The Perils of Gunboat Diplomacy: The German East Asia Squadron at Manila Bay, 1898

Posted on January 27, 2026 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

AIS Historical Perspective

January 27, 2026

When America went to war with Spain in 1898, its focus was primarily on Cuba, and secondarily on the Caribbean as a whole. While a plan existed to take the war to the Spanish mainland, it was never implemented, having little to do with America’s ultimate war aims. 9700 miles away from the Cuban theater of the war, the Philippines, a Spanish colony for over three centuries, remained a strategic afterthought in Washington. Nonetheless, it was in the Philippines that the Americans won their first great battle of the war only days after declaring war on Spain. Commodore George Dewey achieved a decisive victory at Manila Bay when his squadron of modern warships destroyed a decrepit squadron of Spanish ships manned by untrained sailors. The sudden triumph outstripped American planning; with Washington still unsure of next steps. What happened after the battle is rarely remembered today, but involved the arrival at Manila of a superior German fleet whose behavior, intentional or not, was intimidating enough that it brought the United States and Imperial Germany to the brink of war.

The Early German Naval Presence in Asian Waters

After various wars of unification and intense diplomatic negotiations, the southern German states joined the North German Confederation in 1871 to form the new Prussian-led German Empire with Otto von Bismarck and the Hohenzollern royal family at the helm. Before this time, only Brandenburg and Prussia of the German states had made small and ultimately unsuccessful attempts at establishing foreign colonies. Bismarck opposed any shift to European-style overseas colonialism; Prussia had always relied on a powerful land-based military, but had only a weak and tiny navy. Nonetheless, the new empire required an international presence, and by the 1880s Germany was fielding a number of small warships in East Asia and the Pacific as part of the new Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy).

The most prominent of these was the steam frigate SMS Elisabeth, originally commissioned into the North German Federal Navy in 1868 (SMS stands for Seiner Majestät Schiff – German: His Majesty’s Ship). The Elisabeth arrived in the Far East in 1881, where it became the flagship of a naval squadron consisting of the corvettes Stosch, Stein and Leipzig, the gunboat Wolf and its sister-ship Iltis. The squadron was disbanded in 1885, leaving only the Iltis (1878), the gunboat Nautilus (1871) and the Elisabeth, which was transferred to eastern African waters in June 1881. The squadron was reformed as the East Asia Cruiser Squadron in January 1888, but was disbanded again in May as the larger ships were sent to East Africa to support colony building there. By late 1893, only the gunboats Wolf and Iltis remained in Asian waters.

The Iltis began East Asian service in 1880, fighting pirates near Taiwan and protecting German nationals during disturbances on the Chinese coast. The Iltis toured the Philippines, including the Sulu Archipelago, in March 1881. A ship of 490 metric tons, it was armed with two 4.9-inch guns. The Iltis was sent to Korea in 1894 to secure the German embassy at Inchon during the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1896). The gunboat was also present at the Japanese destruction of the Chinese fleet at the Battle of the Yalu River. In July 1896, the Iltis was ordered to Tsingtao to investigate the suitability of the northern Chinese port for a permanent German naval station, but a powerful storm broke the ship on a reef, with the loss of 71 members of its crew.

The German East Asia Cruiser Squadron in 1898

At the beginning of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the protected cruiser Irene was sent to Asia to become the flagship of the newly formed East Asia Cruiser Squadron (Kreuzerdivision in Ostasien) under Rear Admiral Paul Hoffman. In 1895, several older ships were sent home as the Iltis and Irene were joined by the Irene’s sister-ship Prinzess Wilhelm, the armored cruiser Kaiser (1874) and its sister-ship Deutschland (1874), the protected cruiser Kaiserin Augusta (1892) the unprotected cruiser Cormoran (1893), the gunboat Gefion (1893) and the steam corvette Arcona (1885).

Known to the German navy as “cruiser-corvettes,” the protected cruisers Irene and Prinzess Wilhelm were launched in 1887. The ships, at 4271 metric tons, were highly sea-worthy, but slow, with a typical cruising speed of only nine knots due to a design flaw. Each ship had fourteen Krupp 5.9-inch guns and three torpedo tubes. They were modernized in 1893 before the Irene was sent to East Asia in 1894, with the Prinzess Wilhelm following in 1895.

The British-built ironclad Kaiser’s rigging and sails were removed in 1883 and replaced by two heavy military masts. The ship was rebuilt in 1891-95 as an armored cruiser of 7645 metric tons. The Kaiser was armed with eight 10.2-inch guns in a central casemate battery (soon overtaken by the turret battery design used in later ships) and five torpedo tubes. Its sister-ship Deutschland, also a member of the East Asia squadron, was rebuilt at the same time. They were the last of Germany’s foreign-built capital ships.

SMS Kaiser, 1887

A protected cruiser of 6056 metric tons, the Kaiserin Augusta was launched in 1892. The only one of her class, this unique ship was designed for overseas duty (most German cruisers were designed for dual use overseas or with the home fleet). It joined the East Asia squadron in 1897, armed with 12 5.9-inch guns and five torpedo tubes after an 1896 upgrade. The cruiser’s bow was also reinforced for ramming. The Kaiserin Augusta was considered a fast ship, having crossed the Atlantic at an average speed of 21.5 knots (24.7 miles per hour).

The Gefion was an unprotected gunboat of 3746 metric tons at its launch in 1893. The ship was designed for colonial service or use as a commerce raider in times of war. Armed with ten 4.1inch guns and two torpedo tubes, the Gefion had the greatest range in the German fleet – 3500 knots (4000 miles). It joined the East Asia squadron in May, 1898.

The Cormoran was a Bussard-class unprotected cruiser of 1612 metric tons, independently stationed in the Pacific, but ready to join the East Asia squadron whenever needed. Like the Kaiserin Augusta, it was built solely for overseas duty. Launched in 1892, the ship carried a main battery of eight 10.5-centimeter (4.1 in) guns with two deck-mounted torpedo tubes.

SMS Arcona

The Arcona was a screw-corvette, one of six ships of the Carola-class equipped with steam and sail for overseas service. The 2662-ton Arcona carried ten 5.9-inch guns and two 3.4-inch guns. The corvette made two visits to the Philippines in 1895 and 1896 to help protect Europeans during local disturbances, landing German marines on its second visit.

Most of the early work of the squadron consisted of surveying, fighting pirates and protecting German nationals and interests in the Pacific and along the Chinese and Korean coasts. Visits to Nagasaki, Formosa, Port Arthur and Vladivostok were common, as well as occasional patrols of the Yangtze River.

Germany Contests Spanish Control of the Caroline Islands

The Caroline Island group is a Pacific Ocean archipelago of some 500 small coral islands. Beginning in 1525, Spain made sporadic attempts to establish sovereignty over the archipelago. When they renewed such attempts in 1885 by adding the region to the Spanish East Indies, German and British trade missions were already active on the islands. Spanish attempts to collect customs duties on German commercial activities saw the arrival of the gunboat Iltis to raise the German flag at Yap (four islands surrounded by a common coral reef) on August 2, 1885, despite the presence of two Spanish warships that ultimately did nothing. Spanish discretion proved the better part of valor; Pope Leo XIII was called on to mediate and conflict was averted when Germany accepted the Pope’s affirmation of Spanish sovereignty. This did not, however, end German interest in the archipelago.

A German Naval Base in China – 1897

The German squadron used Britain’s Hong Kong harbor as a base, but this arrangement was unsatisfactory for several reasons. Thus, a “German Hong Kong” was sought. Numerous ideas were advanced and rejected, including the Kaiser’s suggestion of a joint German/Japanese occupation of Taiwan (this would have proved interesting when the two nations became enemies in 1914). Another possibility was China’s Bay of Jiaozhou; the surrounding region of Shandong (where German missionaries were already active) was rich in coal and iron ore.

Tirpitz took over the East Asia Squadron in June 1896, tasked with finding a permanent base for his itinerant fleet on the Chinese coast. When China refused Germany’s request for a naval port, the Kaiser ordered plans to be made for a takeover of Jiaozhou Bay and the fishing village of Tsingtao (or Quindao, now a city of over 7 million people with a historical district of German colonial-era buildings). After Admiral Tirpitz returned to Germany to become the architect of the German High Seas Fleet (Hochseeflotte), his successor, Rear Admiral Otto von Diederich (appointed June 1897) failed in his efforts to negotiate the German Navy’s use of China’s Kiaochou Bay in June 1897.

