The War at Sea 1915

HMS Dreadnought after launch in 1906

Through the Georgian and Victorian eras, Britain enjoyed a post Trafalgar century of sea dominance and its Grand Fleet was the finest the world had ever seen. However in the early 20th century the organisation was creaking. A combination of complacency; nepotism and class divisions; conservatism and bureaucracy gave the Royal Navy a vulnerability of which, for the most part, it was blithely unaware.

Captain Alfred Mahan, an American Naval Academic published in 1893 a seminal work "The Influence of Sea Power on History", and emphasised how the British Empire had been sustained by its sea power. The book made a global impact, but particularly on the younger ambitious navies of USA, Japan and, above all, Germany. Its message was even heard in complacent England and the appointment of

John Arbuthnot "Jacky"Fisher as First Sea Lord in 1904 lit the blue touch paper under the Admiralty. Fisher began a radical process of modernisation of the British Navy. He was not a war monger, but believed in the power of overwhelming deterrence and the Dreadnought class of super battleships was his cause celebre. Although he was also a great enthusiast for innovation and technology, in particular the development of mining and the submarine, he was somewhat one eyed regarding the supremacy of the battleship man of war. Dreadnoughts were hugely expensive to build, with their massive armamentarium, but relatively little thought was given to their protection, either on board or in the naval bases where they would be anchored. Fisher’s opposite number in Germany was Tirpitz, an avid follower of Mahan’s principles, and he argued for a German fleet to match the British. Tirpitz’s drive and ambition was supported and exceeded by Kaiser Wilhelm after his accession to the throne. As Queen Victoria’s grandson, Wilhelm had always been envious of the British Navy and jealous of its power. The economically damaging Dreadnought arms race that followed from 1906 to 1912 left the two nations anxious and protective of their great fleets' capital ships through 1914 and 1915. 

The energy brought by Fisher - regarded by many as Britain's finest sailor since Nelson - enabled development of Dreadnoughts and submarines, alongside swathes of organisational change and budget cuts required by a Liberal Government pursuing social reform. Churchill's appointment as First Lord in 1911 came shortly after Fisher’s actions had made him so many enemies that he was removed as First Sea Lord. Churchill was the first truly hands on politician to hold this office, and with his customary energy he continued Fisher’s reforms and preparedness for war. He proved to be great for peacetime to build on Fisher, but a mixed blessing in wartime - taking, as he did, dominant control over all decision making. Admirals on the spot were no longer masters of their own destiny. The return of Fisher in 1914 to join Churchill as his First Sea Lord added to the mix. This first manifest itself in the Mediterranean fiascos of August and September 1914, when Goeben and Breslau were allowed to escape (see previous post).

Much of the Home Fleet's activity in 1915 comprised defence actions to protect coast and key channels from German submarine and surface attack, and also the fairly thankless responsibility of countering the airship raids that became more frequent and audacious through the year. The Navy was not yet prepared for anti-aircraft combat. The most severe airship raid came on the East Coast and London on October 13, with 200 casualties.

The battle of the Dogger Bank in January (See post 1st April 2015) saw the first clash involving British Dreadnought class ships. It was something of a hollow victory. True, the old German Battle Cruiser Blucher was sunk, but the faster German cruisers escaped home due to a combination of British indecision and bad signalling; and Beattie's flagship HMS Lion was almost lost.

