Dogger Bank Incident
The Dogger Bank incident is also known as the Incident of Hull ( Russian Гулльский инцидент , English incident Dogger Bank or Russian Outrage ) described shelling of British fishing boats off the Dogger Bank by the Russian Baltic Fleet in 1904. The Russian in the night from 21 to 22 October Warships were on their way to the Far East to intervene in the Russo-Japanese War .
Due to uncertain reports about the presence of Japanese torpedo boats and the general nervousness of Russian seafarers, about 30 uninvolved fishing boats were attacked by the Russians - thousands of nautical miles from enemy waters. The incident turned into a conflict that for a few days brought Europe to the brink of Anglo-Russian war.
prehistory
The largest part of the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet was launched as the Second Pacific Squadron on October 15, 1904 from Libau (in what is now Latvia). The fleet, under the command of Admiral Zinovi Petrovich Roschestvensky, was to be relocated to the Far East to relieve the First Pacific Squadron captured by the Japanese in Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou, China) . Already on the evening of October 16, the ships were put on alert because Japanese torpedo boats had apparently been sighted. Allegedly these had only recently been built in Great Britain.
On October 20, the Russian ships anchored off Skagen to pick up coal for the onward journey. There you met the freighter Bakan (Бакан), whose captain Admiral Roschestvensky also reported on four torpedo boats sighted in the North Sea. The news immediately spread among the officers and sailors of the Russian ships and terrified the unskilled crew. Roschestvensky divided the squadron into six groups for protection, who left their berths individually and several hours apart. The alarm was given on the ships and readiness for combat was established. Hatches and doors were locked and the decks of the ships were cleared of superfluous wooden superstructures. The guns were loaded and all signal lights extinguished. The gun commanders had orders to aim the guns at any ship that refused to show its flag. In the event that a ship was separated from the squadron, the headland of Dungeness was agreed as the assembly point.
The night of October 21 and the following day passed without further incident. In the evening the fleet had reached the Dogger Bank area and was level with the British city of Hull .
The events
The night of October 21-22, 1904
The supply ship Kamchatka (Камчатка) was one of the first groups to leave. However, due to an engine failure, it had been unable to keep the pace of ten knots and had fallen far behind. The moon stayed almost completely behind clouds and fog that night, so visibility was poor. The captain of the ship mistook the Swedish ship Aldebaran , which was passing in the dark, to be a Japanese torpedo boat and radioed the flagship Knjas Suvorov (Князь Суворов) at around 8:45 p.m., stating that he was under attack. The squadron was then signaled at around 9 p.m.: “ Torpedo boat attack expected from aft. “In the meantime, the following radio traffic has developed between the workshop ship and the Knjas Suworow :
- Kamchatka: Am pursued by torpedo boats.
- Knyaz Suvorov: Are you being persecuted? How many boats and from which direction?
- Kamchatka: The attack is coming from all sides.
- Knyaz Suvorov: How many boats? Provides details.
- Kamchatka: There are about eight torpedo boats.
- Knyaz Suvorov: Are you close?
- Kamchatka: You are one cable length and closer.
- Knyaz Suvorov: Were torpedoes shot down?
- Kamchatka: That could not be determined.
- Knjas Suvorov: Which course are you heading now?
- Kamchatka: Southeast 70 degrees with 12 knots. Request position of the squadron.
- Knyaz Suvorov: Do torpedo boats chase you? You must first leave the danger zone, change course, then report your latitude and longitude, whereupon the course will be given to you.
- Kamchatka: We are afraid to give information.
At around 11 p.m. the flagship asked again by radio whether torpedo boats had been sighted. After about 20 minutes the supply ship reported that there were no more boats to be seen. The admiral and his staff met the radio messages with skepticism, as it was unlikely that the Japanese would have chosen an unimportant workshop ship as their first target.
At the same time, Admiral von Fölkersahm's 2nd Division, which had left its berth a few hours before Admiral Roschestwenski's 1st Division, passed the Dogger Bank. Von Fölkersahm recognized the British fishing boats and then changed course to pass the fishing flotilla north. However, he failed to inform Admiral Roschestvensky about the sighted fishing boats.