A pretext for occupation opened up in November 1897, when two German Catholic missionaries were publicly slaughtered in Shandong. Kaiser Wilhelm styled himself as the personal protector of the mission, and immediately ordered the East Asia Cruiser Squadron into action, against the advice of Tirpitz. The Kaiser, Prinzess Wilhelm and Cormoran took part in the capture of Kiaochou Bay on November 14, 1897 (Irene was in dry-dock at the time).

The German landing party took only two hours to seize Kiaochou and drive out its commander, General Chang, who was put under house arrest. An attempt organized by General Chang from his home to retake the port two weeks later was repulsed by the guns of the Kaiser and the Prinzess Wilhelm. Chang was sent under guard to the Prinzess Wilhelm. Marines of the Seebataillon arrived in January 1898 to consolidate control.

On March 6, 1898, Germany signed a 99-year lease with China for Shandong, without rent. The region came under the authority of the Imperial Navy rather than the usual colonial administration of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

German Interest in the Philippines

In the 1860s, Prussian merchants and gunrunners became involved with the Muslim sultan of the Sulu Archipelago, which was under blockade by the Spanish, who claimed the territory in the south Philippines. After German unification in 1871, Madrid feared the newly emergent German Empire intended to take the Sulu Archipelago or even the entire Philippines and began seizing German merchant ships headed to the archipelago, some of which carried cargoes of old muskets and ammunition destined for Muslim rebels. The result of this minor crisis was twofold: a growing interest in Filipino affairs in Berlin and a realization that a growing German presence in the Asia/Pacific region required greater naval support than just the old Prussian steam corvette Nymphe, a veteran of wars against Denmark and France and Germany’s lone ship in the vast Pacific. In 1873, the Nymphe visited the sultan of the Sulu Archipelago, who asked for his realm to become a protectorate of the German Empire to free Sulu from Spanish rule. When the request reached Berlin, it was rejected by Bismarck, who replied pragmatically that the German navy was still too weak for Berlin to become involved in such projects. Despite this, some in the German foreign office would remember the sultan’s appeal over twenty years later when it suddenly became of importance.

When the Philippine Revolution broke out in August 1896, the cruiser Arcona was sent to Manila to protect German residents and interests, provoking new suspicions that Germany had designs on the Spanish colony. The Arcona was relieved by the Irene on December 25. Days later, the Spanish executed José Rizal, a German-educated Filipino revolutionary with many German connections who the Spanish believed was in favor of a German takeover of the colony. Though his family pleaded for German intervention, Tirpitz declined and the Irene left on January 3, 1897. When other revolutionaries petitioned for a German protectorate, Wilhelm became convinced there was popular demand in the Philippines for German sovereignty. The Kaiser was alarmed in March 1898 when the German consul in Hong Kong reported American preparations for an assault on Manila, which Wilhelm had already decided should belong to Germany. This attitude on the part of the emperor himself might have contributed to the decision to send an oversized naval representation to Manila at the time of the American attack. Direct action in support of the Spanish was not favored due to differences in Berlin over the power of the Americans. Nonetheless, the Kaiser believed the Philippines should not come under the control of a foreign power without Germany receiving some form of compensation.

That the Germans were serious about expansion in the Asia/Pacific was demonstrated when it was decided to double the strength of the German naval deployment in the region. The Kaiser was delighted with his new acquisition in China and sent out a second division of the East Asia Cruiser Squadron under the command of his brother, Prince Heinrich. Consisting of the flagship Deutschland, the Kaiserin Augusta and the Gefion, the squadron left for China on December 15, 1897, with the Kaiser instructing them: “Should anyone seek to hinder you in the proper exercise of our legitimate rights, go for them with a mailed fist.” The squadron arrived in Tsingtau harbor on May 5, 1898.

The German consul in Manila believed the Filipino insurgents were open to the establishment of a kingdom, possibly with a German prince at its helm. Bernhard von Bülow, the aristocratic German foreign secretary, disputed the consul’s report and informed the Kaiser that this scenario was unlikely and could create conflict with both Britain and America, something the Kaiser did not want under any circumstances. German diplomats suggested to their American counterparts that an American takeover of the Philippines might require German compensation, possibly in the form of coaling stations or harbors in the Sulu archipelago, where Germany had longstanding interests. Possible sites for German bases in the archipelago included Port Dalrymple on Jolo Island and Isabela on Basilan Island. German diplomats tried but failed to persuade Washington that Sulu had been a Prussian protectorate since 1873.

Outbreak of the Spanish-American War

Spain, once the world’s greatest imperial power, was reduced by the late 19^th century to minor possessions in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, the most valuable of which were Cuba and the Philippines. Spain’s much-diminished army struggled to hold on in the face of rebellions in all its colonies, while its overseas fleet consisted mainly of outdated, poorly maintained ships capable of colonial duty but little else. During the three centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines, military mutinies were a regular occurrence, usually happening in response to Spanish abuses of their own locally-raised troops or Filipino civilians.

Spanish Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón

In August 1896, a fractious nationalist group called Katipunan launched the Filipino Revolution. By 1897, the movement was still unsuccessful in its independence campaign, and the revolution’s leaders (including leader Emilio Aguinaldo) came to an arrangement with the Spanish; in exchange for amnesty and a monetary indemnity, they agreed to exile in Hong Kong. Future Spanish dictator Lieutenant Colonel Miguel Primo de Rivera went with them as hostage for the indemnity payment.

The Battle of Manila Bay

Following the Maine incident in Havana and exaggerated claims of Spanish colonial atrocities repeated in the American press, Washington declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898. In a war largely engineered by imperially-minded political opportunists with the support of a jingoistic press, the United States embarked on a military campaign to seize Spain’s overseas possessions (with the exception of its African colonies).

The Battle of Manila Bay, by Ildefonso Sanz Doménech

Shortly after the declaration of war, the US Asiatic Squadron left Hong Kong for Manila to attack the Spanish squadron of decaying ships based there. The American squadron, commanded by US Civil War veteran Commodore George Dewey, had no permanent base in the East, frequenting Chinese and Japanese ports to supply itself.

The US Asiatic Squadron included four protected cruisers: the flagship Olympia (1892, 5870 tons, four 8-inch guns, 10 5-inch guns), the Baltimore (1888, 4600 tons, four 8-inch guns, six 6-inch guns), the Raleigh (1892, 3200 tons, one 6-inch gun, ten 5-inch guns) and the Boston (1884, 3200 tons, two 8-inch guns, six 6-inch guns). There were also two smaller gunboats, the Concord and Petrel, the McCulloch, a revenue cutter, and a collier and transport ship.

Spanish Cruiser Reina Cristina (1887)

The much weaker Spanish squadron was led by its flagship, the Reina Cristina (1887), an unprotected cruiser of 3,042 tons (smaller than all four American cruisers), with six 6.4-inch guns that became the main target of American fire when the battle began. The Reina Cristina was supported by the Castilla (1881), an unprotected cruiser of 3,289 tons, with a ram bow and four 5.9-inch and two 4.7-inch guns. Unfortunately, the Castilla was largely immobile due to problems with her propeller shaft and was forced to fight the battle while still at anchor until she was sunk. The Reina Cristina was destroyed by shellfire with heavy loss of life before being scuttled.

Other Spanish ships included:

The unprotected cruiser Don Antonio de Ulloa (1887), 1152 tons, with only two 4.7-inch guns on the starboard side, the port side guns having been dismantled for use in shore batteries. The Don Antonio had been sent to the Caroline Islands in 1890 to fend off German cruisers. By 1898, however, her machinery was in bad repair and the ship was unable to move during the battle, allowing it to be completely destroyed by the American guns.
Don Juan de Austria (1897) was an unprotected cruiser of 1152 metric tons, equipped with four 4.7-inch guns. She was badly damaged by American fire before being scuttled. The ship was later raised to become the USS Don Juan de Austria.
The protected cruiser Isla de Cuba (1886) displaced 1053 metric tons and carried six 4.7-inch guns. She was scuttled to prevent capture during the battle after Admiral Montojo moved his flag to her after the destruction of the Reina Cristina. The cruiser was later raised and put back to work fighting Filipino rebels as the USS Isla de Cuba before being sold to the Venezuelan Navy, where she served until 1940. The Isla de Cuba’s sister-ship, the Isla de Luzón, suffered multiple hits in the battle and was likewise scuttled and refloated to join American service.
The Marques del Duero (1875), a gunboat/despatch ship of 492 metric tons, with one 6.4-inch and two 4.7-inch guns, was the oldest ship in the Spanish squadron. Badly damaged in the battle, it was scuttled before being raised for a short career as the USS P-17.

