THE WAR AT SEA
WAR IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: 1914 - 1917
THE BATTLE OF THE STRAITS OF OTRANTO: MAY 1917
The infancy of submarine warfare – for that is what it really was – was seen at its deadliest in the Battle of the Atlantic and waters around the British Isles but, of course, it played its part in other waters which were of strategic importance throughout the First World War, and particularly the Mediterranean Sea. Here, as we shall see, there was sporadic fighting between the Allies and Central Powers from the beginning of the war, but combat became particularly intense in May 1917, with the introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare and the battle over the Straits of Otranto, the narrow entrance leading to the Adriatic Sea and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Acknowledgements
Mediterranean: yourchildlearns.com Around Cape: 49699030.weebly.com Adriatic: naval-encyclopedia.com Heading: goodreads.com Battle: roadstothegreatwar-from the Battle of the Otranto Straits by Paul G. Halpem Otranto Barrarge: russellphilips.com Flag: reddit.com Joseph Watt: lordaschcroftmedals.com Riga: dreamstime.com
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In 1914, as the threat of war became stronger, the Allied Powers became concerned about the military position in the Mediterranean, a busy waterway for their merchant vessels and, if war broke out, their naval forces. The combined fleets of the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) were strong enough to pose a threat to both the British and French presence in these waters. Fortunately for them, as we have seen, this all changed with the decision of the Italians to remain neutral on the 2nd August and then, in May 1915, to actually join the Allied cause. Given the commanding position of Italy in the Mediterranean, this clearly reduced the threat to Allied forces, but it still remained. At this time, for example, the Germans had two warships in the area, the powerful battle cruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau. The German commander, Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, opened hostilities by bombarding the ports of Philippeville and Bone in Algeria (a French colony shown above), and then – fearing that working alongside the Austrians might get him bottled up in the Adriatic – he headed for the Dardanelles (Gallipoli). Both vessels escaped detection and were “sold” to the Ottomans. As we shall see, they put them to good use in the Black Sea.
Thisxapart, the Allied warships faced little or no opposition in this early period.The Austrian fleet, outnumbered and out classed, was confined to the Adriatic, the only exit, the Straits of Otranto, having been firmly blocked by the French navy. In this “Adriatic Campaign”, its major task, therefore, consisted of combating the Italian navy in the north (much concerned with the defence of their Isonzo Front), – and bombarding and bombing Italy's Adriatic coast, notably at Rimini, Ancona and Pescara (see map below), a policy known as Kleinkrieg. However, as we have seen, in March 1915 the Anglo-French attempt to force warships through the Dardanelles failed, and, following a full scale invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula (see map above), British forces had to be evacuated at the end of the year. And it was around this very same time, as noted earlier, that in the so-called “Great Retreat”, some 190,000 soldiers and citizens, fleeing from Serbia (see map above), were transported by Allied troop ships from ports in Albania to places of safety, including the Greek island of Corfu and Tunisia in the Mediterranean. The Austrian naval commander, Admiral Anton Haus, operating from his naval base at Cattaro on the Adriatic coast, did sink a number of small supply ships, but, after losing two of his modern destroyers, he kept his distance.
The CentralxPowers recognised that situations like this were not acceptable. The Allies had too free a hand in an area which was so vital to their needs. Austrian submarines being too small in number and lacking in range, this brought a considerable number of German submarines into the Mediterranean. At first, small U-boats were broken down into parts and shipped by rail to the Austrian naval base at Pola for reassemble. It was soon discovered, however, that larger and more powerful submarines could travel from the North Sea and enter the Mediterranean via the Straits of Gibraltar. After posing a danger to the Allied evacuation from Gallipoli, they then stayed on – and were even increased in number – to take advantage of the large amount of Allied merchant shipping open to attack. Operating from the Austrian bases of Pola and Cattaro (also known as the Bocche) – see map below – these U-boats posed a serious threat, and a threat that became increasingly more so following Germany’s introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915, and its resumption in 1916 and 1917. Indeed, the heavy loss of ships over 1915/16 forced the British to divert much of the traffic that was going to and from India and the Far East via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal, to the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope (see map above). In the last three months of 1915, the Allies lost 76 ships (close on 300,000 tons), and in 1916 a total of 415 ships were sunk (just over one million tons), half of all the Allied ships lost in all theatres.
