wounds.
9. “The damage to Sydney’s hull and fittings was surprisingly small; in all about 10 hits seem to have been made. The engine and boiler rooms and funnels escaped entirely.
10. “I have great pleasure in stating that the behaviour of the ship’s company was excellent in every way, and with such a large proportion of young hands and people under training it is all the more gratifying. The engines worked magnificently, and higher results than trials were obtained, and I cannot speak too highly of the Medical Staff and arrangements on subsequent trip, the ship being nothing but a hospital of a most painful description!
“I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
John C. T. Glossop,
Captain.”
The first point of interest in this engagement is the rapidity with which the gunfire on both sides became effective. Emden made no attempt to get away, and opened fire before Sydney did, and at a range of 10,500 yards. One account says “her first shots fell well together for range, but very much spread out for line. They were all within twenty yards of the ship.” Either the gun range-finders were marvels of accuracy, or else they had great luck in picking up the range so quickly. This account proceeds: “As soon as her first salvo had fallen she began to fire very rapidly in salvoes, the rate of fire being as high as ten rounds per gun per minute, and very accurate for the first ten minutes.”
I draw the reader’s attention particularly to this phrase, because it reproduces almost verbatim Commodore Tyrwhitt’s comment on the fire of the German cruisers in his third action of the Heligoland affair. We find the same phenomenon at the destruction of Koenigsberg, whose guns both throughout the first and second day of that affair seem to have had the exact range of the monitors. This testimony to the accuracy of the enemy’s fire must be read in connection with Captain Glossop’s statement, that in all about ten hits seem to have been made. All accounts agree that no hits were made after the first ten minutes. But if the rate of Emden’s fire is correctly given, she must have fired 500 rounds in this phase of the action. Ten hits to 500 rounds gives 2 per cent. of hits only!
The explanation, both of the Rufigi monitors and of Sydney’s comparative immunity, is undoubtedly the extreme range at which each action was fought. At such ranges a gun of so small a calibre as the 4.2 would have to be raised to a very high elevation. The projectiles, therefore, would fall very steeply towards the target. In conditions like these salvoes may fall just short and just over, and even straddle the boat fired at, without a single hit being made.
But of the excellence of the Emden’s shooting and of her control of fire—so long as the fire was controlled—there can be no shadow of doubt whatever. It was obvious that if the battleships were equally good, the German Fleet would prove a serious foe. We must certainly esteem it one of the fortunate chances of this war that when Germany was building her Fleet, her naval authorities were convinced that all fighting would be at short range. Their calculation was that at short range a rapid and accurate fire of smaller pieces should prove just as effective as the slower fire of larger pieces. Her cruisers therefore were armed with 4.2’s when ours were being armed with 6-inch, and her battleships with 11-inch guns when ours were being fitted with 12-inch and 13.5’s. In the case of battleships and battle-cruisers, the German constructors had their eye upon a further advantage in the adoption of lighter pieces. The weight saved could be put, and in fact was put, into a more thorough armoured protection. Von Müller, the captain of Emden, when he was congratulated, after the capture, on the gallant fight put up, was at first seemingly offended. “He seemed taken aback and said ‘No,’ and went away, but presently he came to me and said, ‘Thank you very much for saying that, but I was not satisfied; we should have done better. You were very lucky in shooting away my voice pipes in the beginning.’” But if the Germans lost their voice pipes, Sydney lost her rangefinder in the opening salvoes. The German fire control had not survived the derangement of its communications. It was not possible to extemporize anything to take their place. We do not hear that the accuracy of Sydney’s fire lost anything when the rangefinder went.
Both ships appeared, in this action, to have employed, or at least to have attempted to employ, their torpedoes. In an interview with Von Müller reported from Colombo, he is said to have explained that his intention in closing Sydney at the opening of the engagement was not to lessen the range so as to bring the ballistics of his guns to an equality with ours, but to get Sydney within torpedo range. Sydney seems certainly to have fired a torpedo rather less than half-way through the action when the range was at its shortest. But as in the Heligoland affair, so here, the difficulties in getting a hit were insuperable. That Emden did not fire a torpedo at the same time is explained by the fact that the action had not proceeded twenty minutes before not only was her steering gear wrecked, so that she had to steer by her screws, but her submerged torpedo flat also was put out of action.