Three small Spanish gunboats in the area did not take part in the battle, while the guns of an unprotected cruiser, the Velasco, had already been moved to shore batteries that played little part in the battle, the American ships operating mostly out of range. Many of the Spanish ships had torpedo tubes, but there were no torpedoes available.

The seven-hour battle that followed the arrival of the US squadron was so one-sided that the Americans were able to take a break for breakfast half-way through before returning to the destruction of the Spanish ships. Damage to the American ships was extremely light and only one fatality was reported. The Spanish suffered 77 dead and over 270 wounded; by the end of the encounter not a single Spanish ship remained afloat of those that had taken part in the battle.

Despite the personal valor he displayed at the head of his decrepit fleet, the Spanish squadron’s commander, Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, was court-martialled, dismissed from the navy and briefly imprisoned on his return to Spain. A report from Admiral Dewey testifying to his gallantry in the unequal battle was of little help.

After the Battle of Manila Bay

The speed of the American naval victory in Manila had outstripped American planning, with the question of American intentions in the Philippines remaining unanswered while Dewey awaited further instructions. It was unclear what Washington intended for the Philippines – independence, American occupation, continued Spanish control with the payment of an indemnity, annexation, a US naval withdrawal, or the American sale of the islands to a third party (most likely Britain). Meanwhile, Filipino revolutionaries led by Aguinaldo continued their campaign against Spanish troops. In exile in Hong Kong since 1897, Aguinaldo had been returned by Dewey to Manila on the revenue cutter USS McCulloch on May 19. As Dewey awaited further orders, it seemed an opportune time for Germany to position naval assets to exploit this uncertainty and perhaps influence developments to Germany’s advantage. The SMS Irene and SMS Cormoran were the first German ships to arrive in Manila on May 6 and May 9, respectively.

The German consul in Manila reported that the Spanish governor general was willing to accept turning the city over to the commanders of the various European neutral warships that gathered in the harbor to observe the battle and protect their nationals and interests in the Philippines, but was unable to persuade Admiral Diederichs to take the lead in such an action without a directive from Berlin. Meanwhile, the German Foreign Office was following the Kaiser’s order to avoid unduly antagonizing the Americans and forcing them into an alliance with Britain.

The international ships at Manila were typical of the type generally used in observer situations. These included the HMS Immortalité (1887), an armored cruiser of little note, and HMS Linnet (1880), a gunboat also of little distinction despite being the sixth ship of its name in the Royal Navy. The French Bruix was an armored cruiser that would eventually be used against German forces in the Kamerun campaign of 1914-15. The Japanese Ituskushima was a French-built protected cruiser, a poorly designed ship with a single 12.6-inch gun whose recoil was too much for the vessel to handle with any ease. Despite her deficiencies, she fought in the 1894 Battle of the Yalu River against China and again in the world-changing 1905 Battle of Tsushima against the Russian fleet.

On June 2, 1898, the Kaiser issued Admiral Diederichs’ main order: “Sail to Manila [with the East Asia Squadron] in order to form a personal opinion about Spain’s situation there, the population’s mood, and the foreign influence on the political reorganization of the Philippines.” Tirpitz added that strict neutrality should be observed to protect German interests elsewhere in the Pacific. There was nothing to suggest that Diederichs was to support the Spanish, back the rebels or otherwise interfere in the American campaign, whose goals were still frustratingly unclear. Nonetheless, the presence of a strong German squadron would enable the Germans to exploit an American withdrawal should that happen.

Dewey’s ammunition was seriously depleted after the battle and the commodore’s nerves were on edge due to the intense summer heat and the absence of cable communications with his superiors – messages needed to be sent by ship to the telegraph station at Hong Kong, with the reply coming back the same way, a process of roughly one week.

The German troop transport Darmstadt arrived on June 6 with 1400 soldiers and a collier ship. The Americans, who would have no troops of their own in Manila for another six weeks, were duly shocked by what seemed a German intention to seize their prize. In reality, the German troops were headed to Tsingtau and the Darmstadt had only stopped at Manila to provide relief crews for the Irene and Cormoran. Dewey was greatly relieved when the transport left 72 hours after arriving, but alarms had once more been sounded by what appeared to be another effort to intimidate the victorious American squadron.

Rebuilt SMS Deutschland as armored cruiser in 1898 at Port Arthur. Compare with photo of sister-ship Kaiser before modernization. The Kaiser was modernized at the same time.

The rest of the German squadron arrived on June 12, the same day Aguinaldo’s rebels declared the independence of the Philippines. By this time, there were five German warships gathered at Manila, the Prinzess Wilhelm, Kaiser, Irene, Kaiserin Augusta and Cormoran (the Deutschland, Gefion, and Arcona remained in Chinese waters). The size and power of this squadron was significantly out of proportion for what was required for observation purposes. Both the Kaiser and the Kaiserin Augusta were larger than any of Dewey’s ships and rumors in Manila maintained that Diederichs, who was senior in rank to Dewey (another oddity for an observer mission), had arrived to support the Spanish.

While the Americans fretted over the size of the German squadron and its forceful commander, Diederichs was, by June 25, actually sending official reports to Berlin suggesting his squadron was far too large and that a figure of his high rank should never have been sent to deal with Dewey, a mere commodore.

The actions of the German squadron seemed to tell a different story, however, and appear to have involved some degree of intimidation, with German ships ignoring the American blockade of the bay, coming and going at will during the night, flashing powerful searchlights at random and sending a steady stream of communications by signal lamp, keeping the American squadron constantly on edge. German sailors even seized a lighthouse and various Spanish onshore facilities without explanation.

Rear Admiral Otto von Diederichs

Most alarming to the Americans, however, was a visit by Diederichs to the Spanish governor general of the Philippines, Basilio Augustín y Dávila Augustín, and a return visit by the governor to the Kaiser. Though this unnerved Dewey, it emerged later that Diederichs used these talks to explain to the governor that he could not take any action in support of a Spanish proposal to mollify the rebels by establishing a looser Spanish protectorate over the Philippines guaranteed by Germany (perceived to be friendly to the Filipinos) without orders from Berlin. If Dewey had known the direction and tenor of the talks, he may have hosted them himself. Instead, Dewey called on Diederichs to have him explain the presence and activities of the German squadron, to which Diederichs replied: “I am here, sir, by order of the Kaiser.” Like many other exchanges with the Germans, this response seemed curt, unilluminating and slightly menacing.

Commodore George Dewey, USN

Diederichs also ordered the German consul and a flag-lieutenant to meet with the Filipino rebels. The admiral reported these talks in a top-secret message to Berlin. Feeling independence was near, the rebels initially informed the Germans they no longer had interest in a German protectorate. Diederichs, who believed in the inevitable collapse of a Filipino government, suggested patience until that time, while warning the rebels might be trying to play the Germans against the Americans. Further talks revealed that Aguinaldo was personally interested in close ties to Germany (possibly even as a protectorate) once independence had been achieved. The rebel government attempted to send an envoy, Antonio Regidor, to Berlin to enquire about a German protectorate, but the visit was suspended by Wilhelm until independence was achieved. However, the size of the German squadron at Manila also confused the revolutionaries, who believed it could only be there to support the Spanish occupation. Meanwhile, Admiral Diederichs was reporting that he could discern no reliable support in the Philippines for a German protectorate.

The US Revenue Cutter McCulloch

On June 27, an officer from the American revenue cutter McCulloch boarded the Irene in daytime, a provocative action that revealed Dewey’s anxiety about the German ships. Identification boardings at night when ships were difficult to identify were considered acceptable at the time, while daytime boardings were considered insulting and unnecessary. Despite this Diederichs at all times ordered his squadron to accept night-time boardings by American officers. The American press inflamed the incident by claiming the McCulloch had fired a shot across the Irene’s bows to force her to stop. Further dubious incidents involving shots being fired across the bows of German warships were cited in the American press, eventually finding their way into the historical record. Diederichs, however, reported to the Kaiser that no shots had been fired at German ships, describing such reports as inventions of the anti-German American press.

