So, in the previous article of the series, we examined in detail the deployment of Russian forces before the battle. And what did the Germans have? As we said earlier, on the evening of June 17, when the Russian cruisers were just getting ready to go to the rendezvous point at the Vinkov Bank, the armored cruiser Roon, the minelayer Albatross and five destroyers left Neyfarwasser. On the morning of December 18, Commodore I. Karf left Libau with the light cruisers Augsburg and Lubeck and two destroyers.
The two German troops were supposed to meet northwest of Steinort Lighthouse at 0930 a.m. on June 18, but fog prevented the rendezvous. Radio communication, mutual transmission of the coordinates of the detachments, signals from searchlights and sirens, searches for destroyers - nothing yielded results, and after an hour of mutual and fruitless searches, the Germans, without uniting, went in two detachments to the northern tip of the island of Gotland. At noon on June 18, the German units dispersed 10-12 miles with the Special Forces of Rear Admiral M. K. Bakhirev, thanks to the fog, the opponents did not see each other. At Gotland, the fog was much less frequent (which later helped M. K. Bakhirev to establish his location), and the Germans nevertheless reunited. At 19.00, when the Special Forces, having lost Rurik and Novik in the fog, turned to the southern tip of the island of Gotland, the Germans just headed for the mining area - more precisely, the Albatross and Augsburg went there, and the other ships took to the east, in order to cover the operation from the possible appearance of Russian ships. "Augsburg" with "Albatross", heroically evading the Russian submarine that it met on the way (which was not there and could not be) went to the desired place, and by 22.30 "Albatross", in full accordance with the plan, set 160 mines. Upon completion of the mine laying, I. Karf exchanged radiograms with his cover ships and the Albatross (during the mining process, the Augsburg, which had previously followed the Albatross, withdrew to the east). These were the first radio messages that were intercepted by the Baltic Fleet communications service that night, and which were read by Rengarten and at 01.45 their content was transmitted to M. K. Bakhirev.
At 01.30 on July 19, the German detachments united again, and I. Karf sent a victorious report on the completion of the mission of the operation. This radio message was also intercepted and transmitted to the commander of the Special Forces at approximately 05.00 am. It should be noted that from the moment the German radio message was intercepted by the communications service of the Baltic Fleet and until the moment when the decrypted text of this telegram lay on the table for Mikhail Koronatovich Bakhirev, who was on the cruiser at sea, no more than 3-3.5 hours passed! Receive a radiogram, decipher it, check your work, compose a radiogram for the flagship Admiral Makarov, encrypt it, transmit it … Without a doubt, the work of our communications intelligence officers is worthy of the highest praise and praise.
Meanwhile, the unsuspecting I. Karf was leading his squadron home. In the morning at 07.00 on June 19, he released Roon and Lubeck with four destroyers to Libau, and he himself on Augsburg and together with Albatross and destroyers S-141; "S-142" and "G-135" went to the southern tip of Gotland, in order to turn from there to Neufarwasser. Exactly half an hour later, at 07.30, the Augsburg saw a lot of smoke in the northeast, and soon the silhouette of a four-tube cruiser appeared from the fog, followed by a second one of the same kind. The Russian and German troops finally met.
What happened next is described in a variety of sources. It would seem that with such an abundance of attention, the battle of June 19, 1915 should be literally dismantled piece by piece and no mysteries could remain in it. Instead, alas, we see a lot of mistakes in the description of the battle and many far-reaching conclusions drawn on deliberately false premises. Therefore, the article offered to your attention is built "from the opposite" - in it we will not describe the course of events, as the author sees it (this will be done in the next article), but consider the main errors of sources in describing the plot of the battle. Alas, without a detailed description of them, it is not possible to build a consistent picture of those distant events.
Let's see what happened in the outset of the battle. For this we take the description of the German historian Heinrich Rollmann. It is of certain interest that the reviewers of “Wars on the Baltic Sea. 1915 ", published in Russian in 1937, of course decisively reject" all chauvinistic agitation and falsification, which the author resorts to ", but at the same time pay tribute to both the volume of materials collected by G. Rollmann and the quality of their systematization …
Here is how G. Rollmann describes the beginning of the battle: “At 07.30, we saw smoke on the Augsburg (hereinafter, the Russian time is indicated), soon after that we noticed the silhouette of a Russian cruiser and almost immediately - the second one. Then the Russian cruisers lay on a parallel course and entered the battle, opening fire at 07.32, i.e. just 2 minutes after the Germans saw the smoke. The speed of the Russian detachment reached 20 knots. After the turn, the Russian cruisers again disappeared into the fog, on the German ships they saw only the flashes of their guns, from which it was guessed that four cruisers were fighting with them. The Russians apparently saw the Germans, because visibility was noticeably better in the northwest direction.
