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Special Article: The Atlanteans in Ireland[/SIZE]
by Com. James Touhey, Irish Naval Service
Article from
Le Spectateur militaire.
The harbour of Cobh, Ireland now serves as the base for the sloops and destroyers of the Irish Naval Service, but twenty-six years ago, another navy's destroyers filled the anchorage. These destroyers flew the gold, red, and black banner of the Imperial Atlantean Navy. Their job was to protect critical Entente shipping on the Western Approaches.
Blockade versus Handelskrieg
At the start of the Great War, Britain and the other members of the Entente launched a naval blockade against the German Empire. This was possible due to the strength of the British Royal Navy, and its location directly on the sea-lanes to and from the German ports. The blockade was punishing and effective: by the end of 1915 it had severely limited Germany's imports of food, raw materials, and manufactured goods from abroad. Regimentation of the German economy helped keep the German people fed - albeit at a rather minimal level - allowing the German Empire to continue fighting.
In order to strike back at the British for their choking naval blockade, the Germans turned to commerce-raiding, or "
Handelskrieg." Handelskrieg was carried out in the first months of the war with scattered German forces such as the famous
Emden, auxiliary cruisers such as SS
Kronprinz Wilhelm, and surreptitious mining operations; but soon the submarine began to appear in force against the Allies. Initially, the German U-boats had success against Allied warships (three
Cressy class armoured cruisers were sunk in September 1914), but the German naval command eventually discounted mines and submarines as decisive weapons against the greatest concentration of British naval power, the Grand Fleet. Instead, submarines were loosed upon defenseless merchant shipping bringing vital trade into - and out of - the United Kingdom.
Protestations by neutrals, chiefly the United States, resulted in two abortive German attempts to declare unrestricted submarine warfare in an exclusion zone around the British Isles, where German submarines might attack any ship without any warning. The first attempt ended after the May 7th, 1915 sinking of the Cunard liner
Lusitania off Kinsale Head, Ireland. But as the British blockade continued to take its grim effect on Germany, the pressure to take Britain out of the war mounted, and on March 1st, 1916, unrestricted submarine warfare began a second time. This lasted just over two months before being cancelled on May 10th, 1916.
Still struggling to break the blockade, the German Navy sailed from their ports in late May with the goal of entrapping, then destroying, a portion of the British Grand Fleet somewhere in the North Sea. This attempt resulted in the greatest naval battles of modern times. In the aftermath, the British retained control of the sea - and the blockade of Germany continued. Anger in Germany mounted over the British blockade, and it became clear to the Entente that further unrestricted submarine warfare lay in the offering.
Atlantis and the Entente
Although the responsibility for the blockade rested strongly on the shoulders of the British Royal Navy, the Imperial Atlantean Navy provided a strong backup force. Through 1914 and 1915, the Atlanteans assisted the British and French navies in bottling up the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Fleets in their Mediterranean ports. The Atlantean GHQ, after consultation with the other members of the Entente, determined to focus their main ground efforts against the weaker members of the Central Powers - the Ottomans, Bulgarians, and Austro-Hungarians. Unfortunately, the Atlantean Army suffered delays due to manpower and equipment, and did not participate in the failed 1915 attack on Gallipoli; but by February 1916, the Atlantean industry had forged an army that opened the Second Dardanelles Campaign, opening the straits by August. Bulgaria switched sides and the Atlantean Army, accompanied by smaller international contingents, began to put the pressure on Austria-Hungary.
In order to supply this massive effort in the Balkans, in March 1916 the Atlantean Navy requested permission to assume control of all Entente naval forces operating in the Mediterranean. The Italians, focused on the Austro-Hungarians across the Adriatic, refused absolutely. Britain similarly declined, although they moved most of their warships out of the area. Atlantis found a more sympathetic response from France, which was unable to pay much heed to naval matters, given their titanic struggle on the Western Front. The French bases at Bizerte, Tangiers, and Toulon were made available to the Atlanteans, and by mid-1916, the Atlanteans commanded most of the Entente naval forces active in the Mediterranean.
Despite the substantial increase in Atlantean naval and military power and their success against the Ottomans, the seas around the British Isles remained an absolutely critical theater. Britain was dependent upon merchant traffic carrying everything from raw materials to food - but the German High Command believed Britain could be starved into submission. Without Britain, the rest of the Entente could not sustain the blockade alone.