All accounts of the action agree upon the excellent conduct of the men and boys on board Sydney. A letter published in The Times gives us many evidences of this. “The hottest part of the action for us was the first half-hour. We opened fire from our port guns to begin with. I was standing just behind No. 1 port, and the gun-layer (Atkins, 1st class Petty Officer) said, ‘Shall I load, sir?’ I was surprised, but deadly keen there should be no ‘flap,’ so said, ‘No, don’t load till you get the order.’ Next he said, ‘Emden’s fired, sir.’ So I said ‘All right, load, but don’t bring the gun to the ready.’ I found out afterwards that the order to load had been received by the other guns ten minutes before, and my anti-‘flap’ precautions, though they did not the slightest harm, were thrown away on Atkins, who was as cool as a cucumber throughout the action.” It was the boys’ quarters on board that suffered most from Emden’s fire. The same writer says:
“Our hits were not very serious. We were ‘hulled’ in about three places. The shell that exploded in the boys’ mess deck, apart from ruining the poor little beggars’ clothes, provided a magnificent stock of trophies. For two or three days they kept finding fresh pieces.”
They were probably consoled for the lost wardrobe by this treasure of souvenirs.
“There are lots of redeeming points in the whole show. Best of all was to see the gun’s crew fighting their guns quite unconcerned. When we were last in Sydney we took on board three boys from the training ship Tingira, who had volunteered. The captain said, ‘I don’t really want them, but as they are keen I’ll take them.’ Now the action was only a week or two afterwards, but the two out of the three who were directly under my notice were perfectly splendid. One little slip of a boy did not turn a hair, and worked splendidly. The other boy, a very sturdy youngster, carried projectiles from the hoist to his gun throughout the action without so much as thinking of cover. I do think for two boys absolutely new to their work they were splendid.”[D]
[D] The (slightly modified) plan of this action is reproduced by the kind permission of the Editor of the Times.
CHAPTER XI
The Career of Von Spee
At the beginning of hostilities the strategic position in the Pacific and Indian oceans should have been one that could have caused no possible naval anxiety to the Allies. Japan had at once thrown in her lot with us, and as we had squadrons in the China Seas, in the Indian Ocean, and in Australasia there was, when the forces of our eastern allies are added to them, a total naval strength incalculably greater than that at the disposal of the enemy. But this fact notwithstanding, there was for some months extraordinary uncertainty, and the arrangements adopted by the Admiralty permitted a serious attack to be made on our shipping and involved a tragic disaster to a British squadron. The facts of the case are far from being completely known, but the main features of the original situation and its development make it possible to draw certain broad inferences, which are probably correct.
In the summer of 1914 the German sea forces at Tsing-Tau consisted of two armoured cruisers, two light cruisers, certain destroyers and gun-boats. Leaving the destroyers and gun-boats behind, Von Spee in the month of June abandoned his base at Tsing-Tau, and, after calling at Nagasaki, made for the German possessions in the Caroline Islands. His flag flew in Scharnhorst, and this ship with her sister vessel Gneisenau constituted his main strength. He had the two light cruisers, Leipzig and Emden, in his company, and on July 20, when the situation was becoming acute, he ordered Nürnberg, which was at San Francisco, and Dresden, which was at Vera Cruz, at the other side of the American continent, to join him. Nürnberg reached him in a couple of weeks; Dresden not till the end of October. By mid-August, then, his force consisted of two armoured cruisers, each with a broadside of six 8-inch and three 6-inch guns, and three light cruisers armed only with 4-inch. Of the light cruisers Emden and Nürnberg had a speed of between 25 and 26 knots; Leipzig of about 23 or 24. The fighting value of the armoured cruisers was approximately equal to that of Minotaur and Defence and probably superior to that of the Warrior class. The German 8-inch guns fired a projectile only slightly lighter than the British 9.2, so that, gun for gun, there should have been little to choose between them; while from the point of view of the control of fire, the broadside of six homogeneous guns could probably be used quite as effectively as a mixed armament of four 9.2’s and five 7.5’s, and more so than one of four 9.2’s and two 7.5’s. To engage such a squadron with the certainty of success, therefore, at least three British armoured cruisers of the latest type would have been required.
