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World War I: German Battleships Scuttled at Scapa Flow
For months, the once-proud battleships of the Imperial German High Seas Fleet had wallowed in the shame of abject surrender. Then, on June 21, 1919, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter signaled for a final defiant gesture.
By Mark T. Simmons The Orkney Islands lie seven miles northeast of the town of John O'Groats, Scotland, separated from the mainland by the Pentland Firth. In the middle of the seven islands of Orkney is the large natural anchorage known as Scapa Flow. The area is largely deserted today, apart from the odd oil tanker serving North Sea oil rigs or, every two or three years, warships of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting to conduct a joint exercise. But in its glory days, the Flow served as the main base for Britain's battle fleet during two world wars.
Just a few fathoms below Scapa Flow's dark surface lie the remains of another navy: four battleships and four light cruisers of the Imperial German High Seas Fleet, scuttled by their own crews 80 years ago this month in the largest act of self-destruction in naval history.
The fleet that died by its own hand on that first summer day of 1919 was the product of one of history's greatest strategic blunders. Between 1898 and 1914, a sudden surge of shipbuilding fervor expanded the Imperial German Navy from a largely coastal force to the second largest fleet in the world, equipped with some of the finest warships afloat.
Its creator was Captain Alfred von Tirpitz, who in 1894 wrote a thesis for the Naval Supreme Command, in which he argued for a strong fleet. The document might have been merely filed and forgotten, had it not come to the attention of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The German emperor loved ships. He had been consumed with envy when he attended his grandmother Queen Victoria's review of the Royal Navy during the celebration of her Golden Jubilee in 1887. Wilhelm also had visions of a German empire that extended overseas, like those of Britain and France. To build such a colonial and commercial empire required a deep-water fleet, capable of fighting full-scale battles anywhere on the globe.
When Chancellor Otto von Bismarck forged a united German nation in 1871, he saw no use for a large navy. Germany's future, he concluded, logically lay on the European continent, guarded by the most modern army in the world. Crown Prince Wilhelm and the "Iron Chancellor" soon clashed over their nation's geopolitical role. Then, in 1890, the young Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had been on the throne for barely a year, forced Bismarck to resign. With the old chancellor's restraining hand gone, the kaiser turned his attention to realizing his great dream of a powerful navy -- a dream for which Tirpitz became the chief architect.
Tirpitz put forward his "risk theory," arguing that it was not necessary for the German fleet to defeat a rival power in battle but simply to be capable of inflicting enough serious damage to cripple or disrupt the enemy's supremacy at sea. Therefore, the mere existence of a powerful fleet would give Germany a degree of control over her rival. Although Tirpitz did not name Britain in his discourse, there could be no doubt that she was the rival naval power to which he referred.
Constructing the navy that the kaiser and Tirpitz desired was an immense task, although starting from scratch did have its advantages. In Britain, ships had to be designed and built within the limiting dimensions of existing docks. The new docks constructed in Germany were more up-to-date, allowing for the construction of larger-beamed and stronger warships.
And so Germany embarked on a course to end more than a century of naval supremacy Britain had enjoyed since the days of Horatio Nelson. Wilhelm and Tirpitz, however, had not bargained on Britain's determination to maintain that dominance, nor did they give weighty consideration to what might happen if Britain were aroused from her traditional isolation from Continental affairs. They assumed that Britain and Russia, who had opposing interests in the Far East, would never work together. France was also ruled out, because of her centuries of rivalry with Britain -- and because of her alliance with Russia. The Germans also seriously misjudged the industrial might available to Britain and her empire as well as the natural advantage of her centuries of naval experience.
Britain had long mistrusted Germany but was willing to accept her as the foremost land power on the Continent. The alteration in the balance of power caused by the naval race, however, did much to end British noninvolvement in European affairs -- and not to Germany's advantage. A treaty with the small but growing naval power of Japan in 1902 gave Britain an ally to counter German colonial ambitions in the Far East. In 1905, Britain, alarmed by German naval expansion, reached an understanding, or Entente Cordiale, with France. In 1907, Britain and Russia set aside their long-standing rivalry over India and Persia to form a triple alliance with France against potential German aggression.
Kaiser Wilhelm was compelled to offset that powerful block by forging his own alliances with Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey, Bulgaria and a half-hearted Italy -- all far weaker partners. Thus, the German folly of starting a naval arms race can be seen as one of the principal causes of World War I.
On the eve of war in July 1914, Britain had 43 battleships, with 13 more being built, while Germany had 31, with 10 more under construction. Those figures did not tell the whole story, however. Of Britain's capital ships, 24 were of the modern dreadnought design, whereas Germany had only 13 such ships in commission. Ship for ship, there was little to choose between them. The battleships of the Royal Navy generally carried bigger guns, were faster and had greater range. The German ships had more watertight compartments, better armor and superior fire control. In regard to cruisers, the workhorses of the fleets, Britain had a healthy lead -- 70 to Germany's 38. Perhaps more important, while the Royal Navy covered the Channel, North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, the French navy took over responsibility for the Mediterranean Sea, effectively neutralizing the small navies of Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Italy (the last of which would go over to the Allied side in May 1915).
It soon became apparent to the German naval command that it had no hope of winning a full-scale encounter with Britain's Grand Fleet. The Germans knew that the British would use their standard tactic of blockading the coast, so they planned to gain local supremacy by destroying isolated squadrons engaged in that blockade. In time, they hoped, the Royal Navy's lead would be reduced, to the point where the High Seas Fleet could square off with the Grand Fleet on even terms. Again, however, the Germans' assumptions were faulty. The British did impose a wartime blockade, but it was not the close blockade they had used so often in the past. Instead, the Royal Navy opted for a distant blockade, covering the Channel and the gap between Norway and the Orkney Islands. That gave the British the time to concentrate their naval forces in response to any reported threat from the German fleet.
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