The First World War

[rustler]

A very interesting article, and a reminder that for some, the First World War is not over.....


Lethal relics from WWI:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/b...-emerging.html

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Mal Hombre is right - some were salvaged, I think in the 1920s. But some of the ships are still there, if what I read is correct. I don't know why they weren't raised, because they aren't war graves, afaik

There was some disagreement about what should happen to the fleet when it was still alive. Iirc, the British wanted them all destroyed or scrapped; the French wanted their "share" for use in their Navy; and I can't remember what the Americans wanted

Maybe MH knows?

At any rate, it looks like the Germans gave the British their wish

The British side mistreated the German sailors, who weren't technically POWs, in a variety of petty and spiteful ways. They were forbidden to fly their country's flag; they were confined to their own ship with no permission to visit other SMS ships; they had no shore leave; they had no dentist and, which I do think was very bad behaviour, the British refused to allow the German sailors access to a British dentist. No doubt some of this harrassment was justifiable; the scuttling did prove that the German sailors were untrustworthy and willing to hatch plots against their jailors, so restricting them from visiting each others ships was an obvious precaution, even though it did not work.

Hindsight is terrific. In hindsight, the German crews were much too many and enforced idleness helped to crumble morale and poison the atmosphere. A much smaller number of men, all volunteer. and under better conditions of service, with British officers heavily present, might have prevented the scuttling, perhaps. As for the rest, Germany was not a good place in 1919 and I would have offered them a dangerous but properly remunerated option to help with sweeping away the WW1 marine minefields; volunteers only, no compulsion, but the best available equipment provided, danger money rates paid and pensions for the nearest and dearest of the ones who didn't make it. In their shoes, I would probably have accepted this offer, doing a worthwhile but dangerous job for high rates of pay, and feeling like I had a purpose. I'm sure the sheer banal dullness and emptiness of life on those ships was a major reason why the men scuttled them.

[rustler]

There had long been problems with the German fleet though Scoundrel. They had twice refused, afaik, to put to sea during the latter stages of WWI, and the fleet was in a bad state, mentally and physically, by the time it reached Scapa Flow.
The poor treatment at the hands of their captors, which I hadn't previously known about, cannot have helped things with the already discontented crews!

An interesting series of photos of the salvage of some of the fleet can be found here:

http://www.naval-history.net/WW1z12aCox.htm

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by rustler

There had long been problems with the German fleet though Scoundrel. They had twice refused, afaik, to put to sea during the latter stages of WWI, and the fleet was in a bad state, mentally and physically, by the time it reached Scapa Flow.
The poor treatment at the hands of their captors, which I hadn't previously known about, cannot have helped things with the already discontented crews!

An interesting series of photos of the salvage of some of the fleet can be found here:

http://www.naval-history.net/WW1z12aCox.htm

The High Seas Fleet was in a shocking bad way by the time it surrendered in November 1918; not even a shadow of the fleet which had fought at Jutland so capably. It is ironic, but the mutinous indiscipline of its crews may have delayed the scuttling bu many months. Admiral Reuter was clearly the brains behind the scuttling, but it was only in June, after the most discordant pro-communist elements had returned to Germany, that his reduced crews consisted of men who could be relied on to obey him and to keep quiet about his intended operation.

[knobby109]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

The High Seas Fleet was in a shocking bad way by the time it surrendered in November 1918; not even a shadow of the fleet which had fought at Jutland so capably. It is ironic, but the mutinous indiscipline of its crews may have delayed the scuttling bu many months. Admiral Reuter was clearly the brains behind the scuttling, but it was only in June, after the most discordant pro-communist elements had returned to Germany, that his reduced crews consisted of men who could be relied on to obey him and to keep quiet about his intended operation.

It's interesting to think about what the Royal Navy would have done with them if they hadn't been scuttled. It wasn't too long before the Navy was slimmed down anyway, in the absence of any threat the expense of maintaining a vast peace time navy could not be justified. Particularly as the country was practically bankrupt.

[rustler]

I think that most of the ships would have been scrapped anyway.

Lord Fisher, the former First Sea Lord, had already scrapped some 100 outdated ships just prior to the First World War. Though Fisher was by the time of the sinking long gone from the Admiralty, the thinking persisted: This was the time of the Dreadnought. As Fisher had observed earlier, 'The real thing is the number of Dreadnoughts. It is like the armadillo and the ant, the armadillo gobbles them up'.