In April 1916, during the second period of unrestricted submarine warfare, Atlantean naval commander-in-chief Spyridon Konstantinidis visited Great Britain aboard the armoured cruiser
Lyra. Meeting with First Sea Lord Sir Henry Jackson, Konstantinidis discussed whether the Royal Navy might benefit from the dispatch of Atlantean destroyers to assist in fighting the submarine threat. Atlantean destroyers had already operated as far north as Brest, and the British destroyers were all badly overworked. After some discussion, Admiral Jackson accepted the offered destroyers in order to relieve Royal Navy units on the Western Approaches, suggesting that they deploy to Queenstown, Ireland.
The Atlanteans Arrive
On July 30th, 1916, the first four Atlantean destroyers, belonging to the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, arrived in Queenstown under the command of Rear Admiral George La Havas. La Havas, a native of Favonus, was a very senior officer for command of a destroyer squadron: he was chosen primarily for his English language skills and ability to work with foreign naval officers, and would remain in Great Britain as an official liaison between the Imperial Atlantean Navy and the British Royal Navy. La Havas and his ships arrived less than a week after their British commander, Vice Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly. La Havas's first impression of the commander of the Western Approaches was poor, but it soon became clear that Bayly would be a genuinely good commander of multinational forces.
For the moment, La Havas and his Atlanteans were equipped only with older
Spathi class destroyers, barely six hundred tons in displacement; they were ill-designed for the stormy Western Approaches, as was quickly proven in August 1916 when the destroyer
Arrow was disabled and nearly sunk in a storm. Four weeks later,
Spike and the repaired
Arrow sought shelter from weather in Bantry Bay. Both
Arrow and
Spike dragged their anchors in the night and were thrown violently ashore, miraculously without loss of men.
Vice-Admiral Bayly, in private correspondence with Rear Admiral La Havas, expressed his worries. "You now have eleven destroyers here in Queenstown, but I fear I am forced to withdraw them from patrol at the first sign of weather. I do hope your navy realizes that even though the men are eager and willing, the ships are sadly second-rate and in more constant danger from the sea than from the enemy."
Admiral Konstantinidis did, in fact, recognize the difficulties his small destroyers faced on the Western Approaches, but he had few options. Before the start of the war, the Atlantean Navy had copied the small French destroyers such as the
Spahi and
Chasseur classes, and while they worked well in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, as well as the central Atlantic, they were badly overtaxed in more extreme situations. The Atlantean Admiralty, determined not to copy other navies' bad designs, put together a design commission and designed the first modern Atlantean destroyer, called the "Admiralty Type 1." To fill the IAN's shortfall of destroyers, thirty-two ships were laid down in 1916, and sent north to relieve the battered
Spathi class boats as they completed.
First to arrive in Queenstown was
Upstart on October 3rd, followed two days later by the class leader
Uproar.
Uphold,
Umbra and
Uprising arrived before the end of October, and seven more Type 1s arrived in November. The battered
Spathis were withdrawn to Brest, then to Gibraltar.
The newcomers, now known as the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, went to work with the same willingness as their predecessors, but with more capability. Their range, speed, firepower and seakeeping was significantly improved, and they labored through the winter of 1916 and 1917 to protect merchant shipping on the Western Approaches. More Type 1s arrived in January of 1917, forming up in the 8th Flotilla and bringing the total number of Atlantean ships in Queenstown to twenty-four. With the arrival of all these ships, the British destroyers deployed to Ireland were withdrawn to other stations, leaving Vice-Admiral Bayly in charge of only Atlantean ships. Bayly got along extremely well with the Atlantean officers, calling them "my Atlanteans" and sticking up for them against any possible British interference.
Although German U-boats sank a number of ships on the Western Approaches, none of the Atlantean destroyers managed to sink a U-boat until December 21st, 1916.
Uphold, on patrol west of the Scilly Isles, received a distress call from a freighter under attack by the newly-commissioned
UC-39. Dashing to the scene,
Uphold spotted the the U-boat trying to sink the Belgian-flagged
Anna with gunfire. The freighter had already been abandoned by her crew, and was burning brightly in the fading light. Approaching from the west with the sun behind her, the U-boat's crew did not see
Uphold until the Atlantean destroyer opened fire at fifteen hundred yards.
Crash-diving, the
UC-39 managed to escape, but only momentarily.
Uphold dropped four depth charges - the first time they were used in action by the Atlantean Navy - and then circled to look for a response. The
UC-39 was battered by the underwater explosions and the destroyer's gunfire, and struggled to keep underway, her rudder locked over into a hard left turn. Her captain elected to come out fighting, and managed to maintain periscope depth long enough to fire three torpedoes at
Uphold. The Atlantean destroyer put her helm over quickly and slipped between the spread, attempting to ram the U-boat. She missed, but dropped two more depth charges which knocked out the submarine's engines.
