British Caspian Flotilla
The British Caspian Flotilla ( British Caspian - Flotilla ) was an association of the Royal Navy , who as part of the First World War and the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War was established to the British and Belarusian naval supremacy on the Caspian Sea to both the Ottoman Empire as also secure the Red Russian labor and peasant fleet . It consisted entirely of former Russian merchant ships and a few British speedboats . The flotilla received air support from No. 266 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF), which stationed its seaplanes in Petrovsk (today Makhachkala ) and from there also carried out air strikes as far as Astrakhan , the base of the workers 'and peasants' fleet.
Political and strategic situation
The Caspian Sea, the largest inland sea on earth, was at its time and is still of immense geostrategic importance at the intersection of Russia , the Caucasus , Turkey , Persia ( Iran ), Trans-Caspia (today Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan ) and Afghanistan ; its area is larger than that of the present Federal Republic of Germany .
In the spring / summer of 1918 the British government feared that
1. as a result of the collapse of Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire allied with it could come into possession of Baku's oil wells ,
2. Turkish troops on the east side of the lake could endanger a British military expedition, which was operating in Trans-Caspia against the Red Army and was absolutely dependent on its port of departure, Krasnovodsk , the beginning of the Trans-Caspian Railway . The British waged a pure railroad war along the Krasnovodsk - Tashkent railway line in the steppe and would have been hopelessly cut off from both supplies and retreat by a Turkish or Red Russian occupation of the port.
The Empire responded by dispatching an expeditionary force to Baku, which according to their commander , Lionel Dunsterville , Dunsterforce was called. The decision to set up a naval group under David Thomas Norris was made in British-occupied Baghdad on July 11, 1918. Originally it was only planned to confiscate the ships of the so-called Centro- Caspian Flotilla in Baku, which is practically the former Caspian Flotilla of the Imperial Russian Navy acted, and to spend in the port of Enseli (now Bandar Anzali ) in neutral Persia. Initially, there was no thought of building their own flotilla, even if some merchant ships were to be equipped with guns.
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On July 27, 1918, Norris set out for Enseli with a truck transport, which mainly took camel and mule tracks with 2 officers and 22 men. On the way he met Dunsterville, who was advancing towards Baku. On August 14, 1918, Norris arrived in Baku and, with the help of Dunsterforce, immediately took over the port. The flagship of his provisional flotilla was the freighter President Kruger , which has now been renamed HMS Kruger and is provisionally armored with the guns brought from Baghdad.
The Centro-Caspian Flotilla, which was controlled by the so-called Social Revolutionaries , staunch opponents of the Bolsheviks, hoped for support from the British against an advancing Turkish army under Nuri Pasha , who intended to advance in the interests of Enver Pasha via Baku to Transcaspia and, although himself the Ottoman Empire itself found itself in an extremely precarious strategic position to lay the foundations for a Greater Turkic Empire . In fact, the Turks advanced to Baku at the beginning of September, so that Norris and Dunsterville decided on a tactical retreat or to flee, since their forces were insufficient to defend Baku. and retired on the ships to Enseli. Baku was evacuated on September 14th. The Azerbaijanis , allied with the Turks, carried out a massacre of the Armenian residents of Baku over the next few weeks , allegedly killing 16,000 people; allegedly as a revenge for an Armenian massacre of Tatars that took place in March 1918.
Due to the collapse of the Central Powers, a completely new strategic situation arose in the Caspian region as well. The German Empire - German troops were already in Georgia - and Turkey were eliminated as opponents. The Red Workers 'and Peasants' Fleet in Astrakhan, on the other hand, was now massively reinforced by units of the Baltic Fleet from the Baltic Sea via the inner Russian canal system and the Volga with the aim of attacking Baku by sea and triggering a revolution with sympathizers in the city . The background was the urgent need of the government of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for the oil from Baku, the only oil well in Russia at the time. The Centro-Caspian Flotilla remained neutral and was not ready to take sides either for the British and their Belarusian allies or for the Bolsheviks.
