The Loss of the Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue

On 22 September, 1914, three British cruisers, the Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, were torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-9 in the North Sea. The ships, part of the Seventh Cruiser Squadron (also known as Cruiser Force E) of the Southern Force, were under the temporary command of Captain John E. Drummond. Rear-Admiral Henry H. Campbell, Rear-Admiral Commanding, Seventh Cruiser Squadron, and Rear-Admiral Arthur H. Christian, Rear-Admiral Commanding, Southern Force, were both absent.

Early in the morning of the 22nd the Aboukir, Captain Drummond, was torpedoed by U-9. Both Hogue and Cressy closed to give assistance and were each torpedoed in turn. 1,459 officers and men were killed. As a direct consequence, large ships of the Royal Navy were ordered to leave torpedoed and mined consorts to their fate to avoid a similar occurrence.

Background

In the first month and a half of WWI both British and German submarines sank an enemy light cruiser. Some British admirals, such as Admiral Sir John Jellicoe , the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, realised the threat that submarines posed to surface ships and acted accordingly. Others failed to recognise it.

At the start of the war, a Royal Navy force commanded by Rear Admiral Arthur Christian was ordered 'to keep the area south of the 54th parallel [which runs a little south of the Dogger Bank and Heligoland] clear of enemy torpedo craft and minelayers.'

Christian's force was called the Southern Force by Sir Julian Corbett, the author of Naval Operations, the British Official History, but appears to have had no official name, although it was sometimes referred to as a "combined force."

Christian flew his flag in the armoured cruiser H.M.S. Euryalus and had under his command the attached light cruiser H.M.S. Amethyst, the armoured cruisers H.M.S. Bacchante, Cressy, Aboukir and Hogue of Rear Admiral Henry Campbell's Seventh Cruiser Squadron, the Seventh Submarine Flotilla and the First and the Third Destoyer Flotillas. The armoured cruisers were all old ships of the Cressy class, but were frequently called the Bacchantes by the Admiralty. They were unreliable, with no more than three of the five usually being available at any one time.

The cruisers were meant to be at sea except when coaling, with a half flotilla of destroyers that should be relieved every two or three days. The destroyers, however, were often forced in port by bad weather. The cruisers were supposed to patrol at 15 knots but their coal consumption was high over 13 knots, so their actual speed was usually between 9 and 12 knots. Zigzagging was neglected because no enemy submarines had been sighted in the area.

The Southern Force, operating from Harwich, conducted patrols in two areas. The force off Dogger Bank, covering the southern approaches to the North Sea, was generally stronger than the one in the Broad Fourteens, watching the eastern entrance to the English Channel. However, the latter was sometimes increased according to circumstances, such when the British Expeditionary Force crossed the Channel.

Commodore (S) Roger Keyes, commanding the British submarines at Harwich, wrote to Rear Admiral Arthur Leveson, Director of the Operations Division at the Admiralty on 21 August urging that the Bacchantes should be withdrawn. He feared that they were vulnerable to an attack by 'two or three well-trained German cruisers.'

It was later asserted by more junior officers such as then Lieutenant, later Admiral, William Tennant that the deployment of the of cruisers was 'asking for an attack by submarines.' However, at more senior levels the concern, even by Keyes, was about German cruisers, not U-boats

At a conference held on board H.M.S. Iron Duke, flagship of the Grand Fleet, on 17 September Keyes and Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich destroyers, put their objections to the Bacchantes' deployment to Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiral. They were backed by Jellicoe. Churchill was persuaded, especially when he learnt that the force was nicknamed 'the live bait squadron.' BJ p. 144

The principal supporter of continuing with the patrols was Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff.

At the meeting Sturdee is famously supposed to have informed Keyes, "My dear fellow, you don't know your history. We've always maintained a squadron on the Broad Fourteens." Given the dubious nature of the claim—Marder got it from Admiral Sir William M. James, no fan of Sturdee, who supposedly got it from Keyes—it's is probably safe to disregard it, unless, of course, Lord Keyes's diaries confirm it.

Honours

On 2 October 1914, the Admiralty inserted into its Weekly Orders a note of "Appreciation of Conduct of Officers and Crews of Ships recently destroyed", mentioning these ships along with three other early losses whose men displayed "exemplary steadiness and coolness... in face of imminent death".

