Crusoe's Island

by Andrew Lambert

  Chile protested the violation of her neutrality by both Britain and Germany. Britain explained that the German ships using Juan Fernández as a base between September 1914 and March 1915 had sunk British merchant ships, and that in the absence of any Chilean authorities on shore able to uphold their neutrality the Royal Navy had a right to enter Chilean waters and destroy the enemy. This argument was accepted by Chile. The Germans ignored the complaint for six months, fatally damaging their case. The German crew were interned on the mainland for the rest of the war, although Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr spy organisation in the Second World War, escaped. After the war the German community in Chile erected a memorial to the men who died in the battle; they lie in a plot that overlooks the last anchorage of the Dresden, only a few hundred yards from the place where they died. After the war Hugo Wever, a survivor of the ship, came back to live up in the hills above Lord Anson Valley, a solitary existence that earned him the title of the German Crusoe.

  The South Pacific may have seemed to be no more than a minor backwater, briefly fought over – but the reality was very different. Once the last German ships had been destroyed Chilean nitrates flowed to Britain, enabling the allies to make fertiliser and high explosive. The continued functioning of the entire global trading system was a matter of the utmost importance; Britain could not risk the loss of any single segment of that system. Despite the setback at Coronel, the British global system worked; the German cruisers had been hunted down and destroyed, allowing the Empire to concentrate heavy naval units at home, and control the oceanic trade routes. The worldwide phase of the war was over, but it was not forgotten. In 1918 the Admiralty and the Foreign Office returned to the South Pacific.

  NOTES

  1 J.S. Corbett, Naval Operations, Volume I, Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1920, pp. 344–5, 355, 406; N. Lambert, Planning Armageddon, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012, p. 248.

  2 The Times (23 & 25 November 1914).

  3 Corbett, Naval Operations, vol. I, pp. 365–6, 409, 435; J.S. Corbett, Naval Operations, Volume II, Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1921, p. 240.

  4 A.W. Jose, The Royal Australian Navy 1914–1918, volume IX, Sydney, 1928, pp. 124–8, 135, 262–3; D. Stevens, The Royal Australian Navy, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 2001, pp. 36–7; Corbett, Naval Operations, vol. II, pp. 243–5.

  5 Orama, 13,000 tons, 18 knots, Oriental Steam Navigation Company ship, built 1911, armed with eight 6-inch guns. Sunk by a U-boat on 10 October 1917. Osborne, Spong & Grover, Armed Merchant Cruisers 1878–1945, pp. 45–6, 125; Corbett, Naval Operations, vol. II, pp. 248–51.

  27

  From the Challenger to the Admiralty Handbook

  As the official summary of scientific results confidently predicted, the Challenger expedition ‘opened out a new era in the study of Oceanography’, while the novelty and richness of the results attracted the attention of many leading scientists and geographers. The voyage had ‘opened new doors to the geographer’, while oceanography became ‘a favoured scientific study’, a discipline around which all manner of scientific, anthropological, geological and historical studies could coalesce.1 The relevance of such studies to the needs of a unique global empire was understood by the academic empire builders of late Victorian Britain. This research, like so much of the British project, would enhance imperial strategic power through knowledge rather than strength. Maritime powers need to be better informed, more intelligent and supremely adept if they were going to compete with larger and more populous continental powers. Victorian Britain exemplified those qualities.

  During the First World War, the Naval Intelligence Division commissioned handbooks on fifty nations of strategic, economic or political interest. It was no accident that the general editor, Henry Newton Dickson (professor of geography at Reading University), had worked on the Challenger data. This may explain the strikingly fulsome treatment of Juan Fernández in the final text. Dickson’s pre-war career in commercial geography placed him at the heart of the growing link between academic research and strategic needs of the state. His interest in the global distribution of key commodities like wheat and oil, together with means to move them, dovetailed perfectly with Admiralty thinking. Dickson had worked with imperial geographical thinker Sir Halford Mackinder.2 These connections harnessed the scientific foundations laid by the Challenger to the contemporary political/strategic imperatives of empire.

