Dave Moran
Member
My Discovery
I was rummaging through the British Heart Foundation shop in Oban two years ago, and my attention was caught by two dusty green tomes lying at the edge of a shelf, out of place among the Jeffrey Archers and Nora Roberts that normally clog the bookcases of such places. Gold letters on a spelled out the hypnotic words My Memoirs — Grand Admiral Von Tirpitz Vol I and II. £30 the pair, and pure gold dust for a hungry historian — how could I resist ? I think the women behind the counter wondered why someone would buy such out of date, falling to bits volumes — but I knew that here was a primary source for the attitudes and convictions of one of the major players in the sea wars of the 20th century.
And so I thought the members of this board might be interested in what the view of the top German naval commander was on the sinking of the Lusitania
Preface
Tirpitz, according to the Preface in his Memoirs, completed the work in April 1919 and it was first published in Germany in the May of that year. Since in its English translation it runs to 586 pages over two volumes it is likely that, as with many political men in retirement, Tirpitz had worked on the book over the years since his enforced resignation from the office of Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office in March 1916. He had remained politically active since then as head of the Deutsche Vaterlandspartei ( Fatherland Party ), which advocated a ‘Total War’ approach to the conflict, and as one might expect his political agenda inform his analysis of events throughout the books, always with a view to making Germany appear simultanteously righteous in its actions, and the victim of Perfidious Albion, the better to engender a pro-war attitude in his readers..
By the time he came to write the Preface prioir to publication, however, the internal national situation had changed - Germany was the nation that had sued for an Armistice in November 1918 but had not yet been informed of the Allied terms which were presented to the German delegation at Versailles on May 7th 1919. In essence, the nation was down and heading out. As such, the Preface presents an informative snap-shot of the attitudes and expectations of one of the major players in the pre- and early war periods forced to consider the probability that his strategies as failed.
As one might expect, Tirpitz is determined to present Germany as a whole, and the Kaiser and himself, as relatively blameless for events that led to the conflict breaking out, claiming that,
“ I can show proofs that the ancient sructure of our state was not antiquitated and rotten, but was capable of any development, and moreover that the political legned of a ruthless autocracy and a bellicose military cast having let loose this war is an insult to truth…If history is just …it would show that by far the greater measure of the responsibility for this war rests with our enemies.”
In so doing, Tirpitz precedes the well-attested attempts by German historians in the decades between the signing of the Versailles Treaty and the Fischer controversies of the 1960s to overturn the view of German war-guilt enshrined in Article 231 of the Treaty. This suggests that many at the summit of the German political system of the time had enough of a grasp of the realities of the situation that they expected such a clause, and that it was not such a shock to them as they liked to make out in the Reichstag or the chambers of Versailles.
The very next passage should be kept in mind when we come to consider Tirpitz’s attempted expiation of German guilt for the sinking of the Lusitania however,
“ The rule of the road at sea puts the blame in collisions on the person who causes the danger of the situation, and not on the one who makes a mistake through incorrect judgement at the last moment in his endeavour to escape from it.”
Though Tirpitz is referring directly to the outbreak of the Great War — with the reader expected to infer that it was Britain that was solely responsible - it is nevertheless an assertion that informs his explanation of the torpedoing of the liner, as we shall see.
Tirpitz and the Initial Submarine Campaign
Tirpitz was not wholly in favour of a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1914, but his objections were less informed by morality than by lack of means. For Tirpitz the problem was not whether unrestricted submarine warfare to blockade the British Isles entire was either legal or moral, but whether it was possible with the submarines available,
“ We ought not to select a date for such a declaration of blockade until we had available a number of submarines more or less sufficient to maintain it…I thought it would be wiser to start on a small scale, in order to see how matters developed from both the naval and political points of view. Such a limited declaration would have been more in accord with the means available, and would have accustomed the world gradually to the new idea of blockade. We should have spared America, in particular…”
On December 16th 1914 he wrote to the Foreign Office, commenting on the request submitted the previous day by the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral von Pohl, for the waging of a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare,
“ I have in addition certain objections to the form of the campaign which Your Excellency proposes to adopt. Submarine warfare without a declaration of blockade…is in my view much more far-reaching in its effect on neutrals than a formal blockade, and is thus considerably more dangerous… I should expect that certain official quarters in Germanyy, where objections are already harboured on grounds of international law and morality against a submarine blockade would object still more to this form of procedure and make their objections effective.”
