End of Operation Albion

On 20 October 1917 (7 October in the Julian calendar) the Germans completed Operation Albion, which had begun nine days earlier. The islands of Saaremaa, Muhu and Hiiumaa, which close off the Gulf of Riga, were in their hands, and the Russian ships that had commanded the gulf for two years had sailed away to the Gulf of Finland. The British chronology of the war and Russian sources state that on that day the Germans took the whole of Hiiumaa. According to German studies, the last defenders of the island had laid down their arms on the evening of 19 October, and on 20 October all that remained was rounding up prisoners and sweeping mines.

The last days on Hiiumaa

After the capture of Saaremaa and the occupation of Muhu, a Russian garrison was still holding out on Hiiumaa, with the task of covering the fleet’s withdrawal. When on 18 October the Germans landed a cyclist battalion with artillery in the south of the island, the Russian commander ordered a withdrawal to a prepared line in the north and the destruction of the batteries. The soldiers took this as a sign that all was lost. Most of them abandoned their positions and made for the island’s only port, at Heltermaa, to wait for ships. The navy sent three steamers for them, but two ran aground and only one came back to the shore and took off a handful of soldiers. The rest went into captivity, and German units went on crossing to the island for several more days.

Bakhirev’s fleet withdraws

Vice Admiral Mikhail Bakhirev, commander of the Russian naval forces in the Gulf of Riga, received orders on 17 October, after the loss of the battleship Slava, to withdraw his ships to the north. He wanted to leave the Moon Sound a day later, but mines laid by German submarines were found on the line of retreat and had to be cleared first. At about 4 p.m. on 19 October his ships, including the battleship Grazhdanin and the cruisers Admiral Makarov and Bayan, together with transports and auxiliary vessels, left the northern Moon Sound, laying mines behind them. Visibility was only a few miles. Bakhirev foresaw that the Germans would be waiting on the shortest route to Hanko and chose a course further east, past the islet of Osmussaar (Odensholm). The German submarines had no chance to attack, and all the vessels except one transport, which ran aground, reached their bases in the Gulf of Finland. The Germans were preparing a sortie into the Gulf of Finland to cut off the Russians’ escape, but they were too late. They were still clearing the Moon Sound of mines on 19 and 20 October.

On 20 October, in the Gulf of Riga, which had already belonged to the Germans for four days, one more opponent made itself felt. The British submarine C32 under Lieutenant Christopher Satow, cut off from the exit of the gulf, fired two torpedoes at the German net-layer Eskimo but missed. The escorting torpedo boats attacked her with depth charges. Satow judged the damaged boat lost. The next day he ran her aground on the Estonian coast and blew her up, and the crew escaped ashore. On the same day, 20 October, the German Admiralty Staff proposed disbanding the force that had carried out the operation, and Vice Admiral Ehrhard Schmidt agreed at once. The dreadnoughts were needed in the North Sea.

The balance

According to German figures, 20,130 Russian soldiers and officers were taken prisoner. The Germans captured 141 guns, including 47 heavy ones, and 130 machine guns. The Russians lost the battleship Slava and the destroyer Grom. The German army lost 54 killed and 141 wounded, and the navy, which for many days had manoeuvred among mines in shallow waters, 156 killed and 60 wounded. A torpedo boat, seven minesweepers and nine trawlers and smaller vessels were sunk, and several dreadnoughts were damaged by mines. The number of Russian killed and wounded is not known, but it was small compared with the number of prisoners. Most of the garrison’s soldiers, demoralised after the revolution, surrendered or fled without a fight. Only some ships, batteries and volunteer units tried to fight to the end.

Significance

The Germans opened the sea route to Riga, taken in September, and stood at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, not far from Reval, that is Tallinn, the main base of the Baltic Fleet. According to German studies, as early as 18 October the prime minister, Alexander Kerensky, was conferring at the headquarters of the Northern Front on the defence of the approaches to Reval and Petrograd. The fall of the islands only heightened the fear of a German landing in the Gulf of Finland and a march on the capital. The German command, however, did not plan any such expedition. Ludendorff wanted another blow that would hasten the disintegration of the Russian army and push Russia towards peace, and the navy wanted to regain prestige after years of inactivity. On the islands the Germans set up an occupation administration with its seat at Arensburg, today’s Kuressaare. The big ships returned to the North Sea at the beginning of November, and on the Eastern Front Operation Albion proved to be the last major operation before Russia left the war.