Sea War in the Franco-German War

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The naval battle off Havana as a draftsman had imagined

The naval war between North German and French ships was a sideline to the Franco-German War of 1870/71. Due to poor preparation, the French Empire was unable to weaken the North German economy by blocking the North Sea . Likewise, the prerequisites for dropping French soldiers on the coast were lacking.

A sea battle took place off the coast of Havana ( Cuba ) when the steam gunboat Meteor of the Navy of the North German Confederation struck the French Aviso Bouvet . The battle ended in a draw. Another battle fought on July 22, 1870, the smooth-deck corvette Nymphe with three French armored corvettes of the Alma class and an Aviso in the Danzig Bay . The nocturnal surprise attack went off without losses, but the French withdrew. The naval war was otherwise of little importance, since the North German Federal Navy was still small and rarely used.

Starting position and landing plans

The North German Confederation from 1867 to 1870 had both a North Sea coast and an extensive coast on the Baltic Sea .

France under Emperor Napoleon III. had a fleet of 470 ships in 1870, only surpassed by the British fleet . The North German Confederation , on the other hand, only had a little more than a tenth of it and tried to defend the North German coastline with five tank frigates . If France could have made effective use of its superior power at sea, it would have had a significant impact on the war.

Napoleon III originally planned to land an infantry corps of 9,000 marines and 20,000 reservists. Since the road connections were quite far from the coast, the North German Confederation would have had a hard time sending troops against it. The French were aware of this. They wanted to tie at least 160,000 Prussian soldiers through the landing operation and artillery attacks from the sea. Prussia, on the other hand, feared that a French expeditionary force would march through Pomerania and lead the Poles to revolt. A sea blockade would have caused enormous damage to the North German economy and above all prevented the importation of important raw materials. The expeditionary force should be commanded by General Louis Jules Trochu .

France also aimed for an alliance with Denmark . This country, which a few years ago was still at war with Prussia, had an army of 50,000 men and a notable navy. A Danish entry into the war was only to be expected if France could make successful landings itself. Without any reference to reality, France had hoped for an uprising by the Danes in Schleswig-Holstein . Ultimately, in reality, British-Russian pressure should also have an impact on Denmark remaining neutral.

The main problem was that the important French Mediterranean fleet with its twelve ironclad ships had been sent to Malta on July 4, 1870 . It would have taken three weeks to move her at least to Brest on the Atlantic coast. The reason for this was, in part, the difficulty of telegraphing contact with the fleet, as well as the time it took for vacations to be withdrawn and conscripts to move in. The fleet would not have arrived in the North Sea until the second week of August . As was Moltke's invasion of France are not disturbed and severe storms in October, the trip on the North Sea more. The delay also had to do with the fact that the Minister of the Navy had to do everything possible to prevent Jerome-Napoleon , a cousin of the emperor, from receiving command. France then failed to set up an expeditionary force , as was established on August 3rd. "It was a strategic mishap for the French," said Geoffrey Wawro, because it enabled the Prussian army to rush to the French border undisturbed and undiminished.

French operations in the Baltic Sea

Admiral Louis Bouet-Willaumez

The imperial canal fleet, now called the Baltic Squadron, concentrated near Cherbourg and sailed northeast towards the North Sea on July 24th. Under Admiral Louis Bouet-Willaumez it consisted of the armored frigates Surveillante , Gauloise , Guyenne , Flandre and Océan , the armored corvettes Thetis and Jean d'Arc and the Aviso Cassard . On August 2, 1870, the squadron arrived in Kjöge Bay near Copenhagen , where it also set up its headquarters , which the actually neutral Danes had benevolently tolerated.

Both the Baltic and the approaching Mediterranean fleet immediately suffered from a lack of coal. A small proportion of the demand could be met in Denmark or on the British island of Heligoland , but the largest had to be brought hundreds of miles from the nearest French stock in Dunkirk .

