Naval_order_of_24_October_1918

Naval order of 24 October 1918

Naval order of 24 October 1918

1918 German Imperial Navy operation

The naval order of 24 October 1918 was a plan made by the German Admiralty at the end of World War I to provoke a decisive battle between the German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet in the southern North Sea. When the order to prepare for the sortie was issued on 29 October, mutiny broke out aboard the German ships. Despite the operation being cancelled, these in turn led to the more serious Kiel mutiny, which was the starting point of the November Revolution and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic.

Quick Facts Op. 269/A I, Location ...

Background

Armistice negotiations

This operation resulted from the exchange of diplomatic notes, beginning on 5 October 1918, between the new German government under Prince Max of Baden and President Woodrow Wilson, in which Germany asked the President to mediate an armistice. One of Wilson's preconditions was the cessation of Germany's submarine war. Despite the objections of Admiral Scheer, the Chief of the German Admiralty Staff, the German government made this concession on 20 October. The U-boats at sea were recalled on 21 October.[1] In response, on 22 October Scheer ordered Admiral Hipper, commander of the High Seas Fleet, to prepare for an attack on the British fleet, utilising the main battle fleet, reinforced by the newly available U-boats. Hipper's order was promulgated on 24 October; Scheer approved it on 27 October.[2] The fleet then began to concentrate at Schillig Roads off Wilhelmshaven to prepare for the battle.

German fleet

The High Seas Fleet in October 1918 was built around the core of 18 battleships and five battlecruisers, most of which had been completed before the outbreak of war. Since the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, the obsolete pre-dreadnoughts had been de-commissioned, two new battleships with 15-inch guns (Baden and Bayern) and the new battlecruiser Hindenburg had joined the fleet, but one dreadnought battleship Rheinland had been damaged beyond repair by running aground in the Baltic. The fleet had undertaken only three major sorties at full strength into the North Sea since June 1916: 18–19 August 1916, 18–19 October 1916, and 22–25 April 1918. This prolonged period of relative inactivity, at a time when all other branches of Germany's armed forces were very heavily engaged, did much to undermine the morale of the crews and the self-respect of the officers. Acts tantamount to mutiny took place on various occasions during 1917, the most noteworthy being the arrest of 200 men from the battleship Prinzregent Luitpold in August, resulting in two executions.

Royal Navy

Grand Fleet

In late October 1918 the British Grand Fleet, based at Rosyth in the Firth of Forth, had 35 dreadnought battleships and 11 battlecruisers (including two of the very lightly armoured Courageous class). Twenty of these ships had been completed since the outbreak of war, and a third of them were armed with the highly effective 15-inch gun; the oldest capital ship in the fleet was HMS Indomitable (commissioned in June 1908) while HMS Dreadnought was put in reserve in July 1918. Five of these ships were from the United States Navy and one from the Royal Australian Navy.

The materiel problems which beset the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland and beyond (i.e. poor flash-protection in ammunition handling, lack of deck armour over magazines, deficient armour-piercing shells, and too few destroyers) had all been remedied to various extents. In particular, the newly designed "Green Boy" shells for the fleet's heavy guns were thought to be such a great improvement in offensive power that they nullified the advantage of the heavier armour protection of German battleships. Moreover, the fleet possessed new weapons (such as ship-borne torpedo aircraft and fast steam-driven submarines) for which the German fleet had no match.

The second wave of the Spanish Flu pandemic reached its peak in the Grand Fleet in autumn 1918; roughly 6% of the fleet's sailors were taken ill, and 1% died.[3] For example, the sick list of the light cruiser HMS Cardiff peaked at 19 people (6% of her complement) on 23 October 1918; but it had returned to its usual level (two persons) by 31 October;[4] the destroyer HMS Torch of the 12th Destroyer Flotilla was more seriously hit, with 37 (41%) of her crew on the sick list on 31 October.[5]

The morale in the British fleet was high in anticipation of a re-match for Jutland, the personality and leadership of the commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir David Beatty, being an important reason for this.[6]

Admiralty intelligence

In the First World War British naval intelligence in general, and code-breaking in particular, was highly efficient. It played a very important role in the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland, in the American entry into the war on the Allied side and the defeat of the U-boats from 1917 to 1918. By late 1917 improvements in German communications security had made intelligence gathering more difficult, at least as far as the High Seas Fleet was concerned.[7] Between October 1917 and April 1918, the Germans were able to launch three surprise sorties into Norwegian waters against mercantile traffic, on the last occasion (22–25 April 1918) employing their whole fleet. Each time the British did not receive a warning in time to mount an effective counter-operation.

