Chapter XXII Coronel
The battle of Coronel will always have a peculiar interest for us: there is a mystery about it which can never be finally cleared up. At the outbreak of war a British admiral, Sir Christopher Cradock, was in charge of a large and important area off the coast of South America. It was his business to keep this area clear of the enemy squadron under Admiral Graf von Spee, which was much stronger than his own, but was believed to be scattered on the trade routes. In the end Cradock found the enemy squadron united and in much superior force. He instantly attacked, and went down in the action, with two of his ships.
The problem is to ascertain what were his motives for this swift decision to fight against overwhelming odds. Not a man in the flagship survived, and we must do the best with what evidence we have before us. We know the admiral’s general idea of the work he had to do; we know what his instructions were, what force he asked for and what was given him; we know the speed and gun-power of the enemy ships, and what he as an experienced commander must have thought of them. Finally, we know the nature of the choice which was open to him; and in face of all this the mystery remains.
The key to it probably lies in the character of the man who had to make the decision; and from this point of view the story is a fine one. While every one is free to form an opinion on the facts, the judgment of those who knew Cradock best is the simplest and the most favourable one. A certain margin of discretion must be allowed to every admiral in time of war; and at the moment of crisis a man of powerful character and vision may go even further, and take the great responsibility of departing from the line of strict obedience to orders. To Cradock’s friends it seems clear that he saw himself and his squadron as representing the prestige of his country in combat with a superior force which might be disabled, if it could not be destroyed; he saw that duty might be fulfilled, and honour and success attained, though victory should be impossible. So he hunted his great enemy both skilfully and fearlessly, but relied at a pinch rather on courage than on caution.
From the outbreak of war the German China Squadron, as we now know, was never wholly dispersed: Spee detached ships from time to time to the coast of South America, but remained himself with the strongest part of his force in the Pacific, where he was heard of only at intervals. He might possibly be intending to go westwards and raid the Indian Ocean, as the Emden actually did. He moved, in fact, on Samoa, but when he arrived there on September 14, 1914, he found Apia already safe in the hands of the New Zealanders, and not a ship in the harbour. He left again for Suvarov Island, coaled in the Society Islands, bombarded the French capital Papieté on the 22nd September, and appeared to be making for South America; he might be thinking of a dash through the Magellan Straits to attack our trade on the eastern coast.
The British Admiralty knew the danger of this. Spee’s two principal ships—the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau—were fast ships and well armed, with prize gunnery crews. To hunt them satisfactorily a pair of battle-cruisers were required, and these could not well be spared from the Grand Fleet. The Indefatigable was therefore ordered out from the Mediterranean, with the fast cruiser Defence; but the Cabinet refused to spare the Indefatigable, and the Canopus, an old and slow battleship, with 12-inch guns, was sent, with the Defence to follow. Admiral Cradock was ordered to concentrate meanwhile at the Falkland Islands, with his flagship, the Good Hope, the cruisers Monmouth and Glasgow, and some ships of inferior armament.
The Canopus was a whole week late in arriving. Cradock was most anxious to prevent Spee from coming round the Horn to raid the east coast, and he feared that if he kept the old 12-knot battleship with him he might be too late to bar the enemy’s passage. In this crisis he took his first great risk: he sent the Canopus by the shorter way, through Magellan’s Straits, and took the weaker ships boldly round the Horn. Spee, however, was not in the south; he had spent six days in concentrating at Easter Island, and was at this moment making for the island of Mas-a-Fuera, 500 miles west of Valparaiso.
Cradock now had the Canopus with him again. His instructions were that he was not expected to act without her; but her slow speed continued to hamper him in carrying out his definite orders to search for the enemy and destroy them. He accordingly ordered the Defence to join him from the east coast, where she had been sent by the Admiralty, and went north in the meantime to find the cruiser Leipzig, which was believed to be in front of him, operating alone. Unfortunately the Canopus was once more in need of repairs, and had to be left behind for twenty-four hours.
