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CHAPTER 6
Intermediate Solutions
giving
Sverige
qualified praise for her superior armament.
J
It
remains noteworthy that only Sweden demonstrated am
consistent appreciation of the potential dangers which ;
small neutral might reasonably expect to face in the earh
twentieth century and even this understanding was onl\
gained after a full-scale constitutional crisis which brough
down a government.
T
HIS CHAPTER DESCRIBES THE
approaches of four long-
standing coast defence powers to the serious problem of
retaining a credible fleet in the face of the major powers
after the design of
Dreadnought.
The positions in which
Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands found themselves
after 1906 was at once enviable but, certainly in the case of
the Netherlands, all too weak.
What was true, however, was that none had major
enemies. Sweden had not been to war since Napoleonic
times, whereas Denmark had lost what she was going to
lose to anyone in 1864. The Netherlands, a declared neu-
tral, had no likely enemies, although she was involved in a
long and painful struggle to establish complete control of
her very valuable colony in the East Indies. In the case of
Spain, she likewise had lost her entire empire in the west-
ern hemisphere and in the Pacific in 1898 and her main
overseas interests were in North Africa. All these countries
were non-combatants during the First World War and all
came up with different solutions to the problem of coastal
defence, although in the case of Spain, their vessels were
only described as such at the time
sotto voce.
The Swedish ships of the
Sverige
class came into being in
controversial political circumstances, never saw action, but
were a significant factor in German and Soviet naval plan-
ning in the Baltic before and during the Second World War.
One Danish vessel,
Niels Juel,
was unfortunately not built to
its original design but emerged as a rather unsatisfactory
amalgam between a lightly-armed armoured cruiser and a
coast defence ship. Her brief moment of tragic glory was not
to come until 1943. Another older Danish vessel launched
after
Dreadnought
was the third ship of the
Herluf Trolle
class,
Peder Skram,
effectively a low freeboard monitor with
a great deal of top-weight. The Dutch ship,
De '/.even Provin-
cien,
saw uneventful service during the First World War, but
met a brave end against the Japanese in 1942. Finally, Spain
built three dreadnoughts during this period - the
Espana
class - which are as shall be argued of more than passing
relevance to this account.
It is worthwhile recalling that all these powers were rela-
tively weak industrially, although the Netherlands was still
a significant trading nation. As such their naval vessels un-
derstandably reflected national circumstances. Indeed, a
1920 naval study reflected how: 'Navies of the third rank
have found it difficult or impossible to attain a fully satisfac-
tory solution,' while criticising
De Zeven Provincien
and
The Sverige class
In Sweden, the army, which was expanding in this period as
the threat of a general European war grew, took the lion's
share of defence expenditure and Swedish steel production
Yet Sweden's navy, while the Cinderella of the two services,
had become surprisingly powerful for such a small nation in
the latter part of the nineteenth century. From the turn oi
the new century until the advent of the dreadnought age,
five new small coastal defence ships of the
Dristigheten, Aran
and
Oscar II
classes were built, all of which were of only
limited use up to the First World War, although they and six
relics of the 1880s and 1890s were retained, for want of
other tonnage.
Defence committee reports in 1904 and 1906 had recom-
mended that any new coastal battleships' armament should
be at least comparable to foreign warships and should also
be capable of penetrating an armoured cruiser's armour.
Given that the heaviest armament on the aforementioned
coast defence ships was 254mm (lOin) 32 cal and 210mm
(8.3in) 44 cal, and that 304mm (12in) guns were now the
standard armament of British dreadnoughts, it was not sur-
prising that in 1909 the committee recommended that
planned new coast defence ships should be armed with
280mm (1 lin) guns. The concept supported was the idea of
moving on from the basic coast defence ship layout of two
single guns fore and aft with negligible secondary arma-
ment, to a far larger and heavier combination of a coast
defence ship and armoured cruiser, of which Sweden pos-
sessed a single example in
Fylgia,
which was launched in
1905. High speed was necessary to break any blockade of
neutral Sweden's ports and patrol territorial waters, new
responsibilities formally added to the Swedish Navy's mis-
sion in 1901.
Like its predecessors, the 1909 Committee made other
recommendations: a speed of 21kts, a secondary armament
of four 194mm (7.63in), plus four 37mm guns and two
450mm torpedo tubes. A 200mm armour belt, with the same
for the conning tower and main turrets was also recom-
mended, as was 100mm (3.9in) for the citadel and 3()-4()mm
(l-1.5in) for the decks.