High-power wireless communications were essential for the control of U-boats at sea; but this also allowed triangulation-based location of the U-boats by the Allies. In addition, U-boats employed a simpler cypher system than that used by the surface fleet, which Room 40, the British Admiralty's code-breaking section, could usually read with few difficulties. In October 1918 these methods allowed the Admiralty to track the U-boats operating in British Home Waters.[8]

Prelude

Operational order

The order of 24 October for the High Seas Fleet's attack is as follows:[lower-alpha 1]

Commander of the High Seas Fleet

Op. 269/A I
SMS KAISER WILHELM II, [lower-alpha 2] 24.10.1918

VERY SECRET
O. MATTER
O.-COMMAND No.19.[lower-alpha 3]

A. Information about the enemy
It is to be supposed that most of the enemy forces are in Scottish east coast ports, with detachments in the Tyne, the Humber and the Channel.

B. Intentions
The enemy will be brought to battle under conditions favourable for us.

For this purpose, the concentrated High Seas forces[lower-alpha 4] will advance by night into the Hoofden, and attack combat forces and mercantile traffic on the Flanders coast and in the Thames estuary. This strike should induce the enemy to advance immediately with detachments of his fleet[lower-alpha 5] toward the line Hoofden/German Bight. Our intention is to engage these detachments on the evening of Day II of the operation, or to have them attacked by torpedo-boats during the night of Day II or III. In support of the main task the approach routes of the enemy from east Scottish ports to the sea area of Terschelling will be infested by mines and occupied by submarines.

C. Execution
i) Departure from the German Bight by day, out of sight of the Dutch coast;
ii) Route through the Hoofden so that the attack on the Flanders Coast and the Thames Estuary takes place at dawn on Day II;
iii) The Attack:

a) against the Flanders coast by the commander of the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Flotilla with Graudenz, Karlsruhe, Nürnberg and the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Flotilla.
b) against the Thames estuary by the 2nd Scouting Group with Königsberg, Köln, Dresden, Pillau and the 2nd Torpedo-Boat Half-Flotilla
Covering of a) by the fleet and b) by the C-in-C of the Scouting Forces;

iv) Return so as to reach the combat area favourable to us, near Terschelling, one or two hours before nightfall on Day II.
v) Protection of the return (Day II) by part of the 8th Flotilla
vi) Mine laying by the leader of 4th Scouting Group with 4th Scouting Group (supported by minelayers by Arkona[lower-alpha 6] and Möwe[lower-alpha 7]) and the 8th Flotilla, on the approaches of the enemy, in accord with plan No. I.
vii) Disposition of submarines on the enemy routes in accord with plan No. III
viii) Attack by torpedo-boats during the night of Day II to III, in case an encounter has already taken place, from near the Terschelling Light Vessel towards the Firth of Forth, in accordance with the orders of the commander of torpedo-boats. On the meeting of the torpedo-boats with the fleet in the morning of Day III, see the following order;
ix) Entrance into the German Bight by departure route or by routes 420, 500 or 750, depending on the situation;

x) Air reconnaissance: if possible.

U-boat operations

The command of the High Seas Fleet had 24 submarines at its disposal, which lay at their bases in the North Sea. The command tried to recall more boats from the missions and direct them to the planned locations. This succeeded with six more boats: U-43, U-108, UB-86, UB-96, UB-121, and UB-125. All boats were to form six lines in the North Sea on the presumed approach route of the British fleet and take up waiting positions in front of the ports of the British fleet in Scotland.[14] [lower-alpha 8]

Two of these U-boats were lost. The first, U-78 (Oblt. Johann Vollbrecht), sailed on 27 October from Heligoland for a minelaying mission off the Scottish East Coast, but she was torpedoed and sunk the same day by the British submarine G2 in the central North Sea, roughly 280 nautical miles (520 km; 320 mi) east of the Firth of Forth. All 40 crewmen were lost.[16]

