A Naval History of World War I

by Paul G. Halpern

  The Helgoland Bight action turned out to be the last encounter between the big ships during the war. The affair, like so many other attempts to bring the Germans under the big guns of the Grand Fleet, proved frustrating. Napier was criticized for an error in judgment in pursuing the Germans at 25 knots rather than the 30 knots the Glorious and Courageous were capable of. In addition, poor staff work as revealed in the muddled situation regarding the minefields certainly contributed toward cheating the British of success. Excessive secrecy seemed to remain a problem. Had Napier possessed all the information on the minefields available to the Admiralty, he might have been able to anticipate much better the German movements as they retired and inflict more serious damage.128

  In the meantime the success of the Brummer and Bremse against the hitherto successful Scandinavian convoy had prompted a review of the situation. The losses had been particularly embarrassing, because the convoy had been escorted by warships and the ships sunk were neutral Scandinavians whom the British had succeeded in persuading to defy German threats. One proposal involved lessening vulnerability by reducing the frequency of sailings. This, however, conflicted with British obligations to supply Norway with a stipulated amount of coal each month. On a purely tactical level, Beatty ordered destroyer captains in the event of attack by surface warships to scatter the convoy. Once it was scattered they could no longer protect it, but the destroyers were not to be risked uselessly and should avoid becoming engaged with superior forces. Their primary duty was to report the attack and enemy position immediately by wireless. A conference at Longhope on 10 December recommended that Methil in the Firth of Forth be used as a convoy assembly port instead of Lerwick farther to the north. This would have the advantage of shortening the voyage, which would help the British fulfill their commitment to the Norwegians to supply 250,000 tons of coal per month. The British deliveries of coal were less than half that amount in November. Beatty warned, however, that the new route was closer to the German bases and therefore more vulnerable. He proposed using as escorts the cruisers that served as oceanic escorts for the North Atlantic convoys.

  The Germans struck again while these discussions were in progress. Scheer planned a two-pronged attack with the destroyers of the Second Flotilla (Korvettenkapitän Heinecke), the biggest and fastest the Germans had (1,116 to 1,350 tons, four 3.4-inch guns, six torpedo tubes, and more than 33 knots). The destroyers were escorted to the northeast end of Dogger Bank by the light cruiser Emden. They then separated. Heinecke with the Fourth Half-Flotilla was to attack convoy traffic in the war channel along the east coast of England north of Newcastle, whereas the four destroyers of the Third Half-Flotilla were to proceed north to attack the Lerwick-Bergen route. On 12 December Korvettenkapitän Hans Holbe in G.101, with V.100, G.103, and G.104 of the Third Half-Flotilla, attacked the eastbound Scandinavian convoy approximately 25 miles off Bjornefjord. The six ships in the convoy were escorted by the destroyers Partridge and Pellew and four armed trawlers. The British had used cruisers, when available, to patrol near the route, and on this day the armored cruisers Shannon and Minotaur with four destroyers were out, but about 60 miles west of the convoys when the Germans attacked. Three of the German destroyers engaged the escorts while the fourth went after the convoy. The British escorts were caught in the leeward position, with their gunners blinded by spray, although the Partridge after being disabled still managed to hit V.100 with a torpedo, which failed to explode. The Germans made good shooting, and in three-quarters of an hour succeeded in sinking the Partridge, the trawler escorts, and the six merchant ships of the convoy. Only the damaged Pellew escaped, probably saved by a rain squall. The Shannon and Minotaur arrived too late to catch the Germans, and the Third Light Cruiser Squadron (three cruisers), which had been patrolling to the south, also did not succeed in intercepting them, largely because the bad weather made the Germans decide to return via the Skaggerak and the Baltic instead of the Bight.