UC-39 surfaced and her crew ran to man the deck guns; but this was a contest the destroyer could win with ease. Her searchlights illuminated the crippled U-Boat and a dozen four-inch shells finished it off.
UC-39 sank stern-first with seven survivors, including her commander, Kapitänleutnant Otto Heinrich Tornow.
The Return of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
By January 1917, Germany's economy was suffering badly under the British naval blockade, and the nation's leaders pressed for the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. The Russian government was reportedly considering peace; if the British could simultaneously be starved into submission and the blockade ended, the German government believed the war would be won. Although Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg opposed this move, senior military leaders such as Hindenburg and Ludendorff felt that the desperate situation called for desperate actions. If Britain could be defeated fast enough, then the protests of neutrals such as the United States might not matter in the end.
Over Bethmann-Hollweg's protests, the German Navy began unrestricted submarine warfare for the third and final time on February 1st, 1917. The results were dramatic. In January, U-boats sank 222 ships, but in February, they sent 328 ships to the bottom. The number would rise again in April. To the Entente, these losses were unsustainable; Britain faced the potential of starvation, both for her people and her war industries. The Royal Navy demanded more escorts to protect against submarine attack. With twenty-four Atlantean destroyers already in Queenstown, eight more - all the Type 1s built - were sent north in mid-April.
Increasing the number of escorts was not enough; something new needed to be done. Wild plans were proposed, such as an antisubmarine net stretching from Cap Gris Nez to Dover; a mine barrage across the narrowest part of the North Sea; and a proposal to scuttle eighty old battleships and cruisers to block the German Navy in port. Several sea commanders, Rear Admiral La Havas among them, proposed convoys, but this was viewed with some uncertainty. A board composed of British merchant captains did not believe they could keep station in a convoy, and preferred to take their chances.
In April 1917, over five hundred ships totalling a million tons were sunk in the Atlantic and Mediterranean - but mostly in the Atlantic. On April 1st, the Russian government began negotiations with Germany and Austria-Hungary for a cease-fire. Although Austria-Hungary was in grave trouble due to the persistent advances of the Atlantean Army and the Entente, Germany had many reasons to be confident. The Entente knew that the sinkings had to stop before Britain starved.
Convoys
Although the British had used convoys in certain places since the start of the war - troop convoys in the Mediterranean and across the Channel - there was uncertainty that they would work for more general use. The Atlanteans had used convoys occasionally as well, predominantly in the Mediterranean. One of the major worries was a lack of escorts. However, by the end of 1916, the Atlanteans had thirty-two modern Admiralty Type 1 destroyers in service, and another thirty-two ships, the
A class, ordered for immediate construction. The French Navy ordered twenty-four
Arabe class destroyers from Japan. The United States, bending the limits of neutrality, started to build mass-produced merchant ships for sale to the Entente.
In late April, the Royal Navy decided to test the convoy system on the Western Approaches. Two convoys, one bound from Atlantis via Gibraltar, and one bound from the United States, were met by the Atlantean destroyers operating from Queenstown and escorted safely to Britain. The only losses suffered were ships that had fallen behind and been separated from the convoy. Despite the fears of the merchant mariners, the cargo ships generally maintained good stationkeeping. First Sea Lord John Jellicoe ordered the formation of more convoys.
The Atlantean destroyers took up most of the responsibility for escorting these convoys, both even with thirty-two Type 1 destroyers in Queenstown, the Western Approaches were still undermanned. In April, the Atlantean Navy began sending armed yachts and trawlers to supplement the destroyers, and in June 1917, the new IAS
Arrow, a new
A-class destroyer, arrived in Queenstown. First of the "Alphabet Destroyers",
Arrow was even more modern than the proud Admiralty Type 1s. More "Alphabets" arrived at Queenstown as soon as they were completed, crowding the harbor - on the few occasions they were not escorting convoys.
Sinkings of merchant ships dropped dramatically, and the escorts began to hit back. The convoys forced the U-boats to take greater risks for fewer rewards, and a mistake could prove deadly for a submarine commander.
UC-31 found this out the hard way. Attacking a convoy west of Fastnet, she scored a hit on the British steamer
Matador, which sank the freighter. The now-veteran
Uphold and the armed yacht
Tigress both spotted the submarine's periscope and charged overhead, dropping several depth charges. The new destroyer IAS
Crossbow, on her first cruise out of Queenstown, joined them within ten minutes, listening for the submarine with her new hydrophones.
Crossbow's operators heard the telltale noise of a propeller, and dashed forward to launch an attack, nearly ramming
Tigress on her way in.