At around 12:55 a.m., the officers of the 1st Division who were on watch discovered the British ships on the port side . Shortly afterwards, a fishing boat shot down a green missile with which it wanted to signal the signal "put over starboard necks " to the other boats . The Russian signal guests misinterpreted the signal. The Russian liners then turned their headlights on the fishing boats, which were also identified as such. In the beam of light from the headlights, however, another boat appeared for a brief moment, reminiscent of the silhouette of a torpedo boat and headed at full speed towards the Russian warships. The alarm went off on the flagship. However, the admiral could no longer make out the supposed torpedo boat. The searchlights brushed the British trawlers again. A gun leader on the Knjas Suvorov then opened fire on the fishing boats on his own without orders. This was understood by some officers on the other ships as permission to fire on the boats they saw. Then the entire first division opened fire on the British fishermen. A trawler was shot immediately unable to maneuver and drifted onto the ship of the line Imperator Alexander III. (Император Александр III.) To. Admiral Roschestvensky ordered the fire to stop immediately.
Only a short moment later another supposed torpedo boat was sighted on port side. The admiral now gave orders to fire at any suspicious ship in that direction. When the armored-deck cruiser Aurora (Аврора) and the cruiser Dimitri Donskoi (Дмитрий Донской) approached from this direction and caught the flagship with their searchlights, these ships were also mistaken for Japanese warships and shot at immediately. The Aurora was hit by several projectiles and was slightly damaged. The ship priest of the cruiser lost by a detonating grenade an arm and died several days later. An officer working as a gun leader was slightly injured.
After a few minutes the mistake was recognized and the officers removed the completely overexcited gun leaders from their weapons, sometimes under threat of violence. The clocks showed 01:05. The bombardment had lasted no more than 10 minutes. During this time, the Russian ships had fired a total of seventeen 152 mm projectiles and around 500 rounds of the light guns. In addition, about 1,800 rounds were fired from the machine guns .
At that moment the Kamchatka , which was still behind the first division, reported that two boats had again been sighted without the required position lights. The British trawler Crane was sunk in the shelling . Two British sailors, the Crane's captain - George Henry Smith - and crew member William Richard Legget, were killed by shrapnel. When the imminent sinking of the Crane was noticed on the other boats , some fishermen from the trawler Gull boarded a lifeboat to rescue the injured. Mate Charles Beer, chief engineer Harry Smirk and boatswain Edwin Costello rescued the wounded and recovered William Legget's body. Beer, Smirk and Costello as well as the surviving crew members of the Crane were later awarded the Albert Medal for life saving at sea. On the remaining five damaged boats, including the trawlers Moulmein and Mino , a total of six fishermen were wounded, one of them so seriously that he died as a result in May 1905.
At around 1.30 a.m., the Kamchatka caught up with the flagship. The alleged torpedo boats were not sighted for the time being. However, the admiral was certain that at least one enemy torpedo boat must be in the vicinity. He therefore ordered the journey to continue immediately, without worrying about the British fishing boats or rescuing any shipwrecked people . In his report to the Tsar, the admiral later wrote:
"Since the behavior of the fishing trawlers appeared suspicious and since I was not sure that all the torpedo boats involved in the attack had been switched off, I left the injured to the care of their comrades."
Investigating the incident
The incident sparked a serious diplomatic conflict between Russia and Britain. The relationship between the two states had already been strained since the beginning of the war, since Great Britain had been a formal ally of Japan since 1902. The British King Edward VII was indignant about Roshestvensky's actions. The Russian ambassador to London, Count Benckendorff , was greeted by an angry and hooting crowd at London-Victoria station on his return from a trip to the mainland and had to be protected from the mob by the police. The Russian fleet has been called pirates and barbarians in the world press . Above all, the British tabloids did not skimp on malice and ridicule. Admiral Roschestvensky was given the unflattering nickname Mad Dog - rabid dog - by British journalists . The Evening Standard ordered Tsar Nicholas II to recall the fleet immediately. The Russian government wanted to avoid another war at all costs, but found the British demands to be bold and inappropriate. The Tsar instructed his ministers to settle the dispute through diplomatic channels. At the same time he continued to express his confidence in Admiral Roschestvensky in a telegram dated October 29th.
The British public called for Home Fleet intervention and continued to expect the Russian admiral to be brought to justice. Roschestvensky was particularly criticized for leaving the fishermen to their fate and not sending out lifeboats. The surviving fishermen then also stated that a torpedo boat had stayed near the fishing boats until daybreak without providing any assistance. As Denmark and the Netherlands immediately declared that they had no boats at sea, no rapporteur doubted that it must have been a Russian boat. The Russians, however, later stated that the boat sighted must have been a damaged Japanese torpedo boat. This declaration was sharply rejected by British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour in a speech on October 28th as “pure fancy”, not least because the basis of such a boat in the North Sea would not go undiscovered. It could never be conclusively determined which flag the ship in question was sailing under.
