The Great War at Sea: 1914-1918

by Richard Hough

  This was an openly hostile attitude for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to assume in referring to his Cabinet colleague. When asked to comment publicly, Churchill retained his dignity and put the Chancellor in his place, declaring that he had made a rule ‘not to give interviews to newspapers on important subjects’ while they were still under discussion by the Cabinet as a whole.

  In the weeks that lay ahead, Churchill had a last fight on his hands with his fellow Liberals and opposition Conservatives before the strife assumed a mightier dimension in August. The dreadnought figures being bandied about in public and in the Cabinet had indeed become bloated since Fisher had laid down the original nine years earlier. One official calculation was that the Navy must have in commission in less than six years fifty-six dreadnoughts in order to keep a minimum 60 per cent superiority over the Germans. The cost as well as the size of battleships had risen from one million to over two and a half million already, and was certain to go higher. The cost of maintenance had similarly multiplied, together with pay for the crew. The trained men required to man this gigantic fleet – it took eight years to train a lieutenant, two and a half years to train a rating – would be around 75,000 for the dreadnoughts alone, plus thousands more for the supporting cruisers and destroyers, and many more thousands supporting and servicing them in dockyards and barracks.

  The expenditure of £49,970,000 made the head reel, but in the nation’s defence councils the need to keep a clear margin ahead of the rival was as vital as it had been when the starting pistol had cracked out at the turn of the century. Now the Dominions were persuaded to oiler material help. New Zealand chipped in with a dreadnought battle-cruiser, and so did Australia, although the Admiralty had not control over this vessel. The people of Malaya went one better and found the cost of an additional Queen Elizabeth-type super dreadnought. The Canadian prime minister determined to assist, too, and for many months Churchill’s hopes were high that three dreadnoughts would come from this Dominion; but in the end the Canadian parliament turned clown the idea.

  On 17 March 1914 Churchill produced his last peacetime estimates. They were the highest on record (£51,580,000) and his speech was the longest on record (two and a half hours). They provided for four more dreadnoughts and acceleration in the pace of construction of three more already under construction to offset partially the loss of the expected Canadian contribution.

  The usual cries were heard. The Conservative Press was predictably pleased, the Liberal Press loud in lamentation, broken by a crisp practical note: ‘The dreadnought can no longer live with the submarine; in nine years we have therefore wasted 360 millions which could have been used to alleviate some of our social diseases.’

  Behind the scenes five members of Asquith’s Cabinet had earlier sent a letter to him: ‘The effect of so enormous an increase in our Naval expenditure upon the German programme and policy is a matter of surmise: but such excuses as may be suggested cannot obscure the main fact – that the total is unprecedented; the increase is unexampled at a time of international calm: and the impression powerfully created that we are leading the way in yet more rapid outlay…’(11)

  The ‘international calm’ was shortly to be broken by the sound of an exploding bomb in an obscure Serbian town. A few weeks later British and German dreadnoughts went to their war stations.

  Ship for ship the Germans had built dreadnoughts better equipped for battle than the British, who had originated the dreadnought’s all-big-gun specification. By conforming to the now-superseded British policy of following the successful innovations of their rivals, the Germans benefited by avoiding British mistakes. Tirpitz also had the advantage of starting from scratch. He was unburdened by countless aged men o’war and numerous distant and often neglected bases and coaling stations, as well as the odium suffered by Fisher in scrapping and closing them clown.

  Tirpitz and his naval architects, and their successors, built the most difficult-to-sink warships in naval history. The German dreadnoughts were wider in the beam than their British counterparts, permitting more comprehensive underwater protection, including watertight subdivision. Although Fisher scrapped old ships, sometimes excessively, he could not bring himself to scrap undersized old docks, preferring to spend the money on new ship construction. As the Kaiser boasted to a British admiral visiting Kiel, ‘We build docks to fit our ships not ships to fit our docks.’ This was another important advantage in starting from scratch.