Notxsurprisingly, the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, seriously endangering as it did the large amount of Allied shipping crossing the Mediterranean, served to focus attention on the Otranto Straits (see map). This was the bottleneck, some 45 miles wide, through which Austrian and German submarines, working out of Pola and Cattaro, entered the Mediterranean and wreaked their havoc. Given the new threat, the Allied Powers had substantially strengthened the barrage which had been put across the Straits, originally made up of lightly armed “drifters” (trawlers), submarine nets and minefields, supported by constant naval patrols. However, given the increased volume of the submarine attacks, these changes proved insufficient. Indeed, such was their apparent weakness, that in May the Austro-Hungarians decided to go on the offensive themselves and destroy the barrage once and for all. For the attack, carried out on the night of the 14th May 1917, three Austro-Hungarian cruisers were employed (the Novara, Saida and Helgoland), accompanied by two destroyers, a number of U-boats, and air cover. They were tasked with destroying as many drifters as possible before daybreak. Out of a total of 47 drifters, they managed to sink 14 and damage four more. They then sank the Italian destroyer Borea off the coast of Albania before being chased off by a number of Allied vessels. In the pursuit, however, HMS Dartmouth was torpedoed, causing serious damage, and the French destroyer Boutefeu was sunk by a mine. In what was the war’s largest battle in the Adriatic and, indeed, the Mediterranean, the Austrians returned unscathed, save for some moderate damage to the Novara and one of their destroyers.
After the battle, the drifters were only deployed on the Otranto barrage during daylight hours, and the Central Powers’ submarines continued to operate with little impedance from their Adriatic bases. There were disputes between Italy and Britain over the supply of destroyers to protect the barrage, but little more was done to improve the barrage itself. The solution to the problem – effectively being employed, as we have seen, in the North Atlantic and British home waters – was the introduction of the convoy system. By this means, assisted by Greek, American and Japanese naval forces, the Allies slowly but surely reduced the losses being inflicted on their merchant and naval shipping. The last significant action in the Adriatic was a joint Allied bombardment of the Albanian port of Durazzo, carried out in October 1918 (see map above).
Incidentally, starting in April 1917, the Japanese sent a total of 14 destroyers to the Mediterranean, and these spent long hours in patrol and search activities. They did not sink any submarines, however, and they suffered 68 dead when their destroyer Sakaki was torpedoed and badly damaged. The Central Powers lost nine submarines in total, five of which were sunk by the Italian navy. The Americans introduced the use of “hydrophones” to locate submarines by sound, but they were not really effective. ……
…… Duringxthe battle, Joseph Watt, the skipper of the drifter Gowanlea, was confronted by the Novara and ordered to abandon ship. He refused to do so, and opened fire upon the cruiser with his six-pounder gun! His boat was then hit by four heavy shells, wounding several crewmen, but he kept his vessel afloat and went among the other drifters, picking up survivors. For his gallantry in action he was awarded the Victoria Cross, together with the French Croix de Guerre and the Italian Silver Medal for Military Valour.
As we shall see, in September, six months after the Battle of Otranto, there was further naval action, this time in the Baltic. The Germans, having overwhelmed the Russians during their ill-timed Kerenski Offensive on the Eastern Front, moved northwards, capturing the vital port of Riga, a long-term objective. Then, via Operation Albion, they seized the major islands within the West Estonian Archipelago in an attempt to gain overall command of the Eastern Baltic. The Russian naval bases in the Gulf of Finland could then be threatened, together with Petrograd, the Russian capital itself. By then, however, the Republic of Russia was in the midst of a revolution that would take it out of the war, and engulf it in three years of bitter civil conflict.
