Battle of Coronel

The World War I naval Battle of Coronel took place on 1 November, 1914 off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. German Kaiserliche Marine forces led by Vizeadmiral Maximilian Graf von Spee|Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock. This was Britain's first naval defeat since the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812 and the first of a British naval squadron since the Battle of Grand Port in 1810.

Background

The Royal Navy, with assistance from other Allied navies, had spent the early months of the war searching for Spee's German East Asia Squadron, fearing its potential for commerce-raiding in the Pacific. Spee left the German colony at Tsingtao in China, once Japan entered the war on Britain's side.

Japan issued an ultimatum to Germany on 15 August demanding that Germany withdraw its ships from Chinese and Japanese waters and hand it Tsingtao. It declared war eight days later. A naval blockade of Tsingtao by a largely Japanese force that included a small British contingent began on 27 August. A land siege began on 31 October and the heavily outnumbered defenders surrendered on 7 November.

Von Spee's squadron was by then no longer at Tsingtao. His two armoured cruisers, S.M.S. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were cruising through the German Pacific islands at the outbreak of war. The light cruiser S.M.S. Emden had sailed from Tsingtao on 31 July. Another light cruiser, S.M.S. Leipzig, was on the west coast of Mexico, protecting German interests there during the Mexican Revolution. The third, S.M.S. Nürnberg, was on her way to relieve Leipzig.

At its Chinese bases, the Royal Navy had two armoured cruisers, two light cruisers, eight destroyers and three submarines. The pre-dreadnought battleship Triumph had been in reserve at the start of the war, but was quickly recommissioned. There were insufficient sailors available to fully crew her, but two officers, six signallers and 100 other men of the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry volunteered for sea service.

Further south, the battlecruiser H.M.A.S. Australia gave the British Empire naval forces a big superiority in Australasian waters. The Royal Australian Navy also had two modern and two old light cruisers and three destroyers and there were three old light cruisers on the New Zealand Station. There were also two French armoured cruisers and two smaller ships, all of them old, in the Pacific. Many of these ships were engaged in supporting operations against German possessions in the South Pacific, the loss of which denied Spee potential coaling bases.

By 12 August Spee had gathered Emden, Nürnberg, the two armoured cruisers and a number of supply ships at Pagan in the Marianas. The strength of the enemy and his lack of bases and coal supplies meant that his squadron could not operate in Indian, East Asian or Australasian waters. The high coal consumption of his armoured cruisers was a particular problem.

Spee did detach S.M.S. Emden and the supply ship Markomannia, to operate in the Indian Ocean. One fast ship could raid commerce and obtain its coal supplies from prizes. Emden carried out an extremely successful commerce raiding campaign until she was sunk by H.MA.S. Sydney in the Cocos Islands on 9 November 1914.

He also sent two armed merchantmen, Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Cormoran, south to raid commerce. The former captured and sank 11 merchantmen with a total displacement of 33,423 tons before coal supply problems forced her to accept internment at Newport News on 11 March 1915. High coal consumption was a problem for both these ships.

Cormoran entered the US territory of Guam on 14 December 1914 with her coal bunkers almost empty. She was not allowed to re-coal, so could not leave, and was scuttled on 7 April 1917 after the USA declared war on Germany.

The German squadron moved slowly in order to conserve coal, avoiding contact with Allied forces. Spee sent Nürnberg to Honolulu on 22 August in order coal, send and pick up mail and send orders to German agents in South America to obtain coal and other supplies for his squadron.

The two German armoured cruisers appeared off Apia on 14 September. They then headed off to the southeast, reversing their course once out of sight. A week later, Spee was able to buy some supplies, but not enough, from the French island of Bora Bora by sending only English and French speaking officers ashore. The next day, he appeared at the French island of Papeete, where there were supplies, including 5,000 tons of coal, but there was also a garrison and a gunboat that had landed part of her armament. The Germans sank the gunboat and bombarded the town but did not enter the harbour in case it was mined, so gained no supplies for this expenditure of ammunition that could not be replaced.

On 12 October Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Nürnberg were at Easter Island, a remote Chilean possession where they could coal in security. The light cruiser S.M.S. Dresden, which had been stationed in the Caribbean before the war, was already there. Two days later they were joined by Leipzig; her appearance off San Francisco on 11 August and erroneous rumours that she was accompanied by Nürnberg 'paralysed the movements of [British] shipping from Vancouver to Panama.' However, the German ship was unable to stay for long, as an engagement with even an inferior British cruiser might leave her needing to put into a neutral port for repairs and thus be interned.

