“Following the destruction of Spee’s squadron at the Falklands, many Germans asked how such a thing could have happened. Some in Berlin attributed the shocking defeat to enemy espionage.”
By Eric Brose
On Dec. 8, 1914, the Imperial German Navy suffered one of its worst defeats. In just a few hours, four of the five ships of Graf Maximilian von Spee’s East Asiatic Squadron were destroyed off Port Stanley by a Royal Navy task force. The losses included the heavy cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau — two of the most advanced of the pre-dreadnought era — and more than 2,000 sailors, including Spee’s own two sons. Only the Battle of Jutland in 1916 saw Germany suffer higher losses.
The unexpected defeat at the hands of the British “dreadnought” battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible followed Spee’s triumph over a British flotilla at Coronel, Chile, just one month earlier.
Having abandoned the German naval base at Tsingtao, China, which had been besieged by Japanese and British forces in August, Spee steamed his five-ships east across the Pacific to raid enemy shipping off the western coast of South America. There they encountered two British armoured cruisers, a light cruiser and an auxiliary cruiser. After a bitter late-day clash, two British vessels were destroyed with the loss of 1,600 sailors. Another Royal Navy cruiser was damaged. Spee’s squadron suffered just three casualties.
Spee commanded no ordinary squadron. The admiral was a legend in the Imperial German navy. His impressive ships had won repeated gunnery contests in a fleet already famous for its good marksmanship. Indeed, Spee’s victory at Coronel seemed to demonstrate the end of British naval supremacy. With the drastic reversal at the Falklands one month later, the Kaiser suffered a near nervous breakdown.
Following the destruction of Spee’s squadron at the Falklands, many Germans asked how such a thing could have happened. Some in Berlin attributed the shocking defeat to enemy espionage. In the weeks after the first clash at Coronel, in fact, Germany’s South American consulates, as well as the East Asiatic itself, discussed whether the British intelligence was plotting some sort of deception aimed at delaying Spee long enough for the British to plan some sort of surprise. As one sailor put it: “The English must have trapped Graf Spee somehow – a label of shame will forever hang from the pitiful English!”
What truth is there to these various claims?
Surprisingly, after his victory at Coronel, the admiral opted not to continue eastward into the Atlantic and make for Germany to reinforce the home fleet. Rather, Spee steamed west 500 miles to the island of Mas a Fuera. Why? Julian Corbett, Britain’s semi-official historian of the First World War with access to secret files, speculated (1921) that Spee waited there from Nov. 6 to 15, until battlecruisers from another squadron he believed were coming could reach the South Atlantic.
After the Armistice, Royal Navy intelligence director Reginald “Blinker” Hall, lectured audiences about his wartime mission of intercepting enemy radio signals and using Britain’s own transmissions as a means of “deceiving and mystifying the enemy.” Did British communiques plant false information about Royal Navy plans with Spee in the weeks after Coronel? Did such messages give British warships Invincible and Inflexible, both of which were undergoing maintenance in England in the days following the debacle at Coronel, time to sail for the South Atlantic. Had Corbett seen something in the restricted files suggesting false information was released by the British, perhaps about German reinforcements heading south to strengthen Spee’s squadron?
It’s possible such a ruse occurred, but there is no solid evidence. Spee’s delay in reaching the South Atlantic after Coronel likely had more to do with the need to load coal aboard his vessels at the isolated port of Mas a Fuera — a time-consuming process — than British disinformation. However, the historian Corbett had certainly sniffed out what was indeed an ardent wish by Berlin to bolster the East Asiatic for reinforcements. Germany did reassign the battlecruiser Moltke to Tsingtao in 1914, but war’s outbreak prevented (or perhaps just postponed) its transfer to the region.
Heading east to Chile later that summer, a “twilight of the Gods” mood depressed the officers in Spee’s frustrated squadron, with one captain pleading: “If only we had warships here with more fighting power!”
And then during the Mas a Fuera sojourn word reached Spee’s squadron from the German consulate in San Francisco that “the [battlecruiser rescue] operation has apparently begun.”
Spee hoped to reach Santa Elena, Argentina, 500 miles northeast of the Falklands, by Dec. 5 to acquire more reliable information, but it is doubtful that he waxed as optimistic as some of his officers.
