To Crown the

Wav e s

To Crown the

W av e s
The Great Navies of the First World War

Edited by
Vincent P. OHara W. David Dickson Richard Worth

Naval Institute Press Annapolis, Maryland

Naval Institute Press 291 Wood Road Annapolis, MD 21402 2013 by Vincent OHara All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data To crown the waves : the great navies of the First World War / edited by Vincent P. OHara, W. David Dickson, and Richard Worth. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61251-082-8 (hbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61251-269-3 (ebook) 1. World War, 19141918Naval operations. 2. NaviesHistory 20th century. 3. Naval history, Modern20th century. I. OHara, Vincent P., date II. Dickson, W. David, date III. Worth, Richard, date D580.C83 2013 940.45dc23 2013000611 This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Printed in the United States of America. 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

contents

List of Maps, Tables, and Illustrations

vi

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1.  Austria-Hungary: Die Kaiserliche und Knigliche Kriegsmarine Zvonimir Freivogel Chapter 2.  France: La Marine Nationale Jean Moulin Chapter 3.  Germany: Kaiserliche Marine Peter Schenk with Axel Niestl and Dieter Thomaier Chapter 4.  Great Britain: The Royal Navy John Roberts Chapter 5.  Italy: Regia Marina Enrico Cernuschi and Vincent P. OHara Chapter 6.  Russia: Rossiiskii imperatorskii flot Stephen McLaughlin Chapter 7.  United States: The U.S. Navy Trent Hone Chapter 8.  Other Navies Vincent P. OHara and Richard Worth 7 51 85 129 178 213 257 308

Conclusion 320 Appendix: Conversions and Abbreviations 323

Notes 327 Bibliography 329 Index 337

Maps, Tables, and Illustrations

Maps
Map 1.1 Austro-Hungarian Naval Bases Map 2.1 French Naval Bases Map 3.1 German Naval Bases Map 4.1 British Naval Bases Map 5.1 Italian Naval Bases Map 6.1 Russian Naval Bases Map 7.1 U.S. Naval Bases 17 63 97 143 189 223 268

Tables
Table 1.1  Nationalities of Austro-Hungarian Officers and Seamen, 1885 and 1910 30 32 46 61 93 104 107 110 111 Table 1.2 Principal Austro-Hungarian Naval Guns Table 1.3 Austro-Hungarian Torpedoes Table 1.4  Results of German and AH Submarines against Merchant Tonnage in the Mediterranean, 191418 Table 2.1 French Warship Strengths and Types Table 3.1 Strength of Kaiserliche Marine Table 3.2 German Light Cruiser Classes Table 3.3 German Guns Table 3.4 U-Boat Building Contracts and Overall Deliveries, 190618 Table 3.5 German U-Boat Types Contracted and Delivered, 190618 21

Table 3.6  Nominal and Operational Strength of German U-Boats during 124 World War I

vi

Maps, Tables, and Illustrations vii

Maps, Tables, and Table 4.2 Royal Navy Order of Battle, 10 September 1914 Illustrations Table 4.3 Royal Navy and Royal Marine Personnel, 191418
Table 4.1 Strength of British Royal and Dominion Navies Table 4.4 Particulars of British Light Cruisers, 190518 Table 4.5 Particulars of British Destroyers and Leaders, 190318 Table 4.6 Particulars of British Submarines, 190318 Table 4.7 British Warship Losses to Submarines, 191418 Table 5.1 Regia Marina Order of Battle Table 5.2 Italian Guns Table 5.3  The Regia Marinas Ispettorato per lAvizione Air Service War Activity Table 6.1 Russian Army and Navy Expenditures, 190514 Table 6.2 Ships Added to the Baltic Fleet, 191418 Table 6.3 Ships Added to the Black Sea Fleet, 191418 Table 6.4  Major Shipyards Engaged in Warship Construction, 190617 Table 6.5 The Russian Mercantile Marine as of 1 January 1914 Table 6.6 Number of Officers, by Assignments, 1914 Table 6.7 Sailors in Service, All Fleets and Flotillas Table 6.8 Russian Naval Ranks Table 6.9 Rearming of Cruisers, 191417 Table 6.10 Major Russian Guns, 191417 Table 6.11 Russian Torpedoes Table 6.12 Russian Depth Charges Table 6.13 Russian Mines Table 6.14 Principle Aircraft Types of the Russian Navy, 191418 Table 7.1 U.S. Navy Order of Battle, April 1917 Table 7.2 U.S. Navy Large- and Medium-Caliber Guns Table 7.3 U.S. Navy Torpedoes Table 7.4 U.S. Navy Mines Table 7.5 U.S. Navy Aircraft Table 8.1 Japanese Navy, August 1914 and August 1918 Table 8.2 Ottoman Navy, August 1914 and August 1918