Against this background, Norris returned to Baku on November 17, 1918 from Enseli with five ships. In December 1918, the BCF began its first patrols in the northern half of the sea. The Royal Navy was now able to transport supplies to the Caspian Sea unhindered via the port of Batumi and the railway line to Baku, including 12 speedboats that were dismantled and transported on the train. For them bases were established in Baku and Petrovsk (today Makhachkala ).
The Royal Air Force (RAF) also set up a seaplane station in Petrovsk, which the No. 266 Squadron RAF . With its Short-184 aircraft, the squadron was able to operate as far as Fort Alexandrowsk and Astrakhan. Your commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Bowhill (1880-1960), a former merchant marine and Royal Navy officer who later took up a career as a pilot and had commanded an aircraft mother ship in the North Sea during the World War .
Furthermore, four merchant ships were converted into aircraft mother ships or motorized speedboat mother ships, as the tiny speedboats were hardly seaworthy and only had a very limited radius of action.
The units of the flotilla in the summer of 1919
- HMS Kruger (ex President Kruger , flagship)
- HMS Windsor Castle (ex Leitenant Schmidt )
- HMS Emile Nobel (former oil tanker , four 6-inch guns)
- HMS Bibiat
- HMS Slava
- HMS Dublin Castle (ex Jupiter )
- HMS Venture
- HMS Asia
- HMS Zoroaster
- HMS Edinburgh Castle (Motor Speedboat Carrier)
- HMS Sergie (speed boat carrier )
- HMS Orlionoch ( Orlionok , aircraft mother ship )
- HMS A. Yusanoff (aircraft mother ship )
- 12 Coastal Motor Boats (CMB)
- Some auxiliary ships (water and oil tankers, cattle trucks)
In July 1919, the BCF had a good 1400 manpower (47 officers and 1063 men of the Royal Navy, 307 Russian men including Tatars and Armenians).
Chronology of battles and important events
- December 8, 1918: First sea battle between the “Zoroaster” and the “Alla Verdi” with Red Russian units near the Chechen Island, a good 100 km north of Petrovsk.
- December 29, 1918: A recently built Red Russian base on the mainland near the Chechen Island is destroyed by gunfire.
- Mid-January 1919: The northern half of the Caspian Sea freezes over due to the season, so that no sea operations take place north of Petrowsk until mid-April. In March 1919 the Centro Caspian Flotilla was disbanded; Denikin's volunteer army leaves Baku. The previously only informally British flotilla is now formally British. Their units set the British war flag and now have the designation HMS in front of their name.
- April 19, 1919, north of Petrovsk: HMS Asia is in action with two destroyers , which are withdrawing and laying sea mines .
- April 23rd: Several Red Russian destroyers evade HMS Kruger , HMS Zoroaster , HMS Slawa and HMS Venture .
- April 25th: Another battle with apparently eight units on the Red Russian side. As far as is known, there are no losses on either side.
- April 26th: The two flotillas meet again, but the Red Russian units remain out of range of the BCF at a distance of 14 to 15 km.
- May 15: Persecution of several Red Russian units. A convoy in which there are also two large sailing ships is blown up. The accompanying destroyer stays out of range. A prisoner questioning reveals that it was Jakow Sverdlov (ex Emir Bucharski ).
- May 18: Norris learns from an air declaration that a large Red Russian flotilla is in front of Fort Alexandrowsk . HMS Windsor Castle has a radio station of the same design as the ships of the Red Russian Flotilla, so that their radio traffic can be intercepted, some of which is open.
- May 21, 1919: Naval battle at Fort Alexandrovsk
- May 23: Air raid on Fort Alexandrovsk. Allegedly the British planes sink a destroyer and an armed merchant ship. Two destroyers attack HMS Kruger , which is not hit. You are probably turning off due to a lack of fuel.
- On June 10, 1919, rumors spread that the BCF would be handed over to General Denikin. The British suspect that the Red Russian Caspi flotilla retreated up the Volga estuary to Astrakhan.
- June 16: The RAF carries out an air strike on Astrakhan, an aircraft is lost.