  Heinecke’s Fourth Half-Flotilla had less success on the east coast. The Germans were hampered by mist and the fact navigational lights were normally extinguished and lit only when required, but caught two stragglers from the southbound east-coast convoys. They sank one Danish steamer, later torpedoed but failed to sink a Swedish steamer, and subsequently sank by gunfire one of four small ships they encountered and erroneously believed was the convoy. They had, in fact, missed the real convoy and turned for home.129

  The British maintained their intention to use Methil as the point of departure for the Scandinavian convoy, which would sail every three days. This was altered to every four days in March and every five days at the end of April. The longer intervals were to reduce the strain of providing continuous escorts for the convoys. There was also to be a daily convoy from the Humber to Methil. The fact that the route was now closer to the German bases also meant that a heavier supporting force always had to be at sea. Beatty at first used a battle squadron, which, as Newbolt comments in the official history, “was a great departure from the principle of rigid concentration which had dominated the organisation and employment of the Grand Fleet since the war began: it was illustrative of the extent to which the war against commerce had engaged our strength and resources.” The covering force, in fact, was reduced to a light cruiser squadron by the end of June 1918, and to a pair of armored cruisers somewhat later. This dispersion was a calculated risk, for with it there was the possibility the Germans could achieve what they had always hoped to do and concentrate overwhelming force against a portion of the Grand Fleet. The British as a result became even more dependent on the quality of their intelligence and ability to detect German moves.130

  The German successes against the Scandinavian convoys in late 1917 caused considerable discontent in Britain over the way the Admiralty conducted the war. It was undoubtedly one of the factors in the dismissal of Jellicoe as First Sea Lord in December. However, it should not obscure the fact that the major threat came from submarines, not from surface craft, and that, if anything, it was the Germans who failed to profit from the geographical conditions that gave their surface craft a good shot at the Scandinavian convoy. They might well have raided more often. Furthermore, the Scandinavian convoys themselves were a success, despite the 1917 losses. The postwar Admiralty statistical summary reveals that with the “old system” between 28 April 1917 and 18 January 1918, a total of 1,617 ships were convoyed eastbound, of which 17 were sunk by the Germans; and 1,806 ships were convoyed westbound and 23 sunk. Under the “new system” from 19 January 1918 to the end of the war, there were 2,045 ships in eastbound (OZ) convoys, of which only 3 were sunk; and in the westbound (HZ) convoys, 2,185 ships were convoyed and only 12 sunk. The grand total for the war was 7,653 ships convoyed and 55 lost, a loss rate of .72 percent. When the total for the east-coast convoys is added to that for the Scandinavian convoy, there were between April 1917 and November 1918 no less than 30,713 ships convoyed, of which 126 were sunk, yielding a loss rate of .41 percent.131

  The situation at the end of 1917 was far from clear; the recent defection of Russia from the war and the threat of a major German offensive on the western front were disturbing. War weariness was evident among all the Allies. The prospect of final victory against Germany and her allies appeared distant, if not uncertain. As for the war at sea, losses to submarines remained disturbingly high, but it now seemed that the convoy system had turned the tide. It remained to be seen if the Germans would be able to alter this trend in 1918.

  12

  THE MEDITERRANEAN: 1915–1918

  THE U-BOAT FLOTILLA

  The Germans sent their first submarines to the Mediterranean in response to the Anglo-French expedition to the Dardanelles when it became apparent their Austrian allies could do little to affect the situation with their own small submarine force, however effective it might be in defending the Adriatic against superior Anglo-French forces. The German submarines U.21, UB.7, and UB. 8 achieved success in their initial appearance but ran into severe limitations
in the vicinity of the Dardanelles, where the swarms of small craft and extensive netting and booms restricted their opportunities after the initial surprise. By the end of June 1915, the Germans had assembled another three UB boats at Pola, two of them destined for transfer to the Austrian navy.

