HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
naval action between the British Royal Navy and
Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Wilhel ...
on 8 December 1914 in the South Atlantic. The British, after their defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sent a large force to track down and destroy the German
cruiser squadron The Cruiser Squadron was a naval formation of the British Home Fleet consisting of Armored cruisers of the Royal Navy from 1899 to 1905. History In October 1899 the Royal Navy's Training Squadron consisting mainly of sailing ships was abolished. ...
. The battle is commemorated every year on 8 December in the
Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
as a
public holiday A public holiday, national holiday, or legal holiday is a holiday generally established by law and is usually a non-working day during the year. Sovereign nations and territories observe holidays based on events of significance to their history ...
. Admiral Graf
Maximilian von Spee Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee (22 June 1861 – 8 December 1914) was a naval officer of the German '' Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy), who commanded the East Asia Squadron during World War I. Spee entered the navy in ...
commanding the German squadron of two
armoured cruisers The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast eno ...
, and , the
light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...
s , and , and the colliers SS ''Baden'', SS ''Santa Isabel'', and SS ''Seydlitz''Battle of the Falkland Islands
-names the three German auxiliary ships and states that ''Bristol'' and ''Macedonia'' sank the colliers ''Baden'' and ''Santa Isabel'', while 'the other collier', ''Seydlitz'', escaped.- ''www.worldwar1.co.uk'', accessed 7 December 2019
Battle of the Falkland Islands
-SS ''Seydlitz'' listed as a 'hospital ship'- ''www.britishbattles.com'', accessed 7 December 2019
attempted to raid the British supply base at Stanley in the Falkland Islands. The British squadron consisting of the
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s and , the armoured cruisers , and , the
armed merchant cruiser An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...
HMS ''Macedonia'' and the light cruisers and had arrived in the port the day before. Visibility was at its maximum, the sea was placid with a gentle breeze, and the day was bright and sunny. The vanguard cruisers of the German squadron were detected early. By nine o'clock that morning, the British battlecruisers and cruisers were in hot pursuit of the German vessels. All except ''Dresden'' and ''Seydlitz'' were hunted down and sunk.


Background

The British battlecruisers each mounted eight guns, whereas Spee's best ships (''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'') were equipped with eight pieces. Additionally, the battlecruisers could make against Spee's ; thus, the British battlecruisers not only significantly outgunned their opponents, but could outrun them too. The obsolete
pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protec ...
had been grounded at Stanley to act as a makeshift defence battery for the area.


Spee's squadron

At the outbreak of hostilities, the German East Asia Squadron commanded by Spee was outclassed and outgunned by the Royal Navy and the
Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
. Spee and the High Command did not believe Germany's Asian possessions could be defended and doubted the squadron could even survive in that theatre. Spee wanted to get his ships home and began by heading southeast across the Pacific, although he was pessimistic about their chances. Spee's fleet won the Battle of Coronel off the coast of
Coronel, Chile Coronel () is a Chilean city and commune, located in the Concepción Province of the eighth region of Bio Bío. Geography The city of Coronel is located in a sandy platform that goes from the mouth of the Biobío River to the Arauco Gulf bay ...
, on 1 November 1914, where his ships sank the cruisers ( Admiral Cradock's flagship) and . After the battle, on 3 November, ''Scharnhorst'', ''Gneisenau'' and ''Nürnberg'' entered
Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
harbour and were welcomed as heroes by the German population. Von Spee declined to join in the celebrations; when presented with a bouquet of flowers, he refused them, commenting that "these will do nicely for my grave". As required under international law for belligerent ships in neutral countries, the ships left within 24 hours, moving to Mas Afuera, off the Chilean coast. There they received news of the loss of the cruiser , which had previously detached from the squadron and had been raiding in the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
. They also learned of the fall of the German colony at Tsingtao in China, which had been their home port. On 15 November, the squadron moved to Bahia San Quintin on the Chilean coast, where a ceremony was held to award 300
Iron Cross The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia es ...
es, second class, to crew members, and an Iron Cross first class to Admiral Spee. Spee's officers counseled a return to Germany. The squadron had used half its ammunition at Coronel; the supply could not be replenished, and it was difficult even to obtain coal. Intelligence reports suggested that the British ships , ''Cornwall'' and ''Carnarvon'' were stationed in the River Plate, and that there had been no British warships at Stanley when recently visited by a steamer. Spee had been concerned about reports of a British battleship, ''Canopus'', but its location was unknown. On 26 November, the squadron set sail for
Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...
, which they reached on 1 December, then anchored at Picton Island, where they stayed for three days distributing coal from a captured British collier, the ''Drummuir'', and hunting. On 6 December, the British vessel was scuttled and its crew transferred to the auxiliary ''Seydlitz''. The same day Spee proposed to raid the Falkland Islands before setting course for Germany. The raid was unnecessary because the squadron now had as much coal as it could carry. Most of Spee's captains opposed the raid, but he nevertheless decided to proceed.


