HMS Polyphemus – The original of H.G. Wells’ Thunder Child

Martian Fighting Machine in 1906 Edition

H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” first appeared in 1897 and described in terrifying detail how late-Victorian Britain was powerless to resist the devastation wreaked by huge Martian “walking machine” tripods armed with heat-rays (Lasers!) and “black smoke" poison gas. The most dramatic and memorable incident involves frantic efforts of refugees to escape in ships across the English Channel to France. The story is told from the viewpoint of the narrator’s brother, who is on one of the steamers. Just as this vessel draws away from the British coast three Martian tripods appear and begin to wade out after her. Let’s hear how Wells tells it:

“About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a waterlogged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child. It was the only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea – for that day there was a dead calm –lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it…”

The Thunder Child drives towards the Martians…

“…. Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the giant was even such another as themselves. The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray.

Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians.

They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship's side like a white-hot iron rod through paper.

Thunder Child's attack - by Henrique Alvim Corréa  in 1906 edition

A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the other, and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer … but no one heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian's collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer's stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and funnels spouting fire.

She was alive still; the steering gear, it seems, was intact and her engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of cardboard. My brother shouted involuntarily. A boiling tumult of steam hid everything again…

… The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third Martian and the coast altogether... and when at last the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened, and nothing of the Thunder Child could be made out, nor could the third Martian be seen.”

HMS Polyphemus - illustrations at time of her launch 

Contemporary readers would have recognised the Thunder Child as being based on HMS Polyphemus, the only torpedo-ram ever built for the Royal Navy, a bizarre but impressive experiment that was never repeated. Commissioned in 1881, she was designed as a fast, low-profile vessel of shallow-draft, with torpedoes as its main offensive weapons, with her ram as a back-up. A “stealth ship” of her time, she was designed for attack by night and for penetrating enemy anchorages.

Polyphemus in drydock

The automotive “fish” torpedo was a new weapon in the 1870s and its ability to inflict damage to a ship’s hull below the waterline was clearly its main advantage. Opinions differed on how best it could be employed and through the 1870s various solutions were considered. One of these was the torpedo-ram concept and it was to find its embodiment in the Polyphemus, a partly armoured cigar-shaped vessel that would run almost awash and carry five submerged 14-inch torpedo tubes, one of them – quite surprisingly – running down the centre of the ram.  As completed in 1881 she was 240 feet long and of 2640 tons. Her twin-shaft steam engines gave her at maximum speed of 17.8 knots.  

She was innovative in several ways. Her armoured turtle-deck ran almost awash and her low superstructure – which included six cylindrical shields in each of which a 1-inch semi-automatic Nordenvelt gun was mounted – sat on top and was designed to float free in the event of sinking. The hull-shape had been optimised for minimum resistance – as can be seen from diagrams – and a retractable rudder was built into the bows to facilitate movement astern, and to decrease her  turning circle when going ahead. Polyphemus was also equipped with a separate 250-ton cast iron keel which could be dropped in an emergency The drill and the mechanism for doing so was tested every two weeks. She was the first Royal Navy ship to be fitted with an 80-volt direct current electrical system – this lower-voltage system reflecting experience of the dangers of the 800-volt system used on the navy’s first “electric ship” HMS Inflexible.  

HMS Polyphemus, seen here at Malta

The Polyphemus spent much of her career, until she was relegated to secondary duties in 1900, in the Mediterranean. Given the low hull profile, and the need to minimise deck openings, working conditions in the boiler and machinery spaces must have been uncomfortable in the extreme. It was soon recognised that the design concept was a dead-end, as the arrival of quick-firing weapons was likely to make her very vulnerable since, due to her size, she would never have the nimbleness and “survivability” of a much smaller torpedo-boat. Launching of her 14-inch torpedoes, which had a range of 600 yards only, demanded almost suicidal closing with an enemy ship.

Polyphemus (r of centre) ramming the boom at Berehaven 30th June 1885

Polyphemus was to have one brief moment of glory, not in combat with Martians, but when a war scare in 1885 raised the possibility of action against the Russian Navy. Penetration of the Russian base at Kronstadt was considered, with Polyphemus using her ram to smash through protective floating booms and open the way for other ships to follow. A trial was accordingly arranged at Berehaven, the Royal Navy anchorage in South-West Ireland. A boom, similar to one the Russians might employ was constructed, the floating obstacles linked by 5-inch steel cables and with nets attached to entangle propellers. Six small torpedo boats were assigned to patrolling the approaches. On 30^th June the Polyphemus mounted her attack, building up speed on a two-mile run towards the boom and evading some ten practice-torpedoes launched by the opposing patrol boats. She smashed her way through the boom – unfortunately the only existing photograph, as shown above, was taken from a distance and the full drama is not conveyed by it – and she proved that in this one very special scenario she could prove her worth.