  The Germans also were assembling three UC minelayers at Pola, but in June the Admiralstab ordered them converted to transports to meet the pressing need to carry small quantities of critically needed supplies to Turkey. The Germans still had very little offensive capability in the Mediterranean. The UB boats were hampered by their lack of range and had difficulty mastering the Dardanelles currents. Moreover, in mid-July 1915 the redoubtable Kapitänleutnant Hersing’s U.21, the only U-boat with a long radius of action, was damaged by a mine and likely to be immobilized at Constantinople for at least six weeks. The Mediterranean was attractive to the Admiralstab. A significant portion of British imports passed through the Mediterranean, which was obviously crucial to French and Italian trade, and submarines would be able to operate more effectively here when the autumn bad weather hampered operations in the Atlantic. Also, there were certain relatively narrow areas or focal points through which all traffic had to pass, notably the Suez Canal, Malta, Crete, and Gibraltar.

  The Mediterranean had another advantage. There would be fewer problems with neutrals, especially as they were not likely to meet American ships and fewer U.S. citizens traveled through the Mediterranean compared to the waters around the British Isles. On 21 July the kaiser approved detaching the large submarines U.34 and U.35 from the Baltic. The submarines proceeded directly to Cattaro, and the Germans decided to make use of the Austrian bases rather than Constantinople. There were better supply and repair facilities in the Adriatic, and submarines could avoid the dangerous passage through the Dardanelles. In August the Germans added U.33 and U.39 to their Mediterranean forces, motivated by the desperate appeals from the German military attaché in Constantinople, who reported that the excellent close naval support provided by the Royal Navy was inflicting painful losses on the Turks at the beachheads.

  A diplomatic problem existed. There was no state of war between Germany and Italy, but the Germans got around the difficulty by ordering their submarines to refrain from taking hostile action against Italian shipping in the eastern Mediterranean where the Italians might expect hostile action only from German submarines. When conducting cruiser warfare on the surface in the west up to the line of Cape Matapan, the Germans flew only the Austrian flag.1

  The four German U-boats operating in the Mediterranean or on their way to Cattaro achieved noticeable, though not spectacular, results in September, sinking seven steamers and a small French auxiliary warship, representing more than 22,000 tons. It was only a harbinger of things to come. Kapitänleutnant Kophamel, then in command of U.35, noted that away from the swarm of light craft at the Dardanelles, Allied security and countermeasures were apparently very weak. Moreover, the submarines were operating under somewhat fewer restrictions in the Mediterranean. They could attack large merchant ships in the Aegean while submerged on the suspicion they were troop transports or auxiliary cruisers.2

  The German submarine campaign in the Mediterranean would not have been possible without the use of the Austrian naval bases at Pola and Cattaro. But beyond providing bases, would the Austro-Hungarian navy be able to participate in the campaign? The k.u.k. Kriegsmarine had already used submarines most effectively in the defense of the Adriatic, but its ability to contribute to the submarine campaign outside of the Adriatic was limited. The Austrians would have liked to do so, but there were strong technical and political factors limiting them. The most obvious was a lack of suitable submarines, something the Germans had recognized when they transferred two of the UB boats assembled at Pola to the Austrians.

  The marinekommandant Admiral Haus authorized the construction of additional submarines in March 1915, once he realized it was going to be a long war. The Austrians initially ordered somewhat unenthusiastically four of the Havmanden class, largely because the Whitehead yard at Fiume had built three for the Danish navy before the war. The Austrians immediately ran into a series of problems difficult to overcome, including the demand by the Hungarian government that Hungarian firms receive a significant share of the production. The result, after intricate negotiations, was a compromise in June by which the four submarines were to be partially built in Linz and Pola and final assembly achieved at either Pola or Fiume. Hungarian firms received about two-thirds of the subcontracting work, Austrian firms about a third. The Havmandens did not actually enter service until August to November of 1917. They suffered from unreliable engines, were unhandy, and on the whole represented a prewar design that was largely obsolete by that date.