British preparations

On 30 October, retired Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher was reappointed
First Sea Lord The First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff (1SL/CNS) is the military head of the Royal Navy and Naval Service of the United Kingdom. The First Sea Lord is usually the highest ranking and most senior admiral to serve in the British Armed Fo ...
to replace Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg, who had been forced to resign because of public outcry against a perceived German prince running the British navy, though Louis had been British and in the Royal Navy since the age of 14. On 3 November, Fisher was advised that Spee had been sighted off Valparaíso and acted to reinforce Cradock by ordering ''Defence'', already sent to patrol the eastern coast of South America, to reinforce his squadron. On 4 November, news of the defeat at Coronel arrived. The blow to British naval prestige was palpable, and the British public was rather shocked. As a result, the battlecruisers ''Invincible'' and ''Inflexible'' were ordered to leave the Grand Fleet and sail to
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...
for overhaul and preparation for service abroad. Chief of Staff at the Admiralty was Vice-Admiral
Doveton Sturdee Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet (9 June 18597 May 1925) was a Royal Navy officer. After training as a torpedo officer, he commanded two different cruisers and then three different battleships before becomi ...
. Fisher had a long-standing disagreement with Sturdee, who had been one of those calling for his earlier dismissal as First Sea Lord in 1911, so he took the opportunity to appoint Sturdee Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic and Pacific, to command the new squadron from ''Invincible''. On 11 November, ''Invincible'' and ''Inflexible'' left Devonport, although repairs to ''Invincible'' were incomplete and she sailed with workmen still aboard. Despite the urgency of the situation and their maximum speed of around , the ships were forced to cruise at to conserve coal in order to complete the long journey south across the Atlantic. The two ships were also heavily loaded with supplies. Although secrecy of the mission was considered important so as to surprise Spee, Lieutenant Hirst from ''Glasgow'' heard locals discussing the forthcoming arrival of the ships while ashore at
Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...
on 17 November; however the news did not reach Spee. Sturdee arrived at the Abrolhos Rocks on 26 November, where Rear Admiral Stoddart awaited him with the remainder of the squadron. Sturdee announced his intention to depart for the Falkland Islands on 29 November. From there, the fast light cruisers ''Glasgow'' and ''Bristol'' would patrol seeking Spee, summoning reinforcements if they found him. Captain Luce of ''Glasgow'', who had been at the battle of Coronel, objected that there was no need to wait so long and persuaded Sturdee to depart a day early. The squadron was delayed during the journey for 12 hours when a cable towing targets for practice-firing became wrapped around one of ''Invincible''s
propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
s, but the ships arrived on the morning of 7 December. The two light cruisers moored in the inner part of Stanley Harbour, while the larger ships remained in the deeper outer harbour of Port William. Divers set about removing the offending cable from ''Invincible''; ''Cornwalls boiler fires were extinguished to make repairs, and ''Bristol'' had one of her engines dismantled. The famous ship —reduced to a coal bunker—supplied coal to ''Invincible'' and ''Inflexible''. The
armed merchant cruiser An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...
''Macedonia'' was ordered to patrol the harbour, while ''Kent'' maintained steam in her boilers, ready to replace ''Macedonia'' the next day, 8 December; Spee's fleet arrived in the morning of the same day. An unlikely source of intelligence on the movement of the German ships was from Mrs Muriel Felton, wife of the manager of a sheep station at Fitzroy, and her maids Christina Goss and Marian Macleod. They were alone when Felton received a telephone call from Port Stanley advising that German ships were approaching the islands. The maids took turns riding to the top of a nearby hill to record the movements of the ships, which Felton relayed to Port Stanley by telephone. Her reports allowed ''Bristol'' and ''Macedonia'' to take up the best positions to intercept. The Admiralty later presented the women with silver plates and Felton received an OBE for her actions.


