354. A series of unfortunate events #3
“The traditional friendship between Italy and Great Britain, and the important influence which the existence of a powerful Italian fleet must exercise upon the maintenance of our position in the Mediterranean, make it a matter of the highest importance that Italy should not decline from her position relatively to other Mediterranean powers, or lose the place that has been so hardly and honourably earned amongst the war-fleets of the world.”
Sir W.H.White, 1909
“Libya. Trenches. Italian unit receives an order to attack. Its brave commander jumps out of the trench, brandishes his sword and shouts to his troops: ‘Avante! Avante!’. Soldiers in the trench are applauding him and shouting ‘Bravo, bravo, capitano!’ but remain in the trench.”
A nasty contemporary joke.
“This was a great reward for us. We had not had the good fortune to meet the enemy in force.”
General Emilio De Bono
It was not a surprise that the landing operation and capture of the ports went quite well but then the Italian ground forces, with all their numerical and technological superiority got stuck and the war smoothly drifted into a trench phase. Which meant that slowly but steadily the Italian army had been drifting back into a traditional position of being laughingstock of Europe. Which was
bad because a lightening campaign of conquest was OK with pretty much everybody in Europe but a protracted war had repercussions: the attitudes changed.
Text on the French cartoon below: “Menelik: Seigniora, he is even a greater bugger than I am”. The government of France and French public started realizing that acceptance of the British-Italian idea regarding “sharing” North African coast may be not as innocent as it looked because there were large Italian communities in the French owned/controlled Tunisia and Egypt. Plus, after the battle of Kunfunda Bay on the Red Sea (Italy: 1 protected cruiser, 2 destroyers; OE: 6 gunboats, 1 armed tugboat and 1 armed yacht, all destroyed or captured) the Italians proclaimed a
blockade of the Arabian Red Sea coast and began seizing vessels carrying contraband. And this was a clear violation of a power balance on the Red Sea that was
directly concerning French, German and Russian interests in the region: after the Abyssinian fiasco Italy was permitted to preserve its
presence on the Red Sea, not to make the rules.
The Navies on the Med
Principal naval bases for
Ottoman naval forces in 1914 were Alexandretta, Basrah, Canakkale, Beyrut, Djeddah, Hocliecla, Jaffa, Samsoun, Izmir, Sinope, Smyrna, Trebizond, and the main arsenal at lstanbul. The main Ottoman coal port was Zonguldak, roughly 150 miles from the Bosporus Strait on the Black Sea. The Ottoman navy did have a marine unit of about 4,000 men. As far as the ships were involved (all of them being more or less old), it had 2 battleships (both obsolete), 1 coastal defense ship, 2 protected cruisers (old) and few small ships of various types. During the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid the navy practically was not training, number of personnel was severely cut and most of the bigger guns were not operational. Sultan did place some orders in Britain and Germany but his main idea was to avoid paying the money due so the results were predictable. After he was deposed, the new government was trying to change situation by introducing the naval programs drawn up by the British mission along with British tactics to utilize such plans. By 1912 the Ottoman Empire did not, yet, get any noticeable results of these efforts, except for a drastic reduction of its personnel from 31,000 in 1908 to 7,000 in 1912, and it is anybody’s guess how these programs would work out: they were influenced by both Alfred Mahan's view on empire building and British experience in empire seizing. In neither scenario was the true problem of the Ottoman Empire confronted: that of empire protecting.
Italian fleet had 12 battleships, 19 cruisers, 40 destroyers, 90 torpedo boats and 10 coastal defense ships. In other words, the naval forces were incomparable, especially taking into an account that Italian Navy included 4 recently built battleships of
Regina Elena class, each with 2 inch /40 calibers and 12 8 inch/45 calibers Armstrong guns made by
Elswick Ordnance Company. The ships had modern engines but traded protection for speed and rather questionable firepower: only one of main caliber guns could be deployed at any position but broadside and the range of their relatively short guns was not impressive. Actually, even in the terms of speed they were already behind ships made after 1909. But none of the above mattered in confrontation with the Ottoman fleet,
if it was going to happen. Which, at least on a major scale, was extremely unlikely because as soon as the war was declared the main force of the Ottoman fleet withdrew for the safety of the Dardanelles.
The Italian Mediterranean fleet was divided into two squadrons with two divisions in each squadron (one of 4 battleships and one of 4 cruisers). Smaller ships were attached to each of these units.