Contemporary artist's impression show the boom being breached
Thumbnail at top-left shows Polyphemus steaming away unharmed
Note cylindrical shields for Nordenveldts

And that was the end of her spell in the limelight. War with Russia was averted and she returned to routine – and probably very uncomfortable – service. When the Royal Navy finally attacked Kronstadt, in 1919, against Bolshevik forces, it was with light motor-torpedo boats with a turn of speed – some 40 knots – inconceivable when Polyphemus was designed. The only other scenario in which she might have proved of value was that described by H.G. Wells.

And that was fictional.

Britannia’s Shark by Antoine Vanner

 Historic naval fiction moves on into the age of Fighting Steam.

Click to read the opening chapters

The Ram Triumphant: Lissa 1866

In 1864 the Austro-Hungarian Empire joined with the Kingdom of Prussia to inflict a crushing defeat on the small nation of Denmark. This was to be the first of three wars, escalating in scale, which the Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, used to advance German unification. In a recent blog (8^th January 2016) we saw the Austro-Hungarian Navy in action against the Danish Navy off the island of Heligoland in 1864, an encounter that was a tactical victory for the Danes but which had no impact on the outcome of the war. A hero of the battle off Heligoland was the flamboyant Austro-Hungarian commander, Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff (1827-1871)

Cavalry action at Königgrätz - by Alexander von Bensa

In the second of Bismarck’s wars, in 1866, the Austro-Hungarian Empire found itself the focus of its previous ally Prussia’s aggression in a contest which would determine which power was to be dominant in Central Europe. The newly-emergent Kingdom of Italy allied itself to Prussia with the objective of winning the territory of Venetia, the last major area in Italy still under Austro-Hungarian rule. The war was to prove another short one, with Prussian professionalism mercilessly punishing Austro-Hungarian inefficiency. A rapid Prussian drive south into Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic) was made possible by superb mastery of logistics and at Königgrätz (modern Hradec Králové) on 3^rd July 1866, in a clash that involved almost half-a-million men, the Austro-Hungarians suffered a massive defeat. This one battle was enough to decide the so-called “Seven Weeks War” which was ended by the “Peace of Prague” treaty the following month.

Affondatore (as later reconstructed)

Austro-Hungary was more successful against the Italians, who had invaded Venetia, defeating their numerically stronger army at Custoza in June 1866 and forcing them to retreat. The other theatre of action was at sea. Both nations had built substantial fleets with the objective of controlling the Adriatic. It is an indicator of the rapidity of technological change that only seven years after the French had launched the Gloire, the first sea-going ironclad’ the Austro-Hungarians could deploy seven such ships of varying power, and the Italians no less than twelve. Both sides also possessed wooden vessels – the Austro-Hungarians had seven steam frigates and corvettes plus another dozen smaller units, while the Italians had some sixteen. The advantage was with the Italians as regards firepower, on paper at least twice that of their enemy as regards total “weight of shot” – that fired by all guns. Great things were expected of the two Italian “Kings” – the Re d'Italia and Re di Portogallo ironclads, each armed with some 30 heavy rifled weapons – as well as the single-turret ram Affondatore, which had just arrived from its builders in Britain  and which mounted two 300-pounder, 10-inch rifles.

Re d'Italia

Persano

Given the disparity between the two navies it should have seemed easy for the Italian commander, Admiral Carlo Persano, to execute the order given him to "sweep the enemy from the Adriatic, and to attack and blockade them wherever found." In the event however inefficiency, delay and insufficient gun-drill characterised the Italian effort. Though war was declared 20th June – not unexpectedly, for a crisis had been brewing for some time – it was not until  25^th June before he moved the bulk of his fleet from Taranto in the far south to Ancona on the northern Adriatic, some eighty miles south of the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. On arrival at Ancona on 27^th June Persano found thirteen enemy ships offshore, all cleared for action. He made no effort to fight them and according to some reports was so depressed by news of the Italian defeat Custoza that he hung back from confrontation. On July 8 he took his force to sea for three days’ practice manoeuvring and signalling – but no firing-drill, despite many of the guns being newly mounted and unfamiliar to their crews.

The Italian Minister of Marine forced Persano’s hand by ordering an attack, not on Pola, but on the Austro-Hungarian held island of Lissa (now Vis), off the Adriatic’s eastern coast. Possession of this island was regarded as essential for control of the Adriatic – and gaining it had been an Italian ambition for some time – but attacking it while there was still an undefeated enemy fleet at large could only be regarded as foolhardy. One reason for the decision may have been that, with negotiations imminent to end the war, possession of Lissa, even at high cost, might provide a valuable bargaining chip.