The British learned from an intercepted radio communication in early October of Spee's plan to prey upon shipping in the crucial trading routes along the west coast of South America. Patrolling in the area at that time was Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock's West Indies Squadron, consisting of two armoured cruisers, H.M.S. Good Hope (Cradock's flagship) and H.M.S. Monmouth, the modern light cruiser Glasgow, and the armed merchant cruiser H.M.S. Otranto.

Cradock's fleet was by no means modern or particularly strong, and most of the crew were inexperienced. Spee had a formidable force of five vessels, led by the armoured cruisers S.M.S. Scharnhorst and S.M.S. Gneisenau plus a further three light cruisers, all modern ships with officers handpicked by Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Nevertheless Cradock was ordered to confront Spee.

On 18 October, 1914 von Spee, having learned of the presence of the Glasgow, set off with all five warships from Valparaíso with the intention of destroying it.

Cradock, aware that his ships were outgunned by Spee's, had been waiting in the hope of reinforcements. The Admiralty dispatched the armoured cruiser H.M.S. Defence and the elderly battleship Canopus, the latter sent from London. Neither reached Cradock before battle commenced on 1 November, 1914.

H.M.S. Defence, then in the Mediterranean, had been ordered to head to Gibraltar on 10 September and then to South America after engine room defects had been corrected. A telegram of 14 September told Cradock that "Defence" was joining him, although she had not set off, and that the pre-dreadnought battleship H.M.S. "Canopus" was on her way. Spee's two armoured cruisers were likely to appear at the Magellan Straits. He was told that:

'Until Defence joins keep at least Canopus and one County class with your flagship. As soon as you have superior force search the Magellan Straits with squadron, being ready to return and cover the River Plate, or, according to information, search north as far as Valparaiso, break up the German trade and destroy the German cruisers.'

Deciding that he could wait no longer, Cradock sailed from the Falkland Islands to a predetermined rendezvous point with the Glasgow at Coronel, the latter having been sent there to gather intelligence.

At this point, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, issued orders to Cradock on 28 October instructing him to halt, pending possible reinforcement from the Japanese navy. It is a moot point as to whether Cradock actually received Churchill's instructions; in any event, he shortly afterwards ordered his squadron to adopt an attacking formation.

However, two days later he was told the German armoured cruisers had been seen at Samoa on 14 September and had left heading north west. He was now told that '[c]ruisers need not now be concentrated' and 'the German trade on the west coast of America was to be attacked at once.'

On 14 October the Admiralty informed Cradock that it had accepted his proposal that he should concentrate Good Hope, Monmouth, Canopus, Glasgow and Otranto and that a second cruiser squadron should be formed on the east coast of South America. It would be commanded by Rear Admiral Archibald Stoddart and would consist of his flagship the County class armoured cruiser H.M.S. Carnarvon, her sister H.M.S. Cornwall, the light cruiser H.M.S. Bristol and the armed merchant cruisers H.M.S. Macedonia and Orama. H.M.S. Defence would join Stoddart's squadron when she arrived.

According to the Naval Staff Monograph on Coronel, a detailed report prepared by RN staff officers after the war for internal use only:

'It was apparently intended that [Cradock's] squadron, with the exception of the Glasgow, should concentrate and presumably remain at the Falkland Islands, but the actual instructions sent on October 14th did not emphasise this and certainly did not debar him from going to the west.'

Naval Operations, the British official history, argues that the formation of a new squadron on the east coast and a mention of combined operations made Cradock assume that his orders of 5 October were still in effect, so he should 'concentrate all his squadron on the west coast "to search and protect trade" in co-operation with his colleague.' H.M.S. Kent, another County class cruiser, was sent to join Cradock, but he does not seem to have been informed of this, and she was diverted elsewhere, so never joined his command.

The Admiralty had made a 'fairly accurate' estimate of Spee's movements. Cradock left the Falkland Islands in Good Hope on 22 October to rendezvous with Monmouth, Glasgow and Otranto at a secret coaling base in south west America. He left Canopus to convoy colliers because he believed that her speed was only 12 knots. However, she was actually capable of 16.5 knots, but her 'Engineer Commander...was ill mentally...and made false reports on the state of the machinery.'

On 26 October Cradock ordered Defence to join him, but the Admiralty countermanded this the next day, ordering her to join Stoddart. Churchill claimed that this telegram did not reach Stoddart and a note for the Cabinet said that it is 'not certain that this message reached Good Hope.' However, Paymaster Lloyd Hirst of Glasgow, whose ship did receive it, later wrote that it is 'practically certain' that it reached Cradock just before the battle.