"Augsburg" went full speed and supplied oil to the boilers through the nozzles in order to hide the next Albatross in clouds of smoke. "Augsburg" and "Albatross" zigzagged to make it difficult for the enemy to aim, but they themselves could not shoot, because they did not see the enemy. Despite the measures taken, Russian volleys landed near the cruiser and the high-speed minelayer ("but still they remained under good cover" - writes G. Rollmann) and at 07.45 Augsburg slowly turned 2 rumb to the right, while the Albatross strongly lagged behind."
Having reached this point, G. Rollmann interrupts the description of the battle and begins to talk about the possibilities of a torpedo attack - after all, the detachment of I. Karf had three destroyers at his disposal. And this is where the oddities begin. G. Rollmann writes:
“Could this attack have produced any results? Commodore Karf denied this."
That is, G. Rollman, simply speaking, avoided expressing his own opinion, and instead cited the position of I. Karf. And what did I. Karf say? He argued the impossibility of a torpedo attack as follows:
1) the distance from the beginning of the battle has increased from 43, 8 cables to 49, 2 cables;
2) the sea was "smooth as a mirror";
3) there were four cruisers against three destroyers, the artillery of which was not damaged;
4) the destroyers were armed with old torpedoes with a range of no more than 3,000 m;
5) one of the destroyers, "G-135", had a maximum speed of 20 knots, the rest were slightly faster.
Everything seems to be logical, right? But such a set of reasons does not fit at all with the description of the battle given by G. Rollmann himself.
If the Russian cruisers in the outset of the battle lay on a parallel course, as G. Rollmann states, they would find themselves in the position of catching up. At the same time, the Russians walked (according to G. Rollmann!) At 20 knots. The German detachment, before a sudden meeting with the ships of M. K. Bakhirev did not go at full speed (recall the radiogram of I. Karf, in which he indicated 17 speed knots), that is, he needed some time to give this full speed. But neither the Albatross nor the G-135 could develop more than 20 knots, moreover, having come under Russian fire, the Germans began to maneuver, knocking down the zeroing, however, it is unclear whether this referred to destroyers or "chased volleys "Only" Augbsurg "with" Albatross ". All of the above means that the Germans went slower than the Russian detachment on parallel courses, and if so, then the distance between the ships of I. Karf and M. K. Bakhireva should have shrunk, but not increased in any way!
How can this paradox be explained? Perhaps the fact is that the flagship of I. Karf "Augsburg", possessing a speed of more than 27 knots, of course, was faster than the "Albatross", and destroyers, and Russian cruisers. He gave full speed and broke away from the rest of the ships of the German detachment, the distance between him and the Russian cruisers increased too. But - between "Augsbug" and Russian cruisers, and not between destroyers and Russian cruisers!
If the maximum speed of "G-135" really did not exceed 20 knots, then the distance between the German destroyers and Russian cruisers could not increase in any way, and if it did increase, then the speed of the German destroyers was much higher than the announced 20 knots. And in any case, we come to a certain slyness of the report of I. Karf.
You can, of course, remember about the Augsburg's lapel two points to the right - in theory, the new course led to an increase in the distance between opponents. But the fact is that the point is 1/32 of a circle, that is, only 11, 25 degrees and a gradual reversal of 22.5 degrees, begun at 07.45, could in no way lead to an increase in the distance by 5, 4 cables in a few minutes. There is an obvious contradiction, which could probably be resolved by reports on the battle of destroyer commanders, but alas. Here G. Rollmann manages to be streamlined:
“The division chief was of the same opinion; his flag officer, recently assigned to the semi-flotilla, considered the attack hopeless. Both commanders of destroyers "S-141" and "S-142" in the reports on the battle spoke in the same sense."
That is, it is clear that the German destroyers considered the attack hopeless, but it is completely unclear for what reasons, and do the destroyer commanders confirm the reasons stated in I. Karf's report?