The New York Times (June 30, 1898) questioned the purpose of the oversize German squadron in Manila:

The apparatus she has provided is quite out of proportion to the object to be attained. There may be forty or fifty German subjects doing business in Manila. … A single man-of-war could accommodate the entire German population of Manila. Yet the provision that Germany has made is a squadron composed, at last accounts, of five vessels, and superior to the American squadron which destroyed the Spanish fleet and which now holds Manila under its guns. We should be very simple to believe that this force has been assembled merely to rescue German inhabitants from the fury of Auguinaldo.

There can be no doubt of the unofficial American view of the assemblage of a German squadron in Manila Bay. It is that that assemblage is unmannerly and provocative, and that it is meant not to protect existing German interests but to find new interests to protect.

German public opinion during the war was generally supportive of Spain, in contrast to the government’s official (but undeclared) neutrality. The German press began to weigh in against the Americans; these reports aggravated the situation when they were translated and reprinted in American newspapers.

SMS Irene in Chinese Waters

On July 5, the Irene was ordered south to Subic Bay (later an American naval base, but held at this time by Filipino revolutionaries) to explore its usefulness as a harbor and to evacuate noncombatants and severely wounded troops from a beleaguered Spanish garrison on Isla Grande. While off the island, the Irene encountered the Filipinas, a merchant steamer flying the insurgent flag and having every appearance of preparing to deliver an attack on Isla Grande. The Germans, who had not yet evacuated the noncombatants, ordered the insurgents to haul down their flag, still officially unrecognized by any state. After the Filipinas slipped away in the night, its captain reported to Aguinaldo and the still pro-rebel Americans that the Irene had interfered with their attack on the Spanish. Dewey, believing this to be a violation of neutrality, sent the Raleigh and Concord to investigate, but these arrived only in time to see the departure of the Irene. The German cruiser’s action, never explained to the Americans, was interpreted by the latter and by Aguinaldo’s rebel forces as naval support of the Spanish garrison.

Efforts to improve relations only made things worse. Dewey sent an officer to complain to Diederichs about blockade violations but the officer came away reassured by the admiral’s sincerity in stating his desire not to interfere with American operations. A July 10 return visit to Dewey by a German officer went well until the officer complained the Irene had been illegally stopped and boarded. Dewey exploded, threatening to stop every ship and fire at any that resisted, shouting “If Germany wants war, alright – we are ready!” When he continued in this vein, the German officer chose to leave and report to Diederichs. Though the German admiral decided not to make an issue of Dewey’s outburst, tensions between the two squadrons were now at a peak. With more anger than discretion, Dewey unwisely revealed plans to engage the German squadron to American reporters. The growing pressure was somewhat alleviated when the Americans learned Diederichs had ordered the Irene to leave the Philippines on July 9, leaving four German ships at Manila. A growing correspondence between Dewey and Diederichs also helped calm the standoff through July.

The Spanish Relief Fleet

Spain’s best ships were in its home fleet, and a plan was formed to have them steam to America and bombard cities on the US coast. As well as causing panic in the enemy’s homeland, it would also help relieve the American blockade of Cuba and allow the Spanish naval squadron trapped there to take to sea. The plan did not receive approval from the pro-American British, who regarded the Atlantic at the time as their own Mare Nostrum.

The bombardment of the American coast was abandoned and the squadron ordered on June 16 to steam to Manila to restore Spanish control of the Philippines. Known as “the Second Squadron,” the ships came under the command of Admiral Manuel de la Cámara y Livermore, a veteran of the War of the Pacific (which pitted Spain against Peru and Chile, 1865-1866), the First Cuban War (1868-1878) and the First Rif War, fought in Spanish Morocco (1893-1894). Cámara knew the way to the Philippines, having led the “Black Squadron” of three Spanish warships to Manila in 1890.

Spanish Battleship Pelayo

Cámara’s relief squadron included the battleship Pelayo (1888, partially rebuilt just before deployment) with two 12.6-inch guns and two 11-inch guns, and the brand-new armored cruiser Emperador Carlos V, with 11-inch guns. With support ships, this squadron would bring into play far more powerful weapons than the 8-inch and 6-inch guns of the four protected cruisers of the American Asiatic Squadron. With America’s most powerful ships deployed in the more important Caribbean theater of the war, a desperate admiralty sent the US monitor Monterey (1891) with two 12-inch guns, two ten-inch guns and a ram to Manila from San Francisco on June 11. It was followed by the monitor USS Monadnock (1883), with four ten-inch guns on June 23. Though the monitors, with very low freeboards, were designed for use in coastal waters or rivers, they both survived harrowing two-month crossings of the Pacific. They would remain in the Philippines until 1899.

Spanish Cruiser Emperador Carlos V in the Suez Canal

The Spanish Second Squadron passed through the Suez Canal after several days of negotiations with British authorities and reached the Red Sea by July 7, but was ordered to return home following the American destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron at Santiago, Cuba on July 3, 1898. Four Spanish cruisers had stood no chance against four American battleships and two armored cruisers. This created an opening for the US to implement plans to raid the Spanish coast with the battleships Iowa and Oregon and the cruiser Brooklyn. The American attack was called off once the powerful Spanish ships turned for home, where Cámara’s squadron was disbanded on July 25, 1898.

The End of Uncertainty

American intentions in the Philippines started to become clear when US troops began to arrive. The first American ground force of 2700 men landed on July 1, 1898. Further troopships arrived at Manila on July 17 and again on July 31. Instead of aggravating the situation, their arrival confirmed that the Americans planned a military occupation, a development that would leave little room for German expansion in the islands. By the end of July, the German foreign ministry informed Washington that their ships never intended to interfere with American operations and a large squadron had only been sent in response to public pressure in Germany to defend German interests in the Philippines.

USS Monterey Crossing the Pacific, 1898

The US monitor Monterey arrived on August 4; when the monitor Monadnock sailed into Manila Bay on August 16, the American squadron was finally stronger than their German counterparts.

There was, strangely, to be one more incident that was little noted at the time but later grew in stature into an almost legendary confrontation. A secret armistice was agreed upon by the Americans and the Spanish on August 12. A mock battle was arranged for the next day to allow the Spanish to save face and avoid a potential slaughter by the Filipino insurgents by surrendering to the Americans instead.

As the American ships moved from nearby Cavite to positions off Manila to shell the city on August 13, the two British cruisers moved into a position between the Americans and the four remaining German ships. Though no-one at the time thought it was anything other than the British ships moving into a better observation point (with little regard for the view of the Germans), it was later interpreted as the pro-American British preventing an imminent attack on the American flank by the German squadron. In fact, neither the British nor German ships were cleared for action and the only German movement was to shift the Kaiser slightly after the British ships blocked the German flagship’s view of the American bombardment. With the exception of one American ship, the US squadron followed Dewey’s order to fire only on low-value or uninhabited targets.

American infantry advanced into the city, with some commanders who had not been informed of the full plan surprised by the light resistance they encountered. Aguinaldo’s rebels had been warned by the Americans to stay out of Manila during American operations there, but joined the American advance instead, ignoring Spanish flags of truce and forcing the Spanish to resist in earnest for their own survival. As a result, 19 Americans and 49 Spaniards were dead by the end of the “mock battle.”

SMS Kaiserin Augusta

Following the shelling of the city, the Kaiserin Augusta sailed away with the Spanish Governor General, though the ship’s captain later claimed he did so with American permission. Diederichs departed Manila for Batavia on August 21 aboard the Kaiser. The rest of the German squadron left for Mariveles (Bataan Province), leaving only the Prinzess Wilhelm on station to protect German nationals.

Aftermath

Dewey appears to have been more alarmed by the presence of the German squadron at Manila than Washington. Though both the German and American press contributed to the belief that a confrontation was imminent, there was little appetite for such in both Washington and Berlin. The German presence was opportunistic and designed to exploit a possible collapse of the Philippines in concert with other “sea-powers” if such a course arose. When the Spanish-American armistice was signed on August 12, German interest in a Philippines protectorate evaporated and Diederichs was ordered to the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) to celebrate the coronation of the Queen of the Netherlands. German attention quickly turned to obtaining Spain’s other possessions in the Pacific. American diplomats were informed that if the US did not object to this activity, Germany would abandon any claims to the Sulu Archipelago. This proved agreeable to both sides. Meanwhile, the December 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris forced Spain to sell the Philippines to the US for $20 million. On February 4, 1889, the US Senate voted for the full annexation of the Philippines.