The five designs considered by the Committee ranged
from 6,440 to 7,500 tons and much higher speeds than their
predecessors, from 18kts to 23kts. The final proposal put
forward by the committee was the so-called Design F, with
a length of 120m (393ft 8in), a beam of 18.6m (61ft) and
draught of 6.8m (22ft 4in). Armament was to comprise four
280mm in two twin turrets and eight 150mm (5.9in), for a
speed of 22.5kts.
Following its election victory in 1911, the Liberal govern-
ment of Prime Minister Karl Staaf reversed the earlier con-
servative government's decision to begin building a new
class of much heavier coast defence battleships of the De-
sign F type, later to be known as the
Sverige
class.
2
This was
despite the fact that the Swedish Naval Staff now felt that
the country faced a real and worsening threat from Russia.
The decision to halt the new coast defence ship pro-
gramme may have been lightly taken by a government
which felt its election victory had earned it the right to
govern as it thought fit but Staaf could not have reckoned
for the public outcry. From the King downwards, there was
widespread criticism of the decision and by 1912 a Swedish
pastor, the Reverend Manfred Bjorkquist, had founded a
society to raise public funds to build the first ship of the
new class.
Here was a rare example of the public in a democratic
society taking the collective initiative to force the govern-
ment to change course. Thus between January and May
1912 the astonishing sum of over 15 million Kroner
($3,755,000 or £751,000) was raised and the Swedish parlia-
ment faced a public ultimatum from the so-called Armoured
Ship Society that it must order the ship before the end of
1912 if it wished to use the money.
The necessary parliamentary approval to accept the
Society's gift was passed, and the new ship was named
Sverige
(Sweden) because it represented the whole nation (a
fair number of whom had contributed to its building). The
construction of its successors did not take place before an
outright constitutional crisis forced the government's hand
in 1914. King Gustav V had ranged himself against the
government, calling for an armament programme in
speeches, and as a result Staaf s government resigned. After
a special election, the new conservative government or-
dered the construction of two sister ships, to be named
Drottning Victoria
and
Gustav V.
As it turned out, the dimensions of
Sverige
differed only
very slightly from the original Design F concept, at 119.72m
x 18.63m x 6.25m (392ft 9in x 61ft lin x 20ft 6in). At 22.5kts,
the 7,688 ton (full load)
Sverige
was slower than
Drottning
Victoria
and
Gustav V
at 23.2 kts, these 7,663 ton ships also
being slightly longer than
Sverige
at 369ft 8in (120.9m).
Sverige
was powered by a dozen Yarrow coal-fired boilers
and Curtis direct drive turbines developing 20,000shp, re-
placed in
Drottning Victoria
and
Gustav V
by 22,000shp West-
inghouse geared turbines.
At 3,280nm, the range of the two later ships was substan-
tially greater than
Sverige's
2,720nm at an economical 14kt
cruise speed, although both shared the same 910nm range
at their respective maximum speeds.
Armament as built was the same for all three vessels, but
was substantially altered during later refits. As built, besides
the four 283mm (11.1 in), they had one twin 152mm (6in)
plus six more in single turrets, three on either beam. Six
75mm provided close-range defence against torpedo boats,
while the recommended pair of 450mm torpedo tubes were
fitted below the waterline as originally recommended.
Part of the reason for the original scepticism over the
1909 Committee's designs was the indisputable fact that
Swedish shipyards had never built such a large vessel. In
the event, Hugo Hammar's Gotaverken yard - which had
never built anything larger than 2,000 tons - took up the
challenge of building
Sverige
with gusto, but not until after
some very tough negotiations over price.
Sverige
and her sisters were notable for the seriousness
with which their designers took the threats of the day and
the original requirement of a combination of a coast defence
ship with an armoured cruiser. Thus the vessel's final lines
were equal to the coefficients of contemporary armoured
cruisers (the inherent disadvantages of this type of vessel
not yet being widely understood at this time), while efforts
were made to ensure that underwater protection equalled
that of contemporary battleships in other countries.
In the event, despite being laid down in December 1912,
Sverige
was not completed until June 1917 because of a
shortage of materials caused by non-delivery during the
First World War. Her sisters, both laid down in May 1915,
were not completed until 1921 in the case of
Drottning Vic-
toria
(she was built at Kockums) and 1922 in the case of
Gustav V
(built at Gotaverken). Thus even if Sweden's neu-
trality had been breached, this little flotilla of modern
coastal battleships would have been too late to influence
matters, as the last pair were delayed because the Westing-
house turbines were not delivered by the United States,
then a combatant.