The experience and technology of submarine warfare was developing rapidly through 1915. With its global trade activities and responsibilities. Britain was more often the defender than the aggressor, and many in Germany saw unrestricted submarine aggression as their best chance to win a long war of attrition. So, despite having successes in  aggression, particularly in the Baltic and the Balkans, Britain focused more on developing new

The 15inch gun turret of the Monitor HMS Terror

defences against submarines and mines - such as microphones and early sonar devices; Monitors (heavily armed ships with flat hulls, deployed with some success off Gallipoli); Q boats and some aircraft. Elaborate net systems were laid in important channels and also frustrated U boats. At the same time, the Germans were improving their offensive capabilities, including new U boats able to lay mines at depth. The overall German strategy for submarine warfare remained ambivalent. Most politicians, the senior of them Bethmann-Hollweg the Chancellor, were wary of the adverse effects of unrestricted submarine attacks on the USA's neutrality; and the military chiefs wanted more resources for the armies. Tirpitz and his supporters continued to campaign for unrestricted submarine warfare

The Mediterranean sea was the most concentrated area of activity in 1915, dominated by the events of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, but also the entry of the Italian navy as a combatant in May. Seven of nine battleships lost in 1915 met their end in the Mediterranean, and also the Turks lost one in the Sea of Marmora.

Perhaps the Germans' only strategic reverse in 1915 came from their Baltic exercise to blockade Russian forces and to land troops to link up with Hindenburg's left wing. They had some actions against the Russian fleet, but for once the boot was on the other foot, as their ships proved vulnerable to British submarines passing through the Kattegat to support the Russians. Two German battleships were badly damaged and four smaller vessels damaged or sunk by British torpedoes.

1915 Navy Recruiting Poster

The greatest impact of the British Navy was in its blockades - of free movement or trades - around the world. The main weapon was the continuing North Sea and English Channel blockade of Germany's supplies. Controversy remained at the time, both regarding its effectiveness and its legality, but in retrospect it had highly significant cumulative effects on the Central Powers resilience (and it was illegal). Other effective blockades were enacted off Africa and in various corners of the Mediterranean.

The main losses at sea in 1915 were merchant (nearly1000 lost, mostly to U boats) and civilian (most famously the Lusitania). Overall the loss of naval warships was light, in summary for all sides: 9 Battleships (6 British, but all pre-Dreadnought class);

13 Cruisers (6 German), and 46 Destroyers and smaller armed craft.

Main events of 1915

January

• Panama-California Exposition opens to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal.
• Action of the Dogger Bank. German cruiser Blücher sunk.

February

• British Admiralty issue orders forbidding neutral fishing vessels to use British ports.Britain’s trade blockade is causing major tensions with USA.
• Allied naval attack on the Dardanelles forts commences.

March

• British blockade of German East Africa commences.
• Allied Naval attack on the Dardanelles forts repulsed. The French battleship Bouvet and British battleships Irresistible and Ocean are sunk.

April 

• Indecisive action in Black Sea between the Goeben and part of the Russian Fleet. Turkish cruiser Medjidieh sunk by mine off Odessa.
• British blockade of the Cameroons commences.

May 

• SS Lusitania sunk by German submarine U-20 off Queenstown.
• Naval Convention signed between Great Britain, France, and Italy.
• HMS's Goliath, Triumph, and Majestic sunk by submarines in the Dardanelles campaign.
• Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, Great Britain, tenders his resignation, triggering fall of government and resignation of Churchill as First Lord.
• Italian fleet commences operations in the Adriatic and blockades Austro-Hungarian coast. British battle squadron concentrates at Malta prior to joining the Italian fleet.

June

• Blockade of coast of Asia Minor announced by British Government.

July

• Naval action in the Baltic between Russian and German squadrons off Gottland. 
• German light cruiser Königsberg destroyed in Rufiji River, German East
• Africa, by British monitors.
• Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi sunk by Austrian submarine in the Adriatic.

August

• Constantinople harbour raided by British submarine.Turkish battleship Barbarousse-Hairedine sunk by British submarine E-11 in the Dardanelles.
• German naval attack on Riga begins (see 21st). German battle cruiser Moltke torpedoed by British submarine E-1 in Gulf of Riga.

September

• German Government inform United States Government that United States demands for limitation of submarine activity are accepted.
• Italian battleship Benedetto Brin destroyed by internal explosion in harbour at Brindisi.