An interesting nuance - according to the description, G. Rollmann (and, obviously, I. Karf), the Germans almost did not see the Russian cruisers, observing only the flashes of their shots, but they themselves could not shoot. Nevertheless, when the German commanders needed to justify the rejection of the torpedo attack by increasing the distance to the enemy, they indicated a change in the distance to the ships of M. K. Bakhirev with an accuracy of tenths of a cable - 43, 8 and 49, 2 kbt.
But these are still flowers, but then surrealism begins. Let us assume, however, that by some miracle (teleportation?) The twenty-knot German destroyers really increased the distance by almost 5, 5 cables. What does this mean? Let's remember that the opponents were able to detect each other at a distance of 45-50 cables, because the visibility was extremely limited. And now the destroyers were able to break the distance of almost five miles, which means that just a little more - and they will break away from the Russian detachment, which will simply cease to see them. It remains to hold out a little more, and nothing will threaten the small German ships …
Instead, in G. Rollmann we read:
“But at that moment the situation was developing in such a way that the destroyers had to take into account the possibility of their destruction; for a long time, shells were falling in the immediate vicinity of them, and it was only a matter of time before the hits began. It was necessary to get ahead of the enemy and try to save the Albatross. The division chief decided to launch an attack …”.
That is, at the very moment when the German destroyers so successfully broke the distance and were about to get out of the fire, hiding in the fog, their command was suddenly overcome by an attack of blues: “We will not be saved, the Russians will shoot us (blindly ?!) and they will kill everyone anyway, let's attack! " A special cynicism of the situation is given by the fact that, generally speaking, no one fired at the German destroyers during this period of time. "Admiral Makarov" and "Bayan", having entered the battle, beat at "Augsburg", and "Bogatyr" and "Oleg" - at the "Albatross".
But back to G. Rollmann. According to him, the flag "Z" was raised on the flagship destroyer and three German ships nevertheless rushed into a torpedo attack. But at that moment I. Karf, realizing that the slow-moving Albatross could not be saved, decided to break through under the nose of the Russian detachment and began to lean to the left, giving a radiogram to the Albatross to go into neutral Swedish waters.
And here a sad incident happened. The fact is that in the Russian edition of G. Rollmann's book it is indicated that "Augsburg" began to lean to the left and went against the Russian course at 07.35. This is an obvious slip of the tongue. G. Rollman describes the events of the battle sequentially, here, outlining the events that happened after 07.45 suddenly, suddenly returns back, which is not typical for him. A turn to the left at 07.35 refutes the entire description of the battle given by G. Rollmann before that (an attempt to cover the Albatross with a smoke screen, a turn to the right at 07.45, making a decision to pass under the nose of the Russian squadron at the moment the destroyers launched a torpedo attack, etc..). There is nothing of the kind in the battle scheme given by G. Rollmann, where the "Augsburg" leans to the left at about 08.00. Yes, in fact, anyone who finds the time and desire to read page 245 of the Russian edition of “Wars on the Baltic Sea. 1915 ", will be convinced that the turn across the Russian course at 07.35 completely contradicts the entire description of this episode of the battle given by the German historian.
Most likely, there was an annoying typo, and we are talking not about 07.35, but about 07.55, which does not at all get out of the context of the battle picture and the diagram attached to it. The author of this article did not read G. Rollmann in the original and cannot say who made this annoying typo - perhaps the error is present only in the Russian edition. But it is surprising how many authors subsequently did not see this oversight and replicated this error in their works. We meet her at the dear V. Yu. Gribovsky in his article "The Battle of Gotland on June 19, 1915":
"Augsburg" rushed forward at full speed and from 7 hours 35 minutes began to dodge to the left, intending to slip under the enemy's nose."
On it, the description of this battle is also built by A. G. Patients:
“Karf immediately realized what he was facing and made the only right decision. He decided to abandon the Albatross and try to save the cruiser and the destroyers. "Augsburg" increased the stroke and began to lean to the left"
In fact, as it follows from the description of G. Rollman, I. Karf was not at all distinguished by the speed of reaction: having discovered the Russian ships at 07.30, he considered it possible to "cut off" the course of the Russians in almost half an hour.
