Chapter XXIII The Falklands
News of Coronel was received by the Admiralty on the 4th November; it was given to the public unofficially on the 5th and officially on the 17th. By that time the counterstroke had been not only prepared, but launched. Speed and secrecy were an urgent necessity, for the Falkland Islands, a valuable coaling-station with a wireless installation and a fine double harbour, were certain to be in danger from the victorious enemy. The population numbered only 2,000, mostly Scottish shepherds, and the inhabitants of the capital, Port Stanley, proposed to abandon the town and take refuge on the moors. But on the 8th November the Canopus and the Glasgow ran in on their way north, and on the 12th the Canopus returned with orders to remain and defend the coaling-station. Captain Grant grounded his ship on the harbour mud, disguised her by dazzle-painting, and made her into a fort. The work took three weeks.
In the meantime the new Board of Admiralty were taking action on the plan originally proposed by their predecessors. The Grand Fleet had now been reinforced, and could spare the battle-cruisers Invincible and Inflexible. These two ships came round to Devonport on the 8th November for repairs. On the 9th Admiral Sturdee was appointed Commander-in-Chief in the South Atlantic and Pacific—from Pernambuco to China. The service in hand demanded perfect secrecy and perfect efficiency: a sudden and irresistible counterstroke was to be delivered, and the two principal ships were to be returned immediately with unimpaired fighting value. It was a mission offering unique powers and responsibilities.
The admiral had all the qualities necessary for success and one gift more—that of complete and invariable good fortune. He was to concentrate either off the Panama Canal or the islets known as the Abrolhos Rocks far down towards Rio, according as he could best guess at Spee’s intentions. He guessed right, and chose the latter rendezvous, where, on the 26th, he met Admiral Stoddart with the Carnarvon, Cornwall, Defence, Kent, Bristol, and Orama.
On the same day, as it happened, Spee was moving south from St. Quentin Bay for an attack upon the Falklands, and Sturdee was receiving final orders to base himself upon the Falklands and search for Spee round the Horn. The meeting was therefore certain; but the fate of Port Stanley depended on the race between the two opposing squadrons. Fortune again favoured Sturdee: he was delayed at first by false reports, but Spee lost four full days in capturing and plundering a British collier. When he appeared off the Falklands in the early morning of the 8th December, Sturdee had already been nearly eighteen hours in harbour, and his ships had been busily coaling all night.
When Spee was sighted from Port Stanley his arrival was a surprise to the British squadron. The battle-cruisers had not yet received their full supply of coal. But their oil supply was untouched, and by the admiral’s foresight steam had been ordered at half an hour’s notice for the Kent and the Inflexible, and at two hours’ for the rest. The signal to prepare to weigh and to raise steam was made at 8.14 a.m. The Gneisenau and the Nürnberg, after sheering off at a couple of salvos from the Canopus, came on again at 9.30 to attack the Kent and the Glasgow, who were already on guard outside the harbour. The German ships were immediately recalled—their admiral may not have known yet that the battle-cruisers were there; but the report he received convinced him that he was in the presence of a superior force, and must therefore avoid action if possible, in accordance with German naval orders or tradition. He was a brave and chivalrous commander, and it was his misfortune that he was not at liberty to stand in to the harbour mouth and fight his enemy at close range while the squadron was coming out ship by ship. His own armour was superior to that of the battle-cruisers, and his guns were effective up to 13,000 yards; he could not have avoided destruction, but he could certainly have inflicted serious damage.
Instead of acting thus, he signalled to raise steam and steer east with all speed. The battle-cruisers were now out of harbour, and visible to him; the Glasgow and the Kent were ahead, keeping touch, and Admiral Sturdee made the signal for “General Chase.” The five German ships were hull down on the horizon, but the sky was clear; there was a light breeze and a calm sea; visibility was at its maximum: a combination fatal for the pursued. More fatal still was the character of the pursuer: a scientific seaman and tactician, a commander spirited and self-confident, cool and decisive. There would be difficulties from wind and smoke, and from the differences in the speed of his ships; but Admiral Sturdee had his chance before him, complete though not perfect, and he would grasp it with no uncertain hand.
He began by taking the battle-cruisers ahead at 26-½ knots; then slowed down, cleared for action, and piped the men to dinner at 11.30 as usual; changing course at the same time to converge upon the enemy. At 12.20 he increased to 25 knots, and opened fire on the Leipzig, now within 15,000 yards. She was soon on fire, and at 1.20 turned away south-west with the Nürnberg and the Dresden. Admiral von Spee was dividing his squadron, in hope of saving some part of it. But Admiral Sturdee had foreseen this move. Without any fresh signal, the Glasgow, the Kent, and the Cornwall at once followed the light cruisers; Captain Luce was to have the honour of a separate action to himself, while the battle-cruisers and the Carnarvon held on after Spee.
The main action began with an experimental stage; the German ships concentrated their fire on the Invincible, but could not reach her. On the other hand, her smoke was smothering the Inflexible. At 2.5 Sturdee began to close, and Spee, covered by his own smoke, turned to starboard, and went off at full speed after his light cruisers. By 2.45 he was again overtaken. He then turned to port, and reduced the range; he had decided that the time was come to do what damage he could before the inevitable end.
