So, at 09.12 the "Albatross" threw itself on the stones. By this time, the German ship was "surrounded" on all sides - to the south of it was the armored cruiser "Bayan", to the north and north-east - "Admiral Makarov" and "Bogatyr" with "Oleg", and to the west - the island of Gotland … From that moment until the start of the battle with the second German detachment, led by the cruisers Roon, a little less than an hour passed (the shootout with Roon began at 10.00-10.05, according to various sources), but this period, oddly enough, is not covered at all researchers - the feeling that nothing happened at that time.
For example, V. Yu. Gribovsky devoted less than a paragraph to this time:
“On the radio, Bakhirev reported to the fleet commander:“After the battle, having received damage, the enemy cruiser threw itself ashore on the skeletal side of the island of Gotland behind the Estergarn lighthouse. I consider it useful to send a submarine to the scene of the accident. " The admiral himself, having lined up the brigade in a somewhat unusual way, at 9 hours 50 minutes decided to "continue the journey to the Gulf of Finland." Ahead was "Bogatyr", behind him in the wake "Oleg", slightly behind the last, - "Admiral Makarov", followed by "Bayan" a little to the east."
A. G. Patients, in his characteristic chopped manner, reports:
“After the battle with the Albatross, the Russian cruisers began to withdraw to NNO. Behind the historian's delicate words, "the admiral lined up the brigade in a somewhat unusual way," lies a fairly simple truth. 4 cruisers did not have enough hour to restore the formation of the correct wake"
But in fact, the period between two contractions is very interesting and eventful - let's try to understand them.
So, after the German minelayer was on the Swedish stones at 09.12, Mikhail Koronatovich Bakhirev should have made sure that the Albatross would not be able to leave the Swedish waters on its own, and then gather his squad together and return home. It should be borne in mind that the Russian ships diverged quite widely - judging by the Russian scheme, the distance between Bayan and Admiral Makarov was at least 10-12 miles, and Oleg and Bogatyr were even farther from Bayan to North.
Perhaps this distance was less, but it is obvious that the Russian cruisers really stretched out very much. In other words, just for the Bayan to catch up with the Admiral Makarov, it took about half an hour, provided that it would start moving immediately after the Albatross landed on the stones - and then it was necessary to catch up with the armored cruisers. In principle, this time could have been shortened if Admiral Makarov ordered Bogatyr and Oleg and went to rapprochement with Bayan himself, but why would he do this? Such an act would have made sense in view of the enemy, but it was not on the horizon. "Augsburg" fled, but even if it did appear, it could be regarded as a gift to the artillerymen of "Bayan". In other words, there was no reason why the Russian commander should urgently run towards the Bayan, and not wait for its approach.
Then follows one of the many mysteries of this battle, which is unlikely to ever be answered. It is known that at 09.35 Bogatyr "discovered" a submarine to the east of itself, and radioed the rest of the brigade's ships about it. Further colorfully described by the commander of "Bayan" A. K. Weiss in his usual humorous manner:
“So, having finished killing the baby, we set off on our way, but some cruiser, Oleg or Bogatyr, imagined a submarine, he reported this with a signal, and it was enough that suddenly a myriad of submarines appeared, and from the cruisers there was such rapid-fire firing that the sea boiled with shells. I did not manage to stop firing at the Bayan right away, the buglers struggled with their horns, I was getting more and more heated … … I saw the Makarov shoot at the cartridge case from the smoke screen, semaphored about it at the Makarov, but it was aimless."
It seems that everything is clear, but no one else from domestic or foreign sources mentions the "wild shooting" after 09.35. On the other hand, V. Yu. Gribovsky mentions that the cruiser M. K. Bakhireva opened fire on imaginary submarines a lot after the battle with Roon:
“Already at 11:15 am“Oleg”fired at another imaginary periscope of the submarine. About half an hour later, three other cruisers in the brigade fired vigorously at another periscope."
Could it be that A. K. Weiss's memory failed, and the shelling, which he described, did not take place at 09.35, but later? Or, on the contrary, it is V. Yu. Gribovsky mistakenly attributed this episode to a later time? Or maybe the Russian cruisers "fought" the submarines both before and after the skirmish with the Roon? Alas, there is no answer to this question. Nevertheless, in the author's opinion, there is one clue that suggests that the Russians fired before the battle with the Rooo. A. K. Weiss mentions a sleeve from a smoke bomb, on which fire was fired, and it could only be one that was dropped, covering the Augsburg and Albatross, the German destroyers. Of course, after 11 o'clock the Russian cruisers moved too far from the place where the smoke screen was set to fire on these shells, but at 09.35 they could well have done it.
