Castles of Steel (41 page)

Carmania
’s precarious condition after the battle made it impossible for her to stop and pick up the German seamen. The fire raging in the fore part of his ship forced the British captain to steer
Carmania
before the wind so that the flames would be blown out over her bow rather than down his decks. In this situation, he could not steer in the direction of the German lifeboats. In addition,
Carmania
had five holes at the waterline, and the forebridge with all its steering and navigational instruments and its communications to the engine rooms had been destroyed. Beyond that, smoke had been seen on the northern horizon and Captain Grant feared the possible arrival of a German warship, which he believed that
Cap Trafalgar
had been continually signaling during the action. In fact, the smoke rose from one of the German colliers, now flying an American flag in hope of misleading
Carmania
and being allowed to collect the survivors.
Carmania
did not interfere; the collier took its surviving compatriots into Buenos Aires.

The wounded British liner limped away to the Abrolhos Rocks and eventually to Gibraltar for repairs. The ship had been hit seventy-nine times; five men had been killed, four died of wounds, and twenty-two were injured. Most of the casualties occurred among the men on deck, for the most part among the gun crews and ammunition-supply parties. No one below was harmed except by smoke inhalation.

By September 18, when Cradock and his squadron reached the river Plate,
Dresden
already was around Cape Horn and in the Pacific. From the moment this light cruiser had sailed from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, her captain, Fritz Lüdecke, had displayed little interest in trade warfare. He had stopped and sunk one British freighter in the South Atlantic and let others go, destroying only their wireless equipment. Otherwise, his objective was to reach Cape Horn; he stopped only to coal. On September 5, he arrived at Orange Bay in Tierra del Fuego, on an uninhabited stretch of coastline just east of Cape Horn. Here, hidden against the desolate shore and a backdrop of the snow-topped mountains of Hoste Island,
Dresden
met a collier and remained for eleven days to rest and adjust her engines. While she was there, she received, by way of Punta Arenas, a message from Berlin: “It is advisable to operate with
Leipzig.
” On September 16, Lüdecke departed Orange Bay and, accompanied by a pair of supply vessels, passed slowly around the Horn. Believing himself now out of danger, he eased down to a speed of 8 knots to help his collier manage the heavy sea. He continued north up the Chilean coast, coaling in Bahia San Quintin in the Gulf of Penas, then cruising off the small port of Coronel. On September 30, Lüdecke left the South American coast for remote Más Afuera and from there his wireless room established contact with
Scharnhorst.
On October 4, he sailed for the rendezvous at Easter Island, arriving on the afternoon of October 12.

Cradock, steaming south and already looking beyond his own area of responsibility, wondered aloud whether Spee might be coming across the Pacific. “
Gniesenau
and
Scharnhorst
reported Caroline Islands . . . 8 August,” he signaled the Admiralty on September 5. “Is there any later information as to movements? Several German colliers said to be in vicinity of Magellan Straits.” The Admiralty could tell him only, “No certain information of these ships since 8 August. . . . Magellan Straits and its vicinity quite possible. Falkland Island anchorages might be used by them.” On September 14—the same day that
Carmania
sank
Cap Trafalgar,
and while Cradock was in the river Plate—the Admiralty took a stronger position. Whitehall still had no definite news of Spee’s whereabouts, but the repeated warnings of Patey and Jerram had created concern, and a telegram to Cradock, forwarded by the British minister in Rio, contained a multitude of new orders: “There is a strong probability of
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
arriving in the Magellan Straits or on the west coast of South America [where] the Germans have begun to carry on trade. . . . Leave sufficient force [in the Atlantic] to deal with
Dresden
and
Karlsruhe.
Concentrate a squadron strong enough to meet
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau,
making Falkland Islands your coaling base.
Canopus
is now en route to Abrolhos;
Defence
is joining you from Mediterranean. Until
Defence
joins, keep at least
Canopus
and one ‘County’ class cruiser with your flagship. As soon as you have superior force, search Ma-gellan Straits with squadron, being ready to return and cover the River Plate, or, according to information, search north as far as Valaparaiso. Break up the German trade and destroy the German cruisers.”