October 

• Entente Governments proclaim blockade of Ægean coast of Bulgaria.

November

• British hospital ship Anglia sunk by mine in home waters off Dover.

December

• New style German merchant raider Moewe sails from Bremen on first cruise.

11/11/1915 - remembrance for the year in numbers

The Woman's Peace Movement demonstrates 1915

1915 is perhaps not remembered as much as the other WW1 years, with their seismic actions at the Marne, Verdun, Somme or Passchendaele or the political upheavals of 1917 or 1918. However, as we have seen, a great deal happened, and the campaigns in Gallipoli and on the Eastern Front were as significant as any in the war. In a year when Rupert Brooke (off Gallipoli) and Keir Hardie died, and Edith Piaf and Frank Sinatra (and my mother) were born, these are some of the numbers. 


18,000 - poison gas shells were fired in January for the first time in the war as Germans on the Eastern Front attacked Russian positions west of Warsaw. They had little effect on the Russians as sub-zero temperatures prevented the gas from vaporising. At Ypres 2, 5,730 gas cylinders infamously were used against the Allied positions. The British themselves would employ (unsuccessfully) 5,100 chlorine cylinders in their attack at the Battle of Loos

1.5 million - estimated Armenian deaths from slaughter in Turkey or starvation in Syria and Mesopotamia, during the 1915 Genocide.

Trench Misery 1915 in Champagne

240,000 - French Casualties in the First Champagne offensive  After a month of fighting, the exhausted French broke off the offensive.

120,000  - the number of Austrians surrendering to the Russians in the capture of Przemysl in Galicia on March 22nd. This marked the culmination of a series of winter battles between the Austrians and Russians to secure the strategic Carpathian Mountain passes and opened the way for a Russian invasion of Hungary. Realising this, the Germans transferred massive resources for their own Eastern Front assault, Gorlice-Tarnow. 

700,000 - shells fired by Germany in its pre bombardment for the Gorlice-Tarnow action -the largest bombardment to date in the war.

1.4 million - Russian casualties from the Gorlice-Tarnow breakthrough and the subsequent German advances to September, when the Tzar replaced Prince Nikolas as the Supreme Commander. A further 750,000 Russian troops were taken prisoner.

Representation of the ambush

1192 - passengers and crew lost when a German U-Boat ambushed the British passenger liner Lusitania off the Irish coast. It sank in 18 minutes. 

400 miles - the length of the common border between Austria and Italy, longer than the Western Front, although much of it Alpine ranges. The better equipped Austrians took advantage of the mountainous terrain to establish strong defensive positions all along the border. In the valley of the Isonzo river four battles were fought during 1915 with similar inconclusive results, totalling 230,000 casualties for the Italians and 165,000 for the Austrians

50,000 - the number of British casualties during the unsuccessful Loos offensive in September. This would prove to be the final major action for British Army Commander John French, who was sacked and replaced by Douglas Haig before the year end.

503,000  -  an upper estimate of the deaths and casualties on all sides through the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. Approximately half Allied and half Turkish.

83,000 - the number of troops successfully evacuated from Gallipoli by the British Navy.

6 - the number of British battleships lost in 1915. All were pre-Dreadnought class.


14 - days, the longest instance of Christmas Truce 1914? The photo below of German and British Soldiers was taken on 9th January 1915...

Armenia, Teheran and Baghdad

In late 1915, Germany was looking triumphant and irresistible. The exhausted Russian armies were being pushed back on the eastern front; the western front was secure; Mackensen had stormed through Serbia, and German advice and support to Turkey had helped defeat the Allies at Gallipoli, seriously embarrassing Britain. The way through to Baghdad, Persia and beyond was open, although Turkish weakness in these parts of the old Ottoman empire would need further support.

Apart from the Gallipoli campaign, the majority of Turkey’s military efforts had been directed to the Caucasus and the ongoing front against the Russian army there. The Ottoman Empire was responsible for the worst instances of genocide in history - until eclipsed by the Nazis' Holocaust of WW2 -  and their repeated pogroms and massacres of Armenians were the largest, peaking in 1915.