He opened fire with every gun he had; but here, as in the fight of the Sydney against the Emden, and afterwards at Jutland, the German gunners, though highly trained, could not long keep their accuracy under British fire. The duel was practically decided in the first ten minutes: the Gneisenau was badly hit by the Inflexible, the Scharnhorst was set on fire and lost a funnel; both were staggering and smoking desperately. Sturdee seized his advantage, turned eighteen points, and crossed their wake; under his raking fire the Gneisenau listed till her 6-inch guns could no longer fire, the Scharnhorst lost all her funnels and all her port guns. Spee turned gallantly to bring his fresh broadside to bear, but at 4.0 his flagship ceased fire suddenly, and lay down on her beam ends; soon she heeled over, her stern rose steeply, and she went down head foremost. Admiral Sturdee’s chivalrous dispatch records that Admiral von Spee’s flag was flying to the last.
None of the sinking crew could be saved, for the Gneisenau was still fighting. The three British ships concentrated on her from three sides; at 5.8 her forward funnel fell, and her fire slackened; at 5.15 she hit the Invincible with a single shell; at 5.30 she turned round and stopped dead. At 5.40 she ceased firing, and hauled down one of her two flags; at 5.50, while her three enemies were rushing in at 20 knots to save life, she lay down on her beam ends very suddenly and plunged. Of her complement of 800, some 200 were still alive, and nearly all of these were rescued: 166 recovered; 14 who died of exhaustion were buried next day with full military honours.
Sturdee’s next thought was for Captain Luce and his ships. He gave them his own news by wireless, and asked for theirs. The Glasgow replied that she and the Cornwall were over 70 miles to the south, and the Kent out of sight and hearing of them. It seemed not impossible that the Nürnberg had disposed of her by throwing mines overboard during the chase. But this was not so; Sturdee’s good fortune was not to be broken. The Dresden, it is true, evaded him, but only because her superior speed and 12 miles’ start enabled her to abandon her squadron when she pleased. The other two light cruisers fought gallantly, but failed to escape destruction. In their flight they separated, and the two defeats must be separately described.
When the Dresden decided to run out of action at 27 knots, after the first turn away, Captain Luce wasted no time in chasing her, but laid himself alongside of the Leipzig, the rear ship, in hope of tempting her consorts to fall back to her support. His manoeuvre was to close her repeatedly, engaging with his forward 6-inch gun, and forcing her to turn her broadside to reply. Each time she did so, the Kent and the Cornwall drew nearer, till at 3.36 they could attack the Nürnberg and the Leipzig respectively. The Dresden refused to turn back: she disappeared into the mist, not to be seen again till March 1915, when she surrendered and blew up after a five minutes’ action with the Kent and the Glasgow, who had caught her at anchor.
The Nürnberg now turned away east, pursued by the Kent; the Cornwall began to hit the Leipzig, who was already engaged with the Glasgow. Captain Luce, having here the superior speed, turned right round and passed under his enemy’s stern, raking her with his fresh broadside; then circled round the Cornwall, and came again into action ahead of her. At 6.0, after nearly two hours of such tactics, he gave the order to close; at 6.35 he received the admiral’s wireless message of victory; at 7.17 he saw his own opponent silenced and burning furiously. He waited half an hour for her surrender, and then opened fire again. At that she burned green lights, and he at once lowered his boats. Five officers and thirteen men had been rescued, when the blazing Leipzig turned over to port and sank.
The Kent’s success was of a different kind. Normally she had but 23-½ knots of speed to the Nürnberg’s 25; but her engine-room department by consummate skill and energy forced their lame duck to a speed which at the end of nearly four hours brought her within 12,000 yards of her enemy. Both ships opened fire, the Kent receiving one hit and making two. The Nürnberg then burst two of her boilers, and dropped to 19 knots, turned eight points to port, and engaged with her broadside. Captain Allen accepted the challenge, ran on, and placed the Kent before her beam at 6,000 yards. By 6.10 he had her burning and almost silenced; he ran on again, and raked her at 3,500 yards, destroying all her guns forward. At 6.30 she was silent and motionless. A few more shots, and she hauled down her flag. Captain Allen hastily repaired and lowered two of his damaged boats; but before they could reach her the Nürnberg turned over and sank. Twelve of her men were found, but only seven survived.
Commander Wharton of the Kent has memorably described the final scene. “It was strange and weird, all this aftermath, the wind rapidly arising from the westward, darkness closing in, one ship heaving to the swell, well battered, the foretop-gallant mast gone. Of the other, nothing to be seen but floating wreckage, with here and there a man clinging, and the ‘molly hawks’ (vultures of the sea) swooping by. The wind moaned, and death was in the air. Then see! Out of the mist loomed a great four-masted barque under full canvas. A great ghost-ship she seemed. Slowly, majestically, she sailed by, and vanished in the night.” The battle-cruisers’ fight had been visited, earlier in the day, by the same ghost-ship; manned, it might easily be imagined, by phantom seamen of the Nelsonian age.
Not since that age, and seldom even then, had so impressive a victory been won at sea: it was not a defeat of the enemy, it was his annihilation. Admiral Sturdee had seized all his opportunities, surmounted all his difficulties, and attained all his objects; he was even able to return his most valuable ships to the Grand Fleet practically intact and in the shortest possible time. It may be added that in a fine dispatch he showed once more how a British admiral writes of his enemy’s fate and of his own achievement.