The other submarine to be sunk was UB-116, which sailed from Heligoland on 25 October with special orders to attack the British fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow.[17] She was commanded by the 26-year-old Oberleutnant zur See Hans Joachim Emsmann[18] who, since first becoming a U-boat captain in February 1918, had sunk a total of 26 ships.[lower-alpha 9] She attempted to enter Scapa Flow submerged by the southern passage, Hoxa Sound, on the evening of 28 October. Hydrophones mounted ashore at Stanger Head, Flotta, alerted the British defences, and the sea-bed magnetometer loops, designed to detect the magnetic signatures of incoming vessels[20] and thus trigger remote-controlled mines, were activated. Emsmann raised his periscope at 11:30 pm, presumably to check his position, and was spotted by look-outs on shore; the mines detonated shortly thereafter, leaving the submarine disabled on the sea bed.[21] She was finished off by depth charges from defense trawlers shortly thereafter; all 37 crew members were lost.[22][lower-alpha 10]

Two other submarines, UB-98 and UB-118 were damaged in collision with each other on 28 October, and had to return to port. Five others, U-43, U-67, UB-86, UB-87, and UB-130 also aborted their missions due to breakdowns.[23]

British reaction

The commanders of the British Fleet were anticipating action, and the fleet was warned to make preparations as early as 14 October 1918.[24] On the afternoon of 23 October the Admiralty alerted Admiral Beatty that the situation was abnormal and that they would reinforce him by sending destroyers from the anti-submarine flotillas based at Plymouth and Buncrana.[25] By late on 28 October the situation was reaching a climax, and Vice Admiral Sydney Fremantle, the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, and Rear Admiral Reginald Hall, the Director of Naval Intelligence, sent Beatty a full appreciation which read, in part:

Dispositions of enemy submarines combined with positions of their large minefield recently laid and now clear constitutes fairly decisive evidence of his desire to draw the Grand Fleet out ... No evidence of how he proposes to achieve this object but evidence that no move of his battlefleet can take place before ... tomorrow night. No objective of the enemy is apparent that will not involve great risk for him. Therefore he may confine himself to emerging from the Bight and returning after making us aware of his exit by W/T signals. Unlikely the enemy will risk fleet action until the Armistice negotiations are settled one way or another. Press reports of German submarines proceeding home via the Norwegian Coast probably emanate from Germany and are intended to conceal existence of submarine trap.[26]

For the next 48 hours, Fremantle was able to keep Beatty informed of developments, correctly describing the concentration of the High Seas Fleet at Schillig Roads on the evening of 29 October and its intention to sail on 30 October.[lower-alpha 11] Hipper's unexpected postponement of the operation on 30 October was initially ascribed to fog.

Cancellation of the plan

The High Seas Fleet had assembled in Schillig Roads on the afternoon of 29 October in preparation for sailing the following day, 30 October. A ruse that the operation was a training sortie was employed for security, as was usual practice. The raid on the Thames and the Flanders Coast was scheduled for dawn on 31 October and the battle with the British Fleet in the afternoon and evening of the same day. The evening of 29 October was marked by unrest and serious acts of indiscipline in the German Fleet, as the men became convinced their commanders were intent on sacrificing them to sabotage the armistice negotiations. A large number of stokers from Derfflinger and Von der Tann failed to return from shore leave and were rounded up by the authorities; mass insubordination occurred on Thüringen, Kaiserin, Helgoland and Regensburg; and mutinous demonstrations took place in König, Kronprinz Wilhelm and Markgraf. Even in the fleet flagship Baden the mood of the crew was dangerous. The mutinous behavior was confined to the crews of the larger ships; the crews of torpedo-boats, submarines, and minesweepers remained loyal.[28] Admiral Hipper canceled the operation on 30 October and ordered the fleet to disperse, in the hope of quelling the insurrection. When ships of the III Battle Squadron, arrived at Kiel via the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal on 1 November, their men helped spark the Kiel mutiny on 3 November.[29]

Aftermath

Analysis

The detailed orders of battle are given in the Appendix, and are summarised in the table below. The disparity in forces was roughly 2-to-1 in favour of the British. Had the battle been joined, it would have involved some 69 capital ships (in comparison with 58 involved at Jutland).

More information Ship category, Grand Fleet ...

Writing after the war, Admiral Scheer asserted that "it was highly probable an expedition of the Fleet might achieve a favourable result. If the Fleet suffered losses, it was to be assumed that the enemy's injuries would be in proportion, and that we should still have sufficient forces to protect the U-boat campaign in the North Sea, which would have to be resumed if the negotiations should make imperative a continuation of the struggle with all the means at our disposal."[33] The High Seas Fleet had undertaken similar diversionary attacks intended to draw British units into a submarine/mine ambush before: the action of 19 August 1916 was the one occasion when this tactic came closest to succeeding. On 27 October, the German Government had agreed to surrender the fleet as part of the armistice; thus in strictly material terms, the German Navy had nothing to lose.