136 137 148 155 157 163 165 184 197 211 217 224 224 226 227 228 230 230 234 236 236 241 242 247 264 284 288 296 299 312 316

viii Maps, Tables, and Illustrations

Illustrations
Photo 1.1 The executive officer of a Tegetthoff-class battleship Photo 1.2 Destroyer Dukla of the improved Ttra class Photo 1.3 U 12 Photo 1.4 Austro-Hungarian scout cruiser Helgoland Photo 2.1 Danton-class battleship Diderot Photo 2.3 Armored cruiser Ernest Renan Photo 2.4 Torpilleur 319 Photo 3.1 U 27 loading torpedoes Photo 3.2 Battle cruiser Derfflinger Photo 3.3 Light cruiser Ariadne Photo 3.4 Battleship Westfalen Photo 4.1 Admiral Sir John Fisher Photo 4.2 Forward 6-inch gun of the light cruiser Phaeton Photo 4.3 Battleship Dreadnought Photo 4.4 Midships 13.5-inch turret of the battle cruiser Lion Photo 5.1 Admiral Thaon di Revel and Captain Costanzo Ciano Photo 5.2 Cruiser Pisa Photo 5.3 Torpedo tube on the torpedo boat 34 PN Photo 5.4 The Italian battle fleet sailing from Taranto Photo 6.1 Black Sea Fleet dreadnought Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaia Photo 6.2 The armored cruiser Riurik Photo 6.3 Battleship Slava Photo 6.4 Red Navy destroyer Trotskii Photo 7.1  Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Admiral William S. Benson Photo 7.2 Crew of a 4-inch/50 on the foredeck of a thousand tonner Photo 7.3 A Mark 6 mine ready for deployment Photo 7.4 Battleship Nevada 22 27 34 44 56 70 78 88 103 109 115 134 147 151 169 183 196 198 207 219 233 243 251 263 281 295 303

Photo 2.2 Battleship Condorcet 59

Acknowledgments

To Crown the Waves is a collaborative effort and would not exist without the help and patience of many people. Richard Worth and W. David Dickson have worked with me four years on this project and its predecessor, On Seas Contested. They have recruited participants, read, reviewed, and revised the chapters and have written material. They have, however, been above all patient and willing, and I sincerely appreciate their belief and participation in this work. Dr. Zvonimir Freivogel, Jean Moulin, and John Roberts came to this project new, finding the time in their schedules to undertake what is basically a labor of love, and with their expertise they have made this a far better book. Trent Hone, Stephen McLaughlin, Axel Niestl, Dr. Peter Schenk, and Dieter Thomaier knew what they were getting into and agreed to contribute anyway. My thanks to all of them. Dr. Enrico Cernuschi receives special thanks. Dr. Cernuschi has contributed far more than his share of the Italian chapter and has read and commented on the entire manuscript. I also want to give special thanks to Michael Yaklich, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who has been an astute reader and has contributed many, many corrections and improvements. Thanks to John Spencer for assisting in the translation of Mr. Moulins chapter from French to English. Tom Cutler is my editor at Naval Institute, and I thank him for his constant and generous support. Finally, as I type these words I think of the time away from my family I have spent working on this and other books, and I thank my wife, Maria, and my children, Yunuen and Vincent, who stand by my side in all that I do. Vincent P. OHara

ix

Introduction
+

t has been a century since a Serbian nationalist assassinated the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand in Bosnia and the continent of Europe descended into an orgy of savagery that today is called the First World War. The reason why such a relatively rich and self-confident community of nations, sharing for the most part a common culture, could turn upon itself in such barbaric fashion is perhaps the great question of the twentieth century. A short list of the wars tragic offspring includes the Great Depression, World War II, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Even the political divisions of the Middle East that are at the roots of much twenty-first century unrest are a consequence of the Great War. The veterans of the First World War are all gone. The picture of the conflict that lingers in the collective memory of their descendants is one of muddy trenches and young men, faces encased in gas masks, crouching in a blasted landscape. The land armies numbered almost seventy million, and the deaths eight million, so this perception is natural. However, it obscures that essential fact that the First World War was also fought at sea, and there, in the failed naval blockade of the United Kingdom and the successful blockade of the Central Powers, the war was eventually won. The carnage inflicted at sea was tremendous. It included the loss of over 13 million tons of mercantile shipping and 756 major warships, including 27 Allied and 7 Central Power capital ships. More than 100,000 men died. From this turmoil the images that resonate are dreadnought battleships cutting through the waves in massive lines and predator submarines lurking in the oceanic wastes. The war at sea, however, was more, and these images
1