Battle


Opening moves

Spee's cruisers—''Gneisenau'' and ''Nürnberg''—approached Stanley first. At the time, most of British fleet was coaling, but under short notice to steam. Some believe that had Spee pressed the attack, Sturdee's ships would have been easy targets, although this is a subject of conjecture as two ships were under steam acting as guardships and the battleship was also present. The Germans were surprised by gunfire from an unexpected source - the Canopus, which had been grounded as a guardship and was behind a hill. This was enough to check the Germans' advance. The sight of the distinctive tripod masts of the British battlecruisers confirmed that they were facing a better-equipped enemy. HMS ''Kent'' was already making her way out of the harbor and had been ordered to pursue Spee's ships. Made aware of the German ships, Sturdee had ordered the crews to breakfast, knowing that ''Canopus'' had bought them time while steam was raised. To Spee, with his crew battle-weary and his ships outgunned, the outcome seemed inevitable. Realizing his danger too late, and having lost any chance to attack the British ships while they were at anchor, Spee and his squadron dashed for the open sea. The British left port around 10:00. Spee was ahead by , with the German ships in line abreast heading southeast, but there was plenty of daylight left for the faster battlecruisers to catch up.


Contact

It was 13:00 when the British battlecruisers opened fire, but it took them half an hour to get the range of SMS ''Leipzig''. Realising that he could not outrun the British ships, Spee decided to engage them with his armoured cruisers alone, to give the light cruisers a chance to escape. He turned to fight just after 13:20. The German armoured cruisers had the advantage of a freshening north-west breeze, which caused the funnel smoke of the British ships to obscure their target practically throughout the action. ''Gneisenau's'' second-in-command Hans Pochhammer indicated that there was a long respite for the Germans during the early stages of the battle, as the British attempted unsuccessfully to force Admiral Spee away from his advantageous position. Despite initial success by ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' in striking ''Invincible'', the British capital ships suffered little damage. Spee then turned to escape, but the battlecruisers came within extreme firing range 40 minutes later. HMS ''Invincible'' and HMS ''Inflexible'' engaged ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'', while Sturdee detached his cruisers to chase SMS ''Leipzig'' and SMS ''Nürnberg''. HMS ''Invincible'' and HMS ''Inflexible'' turned to fire broadsides at the armoured cruisers and Spee responded by trying to close the range. His flagship SMS ''Scharnhorst'' took extensive damage with funnels flattened, fires and a list. The list became worse at 16:04, and she sank by 16:17, taking von Spee and the entire crew with her. SMS ''Gneisenau'' continued to fire and evade until 17:15, by which time her ammunition had been exhausted, and she sank at 18:02. During her death throes, Admiral Sturdee continued to engage SMS ''Gneisenau'' with his two battlecruisers and the cruiser HMS ''Carnarvon'', rather than detaching one of the battlecruisers to hunt down the escaping ''Dresden''. 190 of SMS ''Gneisenaus crew were rescued from the water. Both of the British battlecruisers had received about 40 hits between them from the German ships, with one crewman killed and four injured. Meanwhile, SMS ''Nürnberg'' and SMS ''Leipzig'' had run from the British cruisers. SMS ''Nürnberg'' was running at full speed but in need of maintenance, while the crew of the pursuing HMS ''Kent'' were pushing her boilers and engines to the limit. SMS ''Nürnberg'' finally turned for battle at 17:30. HMS ''Kent'' had the advantage in shell weight and armour. SMS ''Nürnberg'' suffered two boiler explosions around 18:30, giving the advantage in speed and manoeuvrability to HMS ''Kent''. The German ship then rolled over and sank at 19:27 after a long chase. The cruisers HMS ''Glasgow'' and HMS ''Cornwall'' had chased down SMS ''Leipzig''; HMS ''Glasgow'' closed to finish SMS ''Leipzig,'' which had run out of ammunition but was still flying her battle ensign. SMS ''Leipzig'' fired two flares, so HMS ''Glasgow'' ceased fire. At 21:23, more than southeast of the Falklands, she also rolled over and sank, leaving only 18 survivors. During the course of the main battles, Sturdee had despatched Captain Fanshawe on HMS ''Bristol'', together with HMS ''Macedonia'', to destroy the colliers. ''Baden'' and ''Santa Isabel'' were chased, stopped, and (after removing the crews) sunk by HMS ''Bristol'' and HMS ''Macedonia'' at 19:00. ''Seydlitz'' had taken a separate course and escaped.