Taking into account the above, the actions of the Russian detachment look as follows - a few minutes after the Albatross threw itself on the rocks, that is, approximately at 09.12-09.20 the Bayan went to join the brigade's cruisers, the Admiral Makarov probably approached the crash site of the Albatross, while the Bogatyr and Oleg remained to the north. Then on the Makarov, making sure that the enemy ship would not go anywhere, they turned to the armored cruisers of the 2nd semi-brigade, but they were in no hurry to join them, waiting for the Bayan's approach. At 09.35 Bogatyr "discovered" the submarine and opened fire on it, it was "supported" by the rest of the cruisers, which obviously prevented them from forming a wake column, and besides, "Bayan" was still too far away. By 09.50, apparently, the "shooting of the submarines" was over, and M. K. Bakhirev ordered his brigade to withdraw to the northeast. Almost immediately (shortly after 09.50) six smokes were found on the horizon, which by 10.00 were identified as Roon, Lubeck and four torpedo boats, and at 10.00 (or 10.01 or 10.05, the time varied in different sources) cannons thundered again.
This reconstruction does not contradict any description of the battle known to the author and perfectly explains why, by the time of fire contact with the Roon, the 1st brigade of cruisers had not yet formed a wake column: the ships were simply too stretched out, cutting off possible routes to the Albatross. retreat and physically could not quickly get together. Judging by the scheme, in order for "Admiral Makarov" and "Bayan" to "catch up" to the "Bogatyr" and "Oleg" located to the north, it took at least 40 minutes, moreover, they were probably delayed by the shooting at submarines …
Of course, one can reproach the Russian sailors with "fear of boats", but before doing this, one should remember some of the nuances. Firstly, in the Baltic there have already been cases when the light forces of the Germans lured Russian ships to the position of submarines, so there could be nothing surprising in the fact that the boats ended up near Gotland. And secondly, the death of the armored cruiser Pallada, of the same type "Bayan" and "Admiral Makarov", was still fresh in the memory of the sailors. That day nothing foreshadowed a tragedy: "Pallada" and "Bayan" went on patrol, with "Pallada" leading the lead, and the destroyers "Stroiny" and "Powerful" were in front of her, to the left and right of her course. The ships pierced the "repulse of a mine attack", the sea was watched not only by watch signalmen, but also crews of 75-mm guns free from watch and, additionally, specially appointed observers. And nevertheless, the torpedo strike was a complete surprise for the sailors - neither the boat nor the torpedo trail was found either on the destroyers or on the Bayan, which was sailing 6-7 cables behind the Pallada. Most likely, they did not notice anything on the Pallada: at least it is known for sure that the ship did not perform any maneuvers before its death, did not signal and did not open fire. So if the danger was noticed, then at the very last moment, when nothing could be done. And then, as the head of the Bayan said:
"Three fires appeared from the starboard side of the Pallada, almost simultaneously three fires from the port side, and then the whole cruiser immediately disappeared into smoke and fire."
When the smoke cleared, the sea surface was clear - there was not a cruiser, not a single survivor, there were not even the bodies of sailors - only a few fragments of the mast.
"Pallada" died in clear weather, and while being guarded by destroyers - despite the fact that the observers were on guard, no laxity in this matter was allowed. At the same time, visibility during the battle near Gotland was not good - by the moment we are describing it had significantly improved, but still remained far from ideal. At the disposal of M. K. Bakhirev there was not a single destroyer. Submarines were a terrible weapon, and therefore, if something of this kind was suddenly noticed, the most correct decision was to "overdo it than miss it" - no shells cost a cruiser with hundreds of crew on board.
It is worth noting that the "fear of boats" also affected German ships - often nonexistent submarines were also seen on them, I. Karf avoided one of them when he moved to the mining area.
Also, all of the above explains the order of the Russian cruisers, which they had at the time of contact with the "Roon". The leader turned out to be "Bogatyr", "Oleg" followed him in the wake, "Admiral Makarov" followed them, with some lag, and "Bayan" followed him and a little to the east.