Yet Tirpitz had no intention of being constrained by such concerns, but instead intensified submarine production whilst pressing for a total blockade at the moment of only the Thames Estuary,
“… I am wholly of the view that a systematic attack on a large scale upon English trade by means of submarines must be prepared by the navy with the utmost energy and with every means at our disposal. So far as my department is concerned this is already being done.”
Further proof of his lack of moral concerns is given in the passage where he expressed his sole reservation on grounds other than lack of numbers,
“Neutral ships, also, would be in danger if they navigated in the proclaimed areas, since owing to the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British Government it would be inevitable that neutrals should in fact suffer from attacks intended for enemy ships.”
Though the British Government never gave orders for British ships to fly neutral flags, one suspects that it would have been impossible to convince Tirpitz of that. Even four years later when the unrestricted campaign had wrought carnage, for Tirpitz the possibility, in his mind, that a vessel might have been a disguised British ship overrode the fare more likely probability that she was indeed a neutral, and should be spared attack.
To further post-facto justify the actions of his submarine commanders, Tirpitz alleged in his Memoirs that Germany was forced to respond as best it could to alleged American perfidy,
“ The main difficulty was to be expected in our relations with America, especially since this country, contrary to the whole spirit of neutrality, had developed shortly after the outbreak of war into an enemy arsenal. Since the bulk of the freight trade of the North Atlantic sails under the British flag, any attack on English trade must of necessity injure the American manufacturers.”
So the mind-set of Tirpitz in 1915 is clear — the Americans are selling arms and ammunition to the British, and shipping it in British ships that have been instructed to disguise themselves as neutrals. Submarine warfare was a reasonable response to the British blockade and that ; “If it was to be employed against enemy commerce, it was clear from the outset that the existing rules of maritime law, which in the main date from the days of sailing vessels, did not properly cover the circumstances of the present day.”
With this conviction firmly in place Tirpitz turns to deal with the effects of the campaign in general, and then the attack on the Lusitania specifically.
I was rummaging through the British Heart Foundation shop in Oban two years ago, and my attention was caught by two dusty green tomes lying at the edge of a shelf, out of place among the Jeffrey Archers and Nora Roberts that normally clog the bookcases of such places. Gold letters on a spelled out the hypnotic words My Memoirs — Grand Admiral Von Tirpitz Vol I and II. £30 the pair, and pure gold dust for a hungry historian — how could I resist ? I think the women behind the counter wondered why someone would buy such out of date, falling to bits volumes — but I knew that here was a primary source for the attitudes and convictions of one of the major players in the sea wars of the 20th century.
And so I thought the members of this board might be interested in what the view of the top German naval commander was on the sinking of the Lusitania
Preface
Tirpitz, according to the Preface in his Memoirs, completed the work in April 1919 and it was first published in Germany in the May of that year. Since in its English translation it runs to 586 pages over two volumes it is likely that, as with many political men in retirement, Tirpitz had worked on the book over the years since his enforced resignation from the office of Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office in March 1916. He had remained politically active since then as head of the Deutsche Vaterlandspartei ( Fatherland Party ), which advocated a ‘Total War’ approach to the conflict, and as one might expect his political agenda inform his analysis of events throughout the books, always with a view to making Germany appear simultanteously righteous in its actions, and the victim of Perfidious Albion, the better to engender a pro-war attitude in his readers..
By the time he came to write the Preface prioir to publication, however, the internal national situation had changed - Germany was the nation that had sued for an Armistice in November 1918 but had not yet been informed of the Allied terms which were presented to the German delegation at Versailles on May 7th 1919. In essence, the nation was down and heading out. As such, the Preface presents an informative snap-shot of the attitudes and expectations of one of the major players in the pre- and early war periods forced to consider the probability that his strategies as failed.
As one might expect, Tirpitz is determined to present Germany as a whole, and the Kaiser and himself, as relatively blameless for events that led to the conflict breaking out, claiming that,
“ I can show proofs that the ancient sructure of our state was not antiquitated and rotten, but was capable of any development, and moreover that the political legned of a ruthless autocracy and a bellicose military cast having let loose this war is an insult to truth…If history is just …it would show that by far the greater measure of the responsibility for this war rests with our enemies.”