This telegram, lengthy, complicated, and sometimes contradictory, bore heavy responsibility for what happened later. Cradock, reading the message, understood that Spee might be coming toward him. To meet this threat, he was ordered to concentrate a squadron strong enough to meet and “destroy the German cruisers.” He was to move his primary base south to the Falklands. The southeastern Pacific, it was implied, would be added to his theater of operations, but, simultaneously, he was to leave behind in the Atlantic sufficient ships to deal with
Dresden
and
Karlsruhe.
He was assured that reinforcements were on the way: the old battleship
Canopus
was en route and, more important, the modern armored cruiser
Defence
would join him from the Mediterranean. Until
Defence
arrived,
Good Hope
and
Monmouth
should stick close to
Canopus
for mutual protection. He was to search the Magellan Straits, but he was also to be ready either to double back to the Plate or to proceed up to Valparaíso to harass German trade, “according to information.”

Evaluating the strengths of the two ships being sent to reinforce his squadron, Cradock could think of little use for
Canopus,
and for the next seven weeks he would continue to wonder how to employ this lumbering predreadnought. Completed in 1899,
Canopus,
at 12,950 tons, was lighter than Cradock’s flagship, the 14,000-ton armored cruiser
Good Hope.
To please nineteenth-century admirals,
Canopus
had been built with a ram, a weapon dating back to Phoenician and Roman galleys and designed to pierce the hull of an enemy vessel that somehow came too close. It was true that the old battleship carried four 12-inch guns, but they were of an early design and their maximum range of 13,000 yards was no greater than that of Von Spee’s sixteen 8.1-inch guns. In any case, by 1912 the ship’s general deterioration had forced the Admiralty to place her and her five sisters in the Reserve Fleet, with scrapping scheduled for 1915. For over two years,
Canopus
had been moored at Milford Haven with only a maintenance party aboard. In July 1914, she was granted a last reprieve to swell the numbers at the Spithead Review and then, when war came, her temporary recommission was extended. Manned by a crew of partially trained reservists, she spent several weeks escorting the BEF across the Channel and then was ordered to the Cape Verde Islands, and then to the Falklands. Her speed was unreliable: “Few [ships of the
Canopus
class] can steam well now except for short spurts,” said a contemporary naval annual. In preparation for the Spithead Review, her old engines were coaxed to push her through the water at 16 knots, but all knew that this figure was illusory; Churchill credited her with an actual speed of 15 knots; Jellicoe qualified this by saying, “If she did not break down.”

The modern armored cruiser
Defence,
on the other hand, was precisely what Cradock needed. This was a ship of 14,600 tons with four 9.2-inch guns and ten 7.5-inch guns and a speed of 23 knots.
Defence
was one of the last three British armored cruisers ever built. Completed in 1908 after the launch of the battle cruiser
Invincible,
she was faster and more powerfully armed than Spee’s two armored cruisers; indeed, she and her sisters,
Minotaur
and
Shannon,
had been laid down in reply to the building of
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau.
Cradock’s older armored cruisers,
Good Hope
and
Monmouth,
were weaker than Von Spee’s ships but just as fast; now, bolstered by
Defence,
he should be able to meet the Germans on equal terms.

Even promised reinforcement of his squadron, Cradock could make little sense of the Admiralty’s September 14 signal. He might have sufficient strength to fight Admiral von Spee, but he did not have enough ships to do everything he had been told to do. At best, he would need to rely on guesswork and luck, shuttling ships back and forth to the place of greatest danger. The confusion of overlapping orders recalls the instructions to Milne at the outbreak of war: to destroy
Goeben,
cover the French transports, and keep the Austrian fleet from leaving the Adriatic. The originator of both sets of orders was Churchill (once again, the language is unmistakable) and, again, the First Lord’s strategy was approved by Prince Louis and Sturdee.

Reading the September 14 message, Cradock doubtless wondered why
Canopus
was being sent. The background to this decision reveals something of how things were working at the Admiralty. At the first suggestion that Spee might appear on the coast of South America, a War Staff memorandum of September 7 had recommended reinforcing Cradock with three armored cruisers and a light cruiser from the Mediterranean. Prince Louis and Sturdee had gone further, advocating the dispatch of two battle cruisers from the Grand Fleet to the South Atlantic. But Jellicoe objected to this weakening of Beatty’s force and Churchill refused to overrule the Grand Fleet Commander-in-Chief. Ultimately, the Admiralty decided that only
Defence
could be spared. Battenberg, however, insisted that something more be done for Cradock.
Canopus,
ram and all, then serving no purpose at the Cape Verde Islands, was that something more.

