From Thu Oct 23 20:48:19 1997
>Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 23:42:17 EST
>From: EDWARD WITTENBERG
>To: MAHAN@MICROWRKS.COM, MILHST-L@UKANVM.CC.UKANS.EDU
>CC: wew@papa.uncp.edu
>Subject: Coronel and the Falkland Islands – part 1
>Precendence: bulk
>Sender: mahan-owner@microworks.net
>Reply-To: mahan@microworks.net
>
>Several weeks ago I came across and purchased a work entitled _Sea
>Battles of the 20th Century_ (London: The Hamlyn Publishing Group
>Limited, 1975) by George Bruce. Since I’ve always had an interest in
>World War I naval tactics (especially those connected with commerce
>warfare — raiders and submarines) I was particularly pleased to see
>that the work included a comprehensive section dealing with the Battle
>of Coronel and the Battle of the Falkland Islands. I have extracted this
>section and am posting it to the list for others to enjoy. I have found
>this book to be a very good read, and would urge list members to
>attempt to acquire their own copies. As always, questions or comments
>are welcome.
>
>Edward Wittenberg
>wew@papa.uncp.edu
>
>
> Coronel and the Falkland Islands
> November-December 1914
>
> Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee, commander of Germany’s East
> Asiatic Squadron, had concentrated his five ships at the secret meeting
> place of Easter Island from 12-19 October 1914. The squadron consisted
> of the two armoured cruisers, the Scharnhorst (flagship) and Gneisenau,
> and three light cruisers, Nurnberg, Dresden and Leipzig, with their
> attendant chartered steamers for coaling and supplies.
>
> Von Spee’s situation was not an enviable one when war broke out.
> If he tried to make for Germany, sooner or later his course would
> become known and the British fleet would concentrate to destroy him. If
> he had tried to help hold the German colony and base of Tsingtau, in
> China, he would merely have invited a Japanese blockade and brought to
> an end his squadron’s useful life. His role, therefore, was clear: he was
> to carry out hit-and-run warfare against enemy merchant ships and
> neutral vessels carrying enemy supplies, while inflicting any other
> damage possible upon the British overseas.
>
> It was a role that was bound to end in disaster. Count von Spee,
> seen in contemporary photographs as tall and burly with a neatly
> trimmed iron-grey beard and that look of moral earnestness which
> bespeaks a stern sense of duty, described his situation thus: ‘I cannot
> reach Germany. I must plough the seas of the world doing as much
> mischief as I can, until my ammunition is exhausted, or a foe far
> superior in power succeeds in catching me.’
>
> The very mobility of von Spee’s squadron was a threat to the
> Allies, for until it was destroyed he could strike both at merchant
> shipping in the vital South Atlantic trade routes and vessels sailing
> across the Indian Ocean with urgently needed food and wool from
> Australia and New Zealand.
>
> Rear-Admiral Sir George Patey’s powerful cruiser squadron on the
> Australian station was, of course, more than able to deal with the best
> of Spee’s ships. This squadron included the 18,000-ton battle-cruiser
> Australia, with a speed of 25.8 knots and eight 12-inch guns, as well as
> the light cruisers Sydney and Melbourne, and the older Encounter, with
> a speed of 25 knots and eleven 6-inch guns. Unfortunately Patey’s
> squadron was at this time engaged in the seizure of German colonies in
> the Bismarck Archipelago and Samoa, although this operation, in terms of
> priorities, should have come second to the destruction of Spee’s ships.
> For Patey had next to make ready for convoying the Australian and New
> Zealand expeditionary forces to Europe.
>
> When, on 14 September 1914, the Admiralty learned that Spee’s
> squadron had been sighted off Samoa and that the commerce raider
> Emden, the sixth ship of his squadron, was at large in the Indian Ocean,
> fears for the safety of the Anzac convoy were voiced. Despite the need
> for these troops to help stem the German drive through France, the
> sailing of the convoy was delayed until the situation became clearer.
>
> Vice-Admiral Sir Martyn Jerram’s China Squadron could also have
> contributed to the destruction of Spee’s force. It consisted of the
> armoured cruisers Minotaur (flagship) and Hampshire; the light cruisers
> Newcastle and Yarmouth; and at Hongkong, in reserve, the pre-dreadnought
> battleship Triumph. In mid-August a signal to Jerram, evidently sent by
> the First Lord, instructed him to proceed with the destruction of the
> Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, ‘as soon as possible’, with the Minotaur,
> Hampshire and the French cruiser Dupleix, although no indication was
> given as to the enemy’s whereabouts.