The British Navy, meanwhile, pursued the Russian fleet and locked it in Vigo ( Spain ). Admiral Roschestvensky only found out about the political consequences of the incident from the Russian Consul General. Meanwhile, the Russians were forbidden from coaling and going ashore by the port commander there . The British fleet watched the Russian squadron every step of the way. Roschestvensky's fleet could now anchor and load the coal only with great difficulty, even in neutral ports.
Russia had to allow an investigation into the incident before the ships were allowed to continue. Roschestvensky dispatched from Vigo Captain Nikolai Klado and two other witnesses to the incident to St. Petersburg before the fleet could leave for Tangier on November 1st . However, the British Navy continued to pursue the squadron.
The investigation into the incident took place before an international arbitration tribunal in Paris , which was chaired by a commission of five admirals from the USA , France , Austria-Hungary , Great Britain and Russia. The witnesses sent by Admiral Roschestvensky insisted that enemy torpedo boats were present. They described in detail the superstructures and the number of chimneys. When asked, the Japanese government, as expected, denied that any of its warships had ever been in the North Sea. On February 25, 1905, the majority of the commission found misconduct by the Russian fleet.
However, the measures taken by Roshestvensky to protect his squadron were approved. The majority of the commission considered these orders to be appropriate, taking into account the state of war and especially under the circumstances, which the squadron commander must rightly view as very worrying, especially since he had no means of verifying the accuracy of the news sent to him Russian agents had reached. However, since he had given the order to open fire, he was also held responsible for the consequences. However, the question of who could be blamed for the events and to what extent remained unclear .
The majority of the commission stated that it was not possible to determine which objects the ships had fired at. The commission agreed that the vessels of the fishing fleet had not committed any hostile act. The majority of the commission was of the opinion that the opening of the fire by Admiral Roschestvensky was not justified as there were no torpedo boats between the fishing boats or anywhere in the vicinity. The Russian envoy, Admiral Dubassov , could not agree with this last formulation. He stuck to his claim that hostile torpedo boats were on the scene. The incident ultimately remained unsolved. A decision that was accepted by all parties was never made.
Even before the Russian fleet was almost completely destroyed in the sea battle at Tsushima , the Russian government paid a total of £ 65,000 on March 9, 1905 to compensate the fishermen, primarily to prevent Great Britain from entering the war. Great Britain nevertheless made the Russian government promise that the Russians would not hinder the British-Japanese contraband trade on the way to the Far East . For the Russian fleet, however, the British influence on the onward journey continued to cause considerable problems with the coaling of their ships and with anchoring in neutral ports.
The reputation of Admiral Roschestvensky was largely ruined by the incident before the devastating defeat in the sea battle at Tsushima.
The impact of the Doggerbank incident on European politics
The British public had expected an immediate entry into the war on the part of the Japanese. But that was not what the British government wanted: the danger of getting into a war of global proportions was too high. A declaration of war on Russia would have a relatively high probability of France entering war against Great Britain. The Entente Cordiale , which existed between Great Britain and France , did not contain a military agreement, but merely served to reduce the mutual danger of war. The Franco-Russian alliance was expressly against the German Empire , but would have broken if France had stood still against Great Britain. As a result, Russia would most likely have formed an alliance with Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II was already courting Russia fiercely. On October 27th he sent the tsar a telegram and only a few days later Wilhelm II traveled to Russia and suggested the creation of a so-called continental bloc against the British-Japanese alliance in St. Petersburg. Just in case, the leadership of the German East Asia Squadron had the fortifications of the East Chinese naval base at Tsingtao expanded. The Japanese Foreign Ministry openly announced that Japanese warships would not hesitate to sink German transport ships if they were to supply the Russians with coal in the “war zone” (the extent of which there was no uniform definition). Meanwhile, the emperor asked whether the Russians wanted to have their ships of the line built at German shipyards in the future. The preliminary negotiations between the two states led to the exchange of draft treaties in November of that year.
With an alliance between Germany and Russia, however, not only would the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine have become utopian for France , but French security would also have been endangered. In a war between the Russia-France blocs and Great Britain-Japan, Germany would have been left out or would have entered the war on the side of the former. In the first case, the German Reich would have been the laughing third party, the second was equivalent to a German-Russian agreement. In addition, France could not risk a war against Great Britain because Russia fought in East Asia and with the withdrawal of the 2nd Pacific Squadron, there were no longer any major naval forces available in Europe. So France would have had to face the Royal Navy alone . For all these reasons France was keen to find a quick solution to the crisis and tried to appease the British.
