High Seas Fleet
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German battlecruiser Derfflinger scuttled at Scapa Flow. |
The
High Seas Fleet (
German:
Hochseeflotte) was the main battle fleet of the
Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) during
World War I. The fleet was based at
Wilhelmshaven in the
Jade estuary, and commanded by Admirals
Friedrich von Ingenohl (1913–1915),
Hugo von Pohl (1915–1916),
Reinhard Scheer (1916–1918), and
Franz von Hipper (1918). It posed such a threat to the
Royal Navy's control of the seas around Britain that the British
Grand Fleet had to remain concentrated in the
North Sea for the duration of the war, even as many urgent tasks in other theatres of war went undone for lack of ships.
The High Seas Fleet was outnumbered three to two by the British Grand Fleet; however, during some periods in the first year of the war an equalization of forces in the North Sea was almost achieved not by Germany's will but by the British dispersal of ships to numerous other parts of the world. In the latter part of the war the ratio tipped in the British favour. The German navy was unwilling to risk a head-to-head engagement of fleets, preferring a strategy of raids into the North Sea with the aim of drawing out a section of the British fleet that could be cut off and destroyed. However, the battles at
Helgoland Bight (
1914-
08-28),
Dogger Bank and
Jutland (
1916-
05-31) were inconclusive and did not change the strategic position.
As the British
blockade caused increasing economic hardship in Germany, the German Imperial Navy concentrated its resources on
unrestricted submarine warfare in an effort to win the
First Battle of the Atlantic and strangle the British war effort. Aside from two sorties in August 1916 and April 1918, the High Seas Fleet languished in dock for the remainder of the war.
In October 1918, with the army facing defeat and the civil population starving, Scheer decided to launch a do-or-die attack on the Grand Fleet. Knowing that the attack would be vetoed, he neglected to inform the government of Prince
Max von Baden. But when orders were given to put to sea on
1918-
10-30, many sailors refused or deserted. The plan was abandoned, but the
Kiel Mutiny led to revolution in Germany, the fall of the imperial government on
9 November and the end of the war on
1918-
11-11.
Under the terms of the
armistice, the High Seas Fleet went into internment at the
Royal Navy's base at
Scapa Flow in
Orkney. In "Operation ZZ" on
21 November 1918, sixty Allied battleships escorted eleven battleships, five battlecruisers, eight cruisers and forty-eight destroyers of the High Seas Fleet into captivity. On
1919-
06-21,
Ludwig von Reuter gave the order to scuttle the ships to prevent their falling into British hands. Fifty-one ships sank. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of the First World War.
Swedish historian Alf W Johansson considers the creation of a German High Sea Fleet a prime example of a strategic blunder. Translated from his book "Europas krig" ("Wars of Europe"): "Admiral von Tiritz High Sea Fleet had proven to be a gigantic miscalculation; a product of vanity, conceit, and fuzzy military thinking. It proved useless as a means of excerting political pressure: instead of forcing Britain closer to Germany it drove them closer to France. When the war came, it was unfit as a military instrument."
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Admiral Reinhard Scheer's World War One memoirs of Germany's High Sea Fleet in The World War @ The War Times Journal