The
Sverige
class were among the best sea boats of the
twentieth century's classic coast defence ships and, follow-
ing substantial refits, played a key role in preserving Swe-
den's neutrality during the Second World War, of which
more in Chapter 9.
Niels Juel and Peder Skram
Unlike Sweden, Denmark was not very defence-minded
after the loss of Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia in 1864. With
continental Europe's greatest power, Imperial Germany, as
a neighbour, and with no apparent enemy, a simple trust in
neutrality formed the basis of Danish foreign policy. Thus
from 1897 to 1911 no torpedo boats were built for the navy
and after 1899 only one coastal battleship joined the Danish
fleet before the outbreak of the First World War, when
there were six coast defence ships in service of the
Herluf
Trolle, Skjold, Iver Hvitfeldt, Odin
and
Gorm
classes.
The most recent of these ships was the
Herluf Trolle
class
vessel
Peder Skram,
launched in 1908, the third in the series
and built at the Copenhagen Dockyard nine years after the
first. Displacing 3,735 tons (normal), this 16kt coal-fired ves-
sel was armed with two 240mm (9.4in) 43 cal forward and
aft and four 150mm (5.9in) 50cal, plus ten 75mm and sundry
smaller weapons and four 457mm (18in) torpedo tubes. Belt
armour of 8.7-6.1in (195-155mm), plus 7.5in (190mm) on
the turret faces provided respectable protection.
Compared to
Peder Skram
with its very low freeboard, the
original concept of
Niels Juel
was of a vessel armed with two
single 305mm (12in) guns from Krupp. Laid down in
Copenhagen Naval Dockyard in September 1914 just as the
First World War broke out,
Niels Juel
was a true victim of the
conflict in the sense that she could not in the event be
completed to her original design. With very slow con-
struction of the vessel continuing during the war despite the
lack of any likely armament in the short term, it was scar-
cely surprising that the ship as completed was by far the
most unsatisfactory and unbalanced of all the coast defence
ships.
In 1922, eight years after
Niels Juel
was laid down,
Sweden's Bofors finally received a contract for the main
armament, which comprised of ten 150mm. These were
fixed in curious positions, with a pair at the bow next to
each other, a pair at the stern with X-turret superfiring over
Y-turret, and the balance divided three on each beam,
mounted in rather odd barbettes. Speed was just 16kts, far
below her Swedish coast defence contemporaries, and ar-
mour was no improvement on
Peder Skram:
the gunshields
were only 2in (50mm) thick and the conning tower armour,
at 6.7in (170mm), was even less than
Peder Skram'•
A
7.5in.'
Niels Juel
was completed in 1923, her dimensions being
90m x 16.3m x 5m (295ft 3in x 54ft 6in x 16ft 5in). She was
reconstructed several times, but as a hybrid between a light
cruiser and a coast defence ship she was for all practical
purposes useless. It was no surprise therefore that the
Danes, unlike their Norwegian and Swedish neighbours,
chose to emulate the Finns and designed new coast defence
ships during the 1930s, which would have far better suited
their needs had they been built.
As it turned out, both
Peder Skram
and
Niels Juel
had
eventful careers during the Second World War, first in brief
moments of tragic glory in 1943 while flying the Dannebrog
(the Danish ensign) and then in the service of Hitler's
Kriegsmarine.
De Zeven Provincien
There were six coast defence ships in service with the
Dutch fleet in 1914, of which five had been launched be-
tween 1900 and 1906. They were the three vessels of the
Koningen Regentes
class
{Koningen Regentes, De Ruyter, Hertog
Hendrik),
and the later, but similar derivatives
Marten
Harpertzoon Tromp
and
Jacob van Heemskerck.
The last of the
earlier coast defence ships,
PietHein
(launched in 1894), was
finally discarded in 1914.
The newest coast defence vessel in the fleet in 1914 was
De Zeven Provincien,
laid down at Amsterdam Dockyard in
1908, launched the following year and completed in Octo-
ber 1910. This ship had been built following the realisation
that the Netherlands' colony in the East Indies was some-
what more vulnerable now that Japan had defeated Russia
and the British had withdrawn their battle squadron from
the region.