The scenario lending somewhat more credence to Hall’s boasts of a masterstroke of deception began shortly after Invincible and Inflexible left Devonport. A British postal steamer stopped in Punta Arena in the Magellan Strait on Nov. 15, her captain’s communique intercepted by German officials read: “English steamer, coming from the Falkland Islands, says no warships in the Falklands. They were ordered to South Africa, where revolution has broken out. Postal steamer stayed there only a half hour, did not drop off [mail], feared German attack.”
It would have been easy for the Admiralty to have this captain spread misleading information. The reference to South Africa makes it likely that London was indeed the source because the Admiralty, for secrecy reasons, had not informed Port Stanley of any British ship dispositions. Moreover, only one ship, the armoured cruiser HMS Defence, ever left for South Africa, and not until Nov. 27 from Abrolhos Rocks (off the Brazilian coast) after the two battlecruisers arrived there.
If it were a ploy, it made sense. Spee had only two alternative ways home. The first route through the newly opened Panama Canal was blocked by three enemy battlecruisers (two British; one Japanese). London rightly guessed that Spee knew this; he found out while at Mas a Fuera. The Admiralty again surmised that the East Asiatic would take the alternate course of allegedly lesser resistance around the Horn.
On Nov. 13 Port Stanley had been devoid of British warships. However, pre-dreadnought battleship Canopus sailed only days away with orders to hide aground behind dunes at the harbour’s edge with her four 12-inch guns calibrated to engage approaching ships.
The most important force — Vice-Admiral Frederick Doveton Sturdee’s battlecruisers, along with lesser auxiliary forces — would outrun, outgun and outlast Spee. The plan made sense, but only on one crucial condition: namely, that Sturdee hastened southward to reach the Falklands before Spee.
But Sturdee did not make haste. He sailed at 10-knots to conserve fuel and keep stokers fresh, which was excessively cautious. He also had to stop for coaling in Cape Verde, and later for much-needed target practice. He then detoured near the Caribbean to search for Germany’s marauding light cruiser Karlsruhe, which somehow unknown to him had exploded in Barbados on Nov. 4.
Finally reaching Abrolhos Rocks, still 2,100 miles from the Falklands, on Nov. 26, Sturdee received the alarming news that Spee had stopped to coal in the Gulf of Penas, southern Chile, five days earlier, 1,250 very tough sailing miles from Port Stanley.
It is probable that Hall, the Royal Navy intelligence chief, now initiated another ruse. Interestingly enough, the historian Corbett embedded his speculation about Graf Spee’s early-November detour to Mas a Fuera in a passage noting the curious fact that German wireless operators in Montevideo, Uruguay, made daily attempts (late November/early December) to contact battlecruisers Moltke and Seydlitz, supposedly entering the region. This misinformation sought to give Spee added incentive to delay his eastward voyage, high hopes soon to be dashed to demoralizing doom when he met only Sturdee’s ships. Had Hall used deception to “lead [the enemy] to take a certain course for which you are prepared”? Is this what Corbett may have seen in the files? The British flotilla hurried its coaling and departed for the Falklands with more urgency on Nov. 29.
Meanwhile, Spee had sailed through very stormy weather to Picton Island (tip of South America), arriving Dec. 3. There is no evidence that Hall’s second bit of probable trickery reached the East Asiatic from Montevideo. Such hopeful reinforcement yearnings had been raised weeks earlier, however, and no doubt percolated still, but did not affect the squadron’s plans or enter into those discussions. Spee’s downcast mood (see below) did not allow for such chimerical talk.
However, Hall’s British-postal-steamer-espionage definitely resonated. Spee initially doubted its veracity, ordering one of his collier captains to investigate further in Punta Arenas. This man reported twice that Port Stanley’s vulnerability appeared “very probable.” Strengthening this viewpoint, the squadron had detected none of the heavy enemy wireless traffic heard before Coronel.
Mostly convinced now, the Graf convened his captains early on Dec. 6, telling them of his decision to help Germany by capturing the Falklands. Gneisenau (with son Heinrich) and Nürnberg (with son Otto) would take Port Stanley, while the other ships waited at sea. This spearhead sufficed even if a light cruiser or inferior armoured cruiser offered resistance. However, because Spee worried about Canopus, if she were sighted the raid was off, a retreat probably meant to protect his sons – a curious sign of caution for a conflicted man who had always wanted death to come at sea, a fate he still gloomily expected.
