Which makes it all the stranger that he gave him the chnace of cleaning up the mess he created....could be he was hoping Sturdee would get killed in action but that still wouldn't have stopped Sturdee getting credit, assuming the battle ended up as OTL.
Goeben Atlantic breakout
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Which makes it all the stranger that he gave him the chnace of cleaning up the mess he created....could be he was hoping Sturdee would get killed in action but that still wouldn't have stopped Sturdee getting credit, assuming the battle ended up as OTL.
Yeah, I have never been sure of that part. Maybe he just wanted him away from London?
That also had the assistance of 11 x 6 inch and 7 x 4" guns. They couldn't sink the Goeben, but they could do a lot of damage to Breslau.
As far as I know there weren't mined to any extent whatsoever.
The Corps of Royal Engineers formed a submarine mining branch in 1863, but it was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1905 which (according to the History of the Corps of Royal Engineers which source I'm using) abolished a well organised system. AFAIK the transferred RE personnel became Royal Marines, but they were soon disbanded because Fisher thought that submarines were better for local defence.
While I'm at it this is the Garrison of Gibraltar in August 1914.
According to the Army Estimate 1914-15 the personnel establishment was 3,870 all ranks.
However, that's the maximum permitted strength. The actual strength would have been less than that.
According to the Army List, August 1914 the Troops in the Command were:
Arms
7 Royal Garrison Artillery companies:
Nos. 6, 9, 54 and 55 Companies (Northern Section).
Nos. 4, 7 & 8 Companies (Southern Section).
4 Fortress Companies, Royal Engineers (Nos. 1, 15, 32 and 45).
2 Infantry Battalions:
2nd Battalion, The Royal Scots Fusiliers.
2nd Battalion, The Due of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire Regiment).
Services
No. 39 Company, Army Service Corps.
No. 28 Company, Royal Army Medical Corps.
No. 9 Company (Gibraltar Section), Army Ordnance Corps
I've always seen it as the only "obvious demotion" assignment that Sturdee would take.
Chief of war staff in the Admiralty to commander of a squadron. That's a job a rear admiral could have been given.
Fisher was only just back and he didn't have the political capital to send him off to retirement. Perhaps he figured Sturdee would choose retirement rather than demotion.
From the source that @Coulsdon Eagle provided the naval forces at Gibraltar were:
11 torpedo boats (Nos. 83, 88-97)
3 submarines (B.6, B.7 and B.8)
HMS Cormorant an Osprey class sloop launched in 1876 and displacing 1,130 tons operating as a tender for Gibraltar's torpedo boats.
HMS Rapid a Satellite class sloop launched in 1883 and displacing 1,420 tons. Her Wikipaedia entry says that she was hulked in 1906, converted into a coal hulk in 1912 and renamed C7. She became an accommodation ship in 1916 and was renamed Hart. She was sold at Gibraltar in 1948.
HM TB No. 83 was of the 130 foot type built by Yarrow in 1884. Her Conway's entry doesn't say what her armament was, but she displaced 85 tons, had a maximum speed of 23 knots and was re-boilered around 1900.The other 10 torpedo boats were of the 140 foot type built by Laird, Thornycroft, White and Yarrow 1892-95. Displacements were between 105 and 141 tons. Their Conway's entry doesn't say what their armament was but their maximum speeds were between 23 and 24.5 knots. The built with locomotive type boilers had them replaced with water-tube boilers 1904-09. The others were built with water-tube boilers.
The B class submarines displaced 287 tons surfaced and 316 tons submerged. Their maximum speeds were 12 knots surfaced and 6 knots submerged. Their range was 1,000 nautical miles at 8.75 knots surfaced. Their armament was two 18 inch (bow) torpedo tubes and 4 torpedoes were carried.
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FWIW those boats were part of the 1892-93 Navy Estimates and the significant thing about that is that the first 6 torpedo boat destroyers were as well.
Their specifications (from Conway's 1860-1905) were:
Displacement: 275-280 tons
Length: 185-199 feet
Machinery: 4,000-4,475ihp (Havoc had locomotive boilers and the rest had water-tube boilers)
Maximum Speed: 27.25-27½ knots
For comparison the specifications of the 10 torpedo boats were:
Displacement: 105-141 tons
Length: 140¼-142½ feet
Machinery: 1,500-2,350ihp (Nos. 90-93 had water-tube boilers. The rest had locomotive boilers, but water-tube boilers replaced them later.)