  The project began in July 1915, with the battle of Cumberland Bay still fresh in the memory of its creator, director of naval intelligence Admiral Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall. The project was based at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington, revealing the hitherto discrete role of the state in a major intelligence organisation that had operated for 80 years conveniently disguised as mere amateurish curiosity. The handbooks, incisive resumes of topography, communications, populations and trade, would facilitate ‘the discussion of naval, military, and political problems, as distinct from the examination of the problems themselves.’3 The Confidential Handbook on the Juan Fernández and San Ambrosio–San Félix Islands was printed in time for the Paris Peace Conference.

  Pairing the Juan Fernández Islands with San Félix and San Ambrosio was significant.4 Long-term British interest, the specifics of the Dresden affair, and an enduring concern to record and assess every potential oceanic base in a vast ocean, obvious from pre-war research, visits and instructions, gave these isolated fragments a significance far beyond their negligible economic utility. The Admiralty was well aware, even if the printed text did not mention the fact, that von Spee had rendezvoused at Más Afuera, while Admiral Cradock had planned to base his colliers at Más a Tierra. These islands were critical to coal powered strategy in the South Pacific.

  Despite four hundred years of unchallenged title, the Foreign Office handbook dismissed Chilean sovereignty over the Juan Fernández group as little more than sentiment, preferring to stress their misgovernment by the Spanish, and the Chileans:

  Chilean satisfaction at the possession of these islands would probably be found, if analysed, to be mainly due to national sentiment, which in its turn is derived from their geographical propinquity and their transition from Spanish sovereignty to the dominion of the Republic at the time when its independence was achieved. Más a Fuera is practically valueless to Chile, It has never been permanently colonised, and is still (1918) without a single inhabitant … The island has no harbour; there is not even a bay or roadstead where a vessel can anchor in security; but, being more than 6,000 ft in altitude it is visible from a great distance in clear weather and serves the navigator as an unerring guide to his position … . Más a Tierra also serves as a sea-mark.5

  Despite the implication that the islands were badly run and valueless to Chile, the Foreign Office stressed that ‘the most natural, just and expedient status’ would be for them to remain Chilean. However, the handbook made a clear distinction between these islands and ‘San Félix and San Ambrosio’, which ‘are not specifically mentioned in the first article of the Chilean Constitution, in which the boundaries of the Republic are broadly defined. The islands are still without inhabitants, and are rarely visited even by fishermen.’ Furthermore, while these islands were isolated and secluded in peacetime, the handbook noted:

  It may well be otherwise in time of war, when the belligerents are naval powers. The roadstead of San Félix affords in some respects better anchorage than any at the Juan Fernández Islands. The holding ground is none of the best at either place, but at San Félix the bottom is more level and the depth more convenient.6

  Peruvian warships had refuelled at San Félix in 1865, while the possible establishment of a radio transmitter at Más Afuera, von Spee’s rendezvous, made the advantage of the more distant islands absolute.

  The history of the Juan Fernández group was largely drawn from Vicuña Mackenna’s 1883 account Juan Fernández: historia verdadera, backed by a useful bibliography of British, American and more recent Chilean publications, among whi
ch the discreet mention of volume III of the Admiralty’s own South American Pilot should not be missed.7 It sat somewhat incongruously alongside the first English publication by Swedish botanist Carl Skottsberg, the great scientific analyst of the island’s unique ecosystem.8 Clearly the libraries of the Royal Geographical Society and the Admiralty Hydrographic Office were well equipped. The authors of the Confidential Handbook questioned Mackenna’s assertion that Juan Fernández had any strategic value for the Chilean Navy:

  Even if Chile should go to the expense of fortifying Más-á-Tierra – which is not in the least likely – this would not hinder an enemy ship from coaling at San Félix, though the latter affords no fresh water or provisions.

