To Arms

by Hew Strachan

  But the naval general staff and the naval affairs division of the naval ministry were convinced of the strategic importance of Micronesia as an advanced base in any future war with the United States. Nationalist groups provided support, stressing the islands’ economic value. Phosphates could give the navy commercial leverage, while the possession of colonies in the southern seas would justify the expansion of the fleet. Between them the naval staff and the naval affairs division set about the subversion of the instructions of Yashiro, the naval minister, and of Kato. When the 2nd South Seas Squadron put to sea, nominally in response to Britain’s request for escorts for Australian and New Zealand troop ships, its commander was told by the naval affairs division not to pay too much attention to the instructions of the naval minister. By 3 October Yashiro had been won over to his subordinates’ view, and by 14 October Japan’s occupation of Micronesia was accomplished.43

  Japan’s actions were furtive, but the British could hardly protest. Both Australia and New Zealand harboured their own imperialist ambitions. The former deeply resented France’s presence in New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and the latter was readied by the commander of its defence forces, Alexander Godley, for the seizure of the German possessions in Samoa and New Guinea. The Committee of Imperial Defence subcommittee of 5 August, when requesting the assistance of both Dominions in seizing the wireless stations of Yap and Nauru, mentioned New Guinea only in passing and the other territories not at all; it stressed, moreover, that any territory occupied as a consequence would remain at London’s disposal. But by the time the Colonial Office, responding to the Committee of Imperial Defence, invited the two governments to assist in the conquest of the German possessions in the south Pacific, they had already agreed a division of the spoils: those to the east of the line of longitude 170° were to fall to New Zealand, those to the west to Australia. Preparations for the plan’s implementation began immediately. Screened by the Australian squadron, a force of 1,383 New Zealanders proceeded by way of Noumea and Suva to Samoa, which it occupied without fighting on 30 August. Australia’s ships were now free to escort their own troops to New Guinea. Landings at Rabaul on 11 September encountered some opposition. The Germans’ aim was to defend their wireless station, inland at Bitapaka and intended as an intelligence-gathering centre for their cruisers. Although the Australians did not know its precise location, a combination of bluff and good luck was rewarded with success on the 12th. The Germans were commanded by a reserve captain of artillery without guns and a police inspector qualified as a riding master but without horses. On 15 September their governor surrendered the entire area of German New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.44 Isolated resistance continued on Papua, orchestrated by the leader of a German surveying expedition, Detzner. Having established good relations with the local tribes, and supported by German missionaries, Detzner remained active until the end of the war.45

  Despite the ease of their conquests, and despite the promptings of the Colonial Office in London, the two Dominions were slow to extend their movements further north. The navy was reluctant to proceed with territorial occupation until the seas were safe from German cruisers; the land forces of Australia and New Zealand were more concerned with readying themselves for Europe. By late November, when Australia began to consider pushing across the equator into the northern Pacific, Japan had already reached south, having taken the Marshall and Caroline Islands in early October. Thus, the equator became the de facto division between the two occupying powers.

  THE CRUISE OF THE GERMAN EAST ASIATIC

  SQUADRON

  Neither the siege of Tsingtao nor the occupation of the German South Pacific islands was disrupted by the activities of German cruisers. Graf von Spee, commanding the East Asiatic Squadron, had deliberately kept his ships out of Tsingtao in order to be able to retain the power of manoeuvre. He had argued before the war that, by harassing commerce, he would force his opponents to lift their blockade of the port in order to deal with him and thus would keep the entrance to Tsingtao open. It was on this basis that Meyer-Waldeck had reckoned on a lengthy defence. All von Spee’s early movements conformed to this intention. When the news of European developments reached him on 17 July, he and the major units of his squadron, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were at Ponape in the Caroline Islands. Of the three light cruisers, Nürnberg was en route from her station off California, Leipzig was proceeding to take over from Nürnberg, and only Emden was at Tsingtao. Spee ordered Emden to leave Tsingtao together with the squadron’s supply ships, and for all his command, less Leipzig, to rendezvous at Pagan Island in the Marianas. Spee had chosen Pagan before the war; it lay away from the main shipping routes and yet enjoyed a sufficiently central position in the western Pacific to enable him to draw supplies from northern Japan, Tsingtao, Shanghai, and Manila. It also left his subsequent options open.

