The Great War (All 8 Volumes). Various Authors
Temeraire. In 1913 and 1914 were launched the Jean Bart, Courbet, Paris, and France of the dreadnought type, but much slower and not so heavily armed as the British ships of the same class. In eight ships which were incomplete when war was declared the matter of speed received greater attention, and they are consequently faster than the older vessels of the same type. It is in the nineteen French armored cruisers—France has no battle cruisers—that the French showed better efforts as builders of speedy ships, for they made 23 knots or more. In the list of French fighting ships there are in addition two protected cruisers, the D'Entrecasteaux and the Guichen, together with ten light cruisers. But the French "mosquito fleet," consisting of destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines, is comparatively large. Of these she had 84, 135, and 78, respectively.
After the Russo-Japanese War the battle fleets of Russia were entirely dissipated, so that when the present conflict came she had no ships which might have been accounted worthy aids to the navies of England and France. In so far as is known, her heaviest ships were the Andrei Pervozvannyi and the Imperator Pavel I, each displacing only 17,200 tons, and of the design of 1911.
Against these fighting naval forces of the allied powers were ranged the navies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The former had, at the outbreak of hostilities, 36 battleships, 5 battle cruisers, 9 armored cruisers, and 48 cruisers. Instead of giving attention to torpedo boats she gave it to destroyers, of which she had 130. And of submarines she had 27.
In detail her naval forces consisted, first, of the Kaiser Friedrich III, Kaiser Karl der Grosse, Kaiser Barbarossa, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, all built as a result of the first agitation of Von Tirpitz, between the years 1898 and 1901. They each displaced 10,614 tons, had a speed of 18 knots, required 13,000 horsepower, were protected with from 10 to 12 inches of armor, and carried four 9.4-inch guns, fourteen of 5.9 inches, twelve of 3.4-inches, and twenty of smaller measurement. Roughly they corresponded to the British ships of the Canopus class, both in design and time of launching.
Following this class came that of the Wittelsbach, including also the Wettin, Zähringen, Mecklenburg, and Schwaben, built between 1901 and 1903, displacing 11,643 tons, making 18 knots, protected with from 9 to 10 inches of armor and carrying a primary battery of four 9.4-inch guns, eighteen 5.9-inch guns, and a large secondary battery. The similar type in the British navy was the Canopus—for England was far ahead of Germany, both in the matter of displacement and primary battery. During the same years England had launched ships of the type of the Implacable.
In 1904 came the German ships Hessen, Elsass, and Braunschweig, and in 1905 and 1906 the Preussen and Lothringen. They were well behind the English ships of the same years, for they displaced only 12,097 tons, made 18 knots, carried armor of from 9 to 10 inches in thickness, and a primary battery of four 11-inch guns, fourteen 6.7-inch guns, and twelve 3.4-inch guns, together with rapid firers and other guns in a secondary battery. England at this time was putting 12-inch guns in the primary battery of such ships as the King Edward VII.
Still Germany kept up the race, and in 1906, 1907, and 1908 launched the Hannover, Deutschland, Schlesien, Schleswig-Holstein, and Pommern, with 12,997 tons displacement, 16,000 horsepower, a speed of 18 knots, and only 11-inch guns in the primary batteries. Whereas England, at the same time, was building ships of the dreadnought type.
Next came four ships of the Vanguard class—the Westfälen, Nassau, Rheinland, and Posen, built in 1909 and 1910. Their heaviest guns measured 11 inches, while those of the English ships of the same class measured 12 inches. The displacement of these German fighting ships was 18,600 tons. In point of speed they showed some improvement over the older German ships, making 19.5 knots. Germany, like England, was now committed to the building of larger and larger ships of the line. The Helgoland, Thüringen, Oldenburg, and Ostfriesland, which were put into the water in 1911 and 1912, were consequently of 22,400 tons displacement, with a speed of 20.5 knots and carrying twelve 12-inch guns, fourteen 5.9-inch rapid-fire guns, fourteen 3.9-inch rapid-fire guns, a few smaller guns, and as many as six torpedo tubes.
While England was maintaining her "two to three" policy, and while the United States stood committed to the building of two first-class battleships a year, Germany, in 1913, put five of them into the water. These were the König Albert, Prinz Regent Luitpold, Kaiserin, Kaiser, and Friedrich der Grosse, each capable of speeding through the water at a rate of 21 knots, displacing 23,310 tons and carrying an armament of ten 12-inch guns, fourteen 5.9-inch guns, and a large number of rapid-fire guns of smaller measurement. Their armor was quite heavy, being 13 inches thick on the side and 11 inches thick where protection for the big guns was needed.
The largest ships in the German navy which were launched, fitted, and manned at the time that the war began, were those which were built in 1914 and which had a displacement of 26,575 tons. These ships were the König, Grosser Kurfürst, and the Markgraf. The corresponding type in the British navy was that of the Iron Duke, built in the same year. The British ships of this class were 1,000 tons lighter in displacement, a bit faster—making 22.5 knots to the 22 knots made by the German ships—and their armament was not so strong as that of the German type, for the German ships carried ten 14-inch guns, whereas the English carried ten 13.5-inch guns.
In addition to these first-class battleships, Germany had certain others, individual in type, such as the Von der Tann, Moltke, Goeben, Seydlitz, Derfflinger, Fürst Bismarck, Prinz Heinrich, Prinz Adalbert, Roon and Yorck, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Blücher, Magdeburg, Strassburg, Breslau, Stralsund, Rostock, and Karlsruhe. These may be reckoned as scout cruisers, for they showed much speed, the fastest making 30 knots and the slowest 19 knots. The oldest dates from 1900, and the newest from 1914. Germany had, also, thirty-nine more fast protected cruisers which were designed for scout duty.
In destroyers she was well equipped, having 143 ready for service when war was declared. Her twenty-seven submarines were of the most improved type, and much about their construction and armament she was able to keep secret from the rest of the world. It is probable that even their number was greater than the intelligence departments of foreign navies suspected. The best type had a speed on the surface of 18 knots and could travel at 12 knots when submerged. The type known as E-21, of the design of 1914, measured 213 feet 8 inches in length and had a beam of 20 feet.
Austria, though not renowned for her naval strength, had certain units which brought up the power of the Teutonic powers considerably. She had nine first-class battleships, the Erzherzog Karl, Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, Erzherzog Friedrich, Zrinyi, Radetzky, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, Teggethoff, Prinz Eugen, and Viribus Unitis. These, at the time Austria went to war, ranged in age from nine years to one year, and varied in displacement from 10,000 tons to 20,000 tons. The largest guns carried by any of them measured 12 inches, and the fastest, the Prinz Eugen, made 20 knots. Of secondary importance were the battleships Kaiserin Maria Theresia, Kaiser Karl VI, and St. Georg. The register of battleships was supplemented with ten light cruisers of exceptionally light displacement, the highest being only 3,966 tons. Scouting was their chief function. Austria had, also, 18 destroyers, 63 torpedo boats, and 6 submarines.
Such were the respective strengths of the opponents on that day in July, 1914, when the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary lost his life. For ten years the officers of the navy created by the German Admiral von Tirpitz had at all dinners come to their feet, waved their wine glasses and had given the famous toast "Der Tag"—to the day on which the English and German naval hosts would sally forth to do battle with each other. "Der Tag" found both forces quite ready, though the British naval authorities stole a march on their German rivals in the matter of mobilization.
It had been the custom for years in the British navy to assemble the greater part of the British ships during the summer at the port of Spithead, where, decorated with bunting, with flags flying, with visitors in holiday spirit,