The British Navy in Battle

by Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen

Certain truths with regard to the force that Cradock took north, and of the force that he attacked, should be borne in mind. Good Hope, Monmouth, and Glasgow were as a squadron, markedly faster than Von Spee’s squadron. Whether the Otranto was capable of more than 22 or 23 knots I do not know; but the three warships certainly had the heels of the Germans. It is, then, obvious that if Admiral Cradock’s staff regarded themselves and their ships as inadequate or in danger, it cannot have been because, had the enemy attacked them, they would have been unable to escape. It is next equally obvious that had the Admiral kept Canopus with him, while the pace of the squadron would have been brought down from 23 knots to 15, its fighting value, as measured by broadside power, would have been very much greater than Von Spee’s. That Von Spee at least thought so is clear from his published letters.

Without Canopus, then, Cradock would have been safe if he had run away. With Canopus he would have been reasonably safe if he had awaited the enemy’s attack. The significance of the letter which I have alluded to is that it was written by a man to whom neither of these contingencies seemed to be open. The superiority in speed which would always have made it possible for Cradock to evade Von Spee was also the one quality of his ships that gave him capacity to attack the Germans if they showed any signs of avoiding action. No doubt, if the Germans would have awaited action by a squadron which included the Canopus Admiral Cradock’s chances might have been brilliant. But if he started out to look for Von Spee with a 15-knot squadron, his chances for acting swiftly on any information that came his way would have been greatly reduced; and to have limited his advance to 15 knots would have been handing over the initiative in the matter entirely to the enemy.

Bearing these elements in mind and noting first that the British Admiral deliberately left Canopus behind; next, that at two o’clock in the afternoon of November 1, when the presence of an enemy was suspected to the north, he at once ordered all ships to close on Good Hope, and continued when the squadron was formed, to advance against the enemy, and that then, when he saw him, in spite of the bad weather and bad light, at once announced that he intended to attack him, the inference is irresistible that he thought it his duty to find and attack the enemy, and that he refused to interpret the sending of Canopus to mean that he could judge for himself whether or not he was in sufficient force to attack. He acted, that is to say, as no man would act unless he believed his mission to be of a peremptory and quite unmistakable kind.

So much, I think, is clear from the few known facts of the case. Whether Admiral Cradock was right in so interpreting his orders is, of course, another matter. Of that no one can judge until the orders themselves are published, and then only those who are familiar with the precise meaning of the phrases employed. Of the instructions themselves, then, I express no opinion. I am only concerned with the light that Admiral Cradock’s actions throw on his own interpretation of them.

Two official descriptions of the action have been published, Captain Luce’s, and the Graf von Spee’s despatches. There are further the private letters of the German Admiral, of his son Otto, and that of a lieutenant of the Glasgow. All of these are in substantial agreement in their statement of the facts—an unusual thing, to be explained perhaps quite simply. The British officers naturally told the truth about the fate of the squadron; and the German success was so complete that there was no reason for the Government to exaggerate or garble the straightforward and not ungenerous statements of the German sailors. It is to Von Spee’s credit that he declined any public rejoicings by the German colony at Valparaiso, when he visited that port directly after the action to secure the internment of Good Hope, of whose fate he was uncertain.