The detachment of small Italian war ships was based in Somaliland at Mogadishu being augmented by the cruisers: R.I.S. Piemonte, R.l.S. Artigliere, R.I.S. Calabria, and R.I.S. Puglia.
Austrian Fleet.
- 10 battleships including just completed Tegetthoff (20,000 tons, 20.4 knots, main caliber 12 - 12” guns, armor - 279 mm)
- three armored cruisers
- three protected cruisers
- 1 fast cruiser
- 13 destroyers
- 36 torpedo boats
- 6 submarines
- 3 coastal defense ships
- numerous old ships still afloat
British Mediterranean Fleet:
- battlecruisers "Inflexible", "Indefatigable" and "Indomitable"
- four armoured cruisers of the 1st Cruiser Squadron,
- four "Town" class light cruisers,
- flotilla of destroyers
French Mediterranean Fleet:
- six old battleships,
- eleven pre-dreadnoughts,
- dreadnoughts "Jean Bart" and "Courbet"
- 11 armoured cruisers,
- four protected cruisers,
- 43 destroyers and 17 submarines.
German Mediterranean Squadron, consisting of the heavy cruiser
Goeben and light cruiser
Breslau, by Wilhelm’s order went to the Ottoman service.
Russian Black Sea Fleet. By 1911 it was not too impressive because most of the new ships were going to the Pacific and Baltic fleets. Now most of it had been sent for “Straits protection” operation on the Med:
- Ship of the line “Empress Maria” - 23,000 tons, 21 knots, and 12 12” guns of main caliber.
- 7 old style battleships:
- 4 with displacement 13,000 tons, speed 16 knots, main caliber - 4 12” guns and various combinations of 8”, 6” and smaller guns
- 2 with displacement of 10,000 tons, speed 14-15 knots, 6 12” guns and 6 6” guns. Left in the Black Sea.
- 1 with displacement 8,000 tons, speed 14 knots, 4 10” and 8 6” guns. Left in the Black Sea.
- 2 cruisers - 6,500 tons, 23 knots, 12 6” and 12 75 mm guns.
- Destroyers:
- 4 - 600 tons, 26 knots
- 13 - 350 tons, 26 knots
- 4 - 240 tons, 26 knots (left in the Black Sea)
- 4 gunboats - 1,250 tons, 12 knots, 8”,6”, 75mm, 47mm (2 left in the Black Sea)
- 12 torpedo boats (left in the Black Sea)
- 6 transport ships
- 4 submarines
- 1 hydroplane transporter.
Intermission. Common features of the concept of aircraft carriers were proposed in the report of the U.S. Naval Attaché in France in 1908. The concept of aircraft carriers was described in more detail in Clément Ader's book L'Aviation Militaire, published in 1909. The first takeoff from the deck was made on November 14, 1910 by American Eugene B. Eli from the light cruiser Birmingham. (Eng. USS Birmingham (CL-2)). In 1909 captain of the naval engineer corps L. Matsievich made a report in St. Petersburg on the need to create aircraft carriers, and then six months later proposed a project for the construction of an aircraft carrier for 25 aircraft, with preliminary experiments on one of the destroyers. In the spring of 1910, Lieutenant Colonel K. Konkotkin, was offered a much cheaper project to convert the outdated ship Admiral Lazarev into a real aircraft carrier with a flight deck and hangar. They were not rejected, just put on hold until future times due to the shortage of funds.
It was decided to implemented a much more modest project:
to convert steamships Empress Alexandra, Emperor Alexander I, Emperor Nicholas I, Romania into hydroplanes transporters [1]. They were not real carriers because its hydroplanes were operating off the sea surface. Electric winches and Temperley booms were installed to lift and lower hydroplanes.
“Empress Alexandra" was renamed "Orlitsa" and became the first ship of this project. It served on the Baltic, had speed 12 knots, armament of eight 75 mm guns and two machine guns and was carrying 4 hydroplanes.
“Alexander I” served on the Black Sea. It had speed of 15 knots, 6 120 mm and 2 57 mm guns and carried 8 hydroplanes capable of carrying bombs up to 50 pounds.
“Nicholas I” also served on the Black Sea, had speed of 15 knots, and 6 120 mm, 2 75 mm guns and 2 machine guns, carried 7 hydroplanes of the same construction as “Alexander I”.