  The decision which confronted Spee on 12 August, the day on which the assembly of his squadron at Pagan Island was effected, was not easy. The basic propositions of guerre de course argued that cruisers should be kept at sea as long as possible (an objective Spee had ensured, albeit by forsaking Tsingtao), that they should operate individually in order to force a superior enemy to disperse, and that their targets should consequently be merchant vessels and shore installations. What they should not do was seek out enemy warships. However tempting battle might be, its effect would be to allow the enemy to concentrate, enabling him to bring strength against weakness; the consequent danger would lessen, or possibly even eliminate, the sea-keeping capacities of the cruisers. Spee’s quandary arose because in the immediate area of the China Sea his squadron was not an inferior force. With Jerram’s sole battleship, Triumph, out of commission in Hong Kong, and with the Japanese entry to the war not yet confirmed, the only ship capable of challenging the 8.2-inch guns of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau was the battle cruiser Australia with 12-inch guns, but it was far to the south. Both Spee and the Admiralty Staff had therefore recognized before the war that in the Pacific the Germans might have the opportunities for tactical success and for establishing at least temporary domination of the ocean. Ultimately such a strategy would serve to paralyse commerce as effectively as would a pure guerre de course. It might even draw British cruisers away from German trade. Spee, as befitted a professional seaman anxious for action, was temperamentally drawn to this second option. It meant that his forces should be kept concentrated.46

  Individual ships were easier to resupply and refuel. Spee had acknowledged at the beginning of July that the case against concentration was the problem of coal. At Pagan Island he had collected eight colliers and storeships. For the moment Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were stocked with good quality Shantung coal, but once those supplies were exhausted they would have to rely on brown coal, if they could get it. Spee’s ships carried enough coal for eighteen days’ continuous cruising at an economical speed; if forced to increase speed they would exhaust their stocks much faster. Prudence therefore suggested coaling every eight or nine days so that the bunkers were always at least half full. Ships were particularly vulnerable while coaling at sea, unable to manoeuvre or to have full use of their guns. British ships, by contrast, had access to a network of secure bases, and to Welsh anthracite and bituminous black coal from New South Wales, both of which burnt more slowly and with greater heat, so giving increased cruising ranges.

  The opportunity for Spee to reconsider his decision to remain concentrated came on 12 August, with a report from Tsingtao that Japan was likely to enter the war. Spee no longer enjoyed the margin of superiority sufficient to justify keeping his squadron assembled, and yet he could not bring himself to accept a reconsideration of his original intentions. Japan was about to make the northeast Pacific too dangerous; British forces, it seemed, were moving south and west to Hong Kong; yet further south lay the Australia. Spee discounted breaking through to the Indian Ocean, despite the lucrative pickings on offer there, because of the lack of neutral coal and because Britain’s strength would be
reinforced by the Royal Navy’s East Indies Squadron. The only remaining option was to go south-east, towards South America. He had already canvassed this idea on 5–6 August; in other words, it was less the product of Japan’s imminent belligerence and more the result of the supply needs consequent on keeping his squadron united. Chile, though neutral, was reported to be well disposed and could provide coal. The proximity of the United States might deter the Japanese from chasing him across the Pacific, and radio intercepts suggested that the British were focusing on the capture of Tsingtao; only a light cruiser, HMS Glasgow, was on the South American station. The chances of bringing strength against weakness, of exploiting the space of the Pacific in order to escape detection and retain surprise, were greatest where the enemy cordon was thinnest. The chain of south Pacific islands would supply him, but their communications would be too primitive to allow them to betray him. He could unite with Leipzig, and possibly also Dresden, currently in the Atlantic. He might even be able to break through into the Atlantic and home to Germany.

  MAP 17. THE CRUISE OF VON SPEE’S EAST ASIATIC SQUADRON

  At a meeting on 13 August Karl von Müller, captain of the Emden, expressed his disagreement with Spee. Müller emerged as the major exponent of the classical principles of guerre de course, a theory which he was to put into practice with stunning success. Spee’s proposal might keep his command intact, but it would do so precisely because it threatened British commerce at its least important points. Spee was sufficiently persuaded by Müller to agree that the Emden should sail south-west, towards the Indian Ocean. As a single vessel, capable of 24 knots, its chances of breaking through would be greater and its coaling problems less. On 14 August Spee’s squadron set sail for the Marshall Islands; the Emden made course for the Pelews.