Tegetthoff

The decisive factor in the drama now unfolding was to be the aggressive Austro-Hungarian naval commander, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, who had been blooded in action against the Danes. His crews were of both Slav and Italian stock from along the Adriatic coast, including some 600 from Venice, and they were unlikely to have been inherently superior to Persano’s men. The difference lay in the loyalty, fighting spirit and discipline which Tegettoff had instilled in them and their facing down of the Italian fleet at Ancona on 27th June had boosted their confidence.

Tegetthoff was initially suspicious that the Italian moves against Lissa were a diversion but telegrams from there convinced him that they represented a major Italian attempt to take the island. Accordingly, on 19^th July, he headed there with his entire force.

The Italian offensive was meanwhile proceeding slowly. It opened with shore bombardment – a difficult undertaking as Lissa’s coastal batteries were sited on commanding heights and manned by determined marines and artillerymen. The operation was nevertheless largely successful, not least due to the arrival of the powerful Affondatore and by the end of the second day some two-thirds of the Austro-Hungarian guns had been silenced. Had the Italian ground-troops waiting offshore been landed the island could probably have been captured before Tegettoff arrived. Zeal to do so was lacking however and on the following day, 20^th July, clearing mists revealed to the island’s defenders the Austro-Hungarian squadron driving from the north-east at full speed. Persano hurriedly gathered the Italian ships to the north of the island to meet them.

Tegettoff’s force advanced in three successive divisions, ironclads, wooden frigates, and finally the smaller vessels, each in a wedge-shaped formation (see diagram above), with the apex toward the enemy. The object was to drive through the Italian line, if possible near the van, and bring on a melee in which all ships could take part, ramming tactics could be employed, and the enemy would profit less by their superiority in armour and guns. Tegetthoff's tactic depended on aggression and confidence, matching them against a hesitant and passive enemy commander.

The Italians had been caught at a disadvantage. On the previous day the Formidabile, one of their better ships, had been put out of action by  shore batteries. Another, coming from the west end of the island, was too late to take part in the action. The commander of the Italian wooden ships, one Albini, was reluctant to risk them, despite Persano signalling desperately to them to come around the Austro-Hungarian rear. With his ironclads Persano formed three divisions, each of three ships and he swung across the enemy's bows in line ahead. At this critical juncture, and for no obvious reason, he shifted his flag from the Re d'Italia in the centre to the Affondatore, which was steaming alone on the starboard side of the line. The change was not noted by all his ships, and confusion of orders inevitably followed. The delay involved also left a wide gap between the Italian van and centre divisions and through this the Austrians drove, with Tegetthoff in his flagship Erzherzog Ferdinand Max leading the way.

Contemporary painting - the confused-melee nature of the action is obvious

From this point on, formations became almost meaningless, a confused fracas in which the two forces rammed or fired into each other in a fog of smoke and spray. The Austro-Hungarian left flank and rear held up the Italian van while their ironclads attacked the Italian centre. The wooden ships of the Austro-Hungarian middle division displayed none of the hesitation of their Italian counterparts. Led by the 92-gun Kaiser, essentially a traditional wooden ship of the line equipped with a steam engine, they smashed into the Italian rear. The Kaiser, an obsolete relic, was to endure the hardest fighting of the battle. She twice avoided the Affondatore's ram though she was struck by one of her 300-pound projectiles. The Re di Portogallo then bore down on her but her Captain Petz rang for full speed ahead and steered for the ironclad, striking a glancing blow and scraping past her, both ships blazing at each other as they passed. The Kaiser thereafter withdrew, her foremast and funnel down and a fire burning amidships. Altogether she fired 850 rounds in the action, or about one-fifth of the total fired by the Austrians, and she received 80 hits, about one-fifth of the total. Of the 38 Austrians killed and 138 wounded in the battle, Kaiser lost 24 and 75 respectively.

Kaiser charging the Re di Portogallo while the Affondator attacks on her port quarter
Painting by Eduard Nezbeda

Similarly fierce action was in progress elsewhere. The Italian gunboat Palestro was forced to withdraw to fight a fire that threatened her magazines. The ironclad Re d'Italia, which was at first supposed by the Austro-Hungarians to be Persano's flagship, became a focus of their attack and her steering gear was disabled. As she could go only straight ahead or astern, Tegettoff seized his chance. He rammed her squarely amidships at full speed with the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, smashing through her armour and opening a huge gash. The Re d'Italia heeled over to starboard, lurched back again, then sank almost immediately, taking 381 of her crew with her.