This succeeded because the British government was aware that the Empire was waging war against France in Europe , Africa and Indochina , as well as against Russia in Afghanistan (simmering British-Russian conflict for supremacy in Central Asia, known as " The Great Game ") would have grown. In the meantime Germany could calmly complete its armament at sea or would have entered the war and made the British situation even worse. In Europe, an allied Franco-German fleet would have put the Royal Navy in distress and in Africa and Asia additional theaters of war against German protection troops and squadrons would have arisen. The British Foreign Secretary Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne , therefore tried to limit the damage and wanted to settle the conflict peacefully.
The French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé was able to persuade the British to settle the crisis. With this result, in turn, it was possible for him to stop the ongoing preliminary discussions for negotiations on a German-Russian alliance. He demanded that the tsar apologize as soon as possible for his admiral's misstep. This is the only way to prevent a military conflict. The Russians also did not want a war with Great Britain: The war in East Asia already led to discontent among the Russian population and would now have resulted in a conflict over Afghanistan. In addition, the 2nd Pacific Squadron would have been lost. Therefore the Tsar gratefully accepted France's mediation. Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow , however, saw Delcassé as an enemy and did not understand how to use the Russian-French alliance for his goals. Since Russia, against the will of the German government, insisted on including France in the treaty, the German-Russian negotiations failed after a few weeks.
The crisis received additional conflict potential from the coaling of the Russian fleet by German cargo ships on the Hamburg-America line . Both Japan and Great Britain saw the coal deliveries as a breach of German neutrality . The German government tried to pull itself out of the affair by the fact that the German coal ships were to be bought up by Russia in order to man them with Russian sailors. The naval headquarters in St. Petersburg, however, rejected this request and insisted that the German suppliers continue to fulfill the contract. While Germany increasingly lost its reputation among all parties involved, Delcassé achieved a rapprochement between the British and France and Russia.
The consequences for the German Reich were fatal: the joint settlement of the Doggerbank crisis accelerated an understanding between the three great powers, which was consolidated in the Triple Entente in 1907 . The German Reich saw itself surrounded, which is where the catchphrase “encircling Germany ” has its origin. The isolation of Germany led to nervousness and headlessness, which are reflected in the endless discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of an alliance with Russia or the USA . At the same time, attempts were made to turn the tide and force France to accept a German-Russian alliance by accelerating the Moroccan crisis of 1905 . The German Reich not only experienced a severe diplomatic defeat, but also gave the other European powers the feeling that Germany was trying to play them off against one another and drive them to war. This laid the foundation for the coming First World War . (see also war aims in the First World War )
After the verdict on February 25, 1905, Russian-British relations gradually normalized over the next few months. In 1907, Russia finally joined the Entente , which became a three-way alliance.
Post-history
Root cause research
The Russian staff officer on board Roshestvensky's flagship, Captain 2nd rank Vladimir Semyonov, later tried to prove that there must have been Japanese torpedo boats on the Dogger Bank. Semenov, who had survived the naval battle at Tsushima , was taken prisoner by Japan with the admiral. The Japanese placed him in a military hospital in Sasebo . There - as Semenov claims in his 1907 book "Retribution" (Расплата) - he had a conversation with a Japanese officer who confessed to him that he had been with his ship in the North Sea at the time of the Doggerbank incident. When asked whether the Japanese was involved in the incident, the latter replied evasively. Semyonov probably wanted to back up the statements of Admiral Roschestvensky. He maintained until the end of his life that there must actually have been Japanese torpedo boats on site.
The British naval war historian Fred T. Jane referred to another fact: under the given conditions, the procedure made at least military sense. In his work "Heresies of Sea Power", published in 1906, he expressly approves of Admiral Roschestvensky's approach:
“It doesn't matter at all whether the Russians fired at their own ships or not. The main thing remains that they felt attacked and immediately opened fire, regardless of the fact that anyone who was around might be injured. This was an absolutely impeccable act from a nautical-military point of view. Firing at anything that is suspicious is the only possible order for any fleet that believes it is facing the threat of a torpedo boat attack. To wait until one is certain would be to voluntarily expose oneself to destruction. Likewise, if an admiral believes he has been attacked, he would be committing something worse than an error if he were to wait to provide assistance to any innocent victim. "
It was not until 1935 that a study by the author Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Novikow (1909–1971) was published in a Russian naval magazine, who had researched detailed background information on the causes of the Dogger Bank incident. According to Novikov, the Russian Navy Ministry, fearing Japanese attacks on the squadron during its long voyage, hired a spy to gather information about planned actions by the Japanese Navy. To a man named Abram Gekkelman, one operating under the pseudonym Arkady Mikhailovich Garting foreign agents of the czarist was Okhrana with zwielichtigem reputation of being a loan of 150,000 rubles (according to other sources even up to 500,000 rubles) was approved. This settled under the code name Arnold in Copenhagen and from there built up a Europe-wide network of spies. Presumably to justify his high expenses, Gekkelman kept reporting suspicious ship movements in the North Sea. These continuously spread false reports are likely to have contributed significantly to the nervousness of the Russian naval command and the squadron chief.