  Also, the Kriegsmarine never envisaged operating its main fleet outside home waters and therefore the crews could endure the discomforts of cramped accommodation as they were never at sea for long. British men o’war had to be global, German men o’war were not intended for distant seas although some were to operate in them. The beam of the Dreadnought was 82 feet, that of the first German dreadnoughts, which could not have been accommodated in British docks, was 89 feet.

  British dreadnoughts were less heavily armoured and overall less protected than German contemporaries. SMS Kaiserin of 1912 had a wide main belt of armour of 13 3/4 inches, tapering to 7 3/4 inches at the bows and stern. The contemporary HMS Thunderer’s main belt of armour-plate was narrower and only 12 inches thick, her bows and stern totally unprotected. The German gun turrets and decks (important against plunging fire) were also better protected.

  British dreadnoughts, on the other hand, were more heavily armed than their German counterparts. The Kaiserin was equipped with 12-inch guns, the Thunderer had gone one better with 13.5-inch guns, giving her an almost 50 per cent advantage in weight of broadside. Moreover, the 13.5-inch shell could be fired to a greater range with a greater accuracy and did more damage on impact. The German naval authorities answered their critics at home with the claim that the projectiles from their 11-inch guns against the British 12-inch, and their own 12-inch against the British 13.5-inch had a higher muzzle velocity and greater penetrating power. The greater reliability as well as the greater penetrating power of German shell was to be proven in battle.

  The greater offensive power and interior defensive strength of the British battle fleet was a product of the British character and naval tradition. The offensive spirit had been deep-rooted in the British Navy since Elizabethan times and had guided Drake and Hawke, Anson and Nelson. It was not so much that British officers and men were trained to be offensive; it was rather that the defensive spirit was unthinkable. This was one of the reasons why there was such strong suspicion of a Naval War Staff whose ‘brains’ might counsel caution or delay. The Nelsonian principle, modified to meet modern conditions, that all a commander had to do was to lay close alongside an enemy and sink or capture him remained as deep-rooted as an old oak tree.

  British dreadnoughts were swifter and more heavily gunned in order that an enemy could not escape and would be sunk. The risk element of being sunk by the enemy because you were not sufficiently protected took a low place in the priorities. Fisher himself despised armour as much as he loved the big gun.

  The Germans, lacking naval history or tradition but rich in military experience and accomplishment, followed a more logical and dialectic policy, always keeping in mind that their ships would have to survive in the face of a more numerous enemy. This was one of the reasons why German torpedoes and mines were superior. Tirpitz envisaged from the earliest days of the High Seas Fleet that in time of war the Germans must attempt to whittle down British numerical superiority piecemeal. This could be done only by bringing to hear a superior German force against an inferior British force – a difficult tactical achievement – or by picking off individual ships by laying mines or torpedoing them, most likely by destroyers or submarines. The Germans applied their scientific minds to the thorough development and testing of mines and torpedoes for a decade before the war. Their torpedoes ran straight and steadily, their mines soon proved lethal. The few British mines were scandalously inefficient.

  The short German coastline in the Baltic and North Sea with its deep indentations, shoals, sandbanks, and river estuarie
s, was ideal for minefields and the Germans had no trouble in sealing it off for the duration of the war.

  The first weapons priority in the British Navy was guns and gunnery, with torpedoes a long way behind, and mines out of sight. Gunnery had always been the elite branch of the service, and even before the all-big-gun Dreadnought, battleships carried as many guns of as large a calibre as practicable. The most important reason why the British Navy was confident that their dreadnoughts were superior to German dreadnoughts was because the weight of their broadside was almost always superior, often by a wide margin. Churchill frequently referred to ‘undoubted superiority of our ships unit for unit’. Very few senior officers doubted this. One of them was Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, himself a gunnery officer and a protégé of Fisher. Fisher had for long determined that this ‘new Nelson’ should become C.-in-C. of the British Fleet at the outbreak of war. Jellicoe thought it ‘highly dangerous to consider that our ships as a whole are superior or even equal fighting machines’.

