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The 1914 Naval Battle of Coronel By Mr Nick Sanders God forbid that I should do this thing, It is now eighty-nine years since the Battle of the Falklands took place, which we commemorate on Battle Day in December. But what really happened? The build up to the Battle of the Falklands in 1914 in fact started some months before, at Coronel off the coast of Chile, halfway between Puerto Montt and Valparaiso. The First World War had just been declared, and the German and British Fleets were amassing in the North Sea, trying to score their first victory with their huge, new armoured battleships. There had been a scandal in the Mediterranean just after war was declared when, through a series of command mistakes, Rear Admiral Troubridge had failed to engage the German battlecruiser Goeben, allowing it to escape from a superior British force. Admiral Troubridge was to be Court-Martialled for his cowardice - the effect on every other serving officer in the Royal Navy was such that each was determined never to let such an accusation be levelled at him. The German China Squadron at this time was commanded by Admiral Graf von Spee, one of the most able of the younger generation of German admirals. Admiral Tirpitz had given him a roving commission which von Spee relished, to strike at British trade and possessions across the vast areas of the Pacific and South Atlantic. His squadron contained two fast armoured cruisers, the Schamhorst and the Gneisenau, which could outrun and probably outfight most of the British fleet at the time, except the heavyweight armoured battlecruisers. Both ships were noted for their outstanding gunnery and so, together with the three light cruisers Dresden, Leipzig and Numberg that made up the squadron, posed a serious threat to British trade and communications. The British Admiralty (under the young Winston Churchill, its civilian head) had concentrated all the nation's naval strength around the North Sea, leaving many far-flung British outposts vulnerable to the German surface raiders. Unwilling to take even one of the British dreadnoughts from the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, Churchill and the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, ordered its forces in the South Atlantic under Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher 'Kit' Craddock to search out and engage the German squadron. The decision was not popular or widely supported; the First Sea Lord (Prince Louis of Battenburg) and the Chief of the War Staff, the stunningly named Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, both sought in vain to persuade Churchill to send two additional battlecruisers south to even up the forces. Craddock's South Atlantic squadron was old and relatively weak. His two armoured cruisers, the Good Hope and the Monmouth, had 6-inch guns mounted close to the waterline, causing firing problems in heavy weather, and the total weight of their broadsides, including Good Hope's two 9-inch guns, was just 2,400 lbs., half that of von Spee's ships. To make matters worse, Craddock's ships were manned almost entirely by reservists (90% in the case of Good Hope) called into action at such short notice that they had had no time for proper gunnery practice. The squadron was completed by the cruiser HMS Glasgow, which was relatively fast but unarmoured, the 12,000 ton converted liner Otranto, suitable only for merchant escort duties, and the Canopus. HMS Canopus was a pre-dreadnought battleship, armed with 12-inch guns but in all other respects useless, with a maximum speed of just twelve knots. She had been mothballed in 1913, prior to being scrapped, and had been brought out with a reservist crew, including a gunnery officer who had never been in a turret before! Churchill, a meddling amateur naval strategist, badly misjudged Craddock's force, placing an unwarranted belief in the capability of the Canopus. Despite requests from Craddock, Churchill even refused to authorise the armoured cruiser Defence, on patrol in the South Atlantic, to join Craddock's force. To complicate matters, on 18th October 1914, whilst coaling in Stanley, Canopus reported defects with her engines which would take five days to repair. Under pressure from the Admiralty, Craddock took the decision that he could only bring von Spee to battle if he abandoned the Canopus, to follow on as soon as it could. It is reported (although there is scant evidence to support the story) that, just before sailing, Craddock buried his sword and medals in the grounds of Government House. He also handed to the Governor, Sir William Allardyce, a sealed packed to be sent to the Admiralty 'as soon as my death is confirmed', adding somewhat bitterly, 'I have no intention after forty years at sea of being an unheard victim.' To the Governor of the Islands he wrote 'I shall not fail to let them know at home officially what I have seen and think of your gallant preparations for upholding our honour [against attack by the German squadron]. Would that all our dependencies be the same....' Craddock knew that he was sailing to certain defeat. It must have taken a huge degree of courage and leadership to take his mismatched and poorly trained squadron out of Stanley early one winter's morning to round Cape Horn in search of von Spee's greatly superior force. He did not even have the comfort of the support of the Admiralty, whom he had advised of the problems he would face, but who offered him little practical support. Sadly, despite huge courage and sacrifice, Craddock's worst fears proved to be well founded. The two squadrons met at Coronel at sunset on 1st November 1914, and the German superiority of firepower, armour and training proved decisive. Only the third salvo from the Schamhorst put the Good Hope's forward 9-inch gun out of action. The Monmouth received over forty direct hits from the Gneisenau and Schamhorst and fires raged onboard. The destruction of the British squadron was fast and almost total. No one saw the Good Hope go down with all but five of her nine hundred hands, including Sir Christopher Craddock. Shortly afterwards the Monmouth capsized from severe damage but still flying her colours in an attempt to either ram or bring her guns to bear on the Numberg. The Glasgow and Otranto managed to escape under cover of darkness, the Glasgow with a six foot square hole on the waterline above her port screw. When news of the defeat reached the Admiralty, Churchill denounced Craddock's stupidity for leaving Stanley to fight the Germans without Canopus, but this surely was a sign of a monumental misjudgement on his part. As one of Canopus' officers is reported as commenting, if the aged battleship had been with Craddock at Coronel she 'would merely have swelled the casualty list'. When he heard of Craddock's actions, Vic Admiral Sir David Beatty, commanding the British battlecruisers at Rosyth in Scotland, bitterly reflected on where the blame rested: 'Poor old Kit Craddock has gone at Coronel. His death and the loss of the ships and the gallant lives in them can be laid at the door of the incompetency of the Admiralty. They have broken over and again the first principles of strategy.' Stung by this criticism, Churchill sought to blame Craddock for failing to concentrate his forces, including Canopus. However, there was considerable disquiet within the Admiralty, and the flamboyant Jacky Fisher had replaced the feeble Battenburg as First Sea Lord. He was able to stand up to Churchill and almost immediately the armoured battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible were ordered south under the command of Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, the former Chief of War Staff, to seek out and destroy von Spee and his China Squadron. The stage was set for the Battle of the Falklands. Acknowledgments: This article is reproduced with the kind permission of
the author. Nick Sanders was Senior Magistrate in the Falkland
Islands from 2001 to 2004. As a Naval Officer, he served in the
Falkland Islands in 1982, 1983 and 1986. |
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