>
> Jerram believed that interference with British trade in the East
> Indies was probably the object of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and
> for two weeks he carried out an unsuccessful search around the Java
> Sea. Then, in mid-September, when Spee was off Samoa some 3,000 miles
> to the west, Jerram signalled that he believed the enemy squadron
> would next appear off the South American coast. He then proposed that
> he should establish his flag ashore so as to control his force more
> effectively. and this he did, at Singapore.
>
> Hampshire, originally ordered to reinforce the Anzac convoy soon
> to sail for Europe, was now ordered to join the search for the
> brilliantly successful commerce raider Emden, with Yarmouth, Dupleix and
> the Japanese cruiser Chikumo. The Minotaur and another Japanese
> cruiser, Ibuki, replaced her in the Anzac convoy. Thus, Jerram’s ships
> seemed to have been fully occupied.
>
> At this point, just before Cradock was set on the course which
> was to end in his encounter with von Spee, one still marvels, even after
> the passage of sixty years, at the hopelessly muddled handling of the
> danger posed by von Spee. Almost from the start there was a failure to
> establish as overriding priorities the destruction of the enemy’s naval
> forces in the South Pacific and the creation of the kind of force there
> capable of doing so.
>
> Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock was in the West Indies when
> he began to be drawn into the drama which was to end so tragically for
> him. Perhaps it was a devotion to duty beyond the high sense of it
> common to nearly all of the Navy’s senior officers that led him to
> assume charge of the entire west coast of South America.
>
> In mid-August two of von Spee’s cruisers, Dresden and Karlsruhe,
> appeared in the Atlantic. Cradock pursued them through the West Indies
> and along the South American coast. The Karlsruhe escaped east into the
> Atlantic and for some weeks was not heard of, while the Dresden
> rounded Cape Horn on 16 September 1914, steamed up the coast of Chile,
> then turned west to join Admiral von Spee at Easter Island on 12
> October.
>
> Cradock, who had transferred his flag from the Suffolk to the
> faster armoured cruiser Good Hope, sailed south, and at Santa Catarina
> Island, about 400 miles southwest of Rio de Janeiro, received from the
> Admiralty these curiously vague instructions:
>
> There is a strong probability of the Scharnhorst
> and the Gneisenau arriving in Magellan Straits
> or on west coast of South America. Germans
> have begun to carry on trade on west coast of
> South America. Leave sufficient force to deal
> with Dresden and Karlsruhe. Concentrate a
> squadron strong enough to meet Scharnhorst
> and Gneisenau, making Falkland Islands your
> coaling base. Canopus is now en route to
> Abrolhos. Defence is joining you from
> Mediterranean. Until Defence joins, keep at
> least Canopus and one County class cruiser with
> your flagship. As soon as you have superior
> force, search Magellan Straits, with squadron,
> being ready to return and cover River Plate, or,
> according to information, search north as far as
> Valparaiso, break up the German trade and
> destroy German cruisers. Anchorage in the
> vicinity of Golfo Nuevo and Egg Harbour should
> be searched. Colliers are being ordered to
> Falkland Islands. Consider whether colliers
> should be ordered south.
>
> As if the Navy’s most powerful and up-to-date battle cruisers
> were Cradock’s to command, the Admiralty instructions spoke in a matter
> of fact way of his dealing with Dresden and Karlsruhe, while at the
> same time concentrating a squadron ‘strong enough to meet Scharnhorst
> and Gneisenau’, when these last two ships alone were more than a match
> for his entire squadron. Both of them, launched in 1906, were protected
> by a belt of 6-inch armour, mounted eight 8.2-inch, six 5.9-inch and
> eighteen 21-pounder guns, and had a speed of no less than 23 knots.
>
> At this time Cradock’s squadron consisted of the obsolete
> battleship Canopus, which had a speed of 12 knots and a main armament
> of four 12-inch guns of obsolete design; the armoured cruiser Good
> Hope, launched in 1903, with a speed of 23 knots, two 9.2-inch, sixteen
> 6-inch and twelve 12-pounder guns; the armoured cruiser Monmouth,
> also launched in 1903, with a speed of 22.S knots and a main armament
> of fourteen 6-inch guns; the Glasgow, a light cruiser launched in 1910,
> with a speed of 25 knots, two 6-inch, ten 4-inch guns; and the Otranto,
> a merchantman armed with a mere eight 4.7-inch guns. All of these
> vessels were weak in both armament and speed compared with Admiral
> von Spee’s powerful squadron.
>
> In addition, von Spee was fortunate in having crack crews on his
> two big armoured cruisers. The Scharnhorst had recently won the Battle
> Practice Cup, for which the entire German Navy competed. Of course,
> Cradock was promised the armoured cruiser Defence which, with four
> 9.2-inch and ten 7.5-inch guns, would enable him to face the enemy on
> more equal terms, but the Canopus, with its hopelessly slow speed, was
> in fact a liability.