Outcome

Casualties and damage were extremely disproportionate; the British suffered only very lightly. Admiral Spee and his two sons were among the German dead. Rescued German survivors, 215 total, became prisoners on the British ships. Most were from the ''Gneisenau'', nine were from ''Nürnberg'' and 18 were from ''Leipzig''. ''Scharnhorst'' was lost with all hands. One of ''Gneisenau''s officers who lived had been the sole survivor on three different guns on the battered cruiser. He was pulled from the water saying he was a first cousin of the British commander (Stoddart). Of the known German force of eight ships, two escaped: the auxiliary ''Seydlitz'' and the light cruiser ''Dresden'', which roamed at large for a further three months before her captain was cornered by a British squadron (''Kent'', ''Glasgow'' and ''Orama'') off the
Juan Fernández Islands The Juan Fernández Islands ( es, Archipiélago Juan Fernández) are a sparsely inhabited series of islands in the South Pacific Ocean reliant on tourism and fishing. Situated off the coast of Chile, they are composed of three main volcanic ...
on 14 March 1915. After fighting a short battle, ''Dresden's'' captain evacuated his ship and scuttled her by detonating the main ammunition magazine. As a consequence of the battle, the German East Asia Squadron, Germany's only permanent overseas naval formation, effectively ceased to exist.
Commerce raiding Commerce raiding (french: guerre de course, "war of the chase"; german: Handelskrieg, "trade war") is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than en ...
on the high seas by regular warships of the Kaiserliche Marine was brought to an end. However, Germany put several armed merchant vessels into service as commerce raiders until the end of the war (for example, see
Felix von Luckner Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf von Luckner (9 June 1881, Dresden – 13 April 1966, Malmö), sometimes called Count Luckner in English, was a German nobleman, naval officer, author, and sailor who earned the epithet ''Der Seeteufel'' (the ...
).


British intelligence during the battle

After the battle, German naval experts were baffled at why Admiral Spee attacked the base and how the two squadrons could have met so coincidentally in so many thousand miles of open waters. Kaiser William II's handwritten note on the official report of the battle reads: "It remains a mystery what made Spee attack the Falkland Islands. See 'Mahan's Naval Strategy'."Franz von Rintelen (in English). ''The Dark Invader: Wartime Reminiscences of a German Naval Intelligence Officer'' (1998 ed.). Routledge. pp. 326. . It was generally believed Spee was misled by the German admiralty into attacking the Falklands, a Royal Naval fuelling base, after receiving intelligence from the German wireless station at Valparaiso which reported the port free of Royal Navy warships. Despite the objection of three of his ships' captains, Spee proceeded to attack. However, in 1925 a German naval officer,
Franz von Rintelen Captain Franz Dagobert Johannes von Rintelen (19 August 1878 – 30 May 1949) was a member of the German nobility and a veteran field agent in the intelligence wing of the German Imperial Navy, who operated covertly in the still neutral Unit ...
, interviewed Admiral
William Reginald Hall Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall (28 June 1870 – 22 October 1943), known as Blinker Hall, was the British Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI) from 1914 to 1919. Together with Sir Alfred Ewing he was responsible for the establishment ...
, Director of the Admiralty's Naval Intelligence Division (NID), and was informed that Spee's squadron had been lured towards the British battlecruisers by means of a fake signal sent in a German naval code broken by British cryptographers. (Similarly, on 14 March 1915, was intercepted by British ships while taking on coal at sea in a location identified by NID codebreakers.)


''Scharnhorst'' wreck

The wreck of ''Scharnhorst'' was discovered on 4 December 2019, approximately southeast of Stanley at a depth of .


References

Notes Bibliography * * * * * McNally, Michael (2012). ''Coronel and Falklands 1914; Duel in the South Atlantic''. Osprey Campaign Series #248. Osprey Publishing. * * *


External links


Description of the battle from the diary of Captain JD Allen RN (HMS ''Kent'')





Sailing vessel Fairport and her appearance during the battle
*
Discovery of WW1 German Battlecruiser SMS Scharnhorst in Falklands waters
{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle Of The Falkland Islands History of the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
Conflicts in 1914 20th century in the Falkland Islands 1914 in South America December 1914 events Germany–United Kingdom military relations