And when I. Karf made this decision, the destroyers found that the Russian cruisers turned north, that is, they went to a rapprochement, perpendicular to the German course in order to pass under the stern of the German detachment (this moment in the above diagram corresponds to 07.00, in Russian time is 08.00). Accordingly, with such a change in course, the slow-moving German destroyers had a chance, having taken to the left, following the Augsburg, to disperse with the Russian squadron on their left sides. The thing is that, having an equal speed with the Russians (20 knots), the German destroyers could not have crossed the Russian course while the opponents were following in parallel - they inadmissibly approached the cruisers at the same time, and they would have been shot. But after the Russians went north, the Germans had such an opportunity, because leaning to the left no longer led to such a strong rapprochement with the Russian ships. The destroyer commanders took advantage of the opportunity presented to them. The destroyers set up a smokescreen covering the Albatross and followed the Augsburg. At 08.35 "Augsburg" and the destroyers broke through by the Russian cruisers and went beyond their visibility.
It seems to be logical and geometrically consistent, but there is a nuance. The fact is that when writing his book, and it was published in 1929, G. Rollmann did not use Soviet archives, but wrote the book mainly on the basis of German data. As a result, the German historian describes not how the Russian ships actually maneuvered, but only how the German eyewitnesses imagined the Russian maneuvers. But, as you know, in order to form the correct impression of a particular battle, it is necessary to read the documents of all the parties involved in it. As we can see, the version of the Gotland battle presented by G. Rollman has many internal contradictions, even if the Russian detachment acted exactly as described in the book. Here are just the cruisers M. K. Bakhirev's maneuvers were completely different. Two statements by G. Rollman, on which his entire description is based: that the Russians went on a parallel course at the beginning of the battle and that they turned north at about 07.55 - 08.00, in fact, are incorrect, because domestic sources do not confirm anything of the kind.
On the other hand, domestic sources claim this….
What did Mikhail Koronatovich Bakhirev actually do after the visual detection of the enemy? A very simple maneuver, the meaning and purpose of which he absolutely clearly and unambiguously explained in his report, and even before that - in the logbook of "Admiral Makarov":
"Wanting to cover the head, we leaned to the left, bringing the lead ship to a heading angle of 40 ° starboard."
But how many reproaches for this maneuver fell on the head of the commander of the Special Forces! By all accounts, M. K. Bakhirev should, without philosophizing slyly, and without inventing all sorts of head coverage, which with such a balance of forces is completely unnecessary, just get close to the enemy and "roll" him. For example, M. A. Petrov in his book "Two Fights" writes:
"One involuntarily asks why this tactical technique was needed, unnecessary and aimless?"
Then, however, the same V. Yu. Gribovsky "acquitted" the rear admiral. After analyzing the actions of the commander of the Special Forces, the respected historian came to the conclusion:
“In fact, the brigade was maneuvering with an almost 20-knot speed - the simplest and most profitable method for firing - along the combat loxodrome. After the battle, Bakhirev obviously wanted to give his tactical plans more brilliance, which was reflected in his report, and earlier - in the logbook of "Admiral Makarov".
Translated into Russian: Mikhail Koronatovich did not plan any coverage of anyone's heads, but simply kept the enemy at a constant course angle, providing his artillerymen with favorable shooting conditions. Well, and then, in the report, he invented a "stick over T". Why not add a little, right?
Let's take a look at the diagram of this maneuver.
So, it is quite obvious that in the current situation M. K. Bakhirev chose the only correct decision. He saw the enemy at 07.30 "left-ahead" of him. On Russian cruisers, German ships were identified as Augsburg and a Nymph-class cruiser, which meant that the Russian squadron had no superiority in speed at all, because the Nymph had a maximum speed of 21.5 knots. But the Germans did not expect to meet the detachment of M. K. Bakhirev, so you can count on some "tetanus" on their part - they will need a little time to analyze the situation and decide what to do. However, the time of "tetanus" was calculated in minutes and it was necessary to dispose of it properly.
What did M. K. Bakhirev? He turned across the enemy course and brought the enemy to the course angle, which allowed the Russian cruisers to shoot with their entire side. Thus, the ships of Mikhail Koronatovich simultaneously and approached the enemy, and received the opportunity to use the maximum of artillery. At the same time, the new course of the Russian squadron brought it to cover the head of the German column and, importantly, the ships of M. K. Bakhireva would have remained between the German detachment and its base on the German coast.