The story of the fight is simple enough. Admiral Cradock formed his ships in line with Good Hope leading, then Monmouth, then Glasgow. Otranto he ordered away as soon as battle became imminent, and Glasgow shortly afterwards. Von Spee criticizes the British Admiral for not attacking the two armoured cruisers during the half hour that elapsed between the formation of the Fleet while Nürnberg and Dresden were coming up full speed to join the line. At 6:30 the two lines were on nearly parallel and southerly courses at a distance of about 14,700 yards. Twenty minutes later Von Spee had closed the range about 1,200 yards, and he then altered course a point towards the enemy, and this, in a quarter of an hour, brought the range to about 11,000 yards. He then opened fire and, five minutes later, got his first hit with a salvo on Good Hope. He had the best of the light, and it was obvious to him that the British gunnery suffered more from the heavy seas than did his own. As in neither squadron could any but the upper-deck guns be used, the Germans had an overwhelmingly superior armament in action—their twelve 8-inch guns having nothing opposed to them except the two 9:2 of Good Hope and the upper-deck 6-inch guns of Good Hope and Monmouth. Inferior metal and the more difficult conditions soon told their tale. In the quarter of an hour during which the German Admiral closed the range from 11,000 yards to less than 7,000, he says “both the British cruisers were practically covered by the German fire, whereas Scharnhorst was hit only twice, and Gneisenau only four times.” The German Admiral now sheered off, and it looks as if Admiral Cradock had then begun to close. An English account supposes that Good Hope was drifting and not under control. Anyhow, the range, in spite of the German change of course, was reduced by another 1,200 yards, and the Germans thought that the British Admiral contemplated a torpedo attack. About fifty minutes after the action commenced there was an enormous explosion in Good Hope which had been on fire some time. The people in Glasgow for a time thought it was the German flagship that had gone, so short had the range become. Neither of our armoured cruisers fired after this, and the Germans seem to have lost sight of Good Hope altogether, in spite of her proximity. Monmouth, listing badly and on fire, turned to keep bows on to the sea, and Von Spee sent his light cruisers in pursuit of her. She kept her flag flying to the last and was sunk, an hour and a half after Good Hope blew up, by a short range attack by Nürnberg.

Both ships could, of course, quite honourably have saved themselves once their case had become hopeless, had their officers chosen to surrender. But it was with no thought of surrendering that they had engaged, and the stoic heroism of their end is the noblest legacy they could have left to their fellow countrymen. Glasgow kept with Monmouth as long as she could; but her orders from the Admiral had been explicit, and it was obvious that she could not single-handed engage the undamaged German squadron, nor be of the slightest service to Monmouth had she attempted to do so. Captain Luce, quite rightly therefore, retreated from the scene.

A private letter, written a day after the action by the German Admiral, throws an interesting light on the situation. After recounting the unimportant character of the damage suffered by his ships, he adds, “I do not know what adverse circumstances deprived the enemy of every measure of success.... If Good Hope,” he wrote “escaped she must, in my opinion, make for a Chilean port on account of her damages. To make sure of this I intend going to Valparaiso to-morrow with Gneisenau and Nürnberg, and to see whether Good Hope could not be disarmed by the Chileans. If so, I shall be relieved of two powerful opponents. Good Hope, though bigger than Scharnhorst, was not so well armed. She mounted heavy guns, but only two, while Monmouth succumbed to Scharnhorst’s as she had only 6-inch guns. The English have another ship like Monmouth hereabouts and, in addition, as it seems, a battleship of the Queen class carrying 12-inch guns. Against the latter we can hardly do anything. Had they kept their force together, we should probably have got the worst of it. You can hardly imagine the joy which reigned among us. We have at least contributed something to the glory of our arms, although it may not mean much on the whole and in view of the enormous number of English ships.”

Viewing this action apart from the circumstances that led up to it and the magnificent spirit and self-sacrifice displayed, its technical and historical interest lies chiefly in the fact that it is the only instance in the war in which an inferior force has sought action with one incomparably stronger. The weaker, not only sought battle, but apparently executed no defensive manœuvres of any kind whatever. We shall find, for instance, no parallel in Coronel to the tactics of Von Spee at the Falkland Islands, or to those of Admiral Scheer at Jutland. And it is perhaps remarkable that the British Admiral, once having determined on action which he must have known would be desperate, did not either at once attempt to close the enemy at full speed, so as to give his very inferior artillery and his torpedoes a chance of inflicting serious damage on the enemy while daylight lasted, or delay closing until bad light would make long-range gunnery impossible, in a mêlée at point blank. Anything might have happened, and it was to the weaker side’s interest to leave as much as possible to chance.

It is hardly conceivable that the total result of the action could have been different so far as the British squadron is concerned. But it is permissible to speculate as to whether the Germans might not have suffered more, had either of the above plans been followed. The reasoning which dictated Admiral Cradock’s tactics can, of course, never be known.