>
> Cradock was not to know that, owing to the activities of the
> Emden, a proposal to provide an adequate reinforcement of no less than
> three armoured cruisers had been opposed not only by Prince Louis of
> Battenberg, the First Sea Lord, but also by Jellicoe, who, obsessed with
> the apparent threat of an invasion on England’s east coast, opposed
> releasing any Grand Fleet battlecruisers for the purpose. Churchill
> lamentably failed to assert his authority on this issue.
>
> By mid-October von Spee had received information about the
> presence in the South Atlantic of Cradock’s flagship, Good Hope,
> Monmouth and Glasgow. It led to a decisive change in policy, which he
> outlined to his captains: ‘The presence of strong enemy forces on the
> east coast makes it impossible for the Squadron to carry out its original
> intention of a war against commerce for the present. This purpose is
> therefore renounced and the destruction of the enemy forces is
> substituted for it.’
>
> In early October events began to move towards their conclusion.
> An Admiralty telegram, sent on 5 October 1914, told Cradock that von
> Spee’s squadron was ‘working across to South America.’
>
> The message went on to say that Cradock ‘must be prepared to
> meet them in company. Canopus should accompany Glasgow, Monmouth
> and Otranto, and should search and protect trade in combination’. The
> telegram meant that these four ships alone were considered strong
> enough to meet the enemy force and that they were to move north up
> the west coast of South America as far as Valparaiso, where trade in the
> area was centered.
>
> Churchill subsequently made it clear that, in his view, Cradock’s
> squadron was perfectly safe as it was accompanied by the Canopus. ‘The
> Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would never have ventured to come within
> range of her 12-inch guns’, he wrote. ‘To do so would have been to
> subject themselves to very serious damage without any prospect of
> success. The old battleship, with her heavy armour and artillery, was in
> fact a citadel around which all our cruisers in those waters could find
> absolute security.’
>
> It was an opinion founded upon the theoretical situation, not upon
> the speed and firepower of Canopus as she then was, for her 12-inch
> guns had in fact a few hundred yards less range than the 8.5-inch
> guns of the two big German cruisers.
>
> Some anxiety over his position now began to appear in Cradock’s
> signals to the Admiralty. In the first of two signals on 8 October,
> referring to intelligence of the concentration of von Spee’s squadron, he
> said: ‘I intend to concentrate at Falkland Islands and avoid division of
> forces. I have ordered Canopus to proceed there, and Monmouth,
> Glasgow and Otranto not to go farther north than Valparaiso until
> German cruisers are located again … When does Defence join my
> command ?’
>
> In a second telegram that day, Cradock proposed that it was
> ‘necessary to have a British force on each coast strong enough to bring
> them into action’, in the event of the enemy’s heavy cruisers
> concentrating on the west coast of South America. Cradock was now
> tactfully informing the Admiralty that he doubted whether his force
> alone was strong enough to meet the enemy, even with the Defence,
> which had not yet joined him, and Canopus.
>
> On 7 October, Glasgow, Monmouth and the armed merchant cruiser
> Otranto steamed north up the west coast of South America while Good
> Hope put into the Falklands. Having deliberated on Cradock’s telegrams,
> the Admiralty finally concluded that the destruction of von Spee’s force
> must be the first priority. On 14 October it sent a telegram to Cradock:
> ‘Concur in your concentration of Canopus, Good Hope, Glasgow,
> Monmouth, Otranto for combined operation. We have ordered Stoddart in
> Carnarvon to Montevideo as Senior Naval Officer north of that place.
> Have ordered Defence to join Carnarvon. He will also have under his
> orders Cornwall, Bristol, Orama and Macedonia.’
>
> Now, for a second time, Cradock expressed his misgivings to the
> Admiralty: ‘I trust circumstances will enable me to force an action, but
> fear that strategically, owing to Canopus, the speed of my squadron
> cannot exceed 12 knots.’
>
> He was saying that at this speed he could not force an action
> upon a squadron capable of 21 knots, which could easily escape him if it
> wished. No less important was the implication that, with its greater
> speed, the enemy could cross his ‘T’, or steam across his course at
> right angles and bring broadsides to bear, while in this situation he
> could return fire only with his forward guns. Cradock reminded the
> Admiralty in this telegram that he was likely to face destruction by this
> classic tactical move.
>
> Fears that von Spee’s squadron might now be nearing the west
> coast of Chile, where his three ships would be at its mercy, now beset
> Cradock. He waited until Canopus arrived on 22 October at Port Stanley,
> only to be faced with the unwelcome news that her engines needed
> overhauling. Leaving instructions for the Canopus to meet him on the
> west coast ‘by way of the Straits’, he steamed off alone to rejoin his
> four ships, without the ‘citadel’ the Admiralty believed was the one
> guarantee of security against the crack enemy squadron.