The Fisherman's Memorial
In 1906 the Fisherman's Memorial was unveiled in Hull on the corner of Boulevard and Hessle Road, commemorating the deaths of the three British sailors. The approximately 5.40 m high statue shows the killed fisherman George Henry Smith and bears the following inscription:
“Erected by public subscription to the memory of George Henry Smith (skipper) and William Richard Legget (third hand), of the ill-fated trawler CRANE, who lost their lives in the North Sea by the action of the Russian Baltic Fleet, October 22, 1904, and Walter Whelpton, skipper of the trawler MINO, who died through shock, May 1905. "
“Erected by donations in memory of George Henry Smith (captain) and William Richard Legget (third crew member) of the trawler CRANE, who lost their lives in the North Sea to the actions of the Russian Baltic Fleet on October 22, 1904, and Walter Whelpton, captain of the trawler MINO, who died of shock in May 1905. "
Remarks
- ↑ Alexej Silytsch Novikow-Priboj: Tsushima. Berlin 1954, p. 75 (1st edition).
- ^ The New York Times , October 25, 1904, LONDON MOB ATTACKS RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR; Hoots Count Benckendorff and Tries to Smash Carriage. POLICE GUARD EMBASSY . The Count Sends Long Cipher Message to St. Petersburg ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Arthur Balfour: Leader's speech, Southampton 1904 at britishpoliticalspeech.org, accessed October 1, 2014
- ^ A b International Commissions of Inquiry: Incident in the North Sea (The Dogger Bank Case) at worldcourts.com, accessed October 1, 2014
- ↑ Werner Stingl: The Far East in German Politics. 1978, p. 492.
- ↑ Barbara Vogel : German Russian Policy. 1973, pp. 204f.
- ↑ Barbara Vogel: German Russian Policy. 1973, p. 214ff.
- ↑ George Monger: The end of isolation.
- ↑ Barbara Vogel: German Russian Policy. 1973, pp. 214f.
- ↑ Barbara Vogel: German Russian Policy. 1973, p. 216
- ↑ Barbara Vogel: German Russian Policy. 1973, p. 216ff.
- ↑ George Monger: The end of isolation. 1963, p. 27ff.
- ↑ Photo of the monument ( memento from January 23, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ Photograph of the inscription
literature
- Imanuel Geiss : The long way to catastrophe. The prehistory of the First World War. 1815-1914 (= Piper 943). Piper, Munich et al. 1990, ISBN 3-492-10943-8 .
- George Monger: The end of isolation. British foreign policy 1900–1907. Nelson, London et al. 1963.
- AS Novikov-Priboi : Tsushima. Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-327-00251-7 .
- Constantine Pleshakov : The Tsar's last armada - The epic voyage to the battle of Tsushima. Basic Books, New York NY 2002, ISBN 0-465-05792-6 .
- Jürgen W. Schmidt: The Russian military intelligence service during the Russo-Japanese War 1904/05 in Manchuria and at sea. In: Bochum yearbook for East Asia research. Vol. 25, 2001, ISSN 0170-0006 , pp. 111-129.
- Vladimir Ssemenov: Rassplata. Diary of the Port Arthur Blockade and the Departure of the Fleet under Rojestwensky. Mittler and Son, Berlin 1908.
- Werner Stingl: The Far East in German Politics before the First World War. (1902-1914). Volume 2. Haag et al. Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-88129-087-7 .
- Frank Thiess : Tsushima. The novel of a naval war. Zsolnay, Berlin et al. 1936 (also: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-499-15938-4 ).
- Barbara Vogel : German Russia Policy. The failure of German world politics under Bülow 1900–1906 (= studies on modern history 11). Bertelsmann, Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 3-571-09051-9 (also: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 1973).
- Walter Wood: North Sea Fishers And Fighters . K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, London 1911, Chapter XXII: The Russian Outrage .
Web links
- Description of the incident as well as an overview of the compensation claims and payments ( memento of August 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- Report of the International Commission of February 26, 1905 (English)
- Exhibition at the Hull Maritime Museum about the "Russian Outrage" from 1904 (English)
