The German Fleet / Being The Companion Volume to "The Fleets At War" and "From Heligoland To Keeling Island

by Archibald Hurd

Meanwhile, even before an Imperial Executive had been got together, the Frankfort Parliament had voted for naval purposes a sum of 6,000,000 thalers,[6] half of which was to be spent immediately and the remainder as necessity might arise. Part of the money was to be taken from the fortress fund of the old Confederacy, and the remainder raised by levies in due proportion on the various states of the union. The question of these "matricular contributions," which in some cases were altogether refused, and in others only paid after much hesitation and vacillation, was one of the chief reasons for the ultimate dissolution of the first "German" Navy.

In November an imperial naval authority was constituted under the control of the Minister of Commerce, who was at the same time deputy for Bremen. An advisory commission of experts was also appointed, and the chair in this body was, at the personal request of the Archduke-Administrator, taken by the man who, in one sense, may be regarded as the father of the present German Fleet, Prince Adalbert of Prussia, and to whom, for this reason, more detailed reference must be made hereafter. The commission submitted a scheme, in which it was recommended that Germany should, for the present, make no attempt to gain a place in the ranks of the first-class naval Powers, but content herself with the protection of her Baltic and North Sea coasts and her sea-borne trade. These purposes, it was held, could be fulfilled by a fleet of fifteen sixty-gun sailing frigates—if possible with auxiliary engines—five steam frigates, twenty steam corvettes, ten despatch-boats, five schooners, and thirty gun-sloops.

During the winter, officials were despatched to England to purchase and order ships, and to America to induce the United States Government to allow some of its naval officers to enter temporarily into the German service. These latter negotiations at first promised success, but in the end the Government at Washington declared itself unable to entertain the request. With the purchase of material the German emissaries had better luck, and when the truce with Denmark expired in the spring of 1849, the Navy List already contained the names of twelve vessels, though, it is true, hardly one of them was yet fit for action. A Commander-in-Chief had also been found in the person of Karl Bromme, a native of Leipzig, whose name had been permanently anglicized into "Brommy" while he was learning seafaring in the American merchant service. This man, "the first German Admiral," had followed Cochrane to Greece, where he was successively Flag Captain to Admiral Miaulis, organizer in the Ministry of Marine, and Commandant of the Military School at the Piræus. From there he was tempted away to become "Imperial Commissioner" to the incipient German Navy, and after taking part in the sittings of the commission of experts, he was sent in that capacity to Bremerhaven to supervise the formation of the fleet and to found a naval arsenal.

On June 4th Brommy, with a steam frigate and two steam corvettes, attacked a Danish frigate which was lying becalmed off Heligoland. Hardly, however, had the engagement commenced before a signal shot from the island warned the belligerents that they were within British territorial waters, and must suspend hostilities. Soon afterwards the Danish blockading squadron approached the scene, and the German ships hurried back to their harbour. This was the only opportunity the German Fleet had of showing its quality. Brommy was promoted to Rear-Admiral later in the year.

Insignificant as the Heligoland skirmish was in itself, it had a sequel which has played a great part in all subsequent movements for increasing the German Fleet. Brommy's ships had fought under the black-red-and-gold that were to be the colours of the new Empire. But this Empire had then no legal existence, and, as a matter of fact, never did have one, and no doubt Palmerston was only giving expression to recognised principles of international law when he wrote that vessels committing acts of belligerency under the black-red-and-gold flag would render themselves liable to be treated as "pirates." The Frankfort Government, a product of excitement and inexperience, made many mistakes which the ripe tradition of an old-established administration would have avoided, and, in its haste to assert itself on the seas, doubtless did not give sufficient thought to the restrictions imposed upon it by its own anomalous status. The hoisting of the black-red-and-gold on a flotilla or warships was undeniably a questionable proceeding, and one which justified the view propounded by the British Foreign Minister. At the same time, his words belong to the category of things which had better have been left unsaid. The word "pirate" rankled then, and has ever since continued to rankle, and the Palmerstonian note has been cited ten thousand times, and is still cited, as the supreme example of the tyrannous arrogance with which Britain rules the waves.

