Falklands 1914: Von Spee's Last Stand

in the early evening of november 4th 1914 the british admiralty received word of a terrible defeat three days earlier at coronel a british admiral and 1600 of his men were dead and a squadron of the royal navy scattered in defeat it was a humiliation which could not be allowed to stand within six hours orders were sent for capital ships from the grand fleet itself to head south [Music] this video is brought to you by curiositystream an online subscription streaming site that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers if you sign up between november 16th and january 3rd you can get 25 percent off a yearly subscription more on this later on after the destruction of admiral craddock squadron at coronel rear admiral stoddart was left in charge of the remaining british forces in the region he had four armored cruisers including the defense a ship which craddock had so often requested stoddart ships had more guns and faster speed than maximilian von space but probably had worse gunnery and were mostly outraged if the two forces were to engage it might be a roughly even contest the ability though after losing craddock was in no mood to have an even contest with spay on november 10th the battle cruisers invincible and inflexible left britain for the south atlantic these ships were bigger faster and dramatically more powerful than space ships with eight 12-inch guns each the arrival of battle cruisers in the south atlantic meant that rear admiral stoddard was now two junior to remain in overall command so invincible carried vice admiral doveton sturdy south with her meanwhile admiral von spay was taking his squadron through the rough seas of cape horn having spent the last two weeks slowly moving south along the chilean coast reaching germany was now spayed's main priority fighting another battle with his depleted ammunition was likely to end only with his destruction the german naval staff agreed if shepe could return home then the prestige of coronel and victory over the royal navy could be cemented the problem for spay was trying to make the long voyage home with enough coal and without meeting the british fleet intelligence soon reached him that there were no british ships at the falklands so he concluded that the british were probably regrouping on the river plate one thousand miles to the north believing he therefore had a free hand he decided to raid the falklands on his way north hoping to hamper british communications by destroying the wireless station there as well as coal stocks by december 7th the east asia squadron had rounded the cape and was closing in on port stanley at 5 30 a.m on december 8th avril von spey detached ganizer now and the light cruiser nuremberg to carry out the attack on the reportedly undefended port the two ships approached and the sun came up they could slowly begin to make out the silhouettes of shipmates protruding above the hills ahead of them though to what ships they belonged was uncertain gennaisenau pressed on until lieutenant commander johan busha reported to his captain that he could see tripod masts in the harbour captain america of ghanizen now told his junior he must be mistaken tripod masts were only fitted to dreadnought battleships and battle cruisers and there were no dreadnoughts in the south atlantic before dawn that same morning admiral sturdy's squadron had begun to take on coal it had arrived at port stanley just the previous day after a long journey south invincible's entire crew had started shoveling coal into their bunkers at 5 30 and more than 400 tons had been loaded by 745 when just to the south a civilian lookout on sapper hill spotted two german ships steaming their way news quickly reached admiral sturdy via hms canopus which was beached as a stationary gun platform near cape pembroke the german ships had achieved complete surprise and sturdy was now in a very tricky situation only the armed merchantman macedonia was patrolling outside the harbour and only hms kent had sufficient steam raised to leave the harbor at once the british were faced with the nightmare scenario of spay closing the distance opening fire on his ships at anchor and destroying his squadron before they could even react at 8 10 admiral sturdy ordered steam to be raised on all his ships and quickly swapped the hopelessly outmatched macedonia with kent as the german ships pressed on half an hour later sapahu reported the rest of space squadron on the horizon 20 miles away at 9 20 ganesha now and nurenberg maneuvered to open fire on stanley's wireless station as they did so the range to canopus dropped just so slightly and the old battleship opened fire captain america was taken completely by surprise when 12 inch shells suddenly started falling around his ships from a target he could not see when canopus's second salvo dropped just 800 yards short america turned away to rejoin scharnhorst admiral spay did not want to fight the british if he could help it as stanley was indeed defended it was time to leave and leave quickly by 10 30 the british squadron had managed to leave harbour having hastily ended taking on coal the light cruiser glasgow led sturdy's force shadowing the germans as they ran to the east invincible and inflexible moved steadily to the head of the line accelerating to 25 knots the royal navy now held the upper hand their ships were faster more powerful and had all the time in the world to catch and destroy spay the weather was a perfect clear sky and visibility was excellent sturdy's only frustration was the slow speed of his armored cruisers particularly carnarvon which meant the british line became stretched as the chase wore on spay had similar problems as the light cruiser leipzig began to fall back her engines struggling after months without proper maintenance at 12 55 with the range to leipzig down to 16 500 yards sturdy opened fire the salvos were clear misses for a while but by 110 the range was lower and leipzig began to be straddled now in a mirror image of coronel it was spay who had to decide what to do with a slower ship just like admiral craddock he decided that he would not leave it behind ordering his light cruisers to turn southwest admirance bay turned to fight the battle cruisers reluctant to allow spay to close within firing range sturdy turned onto a parallel course while detaching glasgow kent and cornwall to hunt down these smaller ships which were speeding away south west look out for my video soon on the events