  The threat that the Admiralty envisaged became clear as the text wound to a conclusion. Maximilian von Spee’s coal-hungry cruisers were things of the past, the new danger came from large diesel-powered U-boats, stretching around the world to attack the shipping lanes linking Britain to Australasia:

  San Félix is also excellently adapted for a temporary base or depot for submarine vessels’ stores – petrol, provisions, tanks or barrels of fresh water, even projectiles. Petrol and few light stores might be landed at San Ambrosio in fine weather, and would be less easy of discovery by an enemy searcher than at San Félix.9

  The published version of 1920 studiously avoided the vexed issues of sovereignty and title, simply reprinting the relevant passage of the Chilean Constitution, in Spanish and English, and despite an editorial claim to be ‘substantially as they were issued’ for official use, San Félix and San Ambrosio had been excised. While these two barren specks of land were commercially irrelevant, the cut had a deeper purpose. The Admiralty was remarkably well informed about this group of barren islands, and the many uses to which they had been put. Passages deprecating the merits of Spanish and Chilean rule remained, although without the link to questions of sovereignty.

  To emphasise the distinct objectives of the two texts, the San Ambrosio group was only mentioned once in the published edition, as the only other place where the otherwise unique Juan Fernández rock lobster could be found.10 The quality of realism was emphasised by the conspicuous passage dealing with the sinking of the Dresden. While His Majesty’s Government made a full and unreserved apology for breaching Chilean neutrality there was another meaning to be drawn from the insertion of a Foreign Office form of words. A British naval officer facing a similar dilemma in future should act first, leaving the Foreign Office to clear up any diplomatic fallout later.

  The Admiralty Handbook was the first truly objective piece of British writing about the islands, a far cry from the romance and wonder of Selkirk and Defoe, the scorbutic musings of Walter or the narrowly technical reports of Philip Parker King. Exploiting a wide range of sources it addressed the practical concerns of naval officers and diplomats; location, utility, sovereignty and resources, peeling away layers of mystery. No longer would Royal Navy warships arrive in Cumberland Bay in thrall to Crusoe and Anson, stumbling into ravines as they searched for non-existent caves and graves. The next visitors knew that the island was Chilean territory and dirt poor; there were few resources, apart from fish.

  Not that the British ever entirely left the island at the end of the earth. In 1926 another cruise touching at Juan Fernández was offered to readers of the Times. The Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s ten-year-old liner Orduna would host the ‘Cruise of the Season’ around South America; the visit to ‘Robinson Crusoe’s Island Juan Fernández’ was the highlight. Departure was set for 6 January 1927. This time we can be sure the Orduna reached the island. A picture of her lying in Cumberland Bay, smoke rising from her single funnel, was reproduced in the Second World War Admiralty Handbook on the Pacific Islands.11

  British commercial interests in Chile peaked in 1914, dominated by nitrate exports. At least 30 per cent of Chilean trade was in British hands and this trade had been essential to the British war effort, an ample reward for the long-term effort to control both the Chilean economy and the South Pacific. After 1918 Britain’s commanding position slowly ebbed away. The loss of British capital in the World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War destroyed that influence. Unable to lend large sums to developing economies like Chile Britain lost market share to the United States, an industrial heavyweight and hemispheric power. British governments offered little support when market conditions turned against British interests.12 By contrast the Royal Navy has retained a major presence in Chile, fully half the modern Chilean Navy consists of second-hand British frigates, while Chilean Naval officers pride themselves on their British connections, and handle their ships with seamanship and skill reflecting two centuries of contact.