Despite his rapprochement with Diederichs, Dewey appears to have remained angered by his confrontation with the Germans, telling an American correspondent during his trip home that America’s next war would be with Germany. He continued to express anti-German sentiments on his return, earning a reprimand from President Roosevelt. Dewey would later tell a French admiral that his biggest mistake at Manila was not sinking the German squadron, a feat that was likely beyond his ability. By April 1899, however, Dewey was ready to admit in a letter to Diederichs that their differences had been largely manufactured by the press. Diederichs was recalled to Berlin in 1899 to become the new chief of the admiralty staff.

Even after Washington betrayed the Filipino revolutionaries and decided to keep the entire Philippines as a colony, the German Colonial Society advocated a German occupation of the island of Mindoro, the seventh biggest island in the Philippines, just south of Luzon. Mindoro had fine harbors, but had never come under complete Spanish control. It took US troops over two years to crush local resistance on the island and the ambitions of the German Colonial Society eventually came to nothing.

The German Empire in the Pacific (Chrischerf).

Though Germany had missed out on the Philippines, it still benefited from the Spanish defeat through the German-Spanish Treaty of 1899, in which Spain sold the Pacific island chains of the Carolines, the Palau Islands and the Northern Marianas to Berlin for 25 million pesetas. These roughly 6000 islands were placed under the administration of German New Guinea, giving Germany vast, if relatively unproductive, holdings in the Pacific. The new gunboat SMS Jaguar was sent on a flag-raising tour of Germany’s new possessions.

After the Manila incident there would be many more operations by the German East Asian Squadron before its 1914 triumph over a British fleet at Colonel off the west coast of South America and its subsequent destruction by a second British fleet at the Battle of the Falklands. These operations included the Battle of the Taku Forts, the suppression of the Boxer Uprising and the crushing of rebellions against German rule in the Caroline Islands and German Samoa. After the outbreak of the Great War, the fleet’s German gunboats (including the Iltis and Jaguar) remained at Tsingtao to battle the 1914 Japanese/British offensive that finally expelled the Germans from China.

At a time when communications with home were impossibly slow even in tense situations that demanded immediate decisions, Diederichs had somehow managed to make a display of Germany’s new-found overseas power while at the same time showing just enough restraint and diplomatic acumen to avoid a war with the United States that no-one in Berlin wanted, despite the decision to send an entire German squadron to Manila when a lone gunboat might have sufficed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bönker, Dirk: (2013) “Global Politics and Germany’s Destiny ‘from an East Asian Perspective’: Alfred von Tirpitz and the Making of Wilhelmine Navalism,” Central European History 46(1), March 2013, pp. 61-96.

Dewey, George: (1913) Autobiography of George Dewey, Admiral of the Navy, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

Dodson, Aidan: (2016). The Kaiser’s Battlefleet: German Capital Ships 1871–1918. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley.

Dodson, Aidan: (2017) “After the Kaiser: The Imperial German Navy’s Light Cruisers after 1918,” In John Jordan (ed.): Warship 2017, Conway, London, pp. 140–159.

Dodson, Aidan, and Dirk Nottelmann: (2021) The Kaiser’s Cruisers 1871–1918, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.

Ellicott, JM: (1955) “The Cold War Between Von Diederichs and Dewey in Manila Bay,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 85(11), November 1955, pp. 1236-1239.

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Hildebrand, Hans H, Albert Röhr and Hans-Otto Steinmetz: (1993) Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe: Biographien – ein Spiegel der Marinegeschichte von 1815 bis zur Gegenwart Vol. 1, Mundus Verlag, Ratingen.

Nottelmann, Dirk & Sullivan, David M: (2023). From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Battleship, 1864–1918. Warwick: Helion & Company

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Schult, Volker: (2002) “Revolutionaries and Admirals: The German East Asia Squadron in Manila Bay,” Philippine Studies 50(4), pp. 496-511.

Schult, Volker, and Karl-Heinz Wionzek (eds.): (2017) The German and Austrian Navies in the Philippines, and Their Role in the Spanish-American War of 1898: A collection of original documents, National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).

Shippee, Lester Burrell: (1925) “Germany and the Spanish-American War,” The American Historical Review 30(4), July 1925, pp. 754-777.

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Van Dijk, Kees: (2015) “The Scramble for China: The Bay of Jiaozhou and Port Arthur,” in: Tak-Wing Ngo (ed.): Pacific Strife, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 295-316.

Wionzek, Karl-Heinz (ed.): (2000) Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War. Four Accounts by Officers of the Imperial German Navy, National Historical Institute, Manila.

A Trail of Burning Ships: Assessing the Value of Commerce Raiding to the Confederate Cause

Posted on November 21, 2018 by McGregor

Civil War Roundtable

Royal Canadian Military Institute, Toronto

November 21, 2018

Introduction

Far from the grinding slaughter of the American Civil War was another front, one where, for the most part, casualties consisted of property rather than young lives. This was the campaign undertaken by a small number of Confederate commerce-raiding ships to drive the Union’s vast merchant fleet from the Seven Seas and to draw away Union warships imposing a crippling blockade on Southern ports.

The campaign was one of both monotony and wild adventure, often fought in remote and exotic locations in both baking heat and bone-chilling cold. The most famous of these cruisers were the Alabama, the Florida and the Shenandoah, making cruises as long as two years with the illumination of burning Union ships to mark their progress.

As the war went on and it became apparent that the South had little chance of winning, commerce raiding actually intensified. The captains and officers of these ships went to sea in the knowledge that popular opinion in the North demanded they be hung as pirates.

The Privateer Model

Granting letters of marque to privateers was the usual model for states at war that wished to destroy enemy commerce at no risk or liability to themselves. Privateers worked not out of loyalty, but for the prizes they were entitled to take by their dubious authority. This was tried in the early Confederacy, but when it became clear that privateers could not easily bring their prizes back through the blockade into the southern states, privateering came to an abrupt end. There was, however, money to be made from blockade-running, and this is where financial backers went.

In Richmond, it became clear that new measures were called for. Ships flying the flag of the Confederacy, manned by commissioned Southern officers and part of an official navy would sail the seas to intercept shipments of Federal war supplies and destroy Union shipping in general.

Britain decided early in the war to bar privateers from its ports, providing another incentive for the Confederacy to bring its commerce raiders under naval command, which would allow the ships to access British ports as a belligerent power, with the various restrictions covered by international law.

CSS Manassas

The CSS Manassas, the Confederacy’s first ironclad, began its career as a privateer. Using the engines and hull of a steam tug-boat, private investors in Louisiana commissioned an innovative design, combining a powerful ram with a 32-pounder gun in its bow. The ship was expropriated by the Confederate Navy and its original crew of thugs driven off by a single naval officer.

The Manassas participated in two major battles on the Mississippi, ramming both the USS Brooklyn and the USS Mississippi. When the ironclad attempted to prevent Admiral Farragut from running the Union fleet past Forts Jackson and St. Philip, it ran aground and was set on fire by the guns of the USS Mississippi. Eventually the Manassas drifted downstream while still on fire until its magazine exploded.

Lincoln’s proclamation of the blockade included a warning that anyone caught molesting Union shipping would be treated as a pirate and hanged. When it appeared that some captured privateers would be executed, Jefferson Davis ordered an equal number of senior Union officers held prisoner to be executed if Lincoln’s orders were carried out. They were not.

By 1863, the privateers had pretty much disappeared, replaced by the Confederate Navy’s commerce raiders.

Captain James Dunwoody Bulloch

James Dunwoody Bulloch (left) with his brother, Irvine Bulloch of the CSS Alabama

The main Confederate naval agent in Britain was Captain James Dunwoody Bulloch, an extremely resourceful character who produced a mixture of triumphs and disappointments in his efforts to supply the Confederacy with modern naval ships. Most of the disappointments were due to the tireless efforts of American diplomatic officials and their agents to ferret out well disguised plans to purchase or build warships in Britain and staff them with British crews. Obtaining ships, weapons and crews for use in a conflict to which Britain was not a party was a violation of that nation’s Foreign Enlistment Act, so subterfuge was called for.

Bulloch believed that winning the naval war in home waters was more important than launching commerce raiders, saying “The destruction of unarmed and peaceful merchant vessels… is not defensible upon the principles of moral law.” Nonetheless, he continued to follow orders to assemble a European-built fleet capable of smashing the Union blockade.

In the shipyards, the more obviously warlike the ships under construction were, the more attention they drew from the formidable intelligence network presided over by the US Ambassador to Britain, Charles Francis Adams. Bulloch ran his own network of secret agents who warned Bulloch of impending seizures of ships being built for the Confederacy.

The ships built in Britain and France were paid for in cotton, the only real currency the South possessed in any quantity.