All these transporters actively participated in WWI. Both “emperors” with two more converted ships and 2 land-based air brigades (32 hydroplanes) formed air division of the Black Sea Fleet. In total, during the First World War, the combat composition of the Russian Navy included 12 aircraft transporting ships (originally planned - 24): eleven - in the Black Sea Fleet and one in the Baltic Fleet.
Even the squadron of 4 old battleships (3 older and slower ones had been left in Sevastopol) was more than adequate for preventing Italian cruisers from penetrating the straits but addition of a new ship-of-the-line would make such an attempt even by the whole squadron rather suicidal. 4 of the old Russian battleships had been lacking in speed but had a heavier armor (229-356mm vs. 102-250mm on the most modern
Regina Elena class ) and more 12” guns per ship (4 vs. 2) than their Italian counterparts and, after the recent modernization, these guns were 50 calibers vs. 40 of the Italians and the armor was the same KCS as on the newest Italian battleships. So, in the case of an open confrontation the Italians could run but not fight and with the addition of
Empress Maria they would be lucky to run.
As far as a broader operations had been involved, the Italians had advantage in the armored cruisers but not after the Ottoman fleet got an addition of
Yavuz Sultan Selim (admiral Wilhelm Souchon and his crew looked cute in their new uniforms 😉).
Austria was taken somewhat by surprise by the whole thing but now its government started grumbling: the last thing Austria wanted was change of the status quo in OE because this could give some wrong ideas to the Turkish and Austrian Serbs. And Hungary was holding exactly the same opinion. The Duke of Abrussi, commander of the cruisers division of the 1st Italian Mediterranean squadron, placed a blockage on the Ottoman Adriatic coast and immediately created a diplomatic incident. Blockadirng the coast upset the status quo, and Austria objected to warfare being injected into the volatile Balkans. Italy reacted by moving the Duke's force to the vicinity of the Dardanelles in order to combat any sortie attempted by the Ottoman fleet. They even fired at the Ottoman fortifications of the Dardanelles. Which was a
big mistake. Not because this barrage did not cause any damage but because the whole episode (admittedly blown out of proportion) provided the Ottoman government to declare a temporary closure of the Straits (with over 180 merchant ships of various nations being stuck in the Black Sea) and to invoke an article of the Russian-Ottoman agreement by which, upon the Ottoman request, Russia had to provide help in providing security of the straits. It was, of course, just a lucky coincidence, that a big part of the Black Sea Fleet was just hanging north of the Bosphorus and could response immediately…
The British government found itself in a somewhat ambiguous situation. On one hand, Italy was
kind of an ally - it was encouraged to take Libya and there was a vague assurance that the UK is going to help if it is attacked by a third party in a process of doing so. OTOH, there was no formal military treaty, Italian operations went beyond the outlined scope and, as was the case with the straits, which the Ottomans had been threatening to close, inconvenienced the British trade. Plus, so far,
the third parties were not directly involved in operations in Libya. On a broader geopolitical scale situation was getting increasingly complicated. Germany, besides pro-Boerish demagoguery, launched the big naval exercises in the Northern Sea while France put its Mediterranean Fleet on a high alert and now the Russian Black Sea Fleet was positioned outside the Dardanelles. Put together, they could create serious problems for the British Mediterranean squadron and, what’s worse, the Suez canal being closed for the warships and military cargo, was creating serious problems with conduct of the Boer war forcing the British ships with the troops and cargo to sail along the western coast of Africa, where they did not have too many supply bases and where the Dutch in the Cape Colony were predictably unsympathetic. Any serious military offset, together with the supply problems, could destabilize situation situation on the East coast of Africa and, who knows, maybe there would be problems even in India.
Of course, the British Empire had enough shipping and naval capacities to handle the problem but in the case of an escalated conflict the resources would have to be allocated for protection of the sea routes and this may expose the British Islands. Of course, in the ongoing naval competition Britain was still ahead of Germany but not so much, if at all, of Germany plus France plus Russia and its dependence upon supplies from the abroad had been much higher than one of the continental opponents who, in combination, were pretty much self-sufficient and had a much greater industrial potential. So, it looked prudent not to escalate the situation more than absolutely necessary and, if push comes to shove, leave Italy on its own.