Glasgow went to the port of Coronel in south west Chile to send and receive messages on 31 October. By the time that they reached the Admiralty Lord Fisher had been re-appointed First Sea Lord following the resignation of Prince Louis Battenberg on 29 October because of 'rising agitation in the Press against every one German or of German descent.' Fisher ordered Defence to join Cradock and sent a signal making it 'clear that he was not to act without the Canopus.' It never reached Cradock.

Cradock received word, again via an intercepted radio signal on 31 October, that S.M.S. Leipzig, the slowest light cruiser in Spee's fleet, was in the area. He promptly took his squadron north to cut it off but instead found himself confronting Spee's entire force the following day at around 4.30pm.

At this stage, it is probable that the British could have escaped by sailing towards Canopus, then some 300 miles to the south; with the failing light Spee would most likely have lost contact with the British squadron. Instead, Cradock chose to stay and fight; however he did direct Otranto to escape.

Battle

Shortly after 1630, Leipzig sighted smoke and hauled out to Starboard to investigate. At 1640, Glasgow, having sighted and investigated smoke on the horizon, identified the enemy. Otranto, with Monmouth to the West, moved to support Glasgow, which increased to full speed and shaped course for the flagship, over fifty miles away, while sending a wireless message to Cradock informing him that Leipzig, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been sighted. With plenty of sea room, Cradock could have turned South and fallen back on Canopus, steaming North with two colliers. He could not know that the Germans had steam only for 14 knots and were unaware of the presence of Good Hope and Monmouth.

At 4:20 pm on 1 November the British ships were in a line 15 miles apart when Glasgow sighted smoke. Shortly afterwards she could see two four funnelled cruisers and a three funnelled cruiser. They were Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and a light cruiser. She informed Cradock, whose ship was then of sight, by wireless. Good Hope came into view at 5:00 pm, and at 5:47 pm Cradock formed his ships into line of battle and closed the range.

Spee acted more cautiously, later writing that he 'had manoeuvred so that the sun in the west would not disturb me.'

Captain John Luce of Glasgow commented that:

The sun was now setting immediately behind us, as viewed from the enemy, and as long as it remained above the horizon, all the advantage was with us, but the range was too great to be effective...Shortly before 7:00 pm, the sun set, entirely changing the conditions of visibility, and whereas in the failing light it was difficult for us to see the enemy, our ships became clearly silhouetted against the afterglow, as viewed from them..

Even without this tactical advantage, the odds in the battle hugely favoured the Germans. Their crews had served on their ships for years and were well trained. Many German sailors were conscripts, but Spee's men were all long service volunteers because of the time that their ships spent away from Germany. The crews of both British armoured cruisers had been assigned to their ships at the outbreak of war and neither ship had had much opportunity for gunnery practice.

Many historians of the war at sea, including Geoffrey Bennett, Andrew Gordon, Paul Halpern, Richard Hough, and Robert Massie, who gives his source as being Paymaster Lloyd Hirst of HMS Glasgow, state that the crews of Good Hope and Monmouth consisted largely of reservists. However, the Naval Staff Monograph makes no mention of Monmouth's crew being mostly reservists, whilst stating that:

[Good Hope] was the only [British] ship carrying heavy guns, was a third fleet ship which had been commissioned for mobilisation, then paid off and commissioned with a fresh crew consisting largely of Royal Naval Reserve men, coastguards, and men of the Royal Fleet Reserve.

In the House of Commons on 23 December 1915 Commander Carlyon Bellairs MP asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur J. Balfour, if it were true that both ships had crews largely made up of reservists and whether or not their guns were fit for action. Balfour's reply, available online at Historic Hansard (accessed 12/2/20)[1] was that:

'These vessels were not commissioned entirely with reserve ratings. Each of them had on board not less than the authorised proportion of active service ratings; and, in fact, His Majesty's ship Monmouth had a crew composed almost entirely of active service men. No guns in these ships had been retubed: they were all serviceable.'

It appears that a fact about Good Hope's crew has at some point been exaggerated to refer to both ships and has then been repeated.

Cradock's squadron was clearly outgunned. The German armoured cruisers had eight 8.2- and six 5.9-inch guns for a total broadside of 1957 lbs and the German light cruisers 10 4.1-inch guns with a broadside of 176 lbs for a total of 4.442 lbs. However, Nürnberg missed most of the action, making the effective German total broadside in the battle 4.266 tons.