Post-War

In response to Churchill's claims in The World Crisis, Admiral Christian, by now retired, wrote to The Times:

Sir,—May I, as the officer who was then commanding the Seventh Cruiser Squadron, be permitted to offer a few remarks and criticisms in answer to Mr. Churchill's statements regarding the disaster which overtook the Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, September, 1914? It is not my intention to enter into any controversy as to whether any responsibility rested on the Admiralty for that occurrence. My chief concern is in respect to the reflections Mr. Churchill has been pleased to make against the professional reputation of the officers of those ships, many of whom lost their lives, as well as of myself.
In the first place, when Mr. Churchill enunciates the obvious truism that "in war all repetitions are perilous," he clearly suggests, by inference, that the ships had been maintaining the same patrol since the commencement of the war. The Broad Fourteens area, which the three ships were then patrolling, was not a fixed one. During sixteen days prior to the disaster, the squadron had patrolled this particular vicinity for five days; the remaining days it had either been withdrawn or employed elsewhere.
Secondly, after correctly stating that the rough weather of the 19th and 20th made it necessary for the cruisers to forgo the protection of the destroyers, Mr. Churchill remarks, "but they nevertheless were allowed to continue the patrol." If, as one must suppose, Mr. Churchill infers that the continuance of the patrol, without protecting cruisers [read "destroyers"], was due to my initiative, I beg to call attention to the following wireless message received by me from the Admiralty at 5 p.m., September 19th:—
The Dogger Bank patrol need not be continued. Weather too bad for destroyers to go to sea. Arrange with cruisers to watch Broad Fourteens.
It will be observed that this was a direct order to "watch the Broad Fourteens" with cruisers, and left no option as to the area to be patrolled. Also, it clearly indicated that the patrol was to be continued, whether the destroyers were present or not.
Thirdly, Mr. Churchill states that the cruisers were steaming under ten knots. The maintenance of a three-quarter speed of thirteen or fourteen knots would have entailed an expenditure of coal which would have resulted in continual withdrawal of vessels from patrol. Indeed, the necessity for careful coal economy made it very difficult to maintain a proper proportion of the squadron at sea; and, in fact, it was the urgent necessity of coaling, and, incidentally, the disablement of wireless of my flagship by the gale, which was the cause of my temporary absence from the squadron on the actual day of the disaster. I pointed out that the state of the weather prevented me from shifting my flag at sea, and the Admiralty approved of my leaving the squadron temporarily.
Incidentally, the destroyers came out on September 21, but were sent in at dusk on account of the bad weather. They were sent out again at dawn on the 22nd, but, most unfortunately, arrived after the disaster had occurred.
Mr. Churchill's reference to the action of Hogue and Cressy in standing by their stricken senior officer's ship as an act of "chivalrous stupidity" amounts to nothing less than a veiled sneer at the judgement of officers who preferred to take great risks rather than abandon all their comrades to their fate. What would he have done in similar circumstances? At any rate, it is not in keeping with naval tradition that any officer or man in it should ever attempt to preserve his own reputation or safety, either in writing or in action, at the expense of others.
At the commencement of a great war, with innumerable fresh problems confronting the belligerents, it is inevitable that mistakes will be made, and 1914 was no exception. But I venture to assert that, in any case, such mistakes afford no excuse for a civilian ex-Minister of State, armed with confidential papers, to which no others have access, making attacks on the professional reputation of officers, who, in very trying circumstances, were trying to do their duty. Indeed, it is lamentable that an ex-Minister should stoop to publish a book containing confidential reports, which are the property of the State.
Personally, I am content to abide by the finding of the Court of Inquiry which heard the evidence and went exhaustively into the case. It has never been communicated to me, and an application for a further inquiry—namely, a Court-martial—was apparently not approved.
Yours faithfully,
A. H. CHRISTIAN. Admiral.
3, Sloane-gardens, S.W.1, Feb. 20.

See Also

• How it Feels to a Clergyman to be Torpedoed on a Man-of-War.

Bibliography

• Corbett, Sir Julian S. (1921). Naval Operations. Volume II. London: Longmans, Green and Co..
• Goldrick, James (2015), "Before Jutland: The Naval War in Northern European Waters, August 1914-February 1915". Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
• Hough, Richard (1983), "The Great War at Sea, 1914-1918". Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Marder, Arthur Jacob (1965). From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919: The War Years : To the Eve of Jutland.. Volume II. London: Oxford University Press.
• Massie, Robert (2004), "Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea". London: Jonathan Cape.
• Naval Staff, Training and Staff Duties Division (1921). Naval Staff Monographs (Historical). Fleet Issue. Volume III. Monograph 6.—Passage of the British Expeditionary Force, August, 1914. Monograph 7.—The Patrol Flotillas at the Commencement of the War. Monograph 11.—The Battle of Heligoland Bight, August 28th, 1914. Monograph 8.—Naval Operations Connected with the Raid on the North-East Coast, December 16th, 1914. Monograph 12:—The Action of Dogger Bank, January 24th, 1915. O.U. 6181 (late C.B. 1585.). Copy No. 127 at The National Archives. ADM 186/610.
• Naval Staff, Training and Staff Duties Division (1924). Naval Staff Monographs (Historical): Fleet Issue. Volume XI. Home Waters—Part II. September and October 1914. O.U. 5528 A (late C.B. 917(I)). Copy at The National Archives. ADM 186/620.