However, it would be worth trying to create a diversion for Russia on the Far East. Japan was an unlikely candidate but an ongoing mess in China could provide some opportunities: if not Yuan Shikai then perhaps one of the nationalist republican leaders could stir up trouble in the Northern Manchuria or provide a push to return the lost Mongolian territories. This should not be too expensive and complicated to organize.
Now, in Libya the land war had been, seemingly, going nowhere. The Italians hold the coastal area and gradually increased number of their troops up to 100,000. They even brought few airplanes and one of their pilots conducted first in the world aerial bombardment by dropping few hand grenades from his plane and, to a somewhat greater effect, the same way done from the dirigibles.
Now the Italians were undisputed pioneers in the most innovative warfare and could demand at least some respect.
On the opposite side the numbers had been growing slowly. The ports had been closed so the Ottomans couldn’t bring reinforcements by the sea and, with France declaring a neutrality, they could march them across Egypt. However, the
volunteers were a completely different issue. Well over 10,000 soldiers from the
Egyptian army volunteered to go an fight in Libya and got a leave from Khedive. Him being …ah, yes… ruler of the Egypt, the French authorities there did not see any reason to interfere. An unusually big number of doctors, journalists and simply tourists from various parts of Ottoman Empire also travelled across Egypt at that time ending up in Libya, and great sums of money had been raised by the Muslim communities to purchase and smuggle the weapons. So far there were no planes and heavy artillery but it looked like this could be just a matter of time. Still, most of the fighting troops were the local Beduins under command of their tribal leaders and the Turkish officers.
Supply situation of the Italian troops in Libya was not too good after
Yavuz Sultan Selim and
Midilli accompanied by few armed Ottoman steamers sunk or captured a number of the Italian transports. How they risked to travel only in the caravans guarded at least by a cruiser division. The whole thing became something of an entertainment:
Yavuz Sultan Selim was sailing back and forth of the Eastern Med hunting down Italian supply ships and single warships while Italian battleship squadrons had been trying to catch up with him. Couple times they even got lucky but usually these encounters were short and, after making few shoos from a big distance, the participants would disengage with the minimal damage or not at all.
On the Red Sea.
There was also a steady flow of the French, Russian and German weapons going to Ethiopia through the Red Sea ports and then by railroad and caravans. Menelik was old and incapacitated by the numerous strokes but his designated heir, Lij Iyasu, looked as a good candidate for making trouble in Italian Eritrea: “
He was bright, but also impulsive, cruel, lascivious, prone to depressions and egocentricities, and politically inept. Despite his vision of an Ethiopia in which religion and ethnic affiliations made no difference in a man's political or private career, he had no clear comprehension of the power realities in the empire, nor of his own position as its ruler.” Absence of the excessive comprehension was just fine as long as he was listening to the right (French, Russian and German) advisors and had a military backing of his father, Ras Mikael, ruler of the Wello Province. Besides them, there were quite a few prominent local figures, like Dejazmatch Tafari Makonnen, who were all for getting Eritrea back under Ethiopian control. Taking into an account that Germany had a naval base in Inghel and possessed Dahlak Archipelego, which pretty much controlled entry to Mitsiwa, the Italian port in Eritrea, it strongly looked like the Italian activities on the Red Sea may come to an abrupt end without the British support.
The task was to assemble an adequate force needed for an assured destruction of 4 fast protected Italian cruisers with 6” guns of a main caliber. Routinely, none of three “interested parties” had permanently stationed in their naval bases on the Red Sea any reasonably big ships - there simply was no need. And now they had to get them from elsewhere without negatively impacting their other interests.
- Russia dispatched from the Black Sea Fleet 1 armored cruiser (7,000 tons, 24 knots and 10 6” guns of main caliber) and 2 gunboats, each with 2 8” and 1 6” guns, they were slow but the 8” guns could be useful for a coastal bombardment or as an extra fire power if the Italians decide to fight a naval battle. As a security measure, on their way to Alexandria they were escorted by the Battleship Squadron of the Black Sea Fleet (this was also expected to dissuade Italians from any adventurous ideas like attacking coast of Anatolia).
- Germany sent from its East Asia Squadron the armored cruisers Fürst Bismarck (11,000 tons, 18.7 knots, 4 - 9.4” and 10 - 5.9” guns), Prince Adalbert (9,875 tons, 20.4 knots, 4 8.3” and 10 5.9” guns) and 2 light cruisers of Ariadne class (3,000 tons, 21.5 knots, 10 - 10.5cm guns).