The French ships therefore had to save coal by going slowly or even anchoring for days in the hope that their presence alone would discourage North German blockade breakers . However, if a north German ship approached, this only led to a futile pursuit that consumed coal. On August 12th, Bouet consulted with his officers on board his flagship near Kiel as to where to land, since he had received an order from the Minister of War. But to them, the entire north German coast seemed unsuitable for this, because of shallows or good coastal defense. Coastal batteries of Krupp could fire twice as much as the French cannons . A landing operation was impossible without the appropriate troops.

On August 17, the first incident occurred when the Aviso Grille, together with the gunboats of the flotilla division, encountered three French tank frigates and an Aviso off Dornbusch ( Hiddensee ). SMS Grille opened fire and then withdrew towards Hiddensee, the French ships refrained from pursuing them due to the shallow waters. Damage was not reported.

The blockade was declared for the entire German Baltic Sea coast on August 18, 1870 and as a result the French ships cruised along the German coast to proclaim the blockade in the German ports accordingly. A French squadron made up of three French tank frigates and an Aviso anchored in the Bay of Danzig on August 22nd. The corvette Nymphe , which was parked to protect the harbor under her commanding officer, Captain Weickhmann, then undertook a night attack on the enemy ships and fired two broadsides at the enemy. The French ships slipped their anchors and withdrew - also firing - from the Danzig Bay. However, the exchange of fire had no effect on either side. The Baltic Sea Squadron was withdrawn to France on September 24th without success.

French operations in the North Sea

The French Baltic Sea squadron on its return voyage off Heligoland on September 26, 1870. From left: Guyenne , Thetis , Flandre , Ocean and Surveillante .

For the commanding officer of the French squadron in the North Sea, Vice Admiral Fourichon , the situation was similarly hopeless, he did not even have enough nautical charts, which he therefore had to buy in Denmark. The mouths of the Elbe and Weser were secured with underwater mines and chains, among other things, and the German pilots refused their services, so that he could not attack the half-finished base in Wilhelmshaven, for example .

The French North Sea squadron arrived in the North Sea with the armored frigates Magnanime ( flagship ), Provence , Héroine , Couronne , Invincible , Valeureuse and Revanche , the armored corvette Atalante , the corvettes Chateau Renaud and Cosmos and the Avisos Renard and Decres . The blockade over the North Sea coast was declared on August 25th. The French squadron stayed mostly in the waters around the British Heligoland. Both sides sent reconnaissance forces a few times, with only one encounter with a brief exchange of fire between Arminius and the Atalante on August 24th in the Weser estuary , which ended without consequences.

The French navy was barely able to attack the country because the corresponding ships were decommissioned or repaired after the Crimean War . France was only able to maintain the blockade, which was already incomplete, until September. He had to withdraw the ships for the winter. The soldiers on the ships were also needed for the strategic reserve in France itself. With the withdrawal to France on September 10, the naval war in the North Sea ended. Patrols in the North Sea continued, however, and forced the North German Navy to maintain the defense there.

North German Federal Navy

The Augusta , a north German ship. It was originally built in France for the American southern states .

The North German Confederation was still building up its navy, which was founded in 1867. She had three large and two small ironclad ships, a number of screw steamers, and other, weaker warships. The main base was Wilhelmshaven on the Jade . In June 1870, four North German ironclads were on their way to the Atlantic. Because of political tensions and as the French government in 1870 on July 15 war credits was approved for the Army and Navy, which was a declaration of war from the perspective of the German states only a matter of time and so the squadron rushed back and reached Wilhelmshaven on 16 July. France declared war three days later.

The Prussian general Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein was appointed governor of the coastal regions , he commanded the 18th division of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg Schwerin, as well as the voluntary sea ​​defense . As the main coastal defense measures, the navigation signs were removed, port entrances mined and beach batteries installed. Prince Adalbert of Prussia was in the Great Headquarters as Commander in Chief of the Navy of the North German Confederation, the floating units were therefore de facto subordinate to his deputy, the Commander in Chief of the North Sea Vice Admiral Jachmann . The navy's flagship , the armored frigate King Wilhelm, was on the Jade with the main forces of the fleet, the armored frigates Kronprinz and Friedrich Carl , the armored ship Arminius and seven gunboats. However, King Wilhelm and Friedrich Carl were only partially operational due to various damage. The mouth of the Ems was guarded by two other gunboats.

