Maximilian Von Spee - First World War

First World War

From the outbreak of the First World War his command concentrated on destroying Allied commercial and troop shipping, with considerable success. However, Spee was wary of the Allies' strength, especially the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Royal Australian Navy—in fact he described the latter's flagship, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, as being superior to his entire force by itself. Consequently to avoid being trapped at Tsingtao, von Spee planned a return of his squadron to Germany, sailing through the Pacific, rounding Cape Horn, and then forcing his way north through the Atlantic.

Admiral von Spee’s admiralty superiors left him complete freedom of action; "with remarkable wisdom and forbearance they realized in Berlin that any orders would tie his hands in a predicament only he fully understood." However, they also wrote him out of their long-term calculations and hoped he would strike a major blow before he and his ships met their fate. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty at London, wrote: "He was a cut flower in a vase, fair to see yet bound to die."

At the beginning of hostilities the East Asia squadron was dispersed on routine inspection missions at Pacific colonies, with the armored cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau at Ponape in the Caroline Islands. The fleet rendezvoused at Pagan Island in the northern Marianas for staff meetings and coaling. Since he was cut off from essential information, Admiral von Spee sent the light cruiser SMS Nürnberg to Honolulu in the United States Territory of Hawaii to obtain the latest newspapers and wire dispatches from the German consul. Nürnberg rejoined the fleet at Christmas Island. Having thus learned of the occupation of German Samoa by the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, who at the request of Great Britain had performed their “great and urgent imperial service,” von Spee rushed toward Samoa with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau intent on doing damage to British and Dominion ships at anchor. He arrived off Apia on 14 September 1914, three days after the departure of the Allied cruisers and transports. The admiral was informed that approximately 1,600 New Zealand volunteers were on Upolu, poorly trained and miserable in their woolen winter-weight uniforms, and that he could easily recapture the colony. He determined that a landing would only be of temporary advantage in an Allied dominated sea and headed for Papeete, Tahiti to fire at French shipping, then rejoined the other ships of his fleet and moved toward South America.

At the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile on 1 November 1914, Spee's force engaged and sank two British armored cruisers commanded by Sir Christopher Cradock; HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth. Both of the British ships were outclassed in both gunnery and seamanship.

After Coronel at a reception with the German community at Valparaiso, Admiral von Spee was presented a bouquet of flowers for the naval victory. In his thank-you response he stated that it would do nicely for his grave. He understood only too well that the ultimate loss of his command to an overwhelming adversary was inevitable.

On 8 December 1914, Spee's force attempted a raid on the coaling station at Stanley in the Falkland Islands, unaware that the previous month the British had sent two modern fast battlecruisers HMS Inflexible and HMS Invincible to protect the islands and avenge the defeat at Coronel, and there were also five cruisers, HMS Carnarvon, HMS Cornwall, HMS Kent, HMS Bristol and HMS Glasgow, at the Stanley naval base. In the ensuing Battle of the Falkland Islands, Spee's flagship, Scharnhorst, together with Gneisenau, Nürnberg and SMS Leipzig were all lost, together with some 2,200 German sailors, including Spee himself and his two sons; his eldest son, Lt. Otto von Spree, who served aboard the Nürnberg, and Lt. Heinrich von Spree who served on the Gneisenau. The admiral went down with his flagship, the Scharnhorst, along with all hands. Only SMS Dresden and the auxiliary Seydlitz managed to escape, but Seydlitz was interned and Dresden was eventually discovered in the Juan Fernández Islands and scuttled by her crew during the Battle of Mas a Tierra.

After the First World War, the German naval officer and spy, Franz von Rintelen, interviewed Admiral William Reginald Hall, Director of British Naval Intelligence, and was informed that the Spee Squadron had been lured onto the guns of the British battlecruiser squadron by means of a fake telegram sent in a German naval code that British cryptographers had broken and which "ordered" the German ships to the Falkland Islands to destroy the wireless station there.