  Jerram had entirely lost track of Spee. His intention on the war’s outbreak had been to concentrate off the mouth of the Yangtze, and so cut Spee off from Tsingtao. But the Admiralty, panicking at its apparent inferiority in the Far East, decided to man HMS Triumph with a crew of soldiers and Chinese, and told Jerram to rendezvous with her off Hong Kong. Jerram, furious that his plans had been disrupted by orders which ‘placed me 900 miles from my correct strategical position’, was further confused when on 11 August the Admiralty signalled, ‘practically certain Japan declares war on the 12th’.47 Jerram was now told to concentrate with the Australia squadron in order to take on Spee, as the Japanese would cover Hong Kong. But the Japanese did not enter the war until 23 August, and Jerram remained off Hong Kong for the time being. Thus the passage of Emden and the accompanying colliers from Tsingtao to Pagan Island was undisturbed.

  Thereafter the efforts of both the China and the Australia squadrons were divided over three tasks. Part set about the destruction of the German wireless stations; part, including Triumph, contributed to the Japanese force which mounted the blockade of Tsingtao; but the major effort went into the protection of commerce. Jerram himself was drawn towards Singapore and the security of the Indian Ocean. With him went the obsolescent vessels of the French Indo-China squadron, two Russian cruisers, and a Japanese battleship and cruiser. The movements of the Emden, which reached Java on 29 August, confirmed the orientation of Jerram’s deployments. By going south-west, the China squadron could not team up with the Australia squadron, and in particular with the big guns of Australia herself. The Australia squadron’s commander, Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey, was clear that his first mission should be to seek out and destroy Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but wireless intercepts at the outbreak of the war had placed Spee in the Bismarck Archipelago, and the fear of the Germans’ proximity persisted.48 Even after the capture of New Guinea, the most powerful ship at Britain’s disposal in the Pacific remained tied by the imperatives of local defence and the need to convoy Australian troops. The Japanese navy, its entry delayed by Japan’s leisurely ultimatum, took on responsibility for the northern Pacific trade routes, along the Chinese coast and towards Hawaii. In mid-September it established a squadron in the Marianas, Carolines, and Marshalls, but it did not push across the equator. Thus the Admiralty’s preoccupation with the importance of commerce produced a defensive response geared to the protection of the main lines of communication rather than to taking the offensive to the German cruisers. It was hardly consonant with Fisher’s pre-war thought on the matter. Moreover, it gave Spee several opportunities in August to defeat the Entente’s forces in detail—albeit opportunities which, largely through lack of intelligence, he did not take.

  The destruction of German wireless stations was two-edged in its effect. It served to isolate Spee: all his decisions were taken on the basis of inadequate information. But he was simultaneously spared the sort of intervention from afar which dogged Jerram. Moreover, he was muffled. Spee’s own insistence on wireless silence was reinforced by the fact that increasingly he had nobody to speak to. Consequently the British were as deprived of up-to-date and accurate information as the Germans.

  On 9 August Spee’s squadron was placed in the Solomon Islands when it was still at Pagan; the following day three of his light cruisers were reported at Tsingtao. The bulk of the subsequent intelligence suggested that Spee was operating in the south-western Pacific, around New Guinea. The preconceptions and fears of the Admiralty were therefore confirmed. After 8 September Spee’s own information was somewhat better. He had detached Nürnberg to go to Honolulu, with the task of relaying to Germany via the neutral networks of the United States news of his movements; signals were sent to Leipzig and Dresden to join him at Easter Island, and to the German Etappen in South America to buy in coal. Nürnberg returned with a supply of American newspapers. From these Spee learnt of the fall of Samoa, and of the probability that some allied vessels, and possibly even Australia, could be caught at anchor there. His offensive instinct overcame the discretion appropriate to a cruiser commander. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau appeared off Apia on the morning of 14 September. Spee was disappointed: no major targets presented themselves. He then made course for the north-west, only doubling back towards Tahiti when it became dark. Thus, the British, although at last they had a definite sighting of Spee, continued to assume that he was operating in the western Pacific.

