Dunn, Steve R. Tragedy and Revenge

The Battles of Coronel & the Falklands, 1914

The Battle of Coronel on 1 November 1914, in which Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock and the ships of his 4th Cruiser Squadron were outmanoeuvred by the German East Asia Squadron under Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee, was the worst British naval defeat in over 100 years. Two ships, HMS Monmouth and HMS Good Hope, were lost with their entire crews of more than 1,600 men, including Cradock. He went to his death in a hopeless hope, believing that if he could inflict enough damage on his opponent to slow him down, he could eventually bring superior forces to bear. Admiral Sir John Jacky Fisher, who had recently returned to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, immediately dispatched two battlecruisers from the Grand Fleet to take revenge under the command of Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee, whom he detested and half expected to fail in this mission. In fact, Sturdee's fleet was surprised by von Spee's ships while coaling off the Falkland Islands, but managed to get to sea and accomplish the task for which Fisher had designed the battlecruisers: to sweep smaller ships from the sea with superior speed and firepower. The ships of the East Asia Fleet were sunk or scattered, and von Spee and his two sons were killed. Tragedy and Revenge describes both the battles and the events that led to them, based on eyewitness accounts. It examines the ships that fought on both sides and highlights the inferiority of the forces available to Cradock resources that Churchill claimed were adequate for the task of destroying von Spee. The hopelessness felt by many of the Royal Navy members involved in Cradock's small fleet is described, as is Cradock's history, alone in the Atlantic and Pacific, and his crisis of conscience during his stay with the Governor of the Falkland Islands. The book also examines the leaders Cradock, Churchill, Fisher, Sturdee and von Spee and the interplay of their characters. It shows how Churchill's interference and the decisions of the Admiralty under Sturdee as Chief of the War Staff led directly to the disaster at Coronel. The book assesses the gap between the reality on the high seas and the perception of the Admiralty, particularly Churchill's, and how this gap contributed to a terrible tragedy.