Bulloch also handled the financing of blockade-runners. Several Confederate commerce raiders became blockade-runners under new names; others had been blockade-runners before being purchased and armed by the Confederate government. Bulloch also handled financing for Confederate intelligence operations in the British Empire, including Canada. There were accusations after the war that he may have funded the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln.

The Commerce Raiders

A common process was followed with most of the European-built ships. Still unarmed, they slipped out to sea to rendezvous at some remote place with tenders carrying all the guns and military gear. At this point the officers donned their Confederate naval uniforms and informed the crew of the true nature of their voyage. The sailors were given the option of staying with the ship or returning with the tender. Many sailors were veterans of Her Majesty’s Navy, and the fact that some of these were still members of the Royal Naval Reserve created yet more violations of the Foreign Enlistment Act.

Desertions, expired contracts and illness ate away at crew numbers, and the cruisers were forced to recruit from the crews of their prizes. When the CSS Florida reached Martinique after two years at sea, its crew was mostly Italian, Austrian and Greek, with smaller numbers of French, English and Americans. Nearly all had been recruited from the crews of captured vessels. When the CSS Alabama went down, there were 19 different nationalities on board. Portuguese, Spaniards, Malays, Prussians, Frenchmen and even South Seas islanders all served on the commerce raiders.

Prisoners were another problem, with the cruisers forced to host large numbers of men from their prizes until they could be offloaded to some agreeable neutral ship or dropped at some port to find their own way home.

The commerce raiders were under strict orders not to directly engage Union warships unless there was no other alternative. The best possible result of such a fight was the destruction of a single Union warship, but remaining at large on the seas meant multiple warships would be drawn away from the blockade to pursue the raider. This, and the destruction of Northern merchantmen and their cargoes, was the real mission of the cruisers.

Stealth was central to commerce raiding – the cruisers carried a chest of international flags for use in luring trusting victims to their doom. Some ships tried to make a run for it after receiving a shot across the bow, leading to dramatic sea chases which the best Confederate cruisers usually won with their combination of steam and sail.

Most of the commerce raiders had little expectation of docking in any Confederate port, so provisions were obtained from their victims and repairs made in foreign harbors. These repairs were allowed to belligerent powers under international law so long as the military power of the ship was not enhanced or its complement of sailors increased. If a Union ship was present in the same foreign port, it was not allowed to take any action against the Confederate vessel, nor could it follow the ship when it left the port for 48 hours or to engage it within the three-mile range of national waters. Once discovered by a Union ship, it became imperative for a cruiser to leave a foreign harbor as quickly as possible before other Union ships could close in and trap it.

The Union never adopted convoys as a means of protecting their merchant fleet. The North never had enough ships to maintain both convoys and the blockade, so the latter was judged more important and the merchantmen were left to their fates. Convoys only work when there is a common destination; they cannot protect ships going to a variety of ports.

Discipline was always a problem on the cruisers, given that, other than the officers, the crews were not from the southern states and had no loyalty to the Confederate cause. Raphael Semmes, the commander of the Alabama, noted that many of the crew had the belief they were on some sort of privateer where “they would have a jolly good time and plenty of license.” He convinced these men otherwise with what he termed “a strong hand.” Confederate Marines served on all the cruisers to enforce the officers’ orders, but little is known about them as all their records were destroyed in a fire shortly after the war.

Drunkenness was a constant problem, especially when the crew discovered stores of alcohol in one of their prizes. When the Shenandoah seized a ship carrying 50 barrels of liquor and over 2100 bottles of spirits, a four-day drunken riot ensued before the officers could restore order. Fighting, insolence, theft and neglect of duty were other common offenses. Discipline could be enforced by extra duties, cancellation of grog, heavy fines, being clapped in irons, gagging or tricing. The latter was an unofficial naval punishment that gained popularity after flogging was banned and involved being hung by the wrists for hours with the feet barely touching the deck.

Ships’ officers tended to be very young. On the Shenandoah, 25-year-old Executive Officer William Whittle was expected to deal out discipline to older, hardened men with no real loyalty to the South or its cause. His commander, “Old Man Waddell,” was 41.

The captain of the Alabama came to trust his young officers; Captain James Waddell, however, never did, and often rose from his bed in the middle of the night to countermand the sailing orders of his subordinates. This drove a wedge between the captain and his young officers.

A small number of slaves were also part of the cruisers’ crews, usually employed in the galley or as stewards. The Alabama had two slaves in its complement; both died in its final battle. The Shenandoah had two free Blacks in its crew; one had eagerly volunteered after his ship was taken; the other was a veteran of the US Navy who had been aboard the USS Minnesota when it was attacked by the Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads. Impressed as a cook, he was a constant discipline problem, being triced as many as three times a week before he deserted.

Since Britain, France, Spain and their colonies all prohibited prizes from being brought into port for sale, there was little alternative for the cruisers to do anything more than burn, scuttle or bond their prizes. The latter practice spared the ship, but was actually a form of ransom in which the ships’ owners were obliged to pay a heavy fine to the Confederate government at the conclusion of the war. The practice presumed a Confederate victory or negotiated settlement would conclude the war.

The crews of the commerce-raiders were promised prize money for every ship ransomed, burned or sunk. The value of the vessels and their cargoes were carefully recorded in the ship’s log and the funds were to be paid out by the Confederate government at the end of the war. Needless to say, none of these funds appeared after the collapse of the Confederacy. Many sailors discovered there was far more money in blockade-running, which offered high wages and space within the ship to store their own speculative cargoes.

In general, the commanders of the commerce raiders did not allow looting of the ships they captured in order to avoid charges of piracy, but these rules were interpreted in different ways. One veteran of the Alabama complained: “Whenever we took a prize, the officers always made a rush for all the good eatables and drinkables, while the men were not allowed a single article, and severely punished if they touched anything.” Captain Semmes believed that relaxation of this rule could encourage boarding parties to try and take possession of the entire prize for themselves.

The most important parts of a cruiser intended to remain at sea for a long time were steam condensers to produce fresh water from salt water, and large coal bunkers that enabled the steamers to avoid entering foreign ports where they could be trapped by Union ships. Being composite vessels, they usually remained under sail, bringing their iron propellers into play only when necessary.

The crews became experts in arson, learning all the best techniques to send a ship up in flames. The sight of wooden ships blazing through the night in the midst of a vast ocean left indelible impressions on those involved. Many approached the work with enthusiasm; an officer recalled of one ship: “As she had no oil aboard, we found it a little hard to get the fire going, but when it did start, it burned beautifully.” Semmes described the sound of a burning ship as “the sound of a thousand furnaces.”

CSS Nashville

One of the earliest Confederate commerce raiders was the CSS Nashville, converted from a passenger-carrying paddle wheeler with powerful engines. The Nashville took only two prizes, but was politically important for being the first Confederate ship to arrive in a British or European port. US Ambassador Charles Adams demanded the British treat it as a pirate vessel, but Foreign Secretary Lord Russell declared it was a belligerent vessel with a regular crew, thus granting it the usual protections under international law.

CSS Nashville burns the Harvey Birch

With the legal status of the Confederate ships settled in Britain, the rest of Europe followed suit in what was a vital development for the survival of the small Confederate navy. Evading the USS Tuscarora, the Nashville returned to North Carolina loaded with Enfield rifles and eight batteries of artillery in February 1862.

The Nashville briefly entered service as a blockade-runner as the SS Thomas L. Wragg and then as a rare privateer under the name Rattlesnake. Before it could take any prizes, the Rattlesnake was destroyed by the monitor USS Montauk in the Ogeechee River of Georgia.

Raphael Semmes and the CSS Alabama

Captain Raphael Semmes, CSN

Captain Raphael Semmes was the most famous of the cruiser commanders. He began his raiding in the CSS Sumter, a former passenger steamer that was not especially suitable for use as a commerce-raider, but Semmes thought she had “a saucy air about her,” and undertook extensive renovations to turn her into a warship.

CSS Sumter Burns the Neapolitan off Gibraltar

After running the blockade, Semmes and his crew learned their new trade well, taking 18 prizes and burning seven. Its last two victims were taken off the coast of Gibraltar in April 1862. Afterwards the Sumter was trapped in Gibraltar’s port by Union warships and had to be abandoned.

Semmes’ next command was the Alabama, a British-built composite steamer armed with six 32-pounder guns on its flanks and two pivot guns, an 8-inch smoothbore and a 100 pounder Blakely rifle.