Admiral Beatty's intentions are not recorded but there seems no doubt that he would have sailed as soon as the Germans were reported to be at sea and would have aggressively pursued battle.[34] Given the distances involved, if the German sortie were reported promptly and the Grand Fleet sailed immediately on receipt of such a report, there was every possibility that they could have cut off the German line of retreat and forced a fight to the finish.[lower-alpha 16] Admiral Hipper and his staff seemed well aware of the risk in this plan, and his chief of staff Adolf von Trotha expressed a sanguinary attitude about it: "a battle for the honour of the fleet in this war, even if it were a death battle, it would be the foundation for a new German fleet".[36]

Henry Newbolt, the official historian of the Royal Navy during the First World War, compared Hipper's planned operation with Michiel de Ruyter's Raid on the Medway in June 1667, when the Dutch Fleet launched a surprise attack on the English naval bases in the Thames estuary, inflicting a serious defeat and in consequence securing a more favourable peace treaty for the Netherlands at the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[37]

More recently, it has been argued[38] that the plan was a deliberate act of counter-revolution by the German Naval High Command against Prince Max of Baden and the peace party: regardless of the outcome of the battle, the launching of the attack would have hopelessly compromised the armistice negotiations and the credibility of Prince Max's government.

Orders of battle

German fleet

The German fleet was to be organised into three groups, plus supporting submarines and airships, as follows [11][39]

British

This is the administrative order of battle of the Grand Fleet and other important commands in Home Waters on 11 November 1918. [41][42][43][44] Excluded from this list are ships on detached service and minor vessels of war such as minesweepers, sloops and older vessels employed on patrol duties; it includes only forces likely to have been engaged had the German sortie gone ahead. Some of these ships may not in fact have been available to sail on 30 October due to breakdowns or routine maintenance. The Grand Fleet was based at Rosyth, with usually one Squadron detached to Scapa Flow for gunnery training.

Abbreviations

  • Adm: Admiral
  • BCS: Battle Cruiser Squadron
  • BS: Battle Squadron (German: Geschwader)
  • Cdre: Commodore (German: Kommodore)
  • CS: Cruiser Squadron
  • DF: Destroyer Flotilla
  • F: Flagship
  • FKpt: Fregattenkapitän (frigate captain)
  • hf: half-flotilla (German: halbflottille)
  • LCS: Light Cruiser Squadron
  • RAdm: Rear Admiral (German: Konteradmiral)
  • (RAN): Denotes a ship of the Royal Australian Navy
  • S/MF: Submarine Flotilla
  • SG: Scouting Group (German: Aufklärungsgruppe)
  • TBF: Torpedo-Boat Flotilla (German: Torpedoboot Flottille)
  • (USN): Denotes a ship of the United States Navy
  • VAdm: Vice Admiral (German: Vizeadmiral)