Following the springtime losses on the Eastern Front, the Tsar had re-assigned his uncle, Grand Duke Nicholas, to lead the Russians in the Caucasus. Here, his military leadership and skills had proved too much for the Turks, who were forced through the summer of 1915 to retreat gradually into eastern Anatolia home to the majority of the Armenian population in that region. This accelerated the terrible Armenian massacre of 1915, which had started gradually several months earlier. It was not the first time. Armenia, as described by Buchan “That unhappy race, industrious and pacific, had long been the whipping boy on which Constantinople had taken revenge for its defeats and fears”, had repeatedly suffered ethnic cleansing long before the term was officially coined. From 1895-7 the Ottoman leader Abdul Hamid had sanctioned the slaughter of up to half a million Christians, predominantly Armenians, and in 1909 under the Young Turks leadership up to 50,000 Armenians had been killed in the Adana massacres.

Pre-war proportions of Armenians
(red) in the vilayets of Eastern Anatolia

From the beginning of indiscriminate killings in April, brutal slaughter of Armenians was carried out by government police and mobs all over eastern Anatolia. Around 250,000 found safety in Russian held areas of the Caucasus. Others were driven south and west towards Mesopotamia, Syria and Persia. In all, probably nearly half a million victims perished. As the year passed, and the successes in Serbia and Gallipoli brought greater German presence in Turkey, it suited both parties to move eastwards with the aim of gaining influence, power and territory in northern Persia. Their provocative acts against Russian and British civilians and properties brought strong reactions from Russia, and some support from British forces, anxious to protect their interests. By late November, Russians were in Teheran pursuing Turkish backed rebels southwards. By Christmas a pro-Allied leader was installed in Teheran, but Persia remained unstable – precisely as the Germans had intended. Britain’s priority was the security of Egypt and the Suez Canal – what Bismarck had once called “the neck of the British Empire” – rather than reinforcing Nixon’s forces on the Tigris on their progress to Kut and Baghdad. Germany, on the other hand, was more than willing to direct resources through Syria towards

The Kaiser's Dream - the Berlin to Baghdad Railway
looked more feasible than ever in late 1915

Baghdad to support Turkish forces there.

Baghdad. There were good military and practical reasons for the British to hold their advance up the Tigris at Kut, but in political and prestige terms, capture of Baghdad would be some compensation for Germany’s triumphant presence in Constantinople and the region. In this whole process we can see strong parallels with Gallipoli, with political imperatives trumping military challenges, and disallowing cool and rational appraisal of the difficulties. For instance the necessity of rapid transportation of reinforcements, even if Baghdad was taken successfully, was considered inadequately, if at all. The influence and relative autonomy of the British Government in India was a strong factor in pushing for further advances on Baghdad.

In mid November Townshend’s forces began the advance to Baghdad. With cooler seasonal temperatures they were able to take the direct overland approach – approximately 100 miles – rather than follow the much longer and tortuous course of the Tigris. By 21^st November they were thirty miles from their objective at the ancient city of Ctesiphan where Turkish resistance, stiffened by German know-how, awaited. Late that afternoon Townshend’s 6^th Division, with three columns of infantry and cavalry, attacked the Turkish lines. With spirited fighting that had initial success and broke through the first Turkish lines. However, as a Loos in France, they found even stronger German style 2^nd and 3^rd lines of defence, and found themselves overwhelmed by numbers. By mid-afternoon the next day, Townshend had been forced into a painful and difficult retreat. He had sustained 800 dead and heavy casualties, with approximately one third of his Division having to be evacuated down the river and back to Kut. By 2^nd December the remnants of the exhausted Division had made it all the way back to Kut. Four days later the Turks closed in from north, east and west, and the siege of Kut had begun.