Against this, Good Hope carried two 9.2-inch guns and 16 6-inch guns (total broadside of 1,560 lbs), Monmouth 14 6-inch (900 lbs), Glasgow two 6-inch and 10 4-inch (325 lbs) and Otranto four 4.7-inch (90 lbs). However, some of Good Hope and Monmouth's guns could not be used in bad weather, as was the case on 1 November 1914, reducing their effective broadsides to 1,160 and 600 lbs respectively. Cradock ordered Otranto, an armed merchantman that was a large target and would have stood no chance against Spee's ships, to stay out of the battle. The actual British broadside was therefore 2.085 tons.

Spee noted in his after action report that the heavy seas made things very difficult for the gunners:

'With the head wind and sea, the ships laboured heavily, particularly the light cruisers on both sides. Spotting and range-finding suffered greatly from the seas, which came over the forecastle and conning tower, and the heavy swell obscured the target from the 15-prs on the middle decks, so that they never saw stern of their adversary at all, and the bow only now and then. On the other hand , the guns of the large cruisers could all be used, and shot well.'.

The high seas were bad for both sides, but even worse for the British, as the design of their two armoured cruisers meant that they could not fire their main deck 6-inch guns in heavy seas. The German guns that had difficulty firing were smaller ones, excluded from the broadsides listed above.

The Germans opened fire at about 7:05 pm at a range of 12,000 yards. Scharnhorst fired at Good Hope and Gneisenau at Monmouth. Leipzig and Dresden both fired at Glasgow, since Otranto had moved out of range. Luce ordered his guns to fire independently as the roll of his ships slowed the rate of firing and firing salvos would have slowed it even further, but the Germans used salvo firing.

The Germans quickly found the range. The third salvo hit Good Hope, apparently putting her forward 9.2-inch gun out of action and starting a fire. Monmouth was soon also on fire. At some point, she headed off to starboard and became separated from Good Hope. Glasgow could not then follow Good Hope, as she would then have masked Monmouth's fire. At least one of the British armoured cruisers was on fire at any one time.

Around 7:45 pm Good Hope lost way. About five minutes later she suffered 'an immense explosion...the flames reached a height of at least 200 feet and all who saw it on board Glasgow had no doubt she could not recover from this shock.' Good Hope then ceased fire.

Monmouth turned away to starboard, followed by Glasgow. It was now dark, and they were soon out of sight of the enemy. However, Monmouth was continuing to turn to starboard, steering north east and taking her closer to the Germans. Luce received no reply to a signal at 8:20 pm. The moon had now risen above the clouds, and Glasgow could see the Germans, although Luce thought that they could not see her.

Luce could not see how he could help the stricken Monmouth, and said that 'with the utmost reluctance to leaving her, I felt obliged to do so.' Glasgow headed west north west at full speed, which put the Germans astern of her, and was out of sight of them by 8:50 pm. She saw firing about 12 miles away 30 minutes later.

Luce's intention was to find Canopus and warn her of what had happened. Otranto also escaped. The action had taken place beyond the range of her guns, and she was a large ship, whose presence in the British line would have done nothing except help the Germans to find their range. After zigzagging for a period, she withdrew.

The firing that Glasgow had seen came from Nürnberg and was directed at the helpless Monmouth. The German ship stopped firing for a period in order to give the British ship a chance to surrender, but she did not do so, giving the Germans, in the words of Naval Operations, 'no choice...but to give her the only end that she would accept.' The heavy seas made it impossible for the Germans to rescue any survivors.

The Germans had sunk two British armoured cruisers with the loss of all their 1,570 men. Glasgow was hit five times, but only four of crew were wounded, all slightly. Only three Germans were wounded. Naval History.net lists all the British dead. It can be seen that few of Monmouth's crew were reservists of the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR), Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) or Coast Guard. A significant proportion of Good Hope's crew were reservists, but not the 90% sometimes claimed.

The unanswered questions are what would have happened if Cradock's force had included either H.M.S. Defence or Canopus and why did he seek out the enemy when his squadron was so clearly out classed?

Defence was the last British armoured cruiser built, so was newer and more powerful than Spee's two armoured cruisers: 14,600 tons, speed of 23 knots and armed with four 9.2-inch and ten 7.5-inch guns. The British would then have had an advantage in firepower, but not by so overwhelming a margin as to guarantee victory if the German gunnery or tactics were better.

Canopus, as was often the case for a battleship of her day was no bigger than an armoured cruiser, but had larger guns: 12,950 tons, designed for 18 knots but only capable of 16.5 in 1914 and armed with four 12-inch and twelve 6-inch guns. Her 12-inch guns had a range of 14,000 yards, only 500 more than the 8.2-inch guns of Spee's armoured cruisers. Again, the Germans might still have won despite her presence.