Erzherzog Ferdinand Max ramming the Re d'Italia

The Re d'Italia rolling over and sinking - Erzharzog Ferdinand Max in background
Painting by Carl Frederich Sorensen

This dramatic sinking practically decided the battle. The fighting had lasted little more than an hour before the Italians withdrew westwards, allowing Tegettoff to bring his force into Lissa’s fortified harbour of San Giorgio. The fire on the Palestro reached her magazine as she retreated and she exploded with the loss of 231 of her crew. Other than this vessel and the Re d'Italia the Italians’ other losses were slight – 8 killed and 40 wounded. Their ships were badly battered however and soon afterwards the Affondatore sank in Ancona harbour, unable due to her battle damage to resist a squall.

Kaiser after the battle - foremast and funnel gone, bows badly damaged

Tegettoff’s victory had no impact on the outcome of the war, which had essentially been determined by the Prussian victory at Königgrätz. Despite defeat by land and sea at Custoza and Lissa, Italy was awarded Venetia in the peace negotiations. The most notable naval consequence of the Lissa battle was the exaggerated value many assigned to ramming as a tactic, thereby making a ram bow a feature of almost every warship, large or small, up to World War I. The more valuable lesson was that a passive and defensive policy, such as Persano had adopted, would always fail if confronted by a determined and aggressive enemy.. There have been few better examples than Lissa of the American Admiral Farragut's belief that “iron in the ships is less important than iron in the men".

It is surprising, in view of the facts, that Persano announced a victory when he returned to Italy, thereby triggering widespread celebrations which was dampened when the full story was made known. He was to suffer the humiliation of being arraigned before the Italian Senate and being dismissed from the navy on the basis of cowardice and incompetence.

The classic image of the defiant Tegetthoff on the Ferdinand Max's open bridge during the battle

Tegetthoff, still only 39 at the time of his victory, had one five years to live before he was struck down by pneumonia. Deservedly promoted and hailed  as a national hero, his most significant – and painful – duty in his later career was to sail to Mexico in the frigate Novara in 1867 to bring back the body of the so-called Emperor Ferdinand Maximilian who had been shot by the Mexican government of Benito Juárez.

But that’s another story!

Britannia’s Wolf

The first book in the Dawlish Chronicles Series features ironclad action in the Black Sea as the vicious Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 reaches its climax.

Russian forces are driving  deep into the corrupt Ottoman-Turkish Empire.  In the depths of a savage winter, as the Turks face defeat on all fronts, a British officer is enmeshed and finds himself confronting enemy ironclads, Cossack lances and merciless Kurdish irregulars. And in the midst of this chaos, while he himself is a pawn in the rivalry of the Sultan’s half-brothers for control of the collapsing empire, he is unwillingly and unexpectedly drawn to a woman whom he believes he should not love.

Britannia’s Wolf is available in hard-copy and Kindle format –click here for details.

Britannia's Wolf It is also available as an audio book read by the distinguished American actor David Doersch. If you haven't previously ordered an audio-book from audible.com you can download it without cost as part of a 30-Day Free Trial. You can listen on your Smart Phone, Tablet or MP3 Player.

Click here for audio details (UK)

Click here for audio details (US and elsewhere)

Guest Blog by Chris Sams

I am glad to welcome naval-historian Chris Sams as guest on my blog. I hope you'll enjoy this story of warfare in the North Sea in 1917 - Antoine Vanner

 A bloody encounter in the North Sea, 1917 by Chris Sams

Day broke on the 17 October 1917 and HMS Strongbow, an R-class destroyer escorting a convoy consisting of two British, one Belgian and nine neutral Scandinavian vessels from Lerwick to Bergen with the armed trawlers Elise and P. Fannon. Strongbow was at the rear of the convoy whilst her sister HMS Mary Rose under Lt. Commander Fox led the convoy from the front, when the crew spotted two cruisers at 06:05 approaching through the early morning haze at two points after beam. Visibility was only 4000 yards and the two vessels were closing at speed. The Duty officer Acting Lieutenant James, believed them to be British light cruisers of the Cleopatra class and he signalled them for identification using a Morse spot lamp.

There was no response.

The second signal met with no response.

The third was met with a poorly morsed letters that made no sense when translated. Something was not right and James immediately sent for the Captain Lt-Commander Brooke and Strongbow turned to meet the two unknown vessels and increased speed.

HMS Strongbow

SMS Bremse and Brummer had been dispatched by Admiral Scheer to seek convoys on the Lerwick to Bergen route and if none were to be found to proceed to the West coast of Britain and range into the Atlantic at their discretion and depending on their fuel supplies.