CSS Alabama vs the USS Hatteras (foreground)

In January 1863, the Alabama took on the USS Hatteras off Galveston. The guns of the Union’s paddle-wheel cruiser were no match for the Alabama’s, and the Union ship was sunk in only 13 minutes. This battle left other Union ships wary of tackling Confederate cruisers without support.

As the Alabama’s cruise went on and accusations of piracy became louder, Semmes seemed to take on a more piratical appearance, terrifying the masters of captured ships as he examined their papers in his cabin, stroking his ever-longer waxed mustache in front of a collection of chronometers taken from ships that had failed the test and been sent to the bottom.

Captain Semmes and First Mate John McIntosh Kell, CSS Alabama

After two years at sea, the Alabama was bottled in at the French port of Cherbourg in June 1864 by the USS Kearsage. Semmes’ choices were to offer battle to the Union ship before even more federal ships arrived, or to abandon the Alabama in port. The prestige of the Confederacy had been blemished by the defeat at Gettysburg and Semme’s own reputation tarnished by charges of piracy. In this situation, Semmes sought and received permission to engage the Kearsage. Semmes sent the captain of the Kearsage a brief note, reading: “I am undergoing a few repairs here which I hope will not take longer than the morrow. Then I will come out and fight you a fair and square fight.”

As the ships circled in the Channel, hurling shot and shell at one another, Semmes realized two things;

(1) The fire of the Alabama was having little effect on the Kearsage, due to the latter’s use of heavy chains draped over the sides of the ship, and (2) the superior speed of the Kearsage would make an Alabama victory difficult. Semmes attempted to resolve these issues by getting in close enough to board the Union whip, believing his veteran crew would make quick work of the less-experienced crew of the Kearsage. The attempt failed, and only resulted in greater damage to the Alabama from close-range fire.

Another reason for the Alabama’s inability to destroy the Kearsage was the powder in the Alabama’s shells had deteriorated at sea. The Alabama nearly ended the battle when it struck the stern of the Kearsage near its screw with a 100-pound percussion shell, which lodged in the ship’s timbers but failed to explode. The entire section was later removed and displayed as a relic of the battle.

With the Alabama steadily taking on water that threatened to put out her fires and most of her guns out of commission, Semmes struck his colors and ordered the survivors to abandon ship.

The Sinking Alabama Lowers its Flag

Even the sinking of the Alabama incited controversy; Semmes and a number of his officers escaped capture and probable trials for piracy when they were plucked from the water by the Deerhound, a private English yacht that took them to safety in England rather than turn them over to the victorious Americans, who claimed they had a right to take the Alabama’s crew as prisoners since the ship had surrendered to the Kearsage.

The wreck of the Alabama was discovered in 1984 by a French navy mine-sweeper. Two five-ton guns were raised in 2000, along with the ship’s bell, items of furniture, tableware and even a human jaw found under a gun.

By the time it sank, the Alabama had captured 65 Union merchantmen and burned 52 of them, with a total value of over $4.5 million. In 22 months, it had boarded 447 ships and taken over 2,000 prisoners.

After safely returning to the South via Cuba, Semmes was placed in command of the freshwater James River Squadron, using the ironclad Virginia II as his flagship.

The CSS Florida

The CSS Florida

The CSS Florida left the Liverpool shipyard where it was built in March 1862. When it arrived in Nassau it was temporarily interned and its crew of 130 dispersed. When the ship was returned to its Confederate commander, John Maffitt, he was able to recruit only 20 local men to take it back to sea to load the guns and other war materiel that had arrived separately from Scotland. Things got worse, as Yellow Fever struck Maffitt and the small crew, killing four, including Maffitt’s stepson.

Incredibly, Maffitt was able to run the Florida through the Union blockade into Mobile, Alabama, where he was able to enlist a new crew. The ship was blasted by Union warships as it made its run into Mobile, and repairs took four months. Maffitt then made a brilliant night-time escape past nine Union warships determined to catch her leaving port.

The Florida was a great success as a commerce raider. One of its victims carried 10,000 boxes of fireworks from China, creating a spectacular display as it burned through the night. After taking many prizes, Maffit’s health failed and he left the ship at Brest in August 1863.

His successor, Lieutenant Charles M. Morris, continued to have triumphs until he sailed into the harbor of Bahia in Brazil, where the USS Wachusett was also docked. Morris accepted Brazilian guarantees of his safety in the harbor under international law and decided to allow his men much-needed shore leave. After 12 hours the starboard watch returned roaring drunk and the port watch was allowed ashore. At 3 in the morning the Wachusett illegally attacked and seized the ship, towing it away before the Florida’s port watch could return.

The Brazilians were outraged and demanded the return of the Florida, but the cruiser was taken to Hampton Roads, where it sank in mysterious circumstances. The Wachusett’s captain, Napoleon Collins, was court-martialled for his violation of international law, but later pardoned by US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.

The CSS Rappahannock

The CSS Rappahannock in Calais

An example of how desperate the Confederacy could be at times to acquire ships for commerce raiding is the sad story of the CSS Rappahannock, also known as “the White Elephant.” Originally the HMS Victor, the 500-ton dispatch steamer was judged defective by the Admiralty and sold at auction in November 1863. Its sale to a Confederate agent pretending to be interested in using her in the China trade was quickly detected and it was ordered not to leave port. An intrepid young Scotsman was hired and managed to run her out to sea so suddenly there were still workmen on the ship. However, her bearings burned out and the ship drifted to Calais, where it gained entry to port as a ship in distress. Once there, Lieutenant Fauntleroy, CSN, took command of the ship. Trapped in the harbor by two Union warships and French reluctance to allow her to go to sea, the Rappahannock remained there, rotting in its berth until the end of the war.

The Shenandoah– The World-Wide Cruise

Bulloch purchased the Sea King, a much-admired composite ship in London in September 1864. The vessel slipped past two Union warships guarding the outlet of the Thames and met a tender carrying all necessary arms and war materiel. It was the beginning of a voyage that would take the ship around the globe under her new name, the CSS Shenandoah.

Some of the Rappahannock’s crew was transferred to the Shenandoah, which suffered from personnel shortages throughout its voyage. When it set off on its world-wide cruise, 9 of 23 officers were British, as were all ten petty officers and nearly all the crew. When the ship stopped in Melbourne for repairs, the US consul made repeated complaints that the Shenandoah was recruiting locally in violation of the British Foreign Enlistment Act. Waddell denied all such charges, but after his ship took to sea some 42 “stowaways” emerged, asking to join the crew. Among them were 32 British and two Canadians.

By the time the last great Confederate commerce raider set sail again, boredom and poor morale at sea were becoming major problems due to the lack of prizes since its departure from London. The Shenandoah would literally have to go to the ends of the earth to find them.

Service on the cruisers did allow their crews to see remote places that few other men had seen, such as the visit of the Shenandoah’s officers to the ancient and mysterious stone city of Nan-Matal in the South Pacific. Nearly all the officers received native tattoos in the South Pacific.

Captain James I. Waddell of the CSS Shenandoah

The Shenandoah was not a happy ship, however; it was continually plagued by bitter rivalries and disputes in its officer corps as well as a general dissatisfaction with its skilled but sullen master. In a sign of declining discipline, the Shenandoah’s officers began to pilfer personal items from their prizes in the South Pacific, blurring the lines between piracy and commerce raiding.

Communicating with a ship deliberately trying to avoid detection was nearly impossible, and the Shenandoah steamed on ignorant that the war at home was quickly drawing to a close.

Bulloch had issued specific orders to Waddell to strike the American whaling fleet in the Pacific, which he described as “a source of abundant wealth to our enemies and a nursery for their seamen.”

The CSS Shenandoah Burns the New England Whaling Fleet in the Bering Sea

The Shenandoah burned its first New England whaler in the Bering Sea the day after Lee surrendered the Army of North Virginia on April 9, 1865. It was the first of many. One whaler’s captain had lost his first ship to the Alabama, and then another to the Shenandoah; a crewman pledged never to ship with that master again, saying that he was better at finding Confederate cruisers than whales! The Shenandoah fired the last shot of the Civil War on June 28, long after all the other Confederate commands had surrendered. The cruise continued, however, as Waddell was still unaware of the Confederate collapse.

Having destroyed the American whaling fleet, Waddell headed for San Francisco, intending to steam past the formidable harbor defenses at night. Once through, the Shenandoah would ram the Union monitor stationed there, board her, and then turn the guns of both ships against the city to demand its surrender. Before this audacious plan could be put into motion, Waddell finally received definitive proof of the war’s end.