Another possibility is that Spee might not have accepted battle with a force including a battleship. He wrote after the battle that he believed that the British:

'have here another ship like Monmouth; also it seems, a battleship of the Queen type, with 12-inch guns. Against the last-named we can hardly do anything; if they had kept their forces together we should, I suppose, have got the worst of it.'

The Queen (or London) class pre-dreadnoughts were larger (15,000 tons) than Canopus, but had a similar armament.

There are three theories about Cradock's decision to seek battle. One, propounded by Luce, is that he 'was constitutionally incapable of refusing or even postponing action, if there was the slightest chance of success.' Rear Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot said when he heard the news of Coronel that Cradock 'always hoped he would be killed in battle or break his neck in the hunting field.'<Marder, p. 115.</ref>

Another, put forward by Glasgow's navigator Lieutenant Commander Portman, is that the Admiralty: 'as good as told him that he was skulking at Stanley...If we hadn't attacked that night, we might never have seen [Spee] again, and then the Admiralty would have blamed him for not fighting.'

Cradock is known to have written to another admiral that 'I will take care I do not suffer the fate of poor Troubridge', who was then facing court martial for not having attacked S.M.S. Goeben. The final, and most common, theory is that Cradock realised that realised that his squadron had no chance against Spee's, but thought that that by damaging the Germans and forcing them to use up ammunition a long way from any base he could ensure that they would be beaten in the next action. If so, he partly succeeded: the Germans suffered little damage, but Scharnhorst used 422 8.2-inch shells and Gneisenau 244 out of a total of 728 carried on each ship.

Subscribers to this theory include Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, Balfour in his eulogy when unveiling Cradock's memorial at York Minster, Sir Julian Corbett, who quotes Balfour's eulogy in the Naval Operations, Churchill and Hirst. It was also put forward in a film called The Battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands that was made in 1927 and restored and re-released in 2014, the hundredth anniversary of the battles.

Whatever Cradock's motivation, the blame for the defeat should rest with the Admiralty. It knew the strength of Spee's squadron and that it was heading for South America. However, it ignored the military principle of concentration, establishing two weak squadrons in the area instead of combining Cradock and Stoddart's forces into a single squadron capable of defeating Spee.

Spee had won a victory, but he knew that the British would seek revenge. At a dinner held in his honour by the German residents of Valparaiso he refused to drink a toast to the '[d]amnation of the British Navy', instead saying that 'I drink to the memory of a gallant and honourable foe.' On being offered a bouquet of flowers, he said that '[t]hey will do nicely for my grave.'

Bibliography

• Admiralty War Staff, Intelligence Division (1915). Naval Engagement off Coronel on 1st November 1914. No. 996. Copy in Churchill Papers. Churchill Archives Centre. CHAR 13/59.
• Bennett, Geoffrey (1962). Coronel and the Falklands. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd.
• Corbett, Sir Julian S.(1938). Naval Operations Volume I. London: HMSO.
• Fayle, C. Ernest (1920). Seaborne Trade Volume I. London: HMSO.
• Gordon, Andrew 1996). The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command. London: John Murray.
• Halpern, Paul (1994). A Naval History of World War I. London: UCL Press.
• Hough, Richard (1983). The Great War at Sea, 1914-1918. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Massie, Robert (2004). Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea. Jonathan Cape.
• Marder, Arthur (1965). From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919. Volume II.
• Historic Hansard (1915). Loss of HMS Good Hope and Monmouth. HC Deb 23 December 1915. Vol 77. c622W.[2].
• Naval-History-Net.com. Royal Navy Casualties. Killed and Died. 1 November 1914.[3]
• Naval Staff, Training and Staff Duties Division (1920). Naval Staff Monographs. (Fleet Issue.): Volume I. Monograph 1.—Coronel. Monograph 2.—German Cruiser Squadron in the Pacific. Monograph 3.—Falklands. Monograph 4.—"Goeben" and "Breslau." O.U. 5413 (late C.B. 917.). Copy No. 292 at The National Archives. ADM 186/589.
• Naval Staff, Training and Staff Duties Division (1923). Naval Staff Monographs (Historical): Fleet Issue. Volume IX. The Atlantic Ocean, 1914-1915, Including the Battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands. O.U. 5413G (late C.B. 917(G)). Copy No. 213 at The National Archives. ADM 186/617.
• The National Archives. ADM 137/1022. Coronel Action, 1 November 1914.