>
> Good Hope ploughed through the grey seas towards the Horn.
> Dark storm clouds scudded overhead, the wind tugged at masts and
> stays. Cradock would have known that, although he was still under
> orders to bring the enemy to action, he was almost certainly steaming to
> destruction. On 26 October 1914, after rounding the Horn, in his third
> and final telegram on the issue, he made a bold move to strengthen his
> squadron.
>
> ‘With reference to orders to search for enemy and our great
> desire for early success, I consider that owing to slow speed of Canopus
> it is impossible to find and destroy enemy’s squadron. Have therefore
> ordered Defence to join me after calling for orders at Montevideo. Shall
> employ Canopus on necessary work of convoying colliers.’
>
> Admiral Stoddart at once contended to the Admiralty that he
> should be given two fast cruisers to replace Defence, if this vessel was
> given to Cradock. The Admiralty accepted Cradock’s challenge,
> countermanded his order and bluntly replied: ‘Defence is to remain on
> East Coast under orders of Stoddart. This will leave sufficient force on
> each side in case the hostile cruisers appear there on the trade routes.
> There is no ship available for the Cape Horn vicinity. Japanese
> battleship Hixen shortly expected on North American coast. She will join
> with Japanese Idzumo and Newcastle and move south to Galapagos.’
>
> There is no absolute proof that this telegram reached Cradock. On
> the other hand, the intelligence officer with the squadron, Lieutenant
> Lloyd Hirst, who was on board the Glasgow at Vallenar on the evening
> of 27 October, relates that Cradock sent her on ahead to Coronel to
> collect local intelligence reports and to find out the Admiralty reaction
> to his bold order for Defence to join him. Also, as the Official History
> states: ‘He was still hoping, it would seem, to receive a modification of
> the instructions, which, as he conceived them appeared impracticable . . .
>
> Hirst boarded the Monmouth and Good Hope to collect letters from
> home before leaving for Coronel. ‘In the wardroom, a fight within a few
> days was considered inevitable’, he relates, ‘but there was not much
> optimism about the result; two of the Lieutenant-Commanders in
> Monmouth, both old shipmates of mine, took me aside to give me farewell
> messages to their wives . . .’
>
> On the night of the 20th, as the Glasgow steamed towards Coronel,
> her wireless operator heard the Leipzig sending signals less than 150
> miles away. Cradock, in Good Hope, therefore steamed northwards with
> Monmouth early on 30 October, having ordered Canopus to follow. The
> armed merchantman Otranto, which had been seeking information in
> Puerto Montt, joined Cradock on 31 October. He also ordered Captain Luce
> of the Glasgow to rendezvous with him some 80 miles southwest of Coronel
> at 1pm on the following day. Evidently, Luce then brought him the
> Admiralty’s signal countermanding his order for Defence to join him.
> It was decisive.
>
> Cradock was known to be a fearless, even impetuous officer, as
> well as an experienced one. Three times he had told the Admiralty that
> his ships were not up to the task of destroying Admiral von Spee’s
> squadron. At last, half an hour after reading his last telegram, he
> appears to have felt that he had reached the point of no return. He
> hoisted the fateful signal: ‘Spread 20 miles apart and look for the
> enemy.’
>
> More wireless signals now indicated the presence of a single
> German ship, the Leipzig, to the north. Cradock, believing on the basis
> of the earlier signals that he was about to meet one ship-an illusion
> which the enemy had skillfully fostered -ordered his squadron to form a
> line of search fifteen miles apart northwest by north and to proceed at
> a speed of ten knots in the order, from east to west, of Good Hope,
> Monmouth, Otranto and Glasgow. But at 4.20pm, before this manoeuvre
> was completed, Glasgow sighted smoke on her starboard bow and altered
> course to steam towards it.
>
> Admiral von Spee had taken on coal from the collier Santa Isabel
> some 40 miles off Valparaiso on 31 October and at 2.50am a German
> steamer signalled him that the British cruiser Glasgow had anchored at
> Coronel at 7pm the previous evening. Von Spee, therefore, had formed a
> line of search and steamed south towards Coronel in the hope of
> trapping and destroying the cruiser after she had left Coronel.
>
> Thus, as Captain T. G. Frothingham states in Naval History of The
> World War:
>
> The German sweep southward in search of
> Glasgow, was thus taking place at the very time
> the British squadron was sweeping north in its
> search for the Leipzig, which the deceptive
> German signals had described as being alone.
> Consequently . . . each squadron was seeking
> one ship of the other squadron, in belief that it
> was an isolated enemy ship-and each squadron
> in ignorance of the fact that finding the enemy
> single ship would mean finding the whole enemy
> squadron. This was the strange situation which
> brought on the Battle of Coronel.

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