The Germans reasoned that whilst the rest of their fleet was known to be engaged in the Baltic and capturing Helsingfors the British would not expect an attack. A successful attack would also cause problems for the enemy and ultimately aid the U-boat campaign as the Royal Navy would need to bleed off vessels searching for U-boats to protect these neutral convoys from surface raiders. The mine-laying cruisers Bremse and Brummer were specifically chosen for their appearance which was similar to British cruisers and that they had a top speed of 34 knots and could burn either oil or coal. With their decks cleared of all their mine laying equipment, save for the lowering mechanism, and the berths for 450 mines the cruisers left Wilhelmshaven and proceeded into the North Sea after a day's delay whilst minesweepers cleared a path for them.

SMS Brummer

Scheer legitimised attacking neutral ships in his memoirs;

It was known that neutral merchant vessels assembled in convoys to travel under the protection of English warships, and therefore they might be regarded as enemy vessels, since they openly claimed English protection as to benefit the enemy and consequently to injure us.

Room 40, the Admiralty's code breakers, had intercepted Bremse and Brummer reporting their position as north of the Sylt at Lister Tief. This information was passed on to Operations to evaluate as Room 40 had no knowledge of British vessels’ dispositions.

The Admiralty Operations room did not believe that two mine-laying cruisers would be a threat to anything and that they were probably adding to the formidable minefields already in existence. There had been a belief that the Germans would attempt a raid of some sort and a force of three cruisers, twenty-seven light cruisers and fifty-four destroyers spread itself from the mid North Sea to the coast of Norway looking for a mine layer and force of destroyers.

The Brummer and Bremse had slipped by at night using their high top-speed and now were closing on Strongbow. They fired at 3000 yards with their first salvo falling short. Their second hit the main steam pipe, causing the destroyer to stop and wrecking her wireless-room, thereby removing her ability to call for help. The time was 06:15.

With Mary Rose some way ahead the defenceless merchant ships slowed to a stop and began abandoning ship in the hope that their crews could be afforded safety in the lifeboats. The two German cruisers closed and began sinking the merchant ships with expertly aimed shots at the waterline and would eventually claim all nine of the neutral Danes, Swedish and Norwegian vessels whilst the Belgian and British vessels fled the scene.

M-Class destroyer HMS Marmion - her sister Mary Rose would have looked similar

At 06:20 the Mary Rose reappeared, reacting to the gunfire and sighting four merchant vessels already sinking. She bravely charged the German warships whilst trying to send an SOS transmission. Although acknowledged by a British shore station and asked for confirmation SMS Brummer managed to block any further communication. Mary Rose opened fire at a range of 6-7000 yards and closed with the enemy at top speed. At 2000 yards Lt. Commander Fox ordered the helm hard over.  As she responded the two German cruisers hit her engine-room, disabling her. Thereafter she was pounded to destruction, taking   all but eight of her crew with her to their deaths.

With the escorting destroyers dealt with the German cruisers returned to the task of shelling the defenceless merchant vessels. 

The fight was not over as the plucky armed trawler Elise defied orders and returned to the scene, first trying to rescue survivors from Strongbow and then firing upon the two German vessels and trying to draw them away. When this failed the trawler could do no more than move to a safe distance and wait.

With their work completed Bremse and Brummer withdrew to the South-East without picking up a single survivor. Scheer would later legitimise this by stating that;

As two (actually three) of the steamers had been able to get away in time on noticing the attack, the care of the crews in the boats could be left to them, for our cruisers had to consider their own safety on the long return journey.

The Elise did return and picked up survivors from the disabled Strongbow whilst others were picked up by boats from the lost merchants. Strongbow finally disappeared beneath the waves at 09:30 having been scuttled by her crew following the destruction of all code books.

In all, 250 men died in few hours by gunfire or from exposure. A further 50 were wounded. The Germans suffered no casualties.

News of the disaster did not reach the British authorities until 15:50 when HMS Marmion, on the return Bergen - Lerwick track, found the Elise at 13:30 and steamed to send the message to Admiral Brock, officer commanding Shetland and Orkneys. Beatty was told within an hour and hurriedly deployed his cruisers on the off chance of catching the two Germans that night but to no avail.

Mersey Class Armed Trawler - the Elise would have been generally similar

The Admiralty were criticised for their failings by the Conservative press and questions were asked in Parliament. The only defence offered was that the sea is a large place and occasionally the enemy, using night and fog, may slip through the defences and hit a convoy. It was also pointed out that some 4500 vessels had got through safely in the last six months on the same route.

Beatty was livid that the German ships had been Bremse and Brummer as, knowing their capability, he would have changed his whole deployment. Changes to the convoy system were brought in immediately with larger convoys on a less frequent basis. Destroyer commanders were ordered to be at constant standby, to suspect all unknown vessels as enemy until absolutely certain to the contrary, to scatter the convoy when attacked, to avoid engaging "superior forces" and use W/T to call for help "IMMEDIATELY"

Criticism was brought against Fox of the Mary Rose and Brooke of the Strongbow for their "ill advised" actions that day. (Fox had been killed in the action and Brooke died of pneumonia a year later, possibly weakened by exposure in the water before rescue). Although their bravery in engaging the enemy was recognised, the opinion of the various enquiries and court-martials that followed was that the destroyer commanders’ first duty was to summon assistance from the cruiser forces. It was later acknowledged that the Strongbow simply did not have the opportunity to contact anyone as her W/T set was knocked out within minutes. It was revealed by the Germans after the war that Mary Rose had also attempted to do the same.