  Between the wars the Royal Navy made further visits to the isolated, curious islands of Juan Fernández. In June 1929 the light cruiser HMS Caradoc arrived after a rough three-day passage from Coronel and anchored off the mole in Cumberland Bay. The officers knew the romantic history of the island, making the now obligatory visit to ‘Selkirk’s Cave’, the lookout, complete with Commodore Powell’s iron plaque, and the prisoner’s caves at San Juan Bautista. At this point the village had around three hundred inhabitants, ‘who live in log huts and obtain their living by fishing’. Crayfish were the key export, kept alive in the bay to await the steamer. To complete the idyllic scene the ship was visited by an exiled Scotsman, who proclaimed himself ‘King of the Island’. The cruise journal included a picture of the island showing the hills behind the village remained strikingly bare, doubtless because ‘Sheep and goats were seen grazing on the pastures covering the upper slopes of the mountains, whilst cattle grazed contentedly in the peaceful surroundings of the farmsteads in the valley.’ The mid-winter weather was generally atrocious, lashing rain storms limiting the opportunities for runs ashore. Instead the crew set about fishing, hauling in vast catches. A paper chase, opportunities to buy local wooden curios and the disappearance of ship’s dog (‘Bonzo’) completed the ten-day visit – the last event suggesting that the lure of island life extended beyond solitary humans.13 Bonzo joined the descendants of eighteenth-century canine castaways, sent to stop the English using the island.

  The Admiralty Handbook remained a useful, if outmoded guide when a second global conflict erupted in 1939, but the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey, called for something more detailed and up to date: ‘The work of fighting and Government Departments is facilitated if countries of strategic importance are covered by handbooks which deal in a convenient and easily digested form, with their geography, ethnology, administration, and resources.’14 The significant place accorded to Juan Fernández and its near neighbours suggests little change in British thinking across time. The islands featured in the four-volume compendium The Pacific Islands, rather than the cancelled Chilean volume.

  Once again Juan Fernández and other isolated specks of Chilean sovereignty that punctuated the vast Southern Ocean were accorded a thorough treatment that belied their territorial insignificance. The sheer scale of the ocean, when compared with the minute specks of land that were under discussion, stressed the point that this volume was about sea lanes; maps and charts stressed the direction and value of trade passing through the Panama canal and heading for Australasia.15

  The importance of Juan Fernández and the San Ambrosio group, clearly stated in 1919, was left implicit. The descriptions of the four islands were solid, with good diagrams and coastal perspectives of the two Juan Fernández Islands. The history was altogether more succinct, ignoring Anson while adding in a few new errors of fact. Further confusion was created by renaming Selkirk’s Mirador as ‘Robinson Crusoe’s Lookout’. This time there was a radio station in Cumberland Bay. The value of Carl Skottsberg’s extensive work on flora, fauna and climate was acknowledged. Ignoring the sovereignty question that had been so prominent in 1919 suggests the authors were well aware that the islands were off the beaten track of this global war. Even the submarine telegraph cables that criss-crosse
d the globe in the half-century between 1870 and 1920 passed without stopping at Juan Fernández.

  Although the Second World War did not reach the islands, the Chilean government took steps to prevent a second Dresden incident, removing Hugo Wever as a security risk and landing some second-hand artillery to uphold their neutrality. A pair of Armstrong six-inch guns and some 57-millimetre Krupp weapons in small turrets provided a suitable gesture.16 In the event, Juan Fernández escaped the twentieth century’s second global conflict; it was about as far from the fighting as any place on earth, but the hasty construction of defences to meet the last threat, all too reminiscent of the 1740s, added yet another layer of mystery to an already confused island. The big guns were British, manufactured at Newcastle in 1896 for the cruiser Esmeralda, named in honour of Lord Cochrane’s greatest exploit as commander in chief of the Chilean Navy. Today the guns stand silent and forlorn at the edge of Cumberland Bay, gaunt reminders of another age. One of them had a children’s playground built around it after the 2010 tsunami. Together they stand guard over Lord Anson’s valley, and the local store. Grey-green with the patina of age and neglect, the old guns reflect abandoned ideas and ancient things, slowly being drawn into an older landscape, two more uncertain indications of British possession. Their corroded breeches still carry the maker’s name and serial numbers, proudly stamped at Elswick-on-Tyne, when Britain ruled the world and Chile was secure behind her strategic aegis. They have joined the rusty shells of eighteenth-century Bourbon cannon, relics of long-forgotten alarms, futile, broken symbols of power pointing out over a harbour more often troubled by natural terrors than human violence.