But before the fight resumed, another important event occurred: M. K. Bakhirev received a radiogram, from which it followed that to the north of him, near the island of Gotska-Sanden, enemy forces were found, including armored ships. Unfortunately, the author of this article does not know the exact time of receiving this radiogram, but it should be noted that at 09.50 Mikhail Koronatovich (according to his data) found himself in a very difficult situation.
When planning the operation, it was assumed that large enemy ships would be located in Kiel, and that there should be nothing more significant at sea than patrol boats. Then the communications service of the Baltic Fleet discovers light German cruisers at sea and points them to M. K. Bakhireva is good, but, on the other hand, it becomes clear that the Germans are carrying out some kind of operation that Russian intelligence could not reveal. While it was only about cruisers, it could be assumed that this was a raid of light forces to Moonsund or the throat of the Gulf of Finland, which the Germans periodically undertook. But "Albatross", retreating, openly "called" submarines for help: the Russian commander did not succumb to this seemingly provocation, and now, at 09.35, his cruisers find submarines just in the area where the German ship was trying to retreat. Worse, enemy armored ships were found to the north, now another rather large German detachment is approaching from the east!
A number of researchers (such as D. Yu. Kozlov) quite rightly draw our attention to an important consequence of the unfortunate mistake of observers of Russian cruisers, who mistook the Albatross minelayer for an Undine-class cruiser. If Rear Admiral M. K. Bakhirev knew that his cruiser was driven onto the Swedish stones by a high-speed mine layer, he could well have guessed what kind of operation the Germans were actually carrying out. In this case, it was not so difficult to realize that the German ships carried out another mine laying, that the 1st brigade of cruisers "dispersed" the direct escort of the minelayer, and somewhere nearby there should be a cover detachment, which, by the way, could not be too strong. But Mikhail Koronatovich did not know anything of this and, accordingly, could not understand the German plans: for him everything turned out so that there were several German detachments in the sea, including armored ships and submarines. Moreover, at least one (and the most powerful) German detachment was able to cut off the 1st brigade of cruisers from the base, and perhaps already cut it off. M. K. Bakhirev did not know and could not know that his ships are opposed by only one German armored cruiser - "Roon", on the contrary, he had every reason to believe that numerous German forces were at sea.
And what were the Germans doing at that time? Roon, Lubeck and four destroyers, having received a radiogram from I. Karf, rushed to the rescue, but …
It is interesting that the overwhelming majority of researchers of the battle at Gotland pass over this episode in silence. Surprisingly, in most descriptions of the battles of the First World War, German sailors look perfect in two minutes: they are brave, professional, and their commanders make only the right decisions. If they are wrong somewhere, it is solely due to lack of information. In general, there is a feeling that both the Russian Imperial and the Royal Navy opposed some kind of perfect naval war machine in the person of the Kaiserlichmarin. But in fact, in describing the battle at Gotland, many Russian authors, in search of a speck in their own eyes, do not notice a log in someone else's.
The fact is that Commodore I. Karf dismissed the Roon group just half an hour before he saw the Russian ships, and as soon as he saw them, he immediately called Roon for help. Why, then, did the Roona squad only show up an hour after it was all over? In fact, "Roon" could have come up earlier and even, most likely, could have taken part in the battle, supporting "Augsburg" and "Albatross" I. Karf. But a banal mistake let down - the navigator plotted the course incorrectly. As G. Rollman writes about this:
“The enemy was afraid of the Roona group, which was in a hurry at full speed for the radiotelegraph call of the 2nd flagship, but due to a discrepancy in the laying, it approached in a roundabout way; the weak cannonade of the battle, which was generally heard only occasionally, brought them to the scene of the battle."
In other words, having rushed to the rescue of his detachment, "Roon" due to the navigator's mistake did not come at all to the place where he was called, and was able to "visit" the Russian detachment in the future, only being guided by the distant sounds of the battle! One can only imagine what epithets the Russian Imperial Navy in general and M. K. Bakhirev, in particular, domestic historians and publicists, let his commanders make such a blunder. But this mistake was made by the Germans, and for the overwhelming majority of Russian researchers it immediately ceased to exist: something completely unworthy of mention.