Maximum Speed: 23-24½ knots
These weren't the last torpedo boats built for the Royal Navy. 10 boats of the 160 foot type were built under the 1899-00 to 1902-03 Estimates. 36 similar "costal destroyers" with turbine machinery were ordered in the 1905-06 to 1907-08 Estimates, but they were re-rated as first class torpedo boats in 1906.
I’m totally taking this interpretation of events from some posts on navweaps forums and not a proper source but I thought it went something like...
Sturdee had done a poor job so far at the admiralty (notably in the run up to Coronel but also pertinently in the Goeben chase) and had pre-existing enmity with Fischer. However, Sturdee was politically connected. Taking Invincible and Inflexible south was hyped up as a glamorous assignment because it got Sturdee out of the Admiralty, but also because Fischer was trying to lay a trap for von Spee by publicizing a prominent admiral taking a powerful force south. The expectation was von Spee would receive intelligence about the issue and take the only other sensible route which was through the Panama Canal...where the Princess Royal had much more quietly been dispatched. However von Spee didn’t get the memo or something (getting himself and most people who could provide insight into what he was thinking killed) giving Sturdee partial redemption. Basically it was a bunch of Edwardian era office politics bad blood with a side dish of the enemy never doing what you want them to.
Even though the Battle of the Falklands was pretty one sided IOTL, the fact the Sturdee arrived there exactly one day before von Spee made a move on the islands shows how bad the campaign could have gone for the Royal Navy. If von Spee (or Souchon in this timeline...?) had forced torching of the coal in the Falklands (let alone captured it), at best Sturdee would have arrived with poor reserves to conduct the kind of extended high speed chase the battle of the Falklands evolved into, and at worst he would have run out of fuel and so been immobilized and destroyed.
I think it’s pretty obvious the Ottomans wouldn’t enter as early as they did, at a minimum. Goeben (under German command) attacking Russia was directly responsible for the declarations of war. If given just a little longer to gauge which way the winds were blowing maybe the Ottomans would have sat the war out.
I think even minor damage to Goeben would have been significant when thousands of miles from a friendly base. But another question since you seem to be pulling up excellent details: did Gibraltar have searchlights? Or would shore batteries have used starshell flares? What did British doctrine and tactics call for if a night passage had been attempted? Two years into the war at Jutland things at night were a bit amateur.
Gibraltar did have searchlights, which were operated by the Royal Engineers. I don't know their number or type.
I don't know the answers to these questions.
AIUI it was amateur, because the Grand Fleet hadn't trained to fight at night, because they thought that they wouldn't have to.
Sturdee cut it close anyway. If Spee had had more guts he would have attacked when the RN was still getting up steam and pounded the BCs in a close-range brawl. At the very least, this would save Lützow later at Jutland.
This article includes the organisation of the French naval forces in the Mediterranean in August 1914.
I thought what he wrote about the state of the navy in 1914 was worth reproducing in full because of what he said about its cruisers, destroyers and submarines.
This topic reminds me of one of the best wargames ever made. Anyone played it?
Flight of the Goeben (or as my little daughter used to call it, "Flight of the Goober.")
Flight of the Goeben (or as my little daughter used to call it, "Flight of the Goober.")
If Souchon was making a run for it with a bunch of battle cruisers on his tail he may not have the option to wait make a night transit of the Strait. I have not bothered to look to see if the 9.2” guns in Gibraltar had the range to close the Strait in 1914. It would be kind of a prequel to the Channel dash past the Dover guns, except with 1914 fire control.
I did some of the math. If Souchon had gone directly towards Gibraltar after leaving Messina (a ~1100 mile voyage) at 1am August 3rd (his OTL sortie time) at 17 knots (OTL speed), he'd be passing Gibralter at ~ 5pm August 5th (broad daylight). If Indefatigable and Indomitable had been around Lat 37°44’ N., 7°56’ E around 10:30am August 4th as per OTL and continued west at top speed of 22 knots as was planned before running into Souchon heading the opposite direction, they'd arrive at virtually the exact same time. If a German battlecruiser running on fumes had been intercepted by two British ones (plus a local torpedo boat squadron) under the guns of a huge British fortress, we might today instead be talking about Milne's tactical genius.