Great advances had been made in warship technology during WWI. Bigger and better guns, better and thicker armour, better turbines and the change from coal to fuel-oil. Weight of Broadside compared to the speed/weight ration being another.

I think these perhaps out dated, and poorly maintained warships would have been scrapped, and the crews put to better use else where.

Prior to WWI the Royal navy was guaranteed by Parliament a fleet capable of taking on the next two biggest fleets in the world - at the same time, and win! World War One, showed that perhaps such huge fleets weren't absolutely necessary anymore. Coronel in the Falklands, and the Battle of Jutland being the only major encounters between surface vessels during WWI that I can really think of off hand.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by rustler

I think that most of the ships would have been scrapped anyway.

Lord Fisher, the former First Sea Lord, had already scrapped some 100 outdated ships just prior to the First World War. Though Fisher was by the time of the sinking long gone from the Admiralty, the thinking persisted: This was the time of the Dreadnought. As Fisher had observed earlier, 'The real thing is the number of Dreadnoughts. It is like the armadillo and the ant, the armadillo gobbles them up'.

Great advances had been made in warship technology during WWI. Bigger and better guns, better and thicker armour, better turbines and the change from coal to fuel-oil. Weight of Broadside compared to the speed/weight ration being another.

I think these perhaps out dated, and poorly maintained warships would have been scrapped, and the crews put to better use else where.

Prior to WWI the Royal navy was guaranteed by Parliament a fleet capable of taking on the next two biggest fleets in the world - at the same time, and win! World War One, showed that perhaps such huge fleets weren't absolutely necessary anymore. Coronel in the Falklands, and the Battle of Jutland being the only major encounters between surface vessels during WWI that I can really think of off hand.

There were a few other encounters between major surface warships in WW1: Coronel was followed a month later by the slightly bigger Battle of the Falklands, in which Admiral von Spee's squadron was crushed by a larger British squadron under Admiral Sturdee, spearheaded by two battlecruisers which were as far beyond von Spee's ability to fight as von Spee's modern force of light and heavy cruisers had been beyond the powers of Admiral Craddock and his grotesquely obsolete force led by HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth.

Big warships are expensive to build and there must be a temptation to extend their service life further than is quite right. Monmouth and Good Hope were not even very old; neither of them had been in service 20 years. But design and technology had changed rapidly in those 20 years and both Monmouth and Good Hope should have been scrapped. Their armour was inferior to that of the German heavy cruisers, SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau. The British ships had 6" guns whereas Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had 8.2" (21cm) guns: Good Hope had 2 x 9.2" guns, one of which was hit in the first few minutes of the battle. To make matters worse, the British ships both had their 6" guns lining the sides of their hulls, for all the world like one of Nelson's ships of the line, and not in turrets on gun platforms on the decks. They could only bear on one side, were low against the sea, which reduced their range and meant that they got swamped in heavy seas. The Battle of Coronel was fought in gale force winds and heavy seas. To complete the dismal picture, the German ships were all faster than Monmouth and Good Hope.

Admiral Craddock initially tried to refuse action but the Germans merely shadowed him. He knew they were waiting for sunset, when their position, inland and to the east, would silhouette Craddocks ships against the evening sky and hide von Spee's ships against the shadow of the land. But when Craddock decided to close and give his smaller guns a chance, he was too slow; the German ships sailed away from him and remained out of range. When the sun was low in the sky, they slowed down and opened fire, speeding up again when they were in range and Admiral Craddock was out of range. Soon, the British ships were badly hit and on fire, making them even better targets. Monmouth ceased fire and came to a virtual stop about 40 minutes after the shooting started. Good Hope to chase the German ships, never getting into effective range, until she exploded and sank about an hour after the first shots were fired. Von Spee searched for survivors of Good Hope but found only wreckage; not even a corpse. He sent the light cruiser Nurnberg to finish off Monmouth, which had not one gun left capable of shooting and was barely moving in the water. The captain of Nurnberg took pity and shone his searchlights pointedly at Monmouth's battle flag, holding his fire. He was asking the British ship to strike her colours. Had she done so, the Germans would almost certainly have rescued her crew and allowed her to sink. Instead, and I find this hard to excuse, the British officer in command ignored the German offer. He could not shoot, he could not manoevre, he was a sitting duck, and he chose death for every man of his crew when he had the chance to choose life for them. 25 years later, in a not dissimilar situation, Captain Hans Langsdorff of KMS Graf Spee (oh the irony) scuttled his ship rather than sacrifice his men in a meaningless fight in which they could achieve nothing, and to prove that his decision was not motivated by personal physical cowardice, he shot himself. If the British CO had been reticent about the fear that his own side would condemn him for cowardice when he struck his colours to save his men's lives, he could and should have first saved his men, then shot himself to redeem the honour of his family name. To refuse to surrender when he could neither fight nor run away was just stupid. Nurnberg fired 75 shells into Monmouth and didn't miss once. When Monmouth sank, having not returned one shot, Nurnberg searched the site and tried to find survivors; but there were none.