Neither of the British squadrons in eastern waters possessed the combination of speed and power that would have made them superior to Von Spee’s force. Vice-Admiral Jerram, in the China station, had under his command Triumph, Minotaur, Hampshire, Newcastle, and Yarmouth. But Triumph was not in commission at the outbreak of war, and, though armed with 10-inch guns, she was three knots slower than the German cruisers. Sir Richard Peirse’s command in the East Indies consisted of Swiftsure, a sister ship of Triumph; Dartmouth, a cruiser of the same class as Newcastle; and Fox, a cruiser of old and slow type. Neither squadron, then, could have sought for Von Spee with any hope of bringing him to action, if he choose to avoid it, or with any certainty of defeating him, if he accepted battle. Australia possessed a navy of her own of vastly greater force than either of these outpost forces of the mother-country. Of ships finished, commissioned, and ready for sea, it consisted of Australia, a battle-cruiser of the Indefatigable class; two protected cruisers of the Dartmouth type, Sydney and Melbourne; and Encounter, a sister ship of Challenger, with destroyers and submarines. A fast light cruiser, Brisbane, and some destroyers were building. In the Japanese Navy the Allies had, of course, resources out of all proportion to the enemy’s strength.
When war became imminent Admiral von Spee, as we have seen, left his base for the Polynesian islands. He did this because it was obvious that he could not keep Tsing-Tau open in face of the strength that the combined Japanese and British forces could bring to bear against it, and to have been trapped would have been fatal. The same reasons that made him abandon Tsing-Tau forbade his trying to keep possession of Rabaud in the Bismarck Archipelago. He faced his future, then, without a base—just as Suffren did in 1781. There were several elements peculiar to the situation that made this possible. In the coast towns of Chile and Peru the Germans had a very large number of commercial houses and agents, and there were German ships in every South American port. Their trade with the islands was considerable and, no doubt long before war, it had been arranged that, on receiving the right warning, a great deal of shipping should be equipped and mobilized to supply the German squadron. The widely scattered German outposts afforded also a service hardly less valuable than coal and food. They constituted an intelligence organization that was indispensable. Having no base, and no source of supply other than these German houses in South America and the islands, it was inevitable that Von Spee should look to the east, and not to the west, in any operations that he undertook, if those operations were to be extended and made by a squadron, and not by detached ships. In discussing, then, the strategy which the German Admiralty pursued, these facts must not be lost sight of.
Of warlike policies he had a choice of two. He might either keep his ships together and embark on a war of squadrons, or he could scatter his ships and devote himself to commerce destruction. In the first case, as we have seen, he could only look for objectives in the east. In the alternative the greatest fields of his operations were either north of the Carolines, where the Chinese trade could be attacked; or northwest, where the Asiatic and Australian trades converge to Colombo; or still farther to the west, where the whole eastern trade runs into the mouth of the Red Sea. To the eastward there was no focal point of trade where great results could have been achieved—unless indeed he took his ships round the Horn to attack the River Plate trade or, better still, the main route that passes Pernambuco. It was an obvious truth of the situation that, according as the attack on trade promised great results, so would that attack encounter the greatest dangers, for it seemed to be a certainty that the focal points would be the best protected. The most frequented of these, the approaches to the Red Sea, were also the furthest from his source of supply, and had he in fact resolved upon commerce destruction, his ships would have had to maintain themselves, as did Emden, by coaling and re-victualling out of the prizes that they took. The advantage of scattering and going for the trade ruthlessly would have been the virtual certainty of inflicting very formidable damage indeed of an economic kind. The advantage of keeping his squadron together was the chance of some coup that would turn the scale—even if only for a time—in his country’s favour. The disadvantages of the first policy were that there was the certainty that each ship would ultimately be run down and destroyed by superior force, and grave risk that one or more ships would be paralyzed by want of supplies, before a sufficient destruction of trade could justify the sacrifice. The weakness of the second was that, as a squadron, his ships might accomplish nothing at all.