So, the "Roon" summoned to support the ships of I. Karfa got lost. Then, having determined the approximate direction of the Russian detachment by the sounds of shooting, he, apparently, sent Lubeck for reconnaissance - this could well explain the description of G. Rollmann, according to which Lubeck discovered the Russian cruiser at 09.20 (most likely, it was "Bayan"), but did not retreat, but continued to observe. Then he saw the others, "who were walking alone and in a couple east and north of Estergarten Hill." were noticed by the Russians later). The German ships also lined up in the wake formation and entered the battle.
Although the battle here is probably too loud a word, so the clash turned into a quick firefight. The Germans had Lubeck as their lead, followed by Roon, followed by four destroyers - the latter could not take any part in the battle. At 10.05 the distance between the Roon and the terminal Russian Bayan was no more than 62-64 kbt and the German armored cruiser was the first to open fire, the Bayan, of course, responded. "Admiral Makarov" did not fire at "Roon" (although it is possible that she nevertheless fired several shells - at least G. Rollman claims that both armored cruisers fired at "Roon"). At the same time, "Bayan", having come under fire from "Roon", immediately began to "zigzag" on the course, as a result of which the volleys of "Roon", "very accurate on the whole and extremely heap," did not give cover. In total, the German cruiser made, according to the observations of Russian sailors, 18 or 19 four-gun salvo, hitting the "Bayan" with one shell. At the same time, the Bayan's gunners did not succeed - they fired 20 two-gun volleys, but the only damage to the Roon was the radio antenna, knocked down (by a fragment?) From a shell that fell near the German ship.
Other ships also tried to join the battle: Lubeck tried to fire at Oleg, Russian armored cruisers immediately responded. But, having made several volleys, both the Russians and the Germans found out that the range of their guns was not enough and were forced to cease fire.
The skirmish lasted no more than twenty minutes - according to German data, the battle began at 10.00, and ended "at about 10.22" (the time has been changed to Russian). Domestic sources say that the first shot was fired at 10.05 am, and at 10.25 am the Germans first leaned to the right (away from the Russian ships), and then turned back, and that was the end of the battle. The Germans repaired their antenna at about 10.30 am (the Roon commander indicates 10.29 in his report). The only hit in the Bayan caused the following consequences - a 210-mm projectile:
“He punched the side of the right waist between frame 60 and 65 and, breaking apart, broke the bed net on the deck, yal-four, broke the pipes of the worker and the spent steam of the garbage winch in the stoker mine No. 5, punched in small fragments several fathoms in a circle in many places of the mine stoker # 5, waist winch casing, room galley, second chimney, beams. The head part of the projectile, having penetrated through the upper deck into the ship, passed closely along the front bulkhead of the 6-inch casemate No. 3, bulging it strongly, and then penetrated into the coal pit, where it was later discovered. In the battery deck, the machine tool of 75-mm gun # 3 was slightly damaged by shrapnel and dents were obtained on the deck. Despite the abundance of shrapnel … none of those who were nearby … were neither wounded, nor shell-shocked. Two people were easily injured in the battery deck.
The gases released during the explosion got into the stoker, where they caused mild poisoning of four people, but none of them left their post and this incident did not cause any negative consequences for the health of the stokers.
What can you say about this episode of the battle? By that time, visibility had improved significantly, allowing the enemy to be observed from a distance of at least 70 cables, but now the Germans were in more favorable shooting conditions. The visibility to the southeast was worse than to the northwest, so the Germans saw the Russian ships better: this is evidenced by the fact that the Lubeck, which at 09.20 had found the Russian cruisers and watched them, was not itself noticed. The poor firing accuracy of the Bayan and Roon is explained by the "zigzagging" of the Russian cruiser, which thereby knocked down Roon's sight, but at the same time, constant course changes, of course, interfered with the firing of his own gunners. In general, we can talk about the invalidity of the firing of both ships - the only hit of the German cruiser can be safely considered accidental. On the "Bayan" it was noted that the "Roon" salvos did not give cover, but only flights or undershoots - simply put, the hit was given by a projectile that received an excessive deviation from the aiming point. However, another interesting nuance arises here.
According to Russian eyewitnesses, the Roon fired four-gun volleys, but, according to German data, it fired volleys from only one gun. On the one hand, of course, the Germans know better exactly how their gunners fired. But on the other hand, information about the single-gun salvoes of the German cruiser looks like a uniform oxymoron.