Waddell ordered all the ship’s weapons stowed below. His orders in this case were to sail into Valparaiso, Chile, sell the ship, and pay off the crew. Many of the officers insisted on surrendering the ship to British authorities at Capetown or Sydney, but Waddell instead made the strange decision to take the ship 17,000 miles around the Horn and through Atlantic waters infested with Federal ships.

Newspapers intercepted by the Shenandoah revealed that President Andrew Johnson (Lincoln’s successor) had outlawed the cruiser and that Waddell and his crew were to be summarily hanged as pirates after their expected capture. Despite a near mutiny, Waddell persuaded the bulk of the crew to follow his plan, and, on November 6, 1865, seven months after Lee’s surrender, he sailed the Shenandoah into Liverpool and surrendered her to the city’s astonished mayor. The Shenandoah had captured 38 Union vessels, burning 32 and bonding six on a remarkable cruise of 58,000 miles with stops on every continent save Antarctica.

The Navy that Never Was

By 1863 it had become apparent that the South’s home-made ironclads were capable of individual successes, but were not capable of shattering the Union’s blockade. Mallory decided that ironclads built in Europe would provide the necessary force to drive the blockaders from Southern shores. However, the shallow waters of the Southern coast and ports required shallow-draft ironclads still capable of taking on the Union’s Monitor-class ironclads. The problem was how to get such ships safely from Europe across 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean to the Southern states. Bulloch’s plan, never realized, was to ship pre-fabricated shallow-draft warships to the Confederacy for final assembly there.

Instead, Bulloch and other Confederate agents initiated the construction of a powerful, modern war-fleet. This consisted of:

Two “Laird Rams,” so-called after their builder
Two French-built rams, Cheops and Sphinx
Frigate no. 61, “the Scottish Sea Monster”
Four French-built corvettes.

Two blockade runners under construction in England were to also be equipped with incendiary shells and rockets to launch surprise attacks on New England towns and cities.

The Laird Rams

One of the Laird Rams

With 9-inch rifled guns in two revolving turrets, 5.5-inch-thick armor and powerful rams, Bulloch was convinced the Laird Rams would make quick work of the Union’s wooden warships. To deceive Federal spies, it was announced that the two ships were destined for the Egyptian Navy.

Under American threats of war, the British finally agreed to prevent the Laird Rams from sailing out of Liverpool to hoist a Confederate flag. Despite schemes to conceal their ownership, Union spies watching the shipyards had discovered the truth and the rams were eventually purchased by the Royal Navy for use as coastal defense vessels.

“The Scottish Sea Monster” – Frigate no. 61 after its sale to Denmark

At the same time a more advanced and partially armored version of the Alabama under construction on the Clyde was seized. This was followed by the confiscation of “Frigate no. 61,” a powerful ironclad ram built in Glasgow that became known as “the Scottish Sea Monster.” By late 1863, Mallory’s dream of superior European-built ironclads sweeping away a mostly wooden Union war-fleet was beginning to evaporate. Confederate defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg had greatly diminished French and British support for the South.

The Stonewall

Two ironclads were built for the Confederates in France in 1864. Also ostensibly destined for the Egyptian Navy, they were named Cheops and Sphinx. Emperor Napoleon III ordered that the still-unarmed ships be sold to neutral powers rather than the Confederacy. The Cheops went to Prussia, where it became the SMS Prinz Adalbert. The poorly-built ship’s short career ended in 1871, when it was discovered that its internal wooden construction had rotted beyond repair.

The Sphinx was sold to Denmark, which rejected her, then sold back to a French firm that in turn sold it to the Confederacy, as originally intended.

The CSS Stonewall

Renamed the Stonewall, this ironclad was fitted with a massive ram and a formidable 300 pounder Armstrong rifle mounted in the bow. Many of the crew were veterans of the Florida.

The ship, designed for coastal use, sailed badly in anything other than smooth waters and its junior officers came close to mutiny rather than try to take it across the Atlantic. Storms held it up in European waters long enough for the USS Niagara and the USS Oneida to try and seal it into port. Captain Thomas Jefferson Page, the Stonewall’s commander, took the ironclad out to sea and spent an entire day challenging the pair of Union ships, but they refused to fight. With no apparent opposition, Page took the Stonewall out the next day to cross the Atlantic.

Bulloch was aware of the Stonewall’s weaknesses and its captain was increasingly of the opinion that the ship was being sent on a suicide mission, but Bulloch also knew that the Stonewall’s strength was much exaggerated in the North, and its mere appearance off the North Carolina coast could cause panic in the mostly wooden Union fleet.

The Stonewall as the Japanese Azuma, 1871

In the event, the Stonewall arrived in Nassau just as the Civil War was drawing to a close. Captain Page took the ship to Cuba where he sold it to the Spanish government for just enough money to pay off the crew. The Spanish turned it over to the US for the same amount, which sold it in turn to Japan, where it participated in several battles and gained a reputation as a powerful and unsinkable warship before it was scrapped in 1889.

Post-War Litigation

At war’s end the United States demanded compensation from Britain for the destruction of its merchant fleet. Some US demands, such as receiving Canada in compensation, were viewed in London as excessive. The matter went to arbitration in Geneva in 1872, resulting in a British payment of $15.5 million in gold.

In agreeing to the compensation, Britain made what might have amounted to an admission of culpability when it announced, in diplomatic legalese: “The government of Her Britannic Majesty cannot justify itself for a failure in due diligence on a plea of the insufficiency of the legal means of actions which it possessed.”

It has been argued that Britain actually came out ahead, with most of the remaining American merchant fleet having been re-flagged during the war under the Union Jack. Other unintentional beneficiaries of the commerce raiding campaign were the whales, as the destruction of the New England whaling fleet in the North Atlantic and North Pacific helped hasten the end of whaling as an occupation.

After the war, Confederate naval officers, agents and diplomats involved in commerce raiding were excluded from the general amnesty. Most waited for a second, more inclusive amnesty in 1868 to return to America, though some, like Captain John Maffit, found their property had been confiscated. Bulloch avoided imprisonment by remaining in Liverpool, where he died in near-poverty in 1901. Other naval officers moved to Mexico or Argentina to avoid retribution.

Semmes was arrested and charged with treason, though he was released after four months in prison. His political enemies did not forget him, and succeeded in chasing him from several jobs and appointments. He eventually practiced law in Mobile, where he died in 1877 after eating contaminated shrimp. With time, his reputation improved; Semmes was featured on a 1995 US stamp and portrayed in a full-size statue erected in Mobile in 1900. The statue was suddenly taken down in 2020 in an attempt to appease Marxist Black Lives Matter militants.

Conclusion

In the latter days of the war prizes became few and far between, a frustrating development that was actually a tribute to the cruisers’ effectiveness in driving American merchant shipping from the seas. When the Alabama entered Singapore harbor in December 1863, Semmes discovered 20 Union merchantmen lying at anchor, afraid of taking to sea. There were similar scenes in ports across Asia, as insurance rates for American ships sky-rocketed. Union ships that attempted to avoid destruction by changing flags or carrying fake bills of sale to neutral parties rarely fooled the cruiser commanders, who knew every trick.

From the time of the launch of the CSS Sumter, Mallory and Bulloch had made sure that there was always at least one major commerce raider wreaking havoc on Northern shipping somewhere in the world. To cope with this, some 80 Federal warships were diverted from their blockade duties over the course of the war.

Bulloch realized the diplomatic cost of commerce raiding early on, but followed his orders to obtain and equip such ships with enormous energy. The brief reign of the commerce raiders and the litigation that followed spurred greater work on international law that helped reduce many points of friction between the United States and the European powers.

The Confederate commerce raiders could destroy Union shipping or drive it under new flags, but the North, unlike the South, was not deficient in raw materials or the manufacturing base needed to turn these into munitions, weapons, ships and every other type of war materiel. In this sense, it was impossible for the raiders to affect the resource-rich Northern war effort in any significant way. Bulloch was correct in suggesting powerful European-made ironclads capable of smashing the Union blockade were the way to go, if they could be delivered, but he and others eventually learned that no nation, especially one unrecognized, can rely on foreign construction of warships during a conflict to achieve victory.

Aberfoyle International Security

Category Archives: Naval Warfare

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A Trail of Burning Ships: Assessing the Value of Commerce Raiding to the Confederate Cause