The main base in the Baltic Sea was Kiel , where the Renown liner was stationed alongside a few beach batteries . In addition there was the Aviso Prussian Eagle , the flagship of the Baltic Sea forces , two gunboats, and the corvette Elisabeth , which was detained in the Baltic Sea due to the French blockade and only later ran to Wilhelmshaven . The commander of the Baltic Sea Forces was Rear Admiral Heldt . In the eastern Baltic Sea, the so-called flotilla division was founded from the Aviso Grille and the gunboats Blitz , Salamander and Drache , which was commanded by Corvette Captain Count Waldersee. She cruised in the coastal waters off Rügen and Stralsund . The gunboat Tiger cruised east of Rügen. The port of Gdansk with the important shipyard was protected by the corvette Nymphe . When war broke out continues the corvettes were Medusa and Hertha as Stationary in East Asia . They were blocked until the armistice in the port of Yokohama by superior French naval forces . The school corvette Arcona was in the Azores when the war broke out . The gunboat Meteor was stationary in the West Indies . All other units had been decommissioned in order to be able to adequately man the ships in use.

The Navy of the North German Confederation was rarely used in the North Sea during the Franco-Prussian War. From August 5 to 7, Jachmann advanced with the armored squadron towards the Danish coast, but could not find the French units.

While the French navy had to break off their attack on the Jade, ordered on August 25, the North German attack on the superior French fleet at Heligoland did not take place. Such an attack had been ordered on September 12 by Vice Admiral Eduard von Jachmann . But the commanders refused because they foresaw a catastrophe. An advance by the Crown Prince to Cherbourg planned for the beginning of February 1871 with the aim of destroying the lock gates and sinking ships lying in the harbor did not take place with the beginning of the armistice.

The only naval battle of the war ultimately took place overseas. The north German gunboat Meteor was just in Havana , on the then Spanish island of Cuba . On November 7th, it encountered the French Aviso Bouvet off the coast . The two ships harmed each other, but returned home.

Towards the end of the war, the North German corvette Augusta fought French supply ships in the North Atlantic and in the Bay of Biscay . The commander was again Captain Weidmann, who had switched from the Nymph to the Augusta . Under his command, the ship was able to sink an enemy and send two more ships to Germany as prizes . But when the Augusta was loading coal in Vigo, northern Spain , French ships blocked their onward voyage. Only after the armistice did Augusta return to Germany.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 189.
  2. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 189.
  3. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 190.
  4. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 190.
  5. ↑ Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. The North German Federal Navy 1867–1871. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, ISBN 978-1-4092-2509-6 , p. 39.
  6. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, pp. 190/191.
  7. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 191.
  8. ↑ Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. The North German Federal Navy 1867–1871. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, p. 40.
  9. ↑ Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. The North German Federal Navy 1867–1871. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, p. 41.
  10. ↑ Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. The North German Federal Navy 1867–1871. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, p. 39.
  11. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 192.
  12. ^ Geoffrey Wawro: The Franco-Prussian War. The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 . Oxford University Press, Oxford [u. a.] 2003, p. 192.
  13. ↑ Hans Georg Steltzer: The German fleet. A historical overview from 1640 to 1918. Frankfurt: Societäts-Verlag 1989, pp. 112/113.
  14. ^ Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Volume 5: Ship biographies from Kaiser to Lütjens. Mundus Verlag o. J., p. 164 f. (Approved license issue Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft Hamburg)
  15. ↑ Hans Georg Steltzer: The German fleet. A historical overview from 1640 to 1918. Frankfurt: Societäts-Verlag 1989, p. 111, p. 113/114.
  16. ↑ Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. The North German Federal Navy 1867–1871. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, ISBN 978-1-4092-2509-6 , pp. 46-48.
  17. ↑ Hans Georg Steltzer: The German fleet. A historical overview from 1640 to 1918. Frankfurt: Societäts-Verlag 1989, p. 114.