I have so far discussed the German Admiral’s alternatives as if they had been debated at the time when war became certain. But it can be taken for granted that the principles on which he acted were not solely his own, but had determined German policy in this matter long before. And, in the main, the decisive arguments probably arose from the character of his force.
Writing in 1905, Admiral Sir Reginald Custance exposed the whole tissue of fallacies on which the policy of building armoured cruisers had been based. The main duties of cruising ships are, first, to assist in winning and maintaining command of the sea, by acting as scouts and connecting links between the battle squadrons, and, secondly, to exercise command, once it has been established by the attack on and defence of trade. For the successful discharge of these functions the essential element is that the cruisers should be numerous. So long as their speed is equal, or superior, to that of the enemy cruisers, there is no reason why their individual strength should be greatly or at all superior. The armoured variety represents, roughly speaking, the value of three cruisers of ordinary type, and is manned by a crew almost proportionately larger. When first designed, it was possible to build these large cruisers of a speed superior to that of the smaller vessels, and having this monopoly, the French invented the type in pursuance of the idea that a sea war that consisted chiefly of attacks on commerce, promised brighter prospects than one which could not succeed unless based on battle-fleet supremacy. But this monopoly vanished nearly twenty years ago. For cruising purposes proper, then, this bastard type, while individually enormously more powerful than the light cruiser, was slower and so could not cover even one-third of the ground of its equivalent value in the smaller vessels. Over nine-tenths of the field of cruising, then, it represents a loss of between 60 and 70 per cent. of war efficiency, and this merely from its size.
But because size means cost and because cost has certain definite influences on the human appreciation of values, it was confidently prophesied that no one in command of a number of units of this value could fail to give an undue consideration to the importance of conserving them. Armoured cruisers, in short, would never be treated as cruisers at all, but would be kept in squadrons, just as capital ships are kept, partly to ensure a blow of the maximum strength, if to strike came within the possibilities of the situation, much more, however, for the protective value of mutual support, for fear of an encounter with superior force. This protective tendency would obviously have a further and much more disastrous effect upon the cruising value of such vessels. It would simply mean that, instead of each doing one-third of what three smaller cruisers of the same value might have done, they would really do no cruising, properly so called, at all; and not only this, but would probably monopolize the work of two or three small cruisers to act as special scouts of a squadron so composed, so diverting these units in turn from their proper duties. If any one will take the trouble to read the chapter in Barfleur’s “Naval Policy” dealing with this topic, he will find in Von Spee’s conduct an exact exemplification of what that accomplished and gallant author suggested must happen. Von Spee’s policy, in other words, was probably settled for him by the logic of the situation and the doctrine which prevailed to create it.
Von Spee actually did, then, what it was fully anticipated he would do. He kept his ships together and travelled slowly eastward, maintaining himself in absolute secrecy from the outbreak of war until November 1. What were his exact hopes in the policy pursued, and what the consideration that led him to adopt it? His hopes of achieving any definite strategic result can only have been slender. The composition of his force was so well known that he could hardly have supposed it possible that he would ever meet a squadron of inferior strength. He cannot, then, primarily have contemplated the possibility of any sort of naval victory. Failing this, he may have had various not very precisely defined ideas in his mind. There was to begin with the possibility of picking up a sufficient number of German reservists off the South American coast to have made it possible, not only to attack and seize the Falkland Islands, but actually to have occupied them by an extemporized military force. This, as we know, he did attempt. He might further have contemplated crossing the South Atlantic to the Cape, with a view to supporting an insurrection of the Boers, if that materialized, or in any event of backing up the German colonists, who would be open to attack. Or, having struck a blow at the Falkland Islands, he might have sent his ships on a final mission in raiding the Atlantic trade. So long as his squadron was afloat, there were many possibilities—and always a certainty that it would force counter concentration on his opponents and thereby embarrass them in the task of searching for him.
But one thing was certain. He could not combine squadron war with commercial war. Emden he detached in August to attack the trade in the Indian Ocean. But the only support he could lend her was such immunity from pursuit as would result from the concentration he forced upon the British forces. It is highly probable that, had he sent all his ships on the same mission, he would have had at least a month’s run before effective measures could be taken, if only for the fact, possibly unknown to him, that so large a part of the Allied forces were being devoted to convoying the Australian troops.