Meanwhile, another event upset all of these arrangements. On Septem-ber 14, Admiral von Spee suddenly appeared off Samoa, hoping to find the New Zealand troop transports at anchor. Samoa was 2,500 miles farther east than the German squadron’s last known position, so Churchill and his colleagues, once they began drawing fresh circles on their maps, would normally have been left in little doubt that Spee was headed for South America. Then, presumably, the Admiralty would have confirmed and perhaps even increased its reinforcement of Cradock. But Spee, finding nothing at Apia, steamed away to the northwest—a false course—before doubling back to the east. The Admiralty was deceived by this elementary ruse used by sea captains for centuries. Spee, London now assumed, was returning to the Far East. And if he was not making for South America, there was no need to reinforce Cradock.
Defence,
which on September 14 had been summoned from the Dardanelles, had traveled as far as Malta. On September 18, these orders were canceled and
Defence
was ordered back to the Dardanelles. Essentially, Cradock was told that he no longer need worry about the German East Asia Squadron. The fatal signal read: “Situation changed . . .
Gneisenau
appeared off Samoa on 14th and left steering NW. German trade on west coast of America is to be attacked at once. Cruisers need not be concentrated. Two cruisers and an armed liner appear sufficient for Magellan Straits and west coast. Report what you propose about
Canopus.
” In this message, there was no mention of the cancellation of
Defence
’s sailing orders. For weeks, Cradock continued to expect this powerful ship; he calculated that if she had left the Mediterranean shortly after receiving the September 14 telegram and was steaming toward him at 15 knots, she would arrive at the river Plate early in October.

Cradock, with
Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgow,
and
Otranto,
was in the river Plate when the Admiralty’s September 18 message arrived. Told that Spee was no longer coming east, Cradock decided that two cruisers—
Glasgow
and
Monmouth
—and his armed liner
Otranto
would suffice to search the Magellan Straits and go up the South American west coast to disrupt the activities of German merchant ships. He had no use for
Canopus
and proposed to leave her as a guard ship at the river Plate. Once
Defence
arrived, he would have her “coal and await orders” with
Canopus.

Cradock’s departure from the Plate was delayed by a gale, but on September 22, he left for the Straits of Magellan. At this point, he understood that the only enemy ship the Admiralty thought he was likely to meet was
Dresden.
Privately, however, he still suspected that Spee’s East Asia Squadron might be making for South America. Before leaving Montevideo, he wrote a personal letter to King George V, whom he had known during the monarch’s naval career. “I have a feeling that the two [German] heavy cruisers from China are making for the Straits of Magellan and am just off there to ‘search and see,’ ” he said. A memorandum Cradock left at the British consulate in Montevideo underlined this suspicion. It emphasized the “urgent importance that any and all information of movements of . . .
Gneisenau
and
Scharnhorst
and other China cruisers should reach Rear Admiral [Cradock] . . . without delay.” Before leaving it behind, Cradock had deleted from the message a line that revealed the depth of his concern: “Delay may entail loss of H.M. ships.”

Steaming south, Cradock encountered a merchant ship on September 25 that told him that
Dresden
had passed into the Pacific a week before. On the twenty-eighth, the British squadron arrived at the Chilean port of Punta Arenas, in the Magellan Straits, where the British consul reported that
Dresden
had been at Orange Bay on the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego. Hoping that the German ship still might be there and that he could catch her by surprise, Cradock left Punta Arenas after midnight—without lights, to conceal his departure from the town’s large German colony. On September 29, in thick weather and falling snow, the British squadron threaded the narrow, uncharted Cockburn Channel where high, snow-covered mountains and glaciers came down to the water on either side. The Cape Horn weather was freakish: gusts of wind roared down the mountains, whipping calm seas into foam; then the ships would round a bend and find the water still as glass. Leaving the channel, the squadron rounded Cape Horn west to east and charged into Orange Bay. They found it empty, although a landing party discovered a tablet left by
Dresden,
saying that she had been there September 8, 9, and 10. The following day, Cradock sent
Otranto
to Punta Arenas and took the rest of his squadron to the Falklands to coal. At Punta Arenas,
Otranto
intercepted a German wireless signal suggesting that
Dresden
had returned to Orange Bay. Cradock left the Falklands at high speed and made another descent on the remote anchorage. Arriving on the night of Octo-ber 6, he again found the bay empty. Thereupon, he ordered Captain Luce of
Glasgow
to take his light cruiser with
Monmouth
and
Otranto
to search up the Chilean coast as far as Valparaíso.
Good Hope,
with Cradock aboard, would return to the Falklands to coal, to remain in closer wireless touch with Montevideo and London, and to guard against the possibility that
Dresden
might double back and return to the South Atlantic.