The two squadrons, British and German, were now, without knowing it, in the act of converging upon one another. Each admiral believed himself to be in pursuit of a single ship, for, while Cradock was after the Leipzig, Spee was in chase of the Glasgow (Captain Luce), who had been sent on to Coronel on the west coast with a message. The force of the opponents was as follows: Admiral von Spee had two powerful ships, the Scharnhorst (flagship) and the Gneisenau, each of 11,420 tons, armed with eight 8-inch and six 6-inch guns; and their gunners were of high repute. His other ships, the Leipzig, Dresden, and Nürnberg, were light cruisers, each carrying ten 4-inch guns. Against these Cradock had the Good Hope, a twelve-year-old cruiser of 14,000 tons, armed with two 9.2-inch guns; the cruiser Monmouth, with 6-inch guns only; the Glasgow, a light fast cruiser, with two 6-inch and ten 4-inch guns, and the auxiliary cruiser Otranto, which was not sufficiently armed to take part in an action. He knew, as well as any one living, what was the meaning of these figures, and he must have been hoping that the Canopus, with her 12-inch guns, would rejoin him before he met his enemy.
The Glasgow despatched her message from Coronel, and at 2.30 p.m. on the 1st November she rejoined her squadron. Cradock was still steaming north when, at 4.40, she sighted and reported to him the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Leipzig, visible to the east. He had found the ship he was chasing, but he had found her in company with her powerful consorts; and the Dresden and the Nürnberg were, in fact, also present, though they were not yet in sight.
Cradock had but a few minutes in which to make his decision. Was he to fight or run? Even the three enemy ships which were in sight were more than a match for his own. His two big guns might make a few lucky hits, but they could not keep down the fire of eight times their number, laid by prize gunners with the choice of range and position. To fight was highly dangerous; yet the alternative evidently looked to him still less attractive. The enemy was nearly due east; the Canopus was coming up slowly from the south, 250 miles away; if he were to turn and run he might be able to join her in nine hours or even in eight. But Spee had the position of advantage inshore; he would be racing down the shorter side of the triangle, and with his 23 knots could overtake the Monmouth for certain, and possibly cut in between the others and the Canopus. During the chase he would have a fighting light for three hours, and after that a moonlight equally to his advantage.
We cannot tell whether Cradock weighed these considerations anxiously, or whether he instinctively felt that the tradition of the Navy would be more injured by his flight than by his own defeat and death. He does not seem to have hesitated. At 5.10 p.m. he signalled to his squadron to concentrate on the Glasgow—the ship nearest the enemy—and attempted to cross Spee’s line so as to gain the inshore position. The German admiral, however, kept away successfully, and at 6.18 Cradock made a wireless signal to the Canopus, giving his position, and adding, “I am going to attack enemy now.”
At 7 o’clock the sun set, and Spee, having now every advantage of light, opened fire at 12,000 yards. The Good Hope in reply made a hit or two, but her forward 9.2 gun was soon knocked out, and the ship set on fire. The Monmouth was also burning within three minutes. The Glasgow was engaged by both the Leipzig and the Dresden, but was saved by the German smoke which drifted towards her. With the sunset glow behind them, our ships were a fair target, while the British gunners could no longer see anything but the flash of the enemy’s guns. Both the Good Hope and the Monmouth were continually on fire, and at 7.45 the flagship blew up with an explosion which sent up flames 200 feet high. By 8 o’clock the Monmouth too was silenced and sinking in the heavy seas; as the moon rose the German ships could just be seen closing on her.
Captain Luce, left alone with the Glasgow and the Otranto, had now to face the most painful duty of his life. His ship had been hit by only five shells out of the six hundred aimed at her, and he was in a position to make use of her superior speed by going to warn the Canopus of the danger towards which she was heading. He steered north-west into the darkness, intending to turn south as soon as he was out of sight. The Monmouth’s men were all crowded on her quarterdeck, and they cheered the Glasgow as they saw her going away—a cheer that should never be forgotten when the tale is told. At 9.20 firing was heard again, and from the Glasgow seventy-five flashes were counted—“No doubt,” says Captain Luce, “the final attack on the Monmouth.” She went down, like the Good Hope, with all hands.
So ended Cradock’s forlorn hope, and the mystery of it will remain with us. One thing is certain, that whatever was the motive for his decision, it could not have been a discreditable one—a man does not fling away his command, his professional chances, and his own life out of sheer recklessness. We may safely infer, then, that Cradock was attempting the best that was possible for his country at the hazard of everything that he valued most. For this he took the final responsibility of disobeying his orders; and for this he paid the full price. It is difficult to think him wrong, and not difficult to hold him justified. He gave something to the enemy, but far more to his own Service. When darkness fell on Coronel, Spee’s triumph had but thirty-seven days to run. The tradition of Cradock’s unflinching devotion will last as long as the British Navy; and it is by such traditions that sea power is built and sustained. Naval supremacy will never be won or kept by the consistent refusal of unequal fights.