With a normal displacement of 6,530 tons,
De T^even
Provincien
could make 16kts (16.27kts on trials) courtesy of
her eight Yarrow boilers. Her armament of two single
280mm (11 in) 42.5cal was substantially more imposing than
the 240mm (9.45in) 40cal guns of the other coast defence
ships. Her belt armour protection though was still compar-
able to her predecessors, at 150-100mm (5.9in-3.9in), as
was her turret armour of 248mm (9.8in). Secondary arma-
ment of four single 150mm (5.9in) 40cal was barbette-
mounted below the weather-deck, while the lighter anti-
torpedo boat battery comprised ten 75mm 40cal and four
37mm. Dimensions were certainly compact 101.5m w,
103.5m oa x 17.1m x 6.2m (333ft wl, 339ft oa x 56ft lin x
20ft 4in), with a short bow.
The Netherlands' plans to build a somewhat more
strongly influenced by the example of smaller coast defence
ships.
Spain's three
Espana
class battleships - built locally to a
British design using British-supplied materials -
represented another way to approach the same challenge
facing the lesser powers but which only built coast defence
ships. It was therefore no accident that after first consider-
ing coast defence vessels, the
Espana
concept was regarded
by the Dutch as the next most plausible, and affordable
type of capital ship.
These three battleships -
Espana, Alfonso XIII
and
Jaime
I
- were first planned according to the Spanish Naval Law
adopted on 7 January 1908 which laid the foundations of a
new navy after the disaster of the Spanish-American War in
1898 in which the Spanish fleet was so roundly defeated.
Designed by a British consortium comprising Armstrongs,
John Browns and Vickers, the
Espanas
were built from 1909
to 1921 in a new shipyard, specially created for the purpose
at El Ferrol by Sociedad Espanol de Construccion Naval.
With a displacement of 15,700 tons (normal), very com-
pact dimensions (133.9m x 24m x 7.9m), and a four shaft
steam turbine powerplant developing 15,500shp for a max-
imum speed of 19.5 knots, these were unprepossessing
ships with an unusual arrangement for their flush deck-
mounted main armament of eight 12in (305mm). Two twin
turrets were arranged fore and aft, leaving the other pair of
turrets diagonally offset on either beam. The casemated
secondary armament of twenty 4in (102mm) was arranged
conventionally for the period and two 3pdrs and two Maxim
machine guns were also carried. Belt armour of 8-4in (203-
101mm) was modest by comparison with some other
dreadnoughts, and was slim, extending only 1.4m below the
waterline and 0.6m above it, although turret and barbette
protection at 8in for the turrets and lOin for the barbettes
was reasonable.
The
Espanas
size was dictated not only by cost, but also
by the restricted length of Spanish docks. Construction of
Jaime I
was extremely protracted because of the First World
War, as essential materials and some guns could not be
delivered during the conflict.
Espana
herself ran aground in
powerful fleet to defend the East Indies, leading to ever
stillborn proposals for battleships or battlecruisers, had their
roots in the request for funding for the first of four larger
7,600 ton coast defence ships in 1912. With a speed of 18kts
(10,000ihp), they were to be far more worthwhile proposi-
tions than
De Zeven Provincien,
with the armament of a re-
spectable pre-dreadnought: four 280mm (llin) 45cal, ten
4.1in (105mm) and three torpedo tubes. Their belt and tur-
ret armour would have been as on
De Zeven Provincien.
As it turned out, these vessels was deemed inadequate
for the task and attention shifted to the benefits of acquiring
five dreadnoughts of the British-designed
Espana
type. As a
result the original scheme to buy coast defence ships was
rejected by the States General and the Minister of Marine
resigned. The issue was then forced into the limbo of a
Royal Commission which in 1913 recommended the con-
struction of,
inter alia,
no fewer than nine 14in-armed
battleships.
Nothing came of this, of course, as the plan was quite
beyond the Netherlands' finances. The First World War
imposed great strains on the Dutch economy and the coun-
try was never able to acquire capital ships after the conflict's
end. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that had the Nether-
lands stuck to the original plan, the four 11 in-armed coast
defence ships would have been far better than nothing and
could have proved a very useful adjunct to the handful of
cruisers built after the war for the East Indies' defence.
They might even have been able to sink a Japanese ship or
two in 1942.
As it turned out,
De Zeven Provincien
was sent east in 1921,
suffered a serious mutiny in February 1923, which was only
ended when a Dutch seaplane bombed the forecastle. She
was laid up in 1933, but the most dramatic - and tragic -
moment of her career, in 1942, was yet to come.
Miniature Dreadnoughts - The Espanas
Mention should also be made of one dreadnought battle-
ship class, the smallest ever built, which seems to have been
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