Author guest post from Steve R. Dunn.

Warfare is often portrayed in learned books as being primarily concerned with matériel, tactics, and battles. Columns of print are devoted to the analysis of opposing weapon systems and the goals that they were intended to achieve. All of these are, of course, important to understand.

But warfare is also about human beings, about their psychologies, beliefs, cultural background, their fears, and their personalities. In the Battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands, towards the end of 1914, such individual characteristics were at least as important as the imbalances between the opposing forces.

The Battle of Coronel, fought on 1 November 1914, was Britain’s first naval defeat since the Battle of Lake Champlain in 1812. Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock and ships of his 4th Cruiser Squadron, out gunned and out matched, engaged with the German East Asiatic Squadron under Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee. Two Royal Navy ships were lost with all hands in the contest.

Over 1,660 British sailors, and their admiral, died at Coronel. Nearly six weeks later, on 8 December, 2,094 German sailors lost their lives when a British Squadron extracted revenge, sinking all but one of von Spee’s ships, the escapee being run to earth the following year.

Both battles were avoidable: but they were not avoided because of the beliefs and behaviours of the admirals in charge and, in the British instance, of those desk warriors who commanded from the Admiralty in Whitehall. Here First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, young, arrogant, and fuelled by self-belief, effectively directed the Royal Navy, despite having no experience of command. He overrode the Admiralty Board and, by his own admission, relished in the executive power that he assumed, despite this not being the traditional behaviour of his predecessor First Lords, who were the political masters – not the executive heads – of the navy.

Cradock had been tasked with hunting down von Spee. The forces at his disposal were weaker than those of his adversary, but Churchill repeatedly insisted to him by cable, that they were not. Cradock was old navy. He had spent his whole life in the service, and had been imbued since youth with the values of glory, duty, valour, and obedience. For him it was almost a religion. When Cradock objected to the mission and asked for reinforcements, he was practically accused of cowardice, of ‘squeaking’ in the language of the day.

And so, he set off to find his adversary, leaving behind the ‘citadel’ (as Churchill called it) of the old pre-dreadnought battle ship Canopus, which was too slow to have enabled him to find or fight von Spee. Cradock and many of his officers knew that they were likely sailing to their deaths.

The opposing forces met off Coronel, Chile, each expecting to find a single light cruiser but stumbling on a full squadron. Cradock now had no choice. The German ships were faster that three of his four vessels. He had to engage and could not run away. And he had no hesitation in doing so, dying in the resulting inferno with his men.

Back in Britain, when the news broke there was a furore. Churchill speedily distanced himself from the disaster and blamed Cradock, a position he maintained for years, despite a growing realisation that the Admiralty was to blame.

Newly installed First Sea Lord Admiral Sir John Fisher took immediate action and sent a strong force of battlecruisers under Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee. Fisher despised Sturdee and this was his way of getting him out of the Admiralty, where he was Chief of the Naval Staff. So once more, personalities played a role and the victor of the encounter that was to come was chosen on the basis of dislike.

Like Cradock, von Spee was a career navy man, but also a technocrat, and a Roman Catholic, vanishingly rare in a Protestant dominated service. Before he set off for his long cruise across the Pacific Ocean to South America and the battles to come, he had a local bishop give him absolution.

Having defeated Cradock, von Spee knew that he would be hunted. Perhaps the predestination implicit in his religion led him to believe that he could not successfully return to Germany. Instead, he chose to attack the Falkland Islands, a decision that led to his death and that of his two sons who were serving with him. For he found Sturdee’s force coaling at Port Stanley. One day either side of 8 December 1914 and they would probably have missed each other. And if von Spee had not attacked, he may well have evaded the British ships. On such moments does fate turn. Instead Sturdee, the man who had been sent only because Fisher loathed him, became a national hero, if a lucky one.

The Moirai spun their wheel. Happenstance, luck, religion, personalities; all played major roles in the two encounters. Tragedy and Revenge is the definitive account of the Battles of Coronel and the Falklands. It brings to the surface the opinions, fears and hopes of those who took part using eyewitness statements. But more than this, it demonstrates the influence of belief systems and personality on war.

Steve R Dunn

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