Indeed, this form of sighting existed during the Russo-Japanese War and earlier, when it was assumed that ships would fight at short distances. But with the increase in the range of combat, the advantage of salvo zeroing became obvious, when several guns are firing simultaneously - it was much easier to determine flights or undershoots and adjust fire when firing with volleys, and the German fleet, of course, switched to zeroing in volleys everywhere. And, nevertheless, according to the Germans, "Roon" made only one-gun volleys - and this at a distance of 60-70 cables ?! It can only be repeated that we have no reason not to trust these German data, but if they are correct, we have every reason to doubt the soundness of the mind of the Roon artillery officer.
If the Roon fired four-gun volleys, it used up 72 or 74 rounds, and its firing accuracy was 1.32-1.39%. If the data of the Germans are correct, then "Roon" used up only 18 or 19 shells, and the percentage of hits is 5, 26-5, 55%. But you need to understand that in this case all the more we are talking about an accident - by firing one round at a ship maneuvering at 6-7 miles, you can get into it only by a smile of fortune.
As you know, for this episode of the battle at Gotland, Mikhail Koronatovich Bakhirev was also heavily criticized by Russian historians, while in fact his actions are simple and understandable. As we said above, the Russian commander considered himself to be between two German detachments - and this is at least. If so, his task was not to inflict a decisive defeat on the Roona detachment, but to break through to the base, for which it was necessary to break away from the Germans pursuing him. Therefore, M. K. Bakhirev chose to fight on the withdrawal - his flagship "Admiral Makarov" was in the center of the formation, from where both German ships and the "Bayan" under fire were clearly visible - it was clear that the latter did not receive significant damage. "Makarov" himself did not fire, saving shells for the battle with the "armored squadron at Gotska Sanden", the existence of which he was mistakenly informed. At the same time, an attempt of decisive rapprochement and battle with an enemy not too inferior to him in strength did not make much sense. "Roon", no matter how insulting, in its combat power roughly corresponded to "Admiral Makarov" and "Bayan" combined - on the side of the Russian cruisers there was a slight advantage in the side salvo (4-203-mm guns and 8 * 152-mm versus 4 * 210-mm and 5 * 150-mm), but it was completely leveled by the fact that it is much easier to control the fire of one ship than two. True, some publicists draw attention to the weakness of the Roon's armor - only 100 mm armor belts against 178 mm armor plates of Russian cruisers.
This factor seems to be weighty, if only to forget about one "insignificant" nuance. Initially, the 203-mm guns of the Bayan-class cruisers had both armor-piercing and high-explosive shells - alas, only a "Tsushima" sample, that is, lightweight and with a scanty content of explosives. Subsequently, the cruisers received a lightweight (heavier projectiles could not handle the turret feed mechanisms) high-explosive projectile of the 1907 model, which had 9, 3 kg of TNT, that is, in its action, it occupied a place somewhere in the middle between the full-weight high-explosive six-inch and eight-inch shells. A new armor-piercing projectile was also needed, but the production of new projectiles is a very costly thing, and it was obviously decided to save money on the cruisers of the already outdated project. Instead of creating a full-fledged "armor-piercing" for "Bayans", ours simply took the old, Tsushima shells, and replaced pyroxylin with trinitrotoluene in them.
But the content of explosives was so scanty that there was little sense from such a replacement, and therefore, closer to the events we are describing, the armor-piercing shells were completely removed from the Bayan ammunition sets - only new high-explosive shells remained on them, 110 shells per barrel.
In other words, the rapprochement with even such a weakly armored cruiser, which was the Roon, was very risky for our cruisers, because the 210-mm cannons of the latter still had armor-piercing shells that could penetrate Russian armor at short distances, but the Admiral Makarov "and" Bayan "had nothing to punch through the 100 mm armor of the German cruiser. Of course, the 152-mm cannons of all four Russian cruisers had armor-piercing shells, but the Roona's ten-centimeter armor plates perfectly defended them at every conceivable battle distance.