  In the summer of 1915, Haus wisely opted for the German UB.II design, although the Germans were understandably reluctant to actually sell any of their own submarines to the Austrians or earmark any of their building capacity for Austrian purposes. The most they were willing to do was sell the UB.II plans to the Austrians for the construction of up to six submarines. The Austrian naval authorities then had the by-now familiar difficulty of allocating production between Austrian and Hungarian firms. After long and complicated negotiations, the Austrian firm Cantiere Navale received orders for two, and the Hungarian firm Danubius orders for four. The submarines were not laid down until the winter and spring of 1916, and the usual difficulties with subcontractors—who suffered from shortages of labor and materials—meant that the delivery dates were not met. The Austrian UB.IIs (U.27 to U.32) did not enter service until the first half of 1917. In 1916 the Austrians also laid down another two UB.II boats, U.40, a gift from the Österreichischen Flottenverein, and U.41, a replacement for a submarine that had been lost.3 The Austrians therefore had only a handful (6 to 8) of modern and reliable submarines. Even those were relatively short ranged, and when they finally entered service their use outside of the Adriatic tended to be restricted to the central Mediterranean routes between Malta and Crete. The patrols to the western and eastern portions of the Mediterranean remained the monopoly of the larger German U-boats. The Germans obviously had to carry on the overwhelming majority of submarine operations in the Mediterranean.

  The German submarine campaign in the Mediterranean is generally considered to have begun in earnest in October 1915 when the Admiralstab ordered U.33 and U.39, followed by U.35 later in the month, to attack the approaches to Salonika and Kavalla. The Germans sank 18 ships in the Mediterranean in October, representing 63,848 tons. This was the major portion of the 83,714 tons sunk in all theaters the same month. The Admiralstab decided on further reinforcement for the Mediterranean, and a sixth large U-boat, U.38, sailed for Cattaro in mid-October. There were more far-reaching plans as well. The Admiralstab decided at the beginning of October the UB.II class would be ideal for the Mediterranean. They designated six of the class (UB.42 to UB.47), but these submarines were too large to be shipped by rail in sections like the UB.Is, and the materials for their construction had to be shipped to Pola along with German workers to assemble them. This meant they could not be ready until spring 1916, and the absence of the workers from Germany meant a delay in completing U-boats for home waters. The decision seemed justified by the Mediterranean successes of November when submarines sank no fewer than 44 ships representing 152,882 out of the 167,043 tons sunk in all theaters. The total fell in December to 17 ships (73,741 tons) plus one ship sunk by submarine-laid mines (2,952 tons), but this still represented more than half the tonnage sunk in all theaters (107,735).

  The Mediterranean submarines were formed into an independent U-boat flotilla at Cattaro, and a special command at Pola remained in charge of repair and assembly of new boats. U.35’s commander, Kophamel, was designated senior U-boat commander in the Mediterranean, promoted to Korvettenkapitän, and given command of the flotilla at Cattaro. He was replaced in U.35 by Kapitänleutnant von Arnauld de la Perière, whose Mediterranean exploits later made him the most successfu
l U-boat commander of the war.4

  The German submarine campaign claimed, at least indirectly, another victim. The titular Allied commander in chief in the Mediterranean, Vice Admiral Boué de Lapeyrère, cabled the minister of marine on 10 October asking to be relieved of his command, ostensibly because his present state of health did not permit him to assure the responsibilities that had fallen on him in present circumstances. Lapeyrère undoubtedly was worn out; he had been in command of the major French naval force—the 1ère armée navale—since 1911 and had trained hard for the anticipated naval battle with the combined forces of the Triple Alliance. The war had turned into something entirely different when Italy defected from the Triple Alliance. He had been unable to get at the Austrian fleet in the Adriatic, and though theoretical Allied commander in chief in the Mediterranean, his real control of operations had been steadily whittled down. The Dardanelles campaign had been largely run by the British, and after Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente, operations in the Adriatic fell under Italian command. His responsibilities remained large, but the means at hand to counter the threat of German submarines were meager. He complained he had only 27 light cruisers and destroyers and 28 auxiliary gunboats and trawlers—a portion always under repair—to cover a line of communications of more than 1,900 miles in the Mediterranean outside the Adriatic and British zone of operations off the Dardanelles. Lapeyrère was forced to ask the Italians to return the French destroyers attached to Brindisi, so he could cover the movements to Greece.5