Indeed the German official account post war acknowledge the bravery of the British crews:

The heroic fight put up by the two British destroyers had been in the highest British tradition, but it achieved nothing.

It was a defeat for the Allies but it was learnt from quickly. Beatty took steps to rectify the situation with his fresh orders and the number of vessels in convoy were increased whilst their frequency decreased so that they would be better protected.

For the Germans it was a victory and was celebrated by the Kaiser with the opening of champagne. Two cruisers had caused embarrassment to the Royal Navy for no loss at a time when good news in Germany was distinctly lacking. Strategically however, it achieved nothing.

There were accusations of war crimes post war with the German crews accused of shelling survivors in the water. Sir Henry Newbolt wrote that;

Throughout the attack the Germans displayed a severity which is hard to distinguish from downright cruelty. They gave the neutral masters and crews no chance to lower their boats and get away, but poured their broadsides into them without warning as though they had been armed enemies... In the case of the destroyers the enemy's conduct was even worse; for to their everlasting discredit fire was opened and maintained upon the Strongbow's survivors.

This would later be refuted by the Germans in Krieg in der Nordsee;

Some of Strongbow's crew, who had taken to the lifeboat , and others who had leapt into the water, became additional victims of gunfire, possibly from shots falling short; it stands to reason that there was no intention whatsoever of firing on them. The statement of the British Official history, that defenceless survivors from the Strongbow were deliberately fired on, cannot be refuted strongly enough.

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Chris Sams has been a student of history from a very young age and specialised in the Axis powers at war in his undergraduate studies as well as late Medieval English kingship. Chris published his first book on German cruiser warfare (Kreuzerkrieg) and the German Asiatic Squadron (Ostasiengeschwader) in 2015 and is beavering away on the next whilst trying to write blogs at boredhistorian.blogspot.com and spending time with his wife and three children.

Click here to find out more about his book.

The USA’s First Korean War, 1871

The Daewongun, 1869

A recent blog, “The French Navy in Korea, 1866”, described Korean attempts in the 1860s to retain its status as “The Hermit Kingdom”, cut off from contacts with the world outside. The key figure in this was the sinister Yi Ha-ung (1821-1898), the “Daewongun” – a title meaning “Prince of the Great Court” –who was to be a near-dominant player in internal Korean politics for four decades until the late 1890s. Adept in playing off internal and external forces against each other, his main objective was to limit external contacts and to maintain traditional structures and culture unchanged. This policy had led to large-scale and savage persecution of Christian converts and French missionaries and these in turn were to lead to a brief French punitive mission in 1866, as described in the previous blog. (Click here to read this). 

Korea, the "Hermit Kingdom",  in the 1860s - exotic and isolated

By the 1860s Western nations were already heavily engaged in trade with China, and since 1854 with Japan, which had been “opened up” to foreign merchants from 1854 and was now rapidly modernising. In Korea, however, the Daewongun, and the conservative interests allied to him, were not convinced of the merits of such contacts and were determined to preserve Korea’s isolation. It is against this background that in August 1866 an American owned vessel, the sidewheel-steamer SS General Sherman, was involved in an attempt to open trade. 

The timing was ill-chosen to say the least, for feeling against outsiders had been whipped up by the Daewongun and French intervention to avenge the slaughter of missionaries and converts was imminent. Despite her American registration, the General Sherman’s mission was funded by a British commercial company, Meadows & Co., which operated in China and hoped to negotiate trading rights. Only the vessel’s Captain Page and Chief Mate Wilson were Americans and there were two British citizens on board, the owner, W. B. Preston, and a Welsh missionary, Robert Jerman Thomas, who had been brought along as a translator. The crew consisted of thirteen Chinese and three Malay seamen. Though loaded with a cargo of trade goods – cotton, tin, and glass – the General Sherman also carried two 12-inch cannon. The presence of these weapons which was to make the vessel’s mission doubly unwelcome in Korean eyes.