Uphold took another go a few minutes later, and
UC-31 surfaced in a rush. The
Crossbow, coming around for a second session of sprint-and-drift, could not depress her guns fast enough, and instead rammed the submarine. She sank almost instantly, while
Crossbow returned to Queenstown for repairs.
The
Uphold would prove to be one of the most efficient escorts on the Western Approaches. Conducting the first depth-charge attack and scoring the first Atlantean U-boat kill of the war, she went on to sink, or assist in the sinking, of five German U-boats. Her first commander, Lieutenant-Commander Isidore Montero, gained further fame when he commanded the carriers which sank the Peruvian battleship
Huascar in 1937.
Uphold's closest rival, IAS
Black, sank two U-boats on the very active evening of September 10th, when two U-boats attempted to mine the entrance to Queenstown. The armed yacht
Placidus, working as a picket boat, spotted unusual activity and called for backup. The
Black, having been delayed from joining a convoy escort due to engine troubles, came out of the harbor and joined
Placidus in sniffing around.
Placidus was the first to spot a German submarine, and opened fire with her popguns, scoring hits on the surfaced
UC-42, which submerged and dove for safety. The
Black, summoned to the scene, dropped several depth charges in desultory fashion, but lost the scent. In the midst of this hunt, the
UC-33, lurking close nearby, fired a torpedo at the
Black - but the torpedo instead hit
Placidus, which sank in minutes.
UC-42's captain, Oberleutnant zur See Hans Albrecht Müller, presumed that the explosion and sounds of sinking meant that he could surface again in safety. Unfortunately, he came to the surface only a few hundred yards ahead of the
Black, which tried to ram him. The destroyer hit a glancing blow, scrapping alongside the submarine and puncturing her starboard ballast tank. Unable to submerge, the
UC-42 attempted to fight it out on the surface with her deck guns, but the
Black's stern gunners opened fire on the submarine. The
UC-42 abruptly exploded - possibly the result of an explosion in her onboard mines.
Before the
Black could search for survivors of either the
UC-42 or
Placidus, two more torpedoes from the
UC-33 missed ahead and astern of the destroyer. Now aware that she was fighting more than one submarine, the
Black began a careful series of maneuvers to sniff out the enemy using her hydrophones. After several false starts, the
Black spotted a periscope and charged, dropping a dozen depth charges.
UC-33 was damaged and breached the surface, unable to submerge, but otherwise under perfect control. Her captain, Oberleutnant zur See Alfred Arnold, applied power and turned tightly inside the
Black's own turning circle, under the angle of the destroyer's guns.
Black's captain, Lieutenant-Commander Argus Lycurgus, instead turned away from the submarine and then opened up with guns. Two hits knocked out
UC-33's engines, and the destroyer came in for a second ramming attack, sinking the submarine. After a search for survivors, Oberleutnant Arnold was plucked from the sea. None of
UC-42's crew survived, although ten men from
Placidus were found the next morning.
The Victory
By the end of July 1917, with the introduction of the convoy system and the flood of new escorts and merchant ships, losses on the vital Western Approaches dropped back down to a low of 199 sinkings per month. While still severe, these losses could - barely - be managed, and the blockade did not loosen. Vienna was under siege by the Entente's Army of the Orient, and on August 6th, they surrendered unconditionally. The Austro-Hungarian collapse left Germany fighting virtually alone, and their position only got weaker. Unrestricted submarine warfare had failed; the British blockade had succeeded. By November, Germany had enough, and asked for terms.
On April 19th, 1918, Rear-Admiral La Havas and the Atlantean destroyer captains presented Vice-Admiral Bayly with a silver model of an Admiralty Type 1 destroyer, saying "The care and concern you've shown to our ships and men is worthy of the highest regard," La Havas said. Bayly reciprocated: "The Imperial Atlantean Navy has shown the greatest degree of professionalism imaginable - a willingness to serve humbly alongside an ally and friend for the preservation of our mutual cause." Tributes completed, the Atlantean destroyers worked up steam and began heading home; the last ship, IAS
Danger, departing on April 22nd.
Twenty-six years later, four Irish Naval Service destroyers
Connacht,
Ulster,
Munster, and
Leinster, lay anchored in the cove Queenstown, now renamed Cobh by the Republic of Ireland. The Irish destroyer quartet are the descendents of the Atlantean ships which once packed the harbor, as they were designed for Ireland by the same Atlantean design bureau which designed the Admiralty Type 1 destroyers.
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Author: Captaen James Touhey is a native of Cobh and a senior officer in the Irish Naval Service. Prior to joining the Irish Naval Service, he served as an officer in the British Royal Navy aboard HMS
Iron Duke from 1915 to 1917. He now commands the flagship heavy cruiser LÉ
Granuaile.[/SIZE]
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