Expensive though they no doubt had been to build, Monmouth and Good Hope were white elephants. The best use for them was to take them to a scrap yard and make them into razor blades; had this been done, their combined crews of 1,570 men could have been used for something better, such as picking flowers or grooming sheep. Not one man survived from either ship; that is a really shocking waste of life. The Battle of Coronel was a textbook example of why it is wrong to prolong the service life of weapons which can no longer compete against the equipment of the opposing side; having HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth was a lot worse than having no ships at all, exactly 1,570 men worse.

To return to Scapa Flow, where we started, only a minority of the High Seas Fleet would have been anything like as obsolete in 1919 as Good Hope and Monmouth were in 1914. At the time, they were still equal in class to most of the British heavy ships. But the British were already selecting the best and most modern of their fleet for future duty and the rest for disposal. Also, being faster and better armoured than equivalent British units came at a price, and the German ships were much shorter in range, not able to keep the sea for months on end as readily as the British ships could. In the end, the German ships were out of date for the new world coming into being.

Just the same, both the French and the Americans were expressing a strong desire to seize some of the best of the German units as reparations, to strengthen their surface navies. Without being able to openly say so to their allies in the war just over, the British has absolutely no wish to allow said allied to strengthen their surface navies. Although vexed at the time it happened, especially because the German sailors made complete fools of their British captors, most thinking people in Britain's navy and government quickly grasped that Admiral Reuter had done Britain a big favour.

[rustler]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Just the same, both the French and the Americans were expressing a strong desire to seize some of the best of the German units as reparations, to strengthen their surface navies. Without being able to openly say so to their allies in the war just over, the British has absolutely no wish to allow said allied to strengthen their surface navies. Although vexed at the time it happened, especially because the German sailors made complete fools of their British captors, most thinking people in Britain's navy and government quickly grasped that Admiral Reuter had done Britain a big favour.

As I mentioned earlier, the Royal Navy was guaranteed equal, or better strength than the next two most powerful navies combined, so the thought of handing over any of these ships to the next two most powerful countries must have been a nightmare for Whitehall.
Britain was involved in a naval arms race, one that she couldn't afford - nor could she afford to lose it!
IIRC. it was the Treaty of Washington in 1927 that finally took some of the heat off the situation, by setting limits, and which as some historians have noted averted the Anglo-American War of 1927.

[Trintron]

Originally Posted by rustler

As I mentioned earlier, the Royal Navy was guaranteed equal, or better strength than the next two most powerful navies combined, so the thought of handing over any of these ships to the next two most powerful countries must have been a nightmare for Whitehall.
Britain was involved in a naval arms race, one that she couldn't afford - nor could she afford to lose it!
IIRC. it was the Treaty of Washington in 1927 that finally took some of the heat off the situation, by setting limits, and which as some historians have noted averted the Anglo-American War of 1927.

During and after the war, the British navy pretty much controlled the sea trade routes all over the world, this is something the British would not allow any one to threaten. But the Germans did not want the British or any one else to have their fleet either, which is why most of the High Sea's Fleet is at the bottom of Scapa Flow in Scotland.

Relations between the USA and Great Britain went from bad to worse very quickly after the war, the USA wanted compensation from the British that was greater and faster than the British was able to pay. The USA even drew up top secret invasion plans for Canada and all of Britain's naval bases in the Western Hemisphere called War Plan Red.

War Plan Red

But times change and this Anglo-American war never happened.

[DTravel]

The US still has a war plan to invade Canada that is kept up to date. Its basically just a training exercise for officers but it is supposed to be a valid contingency plan. What I think is especially funny about it is it has to involve NORAD staff in some way, which is a joint US-Canadian command. So somewhere waaaaaay out there on the end of the bell curve is the chance that a Canadian General will be commanding part of the American invasion of his/hers own country while some American General will be commanding part of the Canadian defense.

Isn't diplomacy fun?!