The thing is that this math is kind of sensitive to the speeds you assign to the units. If Souchon had aimed to pass at night and conserve coal, he could have gone a leisurely 15.5 knots and tried to slip through in the darkness at 10pm August 5th. Or, if you generously grant him a sustained speed of 22 knots (questionable) he might have blazed past at 3am August 5th. If you are pessimistic about Indefatigable and Indomitable's sustained speeds and their positioning and only give them 20 knots from a slightly worse starting position, they might not arrive after dark and Goeben's passage on August 5th. The potential for initial butterflies to completely alter the scenario seems endless.
I think one key thing (as always) is Goeben's coaling status. I think the Messina-Gibralter voyage is a similar length as the round trip from Messina-bombing Algeria-Messina-again one so there's not much question the ships can physically get there. It's just that they need to refuel *somewhere* soon afterwards, and the Royal Navy might be reasonably positioned to capitalize on this fact and trap them into a neutral port. Cadiz is one obvious option. What was the status of Tangiers in 1914? International city or French colony? The Indefatigable and Indomitable have to refuel too, but they can easily do so at Gibralter before resuming the chase.
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NoMommsen
Kicked
While I could agree to a possible delay of Ottoman entry into active warfare (in as much the closure of the straits for also and esp. russian civilian shipping wasn't already participating in the war ...) the last I would definitly not.
At least in Oktober/November 1915 after the eliminating of Serbia and the corresponding opening of delivery routes for th german military goods, the participation of Bulgaria in that -don't let the bulgarians get into a too good position with the seemingly winning side as it is now also 'just' after Gorlice-Tarnow and its effects of the Great Russian retreat they would run for participating with whatever action possible.
Not to forget as an 'argument' to participate on the CP side : GOLD
The germans had in Oktober 1914 already shipped quite an amount (about 2 million [IIRC]Goldmarks or turkish Pounds, sources are somewhat wobbly on that) with another 3 million waiting ... for action by the ottomans as they were from then on only given piecemeal. This 'loan' (or outright payment ?) was already negotiated before Souchon showed up at the Dardanelles.
The negotiations that followed after Souchons run to the straits never showed no inclination at all of the Entente powers to give the ottomans anything comparable - no lifting of capitulations, no 'loans or alike.
Also not to forget : Enver Pasha and his very eagerness to bring the ottoman empire into the war. Souchon was his - though very willingly and pushing into the same direction - instrument to achieve this. Souchon acted on "order" of Enver even though officially Djemal Pasha was responsible as the Navy Minister.
There's IMHO also still the possibility of a kind of Bergmann Offensive. Something even IOTL not 'ordered' by STAVKA but let to the discretion of the lokal commanders (like said Georgy Bergmann [might want to use some translator ;-)]) who made his move as IOTL. It was all but an invitation for Enver to bring 'his' forces to bear while the lokal turkish commander IOTL actually was planning to garrison his troops (turkish 3rd Army) for winter and wait until spring if not summer for any action.
I think it is well within possibility and plausibility that Enver might have gotten one of the several german commanding officers then active in the OE who also actually were 'his' buisness to stage some anti-russian 'coup' like some ... 'agressive scouting' along the caucasian border or 'pursuing kurdish/aseri/armenian or whatever 'bandits' (alike Pancho-Villa-Expedition of the US ) into caucasian or russian controlled northern Persia.
I had another thought about Goeben going west, especially as pertains to Russian entry to the war: Goeben absent, the Russian Black Sea fleet should be markedly superior to the Turkish one. Could the Russian Black Sea fleet steam to Constantinople to “protest” the closure of the straights?Could the Russian conduct their own Gallipoli-like operation by attacking the Bosporus? The fear with at the Dardanelles was that the Allied fleet would bombard Constantinople, but couldn’t the Black Sea fleet threaten that just by attacking the Bosporus since Constantinople lies astride the Bosporus? I mean it might bog down in the same trench warfare as Gallipoli, but it would be problematic for the Turks if the trench war is fought in the streets of their capital.
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Istanbul is not right on the Black Sea, but is within range of naval artillery firing from the Black Sea. You are right that the Russian navy would pose a serious threat, and by controlling the sea, would be able to support an amphibious landing. I would think the Ottomans would depend on coastal guns and mines to defend the Bosphorus, but they would be in a much more exposed position that they were against the British and French coming from the other direction.
I do not know if Russia had the capacity to land and supply a big enough force to threaten the Ottoman Capitol.
Given how the Russians are being chewed up like candy by Hindenburg and Ludendorff on the Eastern Front in 1914, such an operation, if possible, will definitely NOT be happening around the OTL Gallipoli timeframe.