What other options did the Russian commander have?
You could turn your nose to the enemy and rush directly at him, then the distance would be reduced faster (in the diagram, this course is designated as "Option 1"). But in this case, the enemy would have found himself at a very sharp heading angle and only nose turret guns could shoot at the enemy, and then, quite likely, not all cruisers in the column, except that M. K. Bakhirev ordered to turn not sequentially, but "all of a sudden" in order to march against the Germans in front formation. But as soon as the Augsburg realized what was happening, they simply fled, turning away from the Russian cruisers and taking advantage of their excellent speed. The chances of targeting and knocking out a fast German cruiser in this case were near zero. Perhaps, with such a maneuver, the Russians approached the Nymph (which, in fact, was the Albatross, but we argue from the position of M. K. Bakhirev, and he believed that he saw a cruiser of this type in front of him) faster than this they succeeded in reality, but at the same time they missed "Augsburg" almost guaranteed. At the same time, a turn across the enemy, allowing at the same time to immediately fight with all the artillery on the starboard side, gave the Russians a certain hope to destroy not only the Nymph, but also the Augsburg. Therefore, the refusal to throw "directly at the enemy" according to Option 1 (see diagram) is more than justified.
The second option is to bring the German ships to the course angle of 40 degrees, but not the right one, as M. K. Bakhirev, and the port side does not make sense at all. Firstly, it is completely unclear whether, in this case, the Russian cruisers approached the German ships, or would move away from them (here, without knowing the exact courses and locations of the detachments, one cannot understand each other), and secondly, even if they approached, then very soon the Russian and German detachments would have dispersed on their left sides. Thus, the commander of the Special Forces would let the Germans go to their base, which is no good. Moreover, as we know from German sources, on the cruisers M. K. The Germans saw Bakhirev better than they saw the Russian ships. Well, if there is a discrepancy in the countercourses according to Option 2, M. K. Bakhirev would have to turn around and chase the Germans - the detachments would have changed places and now the Russian cruisers saw the enemy worse than the enemy.
In other words, performing the maneuver of covering the head of the German column, M. K. Bakhirev competently solved as many as three tasks - while continuing to cut off the Germans from their bases, he approached the detachment of I. Karf and from the very beginning introduced the maximum of his artillery into battle. As we can see, a somewhat equivalent alternative to such a solution of M. K. Bakhirev simply did not exist, but nevertheless, how many "flowers in pots" were thrown for this maneuver at the Russian Rear Admiral!
Now let's get back to G. Rollmann. According to his description, at the beginning of the battle, the Russians laid down on a course parallel to the Germans, but, as we can see, nothing of the kind happened, in fact, the Russians were going across the path of the Germans. Accordingly, the distance between the Russian and German detachments could not increase - it was reduced! Yes, the Germans began to take to the right, thereby leaving from under the coverage of the head, but Mikhail Koronatovich followed them and continued to hold the German detachment at a course angle of 40 degrees - the same "combat loxodrome" that V. Yu. Gribovsky wrote about. That is, as soon as the Germans turned away - M. K. Bakhirev turned after them. With such maneuvering, the distance between detachments following at equal speed (M. K. Bakhirev walked at 19-20 knots, the Albatross could not go faster than 20 knots, the destroyers, according to the Germans, could not either), could either be reduced, or remain roughly constant.
In such conditions, the German destroyers, if they were really limited in speed, would never be able to break the distance with the Russian cruisers. But even if by some miracle they succeeded, and they really ended up in 49, 2 cables from the "Admiral Makarov", then follow the "Augsburg", crossing the course of the Russian squadron, and even about 5 miles from the Russian ships (true, this assessment is Russian, not German), they could only in two cases: if the Russian cruisers, as G. Rollmann writes, turned north, or if the German destroyers could develop a speed significantly exceeding the speed of Russian cruisers.
Ships M. K. Bakhirev was not turned to the north, from which it follows that in fact the speed of the German destroyers was much higher than I. Karf indicated in his report. And this means, in turn, that the reports of the German commanders should be treated with extreme caution, and they are clearly not the ultimate truth.
So, we examined the main "errors" of the sources in describing the beginning of the battle at Gotland on June 19, 1915. We can say that we found out what could not have happened in that battle. Now you can try to imagine what really happened there.