Three of Spee’s five ship captains did not support the plan, including a close friend, Gustav Maerker of Gneisenau. The Englishman’s remarks in Punta Arenas smacked of enemy disinformation, an intentional scheme to destroy the squadron. Circumventing the Falklands made more strategic sense and increased their chances of reaching Germany. Were not magazines half-emptied at Coronel (with little chance of replenishment) needed for the final battles nearer home? Spee patiently heard out the three dissenters, and then ordered all ships to leave at noon for the 450-mile trek to the Falklands.
That Spee ignored good operational advice reflected his fragile state of mind. For months he had become increasingly mired in depression, a victim of campaign fatigue. While still fleeing through the Pacific away from stronger British and Japanese forces, “the loneliest man in the world,” said one officer, he wrote his wife “not to expect us to perform great deeds.”
Even winning did not bring upbeat letters home. Coronel “might not mean much on the whole in view of the enormous number of English ships.” The German nation rejoiced, but Spee did not, telling women presenting victory flowers in Valparaiso on Nov. 3: “they will do nicely for my grave.”
To a friend there he confessed morosely that the squadron would do its duty “until our ammunition is exhausted or a [superior foe] succeeds in catching us.”
When at Picton, Spee likely thought it better to do something for the Fatherland now, for they would probably not get home. He had earlier expressed these despondent views privately to some of his captains. Aware of the admiral’s fatalistic views, with further debate pointless given Spee’s defeatist mindset, the East Asiatic put to sea.
Sturdee reached Port Stanley on Dec. 7 thinking that he had ample time for coaling, and then in subsequent days more time for reconnoitering. The next morning, with capital ships half-coaled, word came that two enemy cruisers approached two hours from the harbour. His staff’s report to London that “Spee arrived at daylight this morning … while [our] whole fleet was coaling” unnerved First Admiralty Lord Winston Churchill.
“Have we been taken by surprise and, in spite of all our superiority, mauled, unready, at anchor?!” Churchill asked. Had “Blinker” Hall outfoxed himself?
The “fog of war” prevented such a nightmare. With the raiders only an hour away, Canopus’s indirect fire from behind the dunes missed the German vessels. Sailing on even closer, Gneisenau’s gunnery officer reported thick coal smoke in Port Stanley. Initially assuming that stocks were being burned, suddenly he saw two battlecruisers – coaling!
Maerker, however, refused to believe this – battlecruisers this far south? To Spee he reported the presence of older, slower battleships, which triggered the admiral’s pre-decision to cancel operations and escape to Santa Alena. Clearly, the German admiral’s sons’ lives weighed on his mind. Nevertheless, badly informed by Maerker, Spee had inadvertently given victory away, for the squadron’s only viable option remained to trap stronger, faster, vulnerable battlecruisers in harbour. As it transpired, Invincible and Inflexible easily caught up with the East Asiatic that afternoon.
But even now Spee almost won. Midway into battle, a dud 8.2-inch shell penetrated below Invincible’s armour belt and crashed outside open magazines. A fluke had prevented an explosion like that which sank Invincible at Jutland. Moreover, if this dud had hit a little further forward, even without exploding it would have flooded the hydraulic room and ceased all turret fire. With Invincible out of action and vulnerable to torpedoes, could Inflexible have survived a hypothetical one-against-two cruiser clash, especially with East Asiatic’s superior gunnery?
Badly shot up, Invincible would need two months of repairs, but had survived to win. Toward the end, realizing his operational error at Picton Island, Spee signalled Maerker.
“You were right after all, my friend,” the message read.
Soon thereafter both, together with most of their men, went down in history.
Eric Dorn Brose is the author of the recent book Clash of the Capital Ships: From the Yorkshire Raid to Jutland. His previous book, Death at Sea: Graf Spee and the Flight of the German East Asiatic Naval Squadron in 1914 covers the events discussed in this article. He was a professor at Drexel University, where he was awarded special emeritus status upon retirement in 2015. His publications in German and European history have included much on the history of warfare in the 19th and 20th centuries.