A view of the Korean coast

In mid-August 1866 the General Sherman sailed up the Taedong River on Korea's west coast towards Pyongyang.  Initial contact with Korean officials were peaceful, if not cordial – permission to trade was refused – and the ship proceeded unhindered until it ran aground  at Yangjak island, close to Pyongyang. Korean attitudes were now hardening and on August 27^th, when an official boarded the vessel, Captain Page detained him, probably as a hostage. This worsened the situation and an order arrived from Daewongun that if the prisoner was not released, and if the General Sherman did not leave at once, all on board should be killed. Departure was not an option however – the level in the river had fallen – the ship had only reached so far upriver due to heavy rains earlier and it was now firmly lodged on a sandbank.

A North Korean stamp commemorating the destruction of the SS General Sherman

The details of what now followed are uncertain as nobody on the General Sherman was to survive. Hostilities erupted on August 31^st and cannon were apparently fired from the ship at Korean troops on the river bank. The confrontation lasted four days and was brought to a head by fire-ships being drifted downriver towards the immobile ship. Two attempts failed but the third succeeded in setting the General Sherman ablaze. Chinese and Malay crew-members either died in the flames, or drowned when they jumped overboard or were beaten to death when they reached the shore. The captain, mate, owner and translator appear to have been murdered after capture. The Korean official they had so unwisely taken hostage survived.

 

A North Korean depiction of the destruction of the SS General Sherman
It's not clear which of the figures is Kim Il Sung's great-grandfather!

A century later this incident was to attain near-mythic status under the later Communist Government of North Korea. The dictator Kim Il Sung claimed that his great-grandfather was involved as an early opponent of US imperialism. Like so much emanating from North Korea, the claim deserves to be viewed with some skepticism!

The steam-frigate USS Colorado

The American response was tardy in the extreme. In early 1867 an attempt by a US warship to determine what had happened seems to have got nowhere due to “foul weather” and a year later contact with the Koreans by the USS Shenandoah confirmed that all who had been on board the  General Sherman were dead.  Decisive action only came in May 1871 when the US American Minister to China, Frederick Low,was tasked with gaining an apology. He came in force, backed up by five warships commanded Rear-Admiral John Rodgers who flew his flag in the steam frigate USS Colorado. 

The long-lived USS Monocacy - seen here at Shanghai in 1898

The American flotilla was a powerful one – besides the Colorado there were two sloops, Alaska and Benicia, as well as the paddle-gunboat Monocacy, and the screw-gunboat Palos. Between them they mounted 85 guns. The focus was on the Han River, on which the royal capital Seoul lay some 40 miles from the sea – the same approach taken by the French five years earlier. The warships moored at the river mouth and gunboat USS Palos was sent to assess the possibility of reaching Seoul.  This vessel was fired on by Korean forts defending the Han and it retired with two men wounded.  When the Palos was again fired upon, on June 1^st, the paddle-gunboat Monocacy silenced the battery responsible. Further negotiation attempts failed in the nine days that followed and Minister Lowe and Rear-Admiral Rodgers finally authorised punitive action. This was to involve the capture of Korean defences on Ganghwa Island – a total of six forts and four coastal batteries.

Officers of the USS Colorado

The landing went ahead on Jun 10^th, preceded by a bombardment by the warships. The force sent ashore consisted of 542 seamen and 109 marines, together with and six 12-pounder howitzers. The first fort to be attacked fell without significant resistance and the American force pressed on to the next, which was now labelled “Fort Monocacy”. This in turn was to fall and the landing forces spent the night in it – the first US forces to be stationed on Korean soil. 

Hand-to-hand fighting in one of the Korean forts

The attack resumed the following day, the force offshore bombarding the forts while the landing party attacked from the land side as the barrage ended. The key to the Korean defence was a position labelled by the Americans as “Fort McKee” in honour of the lieutenant, Hugh McKee, who led the assault on it. Resistance by some 300 Koreans armed with antiquated matchlocks and swords was fierce but lasted only fifteen minutes – the fact that the Americans were armed with Remington rolling-block carbines proving  a significant advantage. McKee, who was the first to enter the fort, was fatally wounded but Commander Winfield Scott Schley – who was to win renown in the victory over the Spanish fleet at Santiago in 1898 – was close on his heels and he shot the Korean who had killed him.

Korean prisoners on the Colorado

Captured "Sujagi" - Corporal Brown in middle

By the end of the day the island and its defences were in American hands. Korean casualties amounted to 243 dead, a small number of wounded and twenty prisoners. The Americans suffered three dead and ten wounded. Nine sailors and six marines were later awarded the Medal of Honor, among them a marine corporal, Charles Brown, who captured a large Korean standard or “sujagi”.  These were the first Medals of Honor to be won on foreign service.

Then, after the victory – nothing. The Koreans still refused to negotiate and there was nothing the Americans could do about it. The first external treaty to be negotiated was with Japan, and not with a Western nation. It was not until 1882 that the United States finally signed  a treaty with the Koreans, at a time when the Daewongun was temporarily side-lined by his equally clever and ruthless daughter-in-law, Queen Min. (This provides the background to my novel Britannia’s Spartan).