Notes

  1. Based on the English text given by Grant[9] modified with reference to the partial German text[10] and additional details found in the German official history.[11]
  2. Old battleship of the Kaiser Friedrich III class (launched 1897), acting as a static command ship in Wilhelmshaven.
  3. The complete German header of the message reads as follows:[10] "Kommando der Hochseeflotte/Op. 269/A I/SMS KAISER WILHELM II den 24.10.1918/GANZ GEHEIM/O. SACHE/O.-BEFEHL Nr.19."
  4. German: Hochseestreitkräfte, literally: "high sea armed forces"; Admiral Hipper's formal title was Chef der Hochseestreitkräfte. Hochseeflotte (High Seas Fleet) presumably referred to surface forces alone, while Hochseestreitkräfte included U-boats and aircraft.
  5. German: Flottenteile, literally "fleet parts". To even the odds, the Germans would have preferred to engage isolated detachments of the Grand Fleet rather than the whole force; the British command would have endeavoured to keep the fleet concentrated to avoid this possibility, keeping faster units such as battlecruisers tied to the slower battleships.
  6. Both Grant[12] and Gladisch[11] spell her name this way. The only mine-warfare ship with the name Arkona listed in Gröner's standard reference work on German warships[13] is the minesweeper M115, which bore that name in 1935–41. Thus presumably this is the old Gazelle-class cruiser Arcona (launched 1902), which was used as a mine-layer and base ship in the Ems.
  7. a disguised raider which had undertaken two very successful cruises in 1916 and 1917. She was also used as a mine-layer in the North Sea.
  8. The captain of UB-96, OLtzS. Walter Krastel, reportedly received sealed orders when he sailed from Heligoland on 12 October to be opened in the event of the cancellation of the U-boat war, instructing him to take up this position.[15] This indicates that Hipper's plan may well have been in preparation for some time before 22 October.
  9. Contrary to some sources, UB-116 did not have an all-officer volunteer crew.[19]
  10. Emsmann's attempt was repeated more successfully 21 years later, when on 14 October 1939 Günther Prien entered Scapa Flow via the eastern channel, Holm Sound, and sank the battleship Royal Oak.
  11. This close and continuous exchange of important intelligence between Room 40, the Naval Staff and the Commander-in-Chief was a noticeable improvement over the situation earlier in the war.[27]
  12. Only including flat-deck vessels.
  13. Only including destroyers built after 1913 (i.e. the Laforey class and later ships).
  14. The German Navy's large torpedo boats (großer Torpedoboote) were of similar size and function to the destroyers in the Royal Navy; the vessels of the German II. TBF were special larger vessels officially classified as destroyers (Zerstörer).[30]
  15. According to Groß, 25 U-boats were to be deployed,[31] Spindler gives a figure of 30 submarines. Two of the submarines were sunk by the British (U 78 and UB 116), a further seven boats aborted their missions due to technical faults and/or collisions, so that, according to Spindler, 21 submarines could have been effectively deployed.[32]
  16. The distance from Rosyth to Terschelling is approximately 350 nautical miles (400 mi; 650 km), while the distance that the German forces would have had to cover, from Wilhelmshaven to the Thames and then back to Terschelling is roughly 400 nautical miles (460 mi; 740 km). The Germans would have been delayed some hours by their attacks on the Thames and along the Flanders coast, and presumably in fighting with the British forces based at Harwich and Dover. The British relied on submarines patrolling in the German Bight to give warning of German fleet sorties. This was far from infallible: the failure of the British to intercept the High Seas Fleet sortie to Norway in April 1918 was principally due to the failure of a British submarine commander (Lt. Cdr. Geoffrey Warburton DSO of J6) to send a sighting report when he spotted the German fleet sailing through his patrol area.[35]
  17. Westfalen had been allocated as a gunnery training ship since August 1918; she was however listed in the tactical order of battle for this operation.[11]
  18. embarked aircraft: Furious: 6 Sopwith Camel fighters, 14 Sopwith 1½ Strutter spotter aircraft; Vindictive: 4 Grain Griffin reconnaissance aircraft, 1 Sopwith Pup fighter; Argus: landing trials with 1½ Strutters and Pups; No. 185 Squadron RAF was formed on 19 October at East Fortune with 18 Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo bombers for service in Argus, although these do not seem to have embarked before the armistice; Campania: 4 Fairey Campania reconnaissance seaplanes, 7 1½ Strutters; Nairana: 5 Campanias, 2 Sopwith Baby fighter seaplanes; Pegasus: 3 Campanias, 1 Short Type 184 reconnaissance seaplanes, 5 Camels; battleships: 47 fighters, 19 reconnaissance aircraft; battle-cruisers: 13 fighters, 8 reconnaissance aircraft; light cruisers: 16 aircraft; total: 155 aircraft embarked.
  19. sunk, 5 November 1918

References

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    Newbolt, Naval Operations, vol.5 pp. 367
  2. [2]
    Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow vol.5 pp. 171
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    "Sailors on the Grand Fleet had epidemics of influenza-like illnesses in April–May, 1918; during these epidemics, 11% of the total force was hospitalised and 0·03% died. The second wave of influenza affected the Grand Fleet in September–October, 1918. About half as many men became ill in the second wave compared with the first, but 38-times more died, mostly of pneumonia." See: G. D. Shanks, et al., Determinants of mortality in naval units during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, Lancet Infectious Diseases 11 (10), 793-799 (October 2011).
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    Arno Spindler: Der Handelskrieg mit U-Booten. Januar bis November 1918. Frankfurt/M. 1966 (Der Krieg zur See 1914-1918, Vol. 5), pp. 338-340.
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    Leonidas E. Hill, Signal zur Konterrevolution? Der Plan zum letzten Vorstoß der deutschen Hochseeflotte am 30. Oktober 1918 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 1/1988, p. 113
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