In other words, the attempt to "decisively kill the Roon" "for the Russian cruisers of the 1st brigade did not make any sense - even if it succeeded, it probably only at the cost of heavy damage and the expenditure of ammunition remnants. The count on a numerical advantage could be justified, but perhaps not: of course, considering the Roon to be equal to our two armored cruisers, the Germans had one Lubeck against the Bogatyr and Oleg, but one should remember that this ratio could change in any moment - "Augsburg" with their destroyers had to be somewhere near, and if they appeared on the battlefield - and the Germans would have against "Bogatyr" and "Oleg" two small cruisers and seven destroyers. So, the cruiser M. K. A difficult battle awaited Bakhirev, but the main thing - even if successful, the Russian detachment would have become an easy prey for the German ships at Gotska-Sanden.
All these considerations were on one side of the scales, and the second was occupied by the monstrous carcass of the armored cruiser "Rurik" with its palisade of the latest and most powerful 254-mm and 203-mm guns.
Tactical and technical characteristics of "Rurik" allowed him to enter into battle with the German armored cruiser without fear for himself.
M. K. Bakhirev, as we said above, made a completely logical and reasonable decision to fight on the withdrawal, but at the same time he gave a radiogram to Rurik, ordering him to attack Roon “in square 408”. The commander also indicated the course of his detachment ("40 degrees from the Estergarn lighthouse"). At the same time, he ordered "Slava" and "Tsarevich" to go to Glotov's bank. count on the destruction of "Roon" by the superior "Rurik", and at the same time, taking into account the two battleships, he received enough strength for a possible battle with the "detachment at Gotska-Sunden", and also saved ammunition for this battle.
It is much more difficult to understand the actions of the commander of the "Roon", the frigatten-captain Gigas.
His explanations are very simple - having received a "cry for help", he moved to the area indicated to him by Commodore I. Karf, but when he arrived there he found no one (). At 09.20, he received another radiogram from I. Karf: "Two armored 4-pipe cruisers south of Estergarn." Then he discovered the Russian detachment, but considered that it was some other detachment, and not the one that the Commodore had told him about. Gigas entered the battle with the Russians, but due to the fact that their ships were heading north, Gigas suspected that the Russian commander wanted to lure the Roon under the attack of superior forces. Accordingly, he turned away and left the battle in order to look for those two Russian cruisers, about which the Commodore radioed him - well, to the rescue of "Augsburg", of course.
To say that such an explanation is completely illogical is to say nothing. Let's put ourselves in the place of Gigas. So he went into the square that was indicated to him, but there is no one there. Why not try to contact Augsburg? But no, we are not looking for easy ways, but we are sending Lubeck on reconnaissance. The latter discovered the Russian cruisers (but, apparently, reported to Roon only the very fact of their presence, and not that he sees them at Estergarn). If "Lubeck" had indicated the place, then the "Roone" would have realized their mistake, and so the frigatten-captain Gigas decided that he was seeing a completely different Russian detachment, unrelated to the one that I. Karf had indicated to him in the radiogram, adopted at 09.20.
And … the oxymoron begins. From the point of view of Gigas, his ships are somewhere between two strong Russian cruising units. What is his task in this case? Of course, to support Augsburg, that is, Gigas should have turned away from the Russian cruisers (on the Lubeck they saw that they were not fighting and generally turned north) and go south, where, according to Gigas, there were “two Russians four-tube armored cruisers "and where, apparently, Commodore I. Karf was waiting for him. Instead, Gigas for some reason rushes at four Russian cruisers, and after a short skirmish "fearing that the Russian cruisers are dragging him north to superior forces" to Commodore I. Karf!
That is, instead of helping his commander, who got into trouble, Gigas gets involved in a completely unnecessary battle with superior forces that threaten neither him nor Commodore I. Karf, and fights, moving away from the place where the commander called him. And after 20 minutes of such a fight, he suddenly regains his sight and rushes back to rescue his Commodore ?!
The author of this article understands that he will be accused of bias against the German commanders, but in his personal opinion (which he does not impose on anyone) it was so. The commander of "Roona", the frigatten-captain Gigas, found himself in an incomprehensible situation, and did not understand what he needed to do. He was not eager to fight, but he could not leave just like that, leaving I. Karf. Therefore, he indicated his presence with a short skirmish with Russian cruisers, after which, "with a sense of accomplishment" he left the battle and went to "winter quarters", which, in fact, ended the second episode of the battle near Gotland. However, doing so, he did not know that he was going straight into the clutches of "Rurik".