Recently published: Britannia’s Spartan

This latest novel in the Dawlish Chronicles series is set in Korea in 1882 and a sinister role is played in it by the Daewongun.  

Author Antoine Vanner talks about his latest novel, Britannia’s Spartan, in a short video. Click here to watch it.

Click below for more details for both paperback and Kindle versions:

For UK: Click here    For US & Rest of World: Click here

Honour insulted, Disobedience triumphs – Guadeloupe 1759

The incident at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 when Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and stated “I really do not see the signal!” is the most famous case of a Royal Navy officer disobeying orders and thereby achieving victory. A less well-known case occurred some four decades earlier in the West Indies.

The Seven Years War of 1756 – 1763 should merit the title of “The First World War,” for was the first to be fought on a global scale. It was longer indeed than seven years, for hostilities had opened between Britain and Britain in North America in 1754, triggered by an incident in Pennsylvania involving a 22-year old officer called George Washington. Two years later the conflict took on an even wider European dimension. The British-led alliance included Prussia, Portugal and the smaller German states, including Hanover, and was opposed by a French alliance with the Austrian Empire, Spain, Sweden and Saxony. Russia was initially allied with Austria but changed sides halfway through. Vast in geographical scope, it was a war in which, in Thomas Babington Macaulay’s phrase, European enmities ensured that “black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.” 

Battle of Lagos in 1759 off Portugal - painting by Thomas Luny

1759 proved to be the “Year of Victories” that firmly established Britain as a global power with battles won and conquests made by land and sea. Most notable was the capture of Quebec (and of French Canada thereafter), the smashing of a French army at Minden in Central Germany and the two massive naval victories of Lagos and Quiberon Bay. Less well known was the capture of the French island of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies in M1y 1759 after a four-month naval and land campaign. As a sugar-producer the island was of great economic significance and it also acted as a refuge for French privateers.

Sir John Moore

The “disobedience case” referred to earlier occurred at the climax of the campaign when the British commodore, Sir John Moore (1718-1779) in charge of the naval forces proposed a direct bombardment of Guadeloupe’s fortified citadel. Attacks by ships on fixed defences were always dangerous (Nelson once stated that “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort”) and in a council of war the majority of Moore’s officers advised against it. The opposition was led by Captain – later Admiral – Clark Gayton (1712-1785) who commanded the 96-gun line-of-battle-ship HMS St. George. Commodore Moore had apparently taken offence at Gayton’s stance and he accordingly assigned the St. George to lead the attack – which could be construed as an honour – but he followed this up by sending Gayton a written order to proceed.  This could be regarded as a slight – a verbal order should have been sufficient – and as implying reluctance, and at worst want of courage. Gayton was deeply offended.

The attack on Guadeloupe 1759

The upshot was that Gayton not only brought the St. George into close action with the fort, close enough for its fire to envelop her. The bombardment lasted several hours and all the British ships suffered severely from shore-battery fire without any apparent effect on the citadel. Commodore Moore now began to doubt the wisdom of his decision to attack and – probably to his mortification – signalled to the St. George to break off the action. When Gayton was made aware of the signal he determined to ignore it – his honour had been impugned and he had no intention of retreating at this stage. Commodore Moore followed this up by sending a boat with a verbal order to retreat. Instead of obeying it, Gayton told the officer who brought it that he would require a written order from Moore before he would feel justified in leaving his post.

Admiral Clark Gayton

by John Singleton Copeley 1779

While this to-ing and fro-ing was in progress the St.George maintained a constant fire and at last a lucky shell reached the citadel’s magazine. It blew up before Moore’s written order was received by Gayton. His honour was thus redeemed – and indeed in the process secured victory for the Commodore.

The incident did not damage Gayton’s reputation or prospects and he finished his career as an admiral, following a very successful posting as commander of the Jamaica station during the American War of Independence.

An interesting footnote was that Gayton’s ship, the 1230-ton St.George, was one of the oldest major units in the navy at the time of the Guadeloupe action. She had been laid launched in 1668, and originally known as HMS Charles, and renamed St.George in 1691. She was rebuilt in 1701 and six years later was one of the ships to escape the mass-wrecking of Sir Cloudesley Shovell's fleet in the Scilly Isles. She was to be rebuilt twice more – in 1726 and 1740. Having amassed significant battle-honours she was finally broken up in 1774. Few ships of the Royal Navy can have been so long-lived.

Recently published: Britannia’s Spartan

Author Antoine Vanner talks about his latest novel, Britannia’s Spartan, in a short video. Click here to watch it.

Click below for more details for both paperback and Kindle versions:

For UK: Click here    For US & Rest of World: Click here