- June 21: Through a radio message addressed to him by the Red Russian Caspi Flotilla, Norris learns that the British aircraft crew, the Lieutenant Mantle and Ingram, who were shot down over Astrakhan, are being held there and are being treated well, as long as this is also the case for Red Russian prisoners in the British Custody applies. At this point in time, Fyodor Fyodorowitsch Raskolnikow is probably already the commander of the flotilla and his wife Larissa Reissner is its political commissioner .
- June 27th: The RAF carries out another attack on Astrakhan with eight planes. According to observations by British aviators, the Nobel factories, the airfield and the port facilities will be badly hit.
- July 20: The BCF should be handed over to Denikin in the foreseeable future. In fact, the handover of the ships begins on July 27th, and they again carry the Russian (tsarist) war flag.
- August 8: Off Ashurada (now Bandar-e Torkaman ), HMS Orlionoch and HMS Bibiat attack two pirate ships , the Van and the Chastevoy , who surrender and raise the white flag. They are occupied by Belarusian Cossacks and brought to Enseli.
At the end of August 1919, HMS Kruger was handed over to the Belarusian Volunteer Army as the last BCF unit. The delivery was commented by the Kruger ensign's paymaster Patrick Thornhill (1900–1990) in a touch of melancholy in his diary entry of August 28, 1919:
... It is quite tough to have to hand over what you have built up with hard work within a year - to people who will probably ruin it within a month. One of the first stories we hear is that the NOBEL recently went to sea for target practice and fired its aft gun with the muzzle flap still in the barrel, causing the end of the barrel to fly off. Every moving piece of equipment on board appears to have been stolen and monetized as soon as the boys got their hands on it. Anyway, a lot of things keep me under the wind ...
Thornhill, From Scapa Flow into the Caspian Sea , p. 177
The end of the flotilla. The Red Russian coup d'état on Enseli
As far as is known, after the handover of the BCF to the volunteer army, there were no more fighting with the Red Workers 'and Peasants' Fleet, which the British had not expected. In March 1920 the Red Army advanced into the Transcaucasus. On April 28, 1920, a Bolshevik uprising was triggered in Baku, which resulted in the flight of the 18-unit Belarusian flotilla to the neutral Enseli (Bandar Anzali).
The flotilla was completely taken by surprise on May 18, 1920 by the Red Russian Kaspi flotilla under the command of Raskolnikow , flagship Karl Liebknecht , breaking Persian neutrality in a coup d'état by Enseli . The British Major General Hugh Frederick Bateman-Champain also happened to be captured by the 1,500-strong landing command. Bateman-Champain and his small troops were released against the surrender of the ships and various goods and ammunition (50 guns and 20,000 rounds of artillery ammunition alone).
Raskolnikow fell into the hands of 10 auxiliary cruisers and seven transporters or smaller ships that were transferred to Baku. Their fate is unknown. Presumably, as before the World War, the ships were used for transport purposes.
literature
- Keyword: Astrakhan-Caspian Flotilla , in: Soviet Military Encyclopedia , Vol. 1, p. 304.
- Winfried Baumgart : The "Kaspi Company". Ludendorff's megalomania or routine planning by the German General Staff? In: Jahrbuch für Geschichte Osteuropas , 18, 1970, pp. 47–126, 231–278.
- German Society for Shipping and Naval History (ed.): Patrick Thornhill. From Scapa Flow to the Caspian Sea. An uncensored diary 1918-1919 . Edited by Cord Eberspächer and Gerhard Wiechmann. Translator Dirk Nottelmann, Bremen (Hauschild) 2011. ISBN 978-3-89757-498-4
- Werner Zürrer: Caucasus 1918-1921. The struggle of the great powers over the land bridge between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea , Düsseldorf 1978.
- David Norris: Caspian Naval expedition, 1918-1919 , in: Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society , Vol. 10, Issue 3, 1923, pp. 216-240.
- Paul Halpern (ed.): The Mediterranean Fleet, 1919-1929. Publications of the Navy Records Society Vol. 158 , Farnham, Surrey (Ashgate) 2011. ISBN 978-1-4094-2756-8