2 Introduction

might as well include a German cruiser bottled up an African river, or the kaisers East Asian flotilla massacring a British squadron off Chile or being annihilated itself in the South Atlantic; more than 8,500 men died in a single North Sea clash of dreadnoughts; battleships dueled on the Black Sea; there were amphibious assaults against Baltic islands; and bi-wing bombers clustered on the decks of primitive aircraft carriers. The war at sea was global in its dimensions, and once the land war stalemated on the western front, it was on the waves that victory was determined. The worlds premier navy, Britains Royal Navy, led the Triple Entente, or the Allies, with support from the French Marine Nationale and the Imperial Russian Navy. In opposition, the German Kaiserliche Marine teamed with the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserliche und Knigliche Kriegsmarine, but a diplomatic twist sent the third member of this Triple Alliance, Italys Regia Marina, to the Allied side. Two years later Germanys own naval efforts provoked the United States into joining the Allied camp as well. At sea World War I was a time of new and rapidly evolving martial technologies and the collision of nineteenth-century concepts with twentiethcentury weapons. Admiral Jacky Fisher, the creative genius behind the all-big-gun battleship, first served on board HMS Victory, which had been Admiral Nelsons flagship at Trafalgar. Within the span of Fishers career, steel superseded wood, sail gave way to steam, and giant guns hurling oneton shells a distance of ten miles replaced muzzle-loading smooth-bore cannons. Torpedoes appeared, launched now by the sinister submersible and the pesky airplane that transformed sea warfare to a three-dimensional affair. The challenges faced by men like Fisher and his near contemporaries Germanys Alfred Tirpitz, Italys Paolo Thaon di Revel, Japans Heihachiro Togo, and Americas William Benson seem likely to be repeated as twentiethcentury militaries struggle to incorporate twenty-first-century technologies. To Crown the Waves is an examination of the war at sea and the seven major navies that fought this war. It pools the expertise of historians from five nations who examine not only ships and weaponry but also doctrines and traditions, industry and bases, training and goalsless tangible factors that gave each fleet a unique personality and influenced how it met the challenges it faced. Laid out to a common structure, the chapters allow for easy reference and comparison following this outline: I. Backstory A. Pre-1914 history B.  Mission/function (navys prewar missions, intended enemy, construction philosophy)

Introduction 3

II. Organization A. Command structure 1. Administration 2. Command and fleet organization 3. Communications 4. Intelligence B. Infrastructure, logistics, and commerce 1. Bases 2. Industry 3. Shipping C. Personnel 1. Demographics 2. Training 3. Culture III. The Ways of War A. Surface warfare 1. Doctrine 2. Ships/weapons B. Submarine warfare 1. Offensive a. Doctrine b. Boats/weapons 2. Antisubmarine C. Mine warfare 1. Doctrine 2. Ships/weapons D. Amphibious warfare 1. Doctrine/capabilities 2. Coastal defense E. Aviation IV. War Experience and Evolution A. Wartime evolution 1. Surface warfare 2. Submarines 3. Aviation B. Summary and assessment. To Crown the Waves follows several conventions. Rather than wrestle the metric-measurement navies into the imperial system used by the U.S.

4 Introduction

Navy and the Royal Navy (or vice versa), this work adheres to neither one system nor the other; the appendix provides a conversion table. All miles are nautical miles. Non-English terms are used sparingly, and ranks are expressed in English. The book is lightly footnoted, and a selected bibliography lists the more important works consulted by the authors as well as additional references in English. Editors: Vincent P. OHara, of Chula Vista, California, W. David Dickson of Hernando, Mississippi, and Richard Worth of Bolivar, Missouri, also edited On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War, published by Naval Institute Press (2010). Contributing authors: Chapter 1, the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserliche und Knigliche Kriegsmarine, is the work of Zvonimir Freivogel, who is based in Germany. Dr. Freivogel has published books and articles in German, English, Italian, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian in periodicals including Warship, STORIA Militare, and Okrty Wojenne. Dr. Freivogels most recent work is Tauchgang um das K.u.K. Schlachtschiff Szent Istvan (Marine Arsenal, 2008). Chapter 2, on the French Marine Nationale, is authored by Jean Moulin of Blois, France. Mr. Moulin has written forty-seven books and more than a hundred articles on naval subjects, most recently Les contre-torpilleurs de type Aigle (Marine Editions, 2012). Chapter 3, on the German Kaiserliche Marine, is a collaboration by the authors who also wrote the German chapter in On Seas Contested. It is led by Dr. Peter Schenk and includes Axel Niestl, and Dieter Thomaier, all from Germany. Chapter 4, on the British Royal Navy, is by John Roberts of England, whose recent credits include Battleship Dreadnought (Conway Maritime Press, 2003) and British Warships of the Second World War (Chatham, 2003). Chapter 5, on the Italian Regia Marina, is the work of Enrico Cernuschi of Pavia Italy and Vincent P. OHara, the co-authors of the Italian chapter in On Seas Contested. Mr. Cernuschi has written more than twenty books and three hundred articles. Mr. OHaras most recent work is In Passage Perilous: Malta and the Convoy Battles of June 1942 (Indiana University Press, 2012).

Introduction 5

Chapter 6, on the Russian Imperial Navy, is authored by Stephen McLaughlin. Mr. McLaughlins credits include the Soviet chapter in On Seas Contested, Russian and Soviet Battleships (Naval Institute Press, 2010), as well as many articles on the Russian navy in Warship and Warship International. Trent Hone contributed chapter 7, on the U.S. Navy. Mr. Hone also wrote the U.S. Navy chapter in On Seas Contested. He is coauthor of Battle Line: The United States Navy 19191939 (Naval Institute Press, 2006) and has written for the Journal of Military History, Naval War College Review, and Warship. The introduction, chapter 8, and the conclusion are the work of the editors.