  The offensive character of British ships was matched by a similar quality in the personnel. Throughout the lower decks the Nelsonian spirit of optimism, aggression, and contempt for the enemy was widespread. The warrant and petty officers were a sturdy, immensely able, and highly conservative breed. Like housekeepers and butlers in big houses, they were conscious of their responsibilities, firm with those of inferior rank, and loyal to those above them.

  The officers themselves were variable in quality, in part because of the immense expansion of the Fleet. Cadets were accepted after a moderately stiff examination at the age when they would normally be going to public school and spent two initial years at Osborne Naval College in the Isle of Wight under strict discipline and an austere regimen. This was followed by two more years at the new college (replacing the ancient and unhealthy Britannia training ship) at Dartmouth. With the successful passing of their examinations, the cadet put up his midshipman’s patches at the age of around eighteen. Efforts had been made to modernize the curriculum and there was emphasis on mechanics and engineering as well as gunnery, navigation, etc. But no efforts were made to impart any historical knowledge or an intellectual view of the meaning of sea power. Debate and ‘braininess’ were not encouraged, unlike the traditional virtues of competition, sportsmanship, and leadership. Bullying was rife, class distinction reflected the times. The fraternity between officers and the lower deck which was the strength of Nelson’s Navy, through storm-wracked blockade and action, had diminished, just as the ‘band of brothers’ spirit among officers at the time of the Napoleonic wars had been diluted by years of internecine strife exemplified by the Fisher-Beresford vendetta.

  One hundred years of peace had not improved the overall spirit of the Royal Navy. The Navy had not experienced the shock of the Boer War which had led to widespread reforms in the Army. In 1914 the Army was relatively more efficient and better prepared for war than the Navy. The Navy continued to be regarded as a career for the less intellectually endowed and young men who liked the ‘clubbable’ closed world and looked forward to steady rather than swift advancement.

  At the same time, the improvements already made in the reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were evidenced in the quality of some of the young officers coming up the promotion ladder, men like Reginald Tyrwhitt, Roger Keyes, Stephen King-Hall, Bruce Fraser, Ernie Chatfield, Andrew Cunningham, William Goodenough, and that brilliant theorist and critic, Herbert Richmond.

  Unfortunately many in this group had little opportunity to exercise senior command during the war, and it was in this department that the Navy was weakest. The generation who had been brought up with sail in the dark years when novelty was heresy had found it hard perforce to accept turbines, torpedoes, director systems, and gunnery practice at 14,000 yards. They were now, in accordance with the promotion system, in command of big ships and in their late forties and fifties, steady, experienced, good seamen, full of sound common sense but lacking in initiative and originality of thought: a dull lot on the whole. The exceptions among them shone like searchlights on night exercises, but it remained a dark night.

  Among this precious band were Jellicoe, David Beatty, Henry Jackson (Chief of Admiralty War Staff), John De Robeck, Charles Madden, Reginald Bacon, Horace Hood, William Pakenham, and Prince Louis of Battenberg. Many people (including Churchill, who had him as First Sea Lord from December 1912, and Fisher) regarded Prince Louis as the outstanding flag-officer. He had, it was thought, lived down his German ancestry and English naturalization, was a brilliant tactician and seaman as well as an efficient and original administrator who, more than anyone in the service, was responsible for setting up the Naval War Staff. He can be credited with the most highly developed intellect in the Navy. After fleet manoeuvres in 1909, Beatty wrote, ‘We have eight Admirals, and there is not one among them, unless it be Prince Louis, who impresses me that he is capable of great effort.’(12) Without condition, Lord Selborne, whose experience and judgement were unsurpassed, wrote of Prince Louis, ‘He is the ablest officer the Navy possesses.’(13)

  Prince Louis and Churchill made an inspired and stalwart pair at the top. But it was a thin crust, and below them there was not much substance. The pie had one great credit mark, however. From the highest among flag-officers to the lowliest ordinary seaman, the Royal Navy was imbued with self-confidence. And this was something lacking in the Kriegsmarine.

