Tales of the Sea: The Goeben, Part I

Turning on the Way Back Machine this afternoon. I’m sure that a lot of you are familiar with this story; I’ve been reading Robert Massie’s Castles of Steel, and he gives an excellent account of the Goeben’s career. Bear with. . .

In the late 19th century, and American naval captain named Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote a book called The Influence of Sea Power on History. Mahan had a lot to say, some of it right and some of it wrong. He recognized that the basic purpose of seapower was to move troops and goods between land masses while preventing the enemy from doing the same. He also believed that sea power guaranteed international mastery, and that the only path to sea power was the construction of fleets of capital ships. He was wrong about both of those; had Napoleon or Hitler or the Kaiser been able to prevail over the armies of their continental opponents, the Royal Navy would have served as only a minor annoyance. Similarly, all the battleships of the Grand Fleet were powerless to stop the German submarines that almost brought Great Britain to its knees in 1917 and 1942.

Mahan was very popular in Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere. His theories were, unfortunately, infused by the same socio-racial Darwinism that afflicted much of the rest of late 19th century thought, and he believed that only British and Americans were properly “equipped” for the naval project he envisioned. Nonetheless, he was read heavily in Russia, Germany, and Japan. His arguments spurred the constructions of a series of massive battlefleets by the great and not-so-great powers of the world. The race was set in 1906 when Great Britain commissioned the battleship Dreadnought , a warship of revolutionary design which more or less rendered obsolete every existing battleship in the world. Of course, the British had the largest number of existing battleships in 1906, so the construction of Dreadnought was somewhat controversial. Germany and the United States pursued the race most vigorously, and the ships built by each power came to take on certain characteristics. British ships were fast and heavily armed, but poorly armored. German ships were fast and heavily armored, but poorly armed. American ships were heavily armed and armored, but slow.

Although none could compete with the three biggest powers, smaller states were also infected by Mahan. Second tier powers like France, Italy, Japan, Austria-Hungary, and Russia all laid down enormous battleships. The ships of these second tier powers also had national characteristics. Japanese battleships, some built in British yards, managed the feat of being fast, heavily armed, and heavily armored. French battleships achieved the equally impressive feat of being slow, lightly armed, and poorly armored. Italian ships were fast, but lightly armed and armored. Austrian ships were very powerful, but took a very long time to build because the Monarchy had to spread the work across all the nations of the Empire. Russian ships were based on Italian designs, but nobody cared because the Russians built them at such a slow pace and because they were stuck in such undesirable locations.

Before long, third tier powers got involved. Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and Turkey all ordered battleships, many from British yards. Chile, Brazil, and Argentina, for some reason, engaged in an unhealthy level of naval competition around the turn of the century, despite the fact that any war between them would obviously be decided on land. Around 1910, the Brazilians ordered a particularly powerful battleship for construction in a British shipyard. In late 1913, the Brazilians realized they had no money, and began to look for a buyer for the incomplete warship. The Ottoman Empire had a battleship nearing completion in Britain, and decided to empty the imperial coffers to buy a second. The Rio De Janiero thus became the Sultan Osman I.

1914 is a notable year for naval construction, because, as you may know, a war broke out in late July. The British felt they were short of battleships, despite the fact that they had more than anyone else. They struck upon a novel solution to their problem. The Ottoman Navy had already sent two crews of its best officers and men to take possession of its two new battleships in July. At the beginning of August, however, the British seized the Turkish battleships, along with some Chilean and Canadian ships. The Sultan Osman I became the Agincourt. Unsurprisingly, the Turks were outraged.

This all started a process through which Turkey would get its battleships, the Ottoman Empire would become engaged in World War I, and a German battlecruiser, serving as flagship of the Turkish fleet, would be the only active dreadnought battleship in the world by the late 1950s.

To be continued. . .