A fortnight after Brommy's one exploit as a German naval commander, the remnant of the National Assembly was dispersed by military force at Stuttgart, where it had taken refuge, and Germany relapsed into the condition of a loosely-jointed federation of mutually jealous and suspicious Princes, whose rival claims had to be settled on the battlefield before the great work of unification could be accomplished. The infant navy, which had been the work of a popular movement and a popular Parliament, proved a source of dissension and embarrassment to the Confederacy Governments. Several of the inland states were altogether opposed to the idea that Germany needed a navy. A strong party advocated that one fleet should be provided by Austria for the Adriatic, a second by Prussia for the Baltic, and a third by the remaining German states for the North Sea. The last point of this project was the subject of special negotiations, and at one time there seemed some chance of Hanover assuming the office of "Federal Admiral."

In the end, however, divergent interests and irreconcilable rivalries produced the only possible result, and, in February, 1852, the Confederated Governments decided to cut the Gordian knot. The promising German Navy was dissolved, Admiral Brommy received his discharge (he was subsequently employed for some time as Chief of the Technical Department of the Austrian Admiralty), and an Oldenburg official, whose unforgettable name has helped to brand his memory with the whole infamy of a transaction for which he was in nowise responsible, was appointed "Commissioner of the Germanic Confederation charged with the regulation of naval affairs." This, at least, is the designation appended to his signature on the advertisement which, in the German, English, and French languages, announced to all the world that the German Navy was forthwith to be knocked down to the highest bidder. It was the form rather than the fact of the sale which was taken so ill in Privy Councillor Hannibal Fischer, but it is difficult to see what else he could have done. He made efforts to dispose of the ships by private treaty, and actually sold some of them to Prussia and others to English firms, but a residue remained for which no purchaser could be found in this way, and there was nothing for it but to put them up to public auction. There thus came under the hammer two steam frigates, six steam corvettes, a sailing frigate, and twenty-seven gunboats propelled by oars. Of the eight steamers three had been built at Bristol, and one each at Glasgow, Leith, New York, Hamburg, and Bremen. Except in the case of the American vessel, the engines were all of British make.

Concurrently with the abortive efforts to found a German Navy, Prussia had taken independent action, and laid the real foundation of the great fleet which now aspires to contest the British mastery of the seas. At that time there was not even the slenderest basis for the kingdom to work upon. The task had to be undertaken from the very beginning. During the first half of the nineteenth century, it is true, the advisability of building a navy had more than once been exhaustively discussed by the Prussian Government. In the general resettlement of 1815, the island of Rügen and the strip of Pomeranian coast opposite to it had passed from Sweden to Prussia, and included in the transfer were six gun-sloops and a Swedish officer, Captain Christian Lange, who was summoned to Berlin to report to the War Ministry on the utility of the little flotilla. As the result of his representations, he was commissioned to submit plans and estimates for a war schooner, and for an armed rowing boat for use on the rivers. These vessels were eventually built, with the express idea that they were to serve as experiments and models for the construction of a regular fleet. In great haste prescriptions as to a naval uniform were issued, and the questions of dockyards and harbour works were also deliberated. But the only issue of all this work was the conviction that the national resources were not yet equal to the financial strain which would have been entailed by the creation of a navy. Similar investigations and discussions in the years 1825 and 1832 were, for the same reason, equally fruitless. At the commencement of the revolutionary year, the only vessels in the possession of the Prussian Government were a corvette, which was employed as a Navigation School, a paddle steamer, which conveyed the mails between Stettin and St. Petersburg, and which, under the terms of the contract for its construction, was to be adaptable to the purposes of an "auxiliary cruiser," and a couple of armed yawls.

By the autumn of 1848 a Prussian flotilla of ten sloops and yawls, three of which had been built with the funds collected by private committees, was ready for operations against the Danes. It was placed under the command of a Dutch ex-naval captain named Schröder. The crews provided for him—465 men in all—were a strange medley of active soldiers, reservists, and seamen from the merchant service. For various reasons, not the least weighty of which was the doubtful status of the black-red-and-gold flag, the squadron sailed under the Prussian colours. While it was fitting out, the first steps were taken towards the establishment of a naval organization and the training of a corps of officers.

By the following summer the Prussian fleet could already boast two steamers, one sailing corvette, and twenty-one gun sloops, with a total complement of thirty-seven officers and 1,521 men, and mounting in all sixty-seven guns. But only once did this primitive navy have the satisfaction of taking part in a pitched naval engagement. This was a duel between a Prussian steamer and a Danish brig, which fought for five hours off the island of Rügen. The encounter was terminated by the fall of darkness, and before day broke again another Danish corvette arrived on the scene and put the Prussians to flight. But, in spite of a lack of fighting, the presence of Commodore Schröder's force along the coast undoubtedly did much to relieve the pressure of the blockade.