  Like the architects of their dreadnoughts, which were welcomed with unanimity and pride in the fleet, the German officer class did not have to struggle with the octopus of reaction. Tradition and a glorious naval past were not wholly advantageous. The German Navy possessed all the merits and some of the demerits of youth. The officers were superbly trained, especially in technology. They were immensely proud of their young service which, thanks to the Emperor and Tirpitz, shrugged off the early social inferiority of the Navy compared with the traditional standing of the Army. The German Navy revelled in its own modernity, its up-to-date weapons and equipment.

  Equally characteristic of the German character was a reluctant acceptance of the British Navy’s superiority in numbers, in size of guns, in speed, and – more intangibly but very powerfully – of the British Navy’s long record of dominance and almost unbroken victory at sea. There was an unease in the German Navy quite lacking in the British Navy.

  The Kriegsmarine possessed two more tangible disadvantages. The first was that in spite of its proud name High Seas Fleet, the German Fleet had been created to challenge Britain in home waters, with the certain expectation that from the outset the British Navy would close blockade the German coast and ports. Much of its training was carried out in sheltered waters, there were few long cruises, and there were long periods in harbour. As could be seen in the lines of identical buildings at Kiel or Emden, it was as much a ‘barracks’ navy as a seagoing navy. The British sailor lived in his ship and was at sea for much of the time. The German sailor went on board as a soldier goes on parade.

  The second serious drawback was that, by contrast with the British Navy’s voluntary system of recruitment for a minimum of twelve years, the German Navy was manned by conscripted three-year servicemen, with the instructors and officers ‘every year called upon to make trained men out of a fresh lot of conscripts totally strange to sea life’.(14) In spite of this serious lack of continuity, their training was first class, and their morale at the outbreak of war high.

  As to the higher commands, Germany was as handicapped as Britain in her search for top-quality admirals, but for a different reason. In spite of the radical up-to-dateness of the Kriegsmarine, the higher echelons were riddled with admirals who had risen on their social connections as much as on their merits. It was the good fortune of the service that on 31 May 1916, its day of supreme need, an exceptionally talented flag-officer was in command of its scouting force, Admiral Franz von Hipper.

  Facing one another across the North Sea in August 1914 were two contrasting navies, the Roy
al Navy stronger statistically but by an uncomfortably narrow margin, stronger in offensive qualities, and carrying much greater and wider responsibilities. The Kriegsmarine was like a new army corps equipped with new weapons, conscious of the need to make its mark and show the nation it was worthy of the trust and pride invested in it.

  Both navies possessed one common characteristic: such heavy emphasis had been laid on the quality and high cost of the ships that the practice of preservation had overtaken the practice of risk-taking which had governed war at sea since the galley battles in the Mediterranean a thousand years before Christ. British and German tactical doctrines pointed to self-protection and evasion rather than a reckless eagerness to get at the enemy. An objective examination of these doctrines even led to a conclusion that the Fleets might never meet in full-scale battle. Not that anyone would allow themselves to express such blasphemy. At the same time there was not a commander on either side likely to repeat, ‘Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead.’ There was just too much at stake and the torpedoes and mines – were too threatening.

  WAR AND EARLY MIXED FORTUNES

  The July 1914 Test Mobilization – Battenberg’s order to ‘stand the Fleet fast’ – The close blockade of Germany, and its consequences – The lack of east-coast bases – a weakness revealed – Jellicoe as C.-in-C. – The submarine and mine perils – The loss of three armoured cruisers and the super-dreadnought Audacious – Frustration and pessimism among Grand Fleet commanders – The Battle of Heligoland Bight a tonic, but Staff weaknesses exposed