In so doing, Tirpitz precedes the well-attested attempts by German historians in the decades between the signing of the Versailles Treaty and the Fischer controversies of the 1960s to overturn the view of German war-guilt enshrined in Article 231 of the Treaty. This suggests that many at the summit of the German political system of the time had enough of a grasp of the realities of the situation that they expected such a clause, and that it was not such a shock to them as they liked to make out in the Reichstag or the chambers of Versailles.
The very next passage should be kept in mind when we come to consider Tirpitz’s attempted expiation of German guilt for the sinking of the Lusitania however,
“ The rule of the road at sea puts the blame in collisions on the person who causes the danger of the situation, and not on the one who makes a mistake through incorrect judgement at the last moment in his endeavour to escape from it.”
Though Tirpitz is referring directly to the outbreak of the Great War — with the reader expected to infer that it was Britain that was solely responsible - it is nevertheless an assertion that informs his explanation of the torpedoing of the liner, as we shall see.
Tirpitz and the Initial Submarine Campaign
Tirpitz was not wholly in favour of a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1914, but his objections were less informed by morality than by lack of means. For Tirpitz the problem was not whether unrestricted submarine warfare to blockade the British Isles entire was either legal or moral, but whether it was possible with the submarines available,
“ We ought not to select a date for such a declaration of blockade until we had available a number of submarines more or less sufficient to maintain it…I thought it would be wiser to start on a small scale, in order to see how matters developed from both the naval and political points of view. Such a limited declaration would have been more in accord with the means available, and would have accustomed the world gradually to the new idea of blockade. We should have spared America, in particular…”
On December 16th 1914 he wrote to the Foreign Office, commenting on the request submitted the previous day by the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral von Pohl, for the waging of a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare,
“ I have in addition certain objections to the form of the campaign which Your Excellency proposes to adopt. Submarine warfare without a declaration of blockade…is in my view much more far-reaching in its effect on neutrals than a formal blockade, and is thus considerably more dangerous… I should expect that certain official quarters in Germanyy, where objections are already harboured on grounds of international law and morality against a submarine blockade would object still more to this form of procedure and make their objections effective.”
Yet Tirpitz had no intention of being constrained by such concerns, but instead intensified submarine production whilst pressing for a total blockade at the moment of only the Thames Estuary,
“… I am wholly of the view that a systematic attack on a large scale upon English trade by means of submarines must be prepared by the navy with the utmost energy and with every means at our disposal. So far as my department is concerned this is already being done.”
Further proof of his lack of moral concerns is given in the passage where he expressed his sole reservation on grounds other than lack of numbers,
“Neutral ships, also, would be in danger if they navigated in the proclaimed areas, since owing to the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British Government it would be inevitable that neutrals should in fact suffer from attacks intended for enemy ships.”
Though the British Government never gave orders for British ships to fly neutral flags, one suspects that it would have been impossible to convince Tirpitz of that. Even four years later when the unrestricted campaign had wrought carnage, for Tirpitz the possibility, in his mind, that a vessel might have been a disguised British ship overrode the fare more likely probability that she was indeed a neutral, and should be spared attack.
To further post-facto justify the actions of his submarine commanders, Tirpitz alleged in his Memoirs that Germany was forced to respond as best it could to alleged American perfidy,
“ The main difficulty was to be expected in our relations with America, especially since this country, contrary to the whole spirit of neutrality, had developed shortly after the outbreak of war into an enemy arsenal. Since the bulk of the freight trade of the North Atlantic sails under the British flag, any attack on English trade must of necessity injure the American manufacturers.”
So the mind-set of Tirpitz in 1915 is clear — the Americans are selling arms and ammunition to the British, and shipping it in British ships that have been instructed to disguise themselves as neutrals. Submarine warfare was a reasonable response to the British blockade and that ; “If it was to be employed against enemy commerce, it was clear from the outset that the existing rules of maritime law, which in the main date from the days of sailing vessels, did not properly cover the circumstances of the present day.”
With this conviction firmly in place Tirpitz turns to deal with the effects of the campaign in general, and then the attack on the Lusitania specifically.