- France sent two Gloire class armored cruisers (each 9,996 tons, 21 knots, 2 - 7.6” and 8 - 6.5” guns) and one Edgar Quinet class armored cruiser (13,800 tons, 23 knots, 14 7.6” guns). They’d have to sail together with the Russian ships from Suez.
The Italian Red Sea squadron was going to be squeezed between two forces, each strong enough to deal with it without noticeable problems.
Of course, there was a wild card - the British ships of the
Northern Patrol based in Port Sudan and those of the
Southern Patrol based in Aden. However, these two forces were extremely unimpressive, except for
Euryalus (Southern Patrol), an armored cruiser of 12,000 tons, 21 knots, 2 9” and 12 6” guns, and
Juno (Northern Patrol), 2nd class protected cruiser of 5,600 tons, 18 knots and 5 6”guns. The rest were much smaller ships (armed sloops, 3 3rd class cruisers, armed tug and a boarding ship). However, their interference was not really anticipated both because this would mean a full scale war and because it was officially announced that the Italian ships on the Red Sea had been engaged in piracy stopping and searching the neutral commercial ships for no obvious reason, confiscating not military cargo and detaining
the Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca. At least the last was patently untrue but there were “escaped victims” interviewed by the French press with a resulting stench spreading well beyond the area of fighting. The Brits definitely did not need a religious conflict with the Muslims. At least not right now, when they already had other problems.
When it became clear that the enemy comes from both ends of the Red Sea and that escape is impossible, the Italian Red Sea squadron tried to hide in the port of Masawa but it was practically lacking the coastal defenses and the odds were too unequal so within couple hours the squadron ceased to exist and the city was on fire.
Ethiopian troops entered Eritrea and advanced toward Asmara facing strong resistance from the Italian and local Eritrean troops. The defenders situation was not good: they could not expect reinforcements and supplies by the sea so their best option was to retreat to the North as slow as possible in a hope that they’ll be eventually able to escape to the safety of the British-held Sudan where the Ethiopians would not dare to follow. Ethiopian advance was slow due to the problems that were always plaguing operations in the area: almost a complete absence of the roads and low population density, which meant that moving even a reasonably light artillery was a nightmare and that as soon as the supplies that soldiers carried with them had been exhausted, getting food became a major problem that could not be easily resolved by a looting. The caravans of camels and mules had to be organized, food collected in the not yet exhausted provinces of Ethiopia and carried to the army. Capture of Massawa somewhat improved the supply situation because the defenders had to abandon Asmara and some food and ammunition could be received by the sea. But the Italian-Eritrean troops retreated to the Eritrean Highlands and at least for a while the operations deteriorated to the level of the occasional skirmishes. Lij Iyasu, who had been hanging with an army to get credentials of a military leader, decided that he got enough of those and returned to Addis Ababa leaving in charge his father.
The allies soon enough figured out that their force is too big for any practical purpose but did not risk to leave the area completely out of fear that the Brits from Aden and Port Sudan would use their departure for recapturing Masawa. So the Russian gun boats and one French cruisers remained in the ports, the Germans moved to their nearby base on Dahlak Archipelago and the rest sailed to their bases guarding entrance to the Red Sea from Bab el Mandeb.
Back in the trenches. In December 1911 the Italians had been fortifying their positions on the Nadura Hill near Tobruk while waiting for reinforcements. Captain Mustafa Kemal was in command of Tobruk region and foresaw that the consolidation of Italian forces would jeopardize his position. As such, Kemal ordered Sheik Muberra, leader of the local volunteers, to attack as soon as possible to prevent the reinforcement of the Italians on Nadura Hill. At the same time, Turkish soldiers and Tripolitanian volunteers under the command of
Enver Pasha were ordered to attack the Italians on Nadura Hill. Enver Pasha's force approached Nadura Hill just before dawn and attacked. The Italians were surprised and responded in a disorganized fashion without the benefit of cannon fire. Nadura Hill was captured in two hours and the Italian
Bersaglieri retreated to Tobruk while leaving three machine guns along with munitions.
The event prevented further Italian advance beyond Tobruk: even after receiving reinforcements they remained at the beacheads.
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[1] In OTL converted in 1915 and participated in WWI. ITTL at least one is functional by 1911.