that unfolded in this pursuit of the light cruisers as spay advanced sturdy tried to keep the range up so that his ships could fire without reply but the range gap between space guns and the battlecruiser's 12-inch weapons was only about 3 000 yards a slender margin to try and preserve all the time at 1 30 shbay got himself in range for the first time and opened fire as at coronel the german accuracy was immediately brilliant invincible was straddled by scharnhorst's third salvo and hit for the first time at 1.44 invincible and inflexible replied but the british possible cruisers were frustrated by being upwind of their opponents the considerable smoke from their own guns and funnels was drifting between the ships and obscuring the enemy from view this exacerbated what was already some pretty rusty shooting by 2pm invincible and inflexible had fired 210 rounds for just all hits on the enemy after half an hour of sparring sturdy tacked away to open the range again and tried to get back in the sweet spot where the germans could not reach the british ships the two fleets pulled apart until at about 2 15 space suddenly darted away to the south obscured by the smoke it took several minutes for the british to see what had happened by which time the germans had a 17 000 yard head start 40 minutes of chasing now ensued until sturdy got back in range at 2 45 7 minutes later with no sign of a change in the weather that might help him escape von schmead turned again to accept battle this time sturdy was keen to finish the job and allowed spay to close the distance by 3 pm the fleets were 10 000 yards apart invincible was focused by the germans being hit repeatedly over the next 15 minutes as scharnhorst and ganiza now kept up a brisk barrage the british ii now shot much better and at the short range began to pummel the armored cruisers huge quantities of smoke again filled the air leading sturdy to sweep around to steam southwest getting downwind of the germans for the first time with a clear view the shells intensified april von spey countered this by turning northwest with so many guns on his port side out of action he now wanted his starboard armament to be able to fire a valiant german fire was kept up but the battle cruisers were now dominant shell after shell either smashed into the ships or sent torrents of water cascading across their decks flooding most of their upper works geniza now had two boiler rooms knocked out cutting her speed scharnhorst had now been hit more than 40 times her funnels were mostly collapsed and fires could be seen raging through huge gashes in her armor belt the german flagship though continued to fire until just before 4pm after she fell silent sturdy asked her to surrender but received no response shbay instead signaled to ganiza now endeavor to escape if your engines are still intact no sooner had he sent this the nature mess canarvan finally arrived on the scene and immediately opened fire this finished scharnhorst off at 4 17 she rolled over and sank taking the entire crew of 940 with her there was little time to reflect on this tremendous loss of life for the british crews as they continued to come under fire from the injured genizer now according to robert massey america faced a choice between surrender and annihilation he made his choice and held his ship on a convergence course with invincible over the next 90 minutes gennady was subjected to a brutal bombardment her funnels mass and superstructure were smashed to bits sturdy brought his ships into just four thousand yards range and piled shells into the armored cruiser gnaizer now almost incredibly continued to return fire just more and more sporadically as time went on finally at 5 40 captain merker with his ship a burning wreck gave the order to scuttle her and abandon ship when genesis now finally slipped below the waves at 6 pm there were between 200 and 300 people left in the water the battle cruisers quickly moved in and lowered their boats many of which were filled with holes from the battle a chaotic scene ensued as hundreds of men tried desperately to get out of the freezing south atlantic waters a developing heavy swell carried many away in the wrong direction helpless by 7 30 the rescue work was finished afghanistan's 900-man crew just 187 have been rescued the east asia squadron's losses in total were grievous more than 2 400 dead across four ships gennaisenau scharnhorst and the light cruisers leipzig and nurenberg which had been caught and destroyed by the force detached by sturdy earlier in the afternoon of the sailors on both sides who fought at coronel four weeks earlier 90 percent were now dead one of those rescued from gennaise now was hans pockhammer the ship's second in command that evening sturdy signaled a message to him the commander-in-chief is very gratified that your life has been spared and we all feel that the gnais are now fought in a most plucky way to the end we sympathize with you in the loss of your admiral and so many officers and men unfortunately the two countries are at war pockhammer replied we regret as you the cause of the fight as we have learned to know during peacetime the english navy and her officers in these exchanges we can see something of the heartache the fighting caused to sailors in both navies before the war british and german sailors had spent lots of time together even just weeks before the outbreak of war admiral spay had entertained a british cruiser on a visit to singtau such pleasantries were now a world away britain and germany were at war and there would be more brutal fights ahead this video is sponsored by curiositystream curiositystream is quite simply the best place on the internet to go for high quality documentaries on a wide variety of topics from history to science and nature for example 1918-1926 vengeance charts the events after the end of the great war as a precarious new world was built you can get 25 percent off a yearly subscription by signing up with the code historiograph between november 16th and january 3rd that's unlimited access for only 14.99 a year so use code historiograph when you sign up and get 25 off your yearly subscription thanks again to curiositystream for helping to make this video possible [Music] you

Channel: Historigraph

Views: 236,264

Keywords: historigraph, drachfiniel, battle of falkland islands, battle of coronel, coronel 1914, falklands 1914

Id: cBCCnqiVOUk

Length: 14min 40sec (880 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020