  Spee’s luck finally deserted him on 22 September. Knowing that Tahiti possessed no wireless, and concerned that his lengthy and actionless cruise would undermine the morale of his crews, he bombarded Papeete. However, a French steamer was able to report the German attack, and this sighting— together with the Apia report—confirmed Patey in the belief which he had held since mid-August, that the German East Asiatic Squadron was on course for South America.49 The Admiralty remained fearful that Spee might double back, that he would attack Samoa, Fiji, or even New Zealand, and that he would threaten the Anzac convoys. But in the western Atlantic Dresden was stopping British merchantmen and then releasing them when they were shown not to be carrying contraband: in so doing she revealed her southward course. And on 4 October two wireless intercepts indicated that Scharnhorst was en route for Easter Island and that Leipzig was waiting to meet her off the South American coast.

  The officer commanding the Royal Navy’s Western Atlantic Squadron off South America, Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, had guessed Spee’s likely course in early September. The first weeks of Cradock’s war had been frustrating. A man of considerable courage but little reflective capacity, he was of the view that ‘a naval officer should never let his boat go faster than his brain’.50 He had been pursuing Karlsruhe and Dresden without success. The prospects of his being able to continue this hunt and simultaneously to track the much more powerful combination of the East Asiatic Squadron should it round the Horn seemed remote. The Admiralty, however, had little choice. Its defensive interpretation of its oceanic task meant that Jerram, Patey, and the Japanese should all stay in the western Pacific. Cradock was to divide his command, leaving part to deal with the German light cruisers in the Caribbean, and taking four ships through the Magellan Strait to meet Spee. Of the four,
only HMS Glasgow, a fast modern light cruiser, inspired confidence. Cradock flew his flag in an old armoured cruiser, Good Hope, largely crewed by reservists and boys; Monmouth, a cruiser also with an inexperienced crew, had only 6-inch guns, and Otranto was a converted passenger liner possessed of light armament and a maximum speed of 16 knots in a head sea. Cradock was not happy. On 14 September the Admiralty responded with the promise of HMS Defence, a new armoured cruiser and the equal of Spee’s major units, and of Canopus, an ageing pre-Dreadnought but at least equipped with 12-inch guns.51 Then came news of the Emden, now off Calcutta, and of Spee’s attack on Apia and his subsequent course for the north-west. London concluded that Cradock had been wrong: Spee was not bound for South America. On 16 September the Admiralty revised its instructions. Cradock was to harass German trade off the west coast of South America, and to do this he need not keep his squadron concentrated. It also decided that Defence should be retained in the western Atlantic, north of Montevideo, to deal with Karlsruhe and Dresden; however, it omitted to tell Cradock this.

  Cradock’s own views about Spee’s intentions had not changed. The wireless intercepts of 4 October, relayed by the Admiralty to Cradock on the 7th, confirmed he was right. In signals on 8 and 11 October Cradock reported that he would concentrate on the Falklands and that he would patrol round Cape Horn up as far as Valparaiso. Perhaps the Admiralty assumed that Cradock did not intend to bring the Germans to action—or at least not in the Pacific. If Cradock shadowed them into the Atlantic, his forces and those now concentrating under Rear-Admiral Archibald Stoddart north of Montevideo could unite to overwhelm Spee. But the Admiralty did not clarify this point with Cradock, and its own orders were ambiguous—Cradock was to harass German trade and to seek out the enemy. On one reading Cradock was to regard his force as the equal of Spee’s. The arrival of Canopus at the Falklands, a week late, only served to heighten the uncertainty of what was intended. If Cradock was to find Spee he would need all the speed he could get. The senior engineer on Canopus reported that her maximum speed was 12 knots and that she needed four days’ overhaul. Therefore, if Cradock acted in formation with Canopus Spee would escape; but if he acted without Canopus he lacked the firepower to deal with Scharnhorst or Gneisenau. Cradock consoled himself with the mistaken thought that Defence was imminent. On 22 October he sailed from the Falklands without Canopus. Only after he had done so was it revealed that her engineer was suffering from psychological problems, and that her engines were capable of over 16 knots. With hindsight, Cradock should have used Glasgow to find Spee and then drawn him onto Canopus’s guns, but as Glasgow’s captain, John Luce, said, ‘I had the feeling that Cradock had no clear plan or doctrine in his head but was always inclined to act on the impulse of the moment’.52