Germans bombard Libau

On the morning of 17 November 1914 a German squadron appeared off Libau, a Russian port in Courland, then called Libava in Russian. For several hours the ships shelled the town and harbour, and in the harbour entrances the Germans sank several old ships to block it. It was the German fleet’s second attack on Libau, after the bombardment of 2 August.

A port the Germans feared

The Russians had abandoned Libau as a fleet base back in the summer, judging that it lay too close to the German border. The port could still, however, be of use to the enemy. In the autumn British submarines had broken into the Baltic, and they had briefly put in at Libau before moving to Reval. The German command feared that the British would set up a forward base there, from which it would be easy to attack German warships and shipping in the central Baltic. Rear-Admiral Ehler Behring, commanding the German cruisers in the Baltic, was ordered to block the port. Bad weather was waited out and the operation began only on 16 November.

From the start the plan did not go smoothly. During the night, while still on passage, Behring’s flagship, the armoured cruiser Friedrich Carl, ran onto Russian mines and sank towards morning. Despite this loss the Germans did not abandon the operation.

Bombardment and blockships

Two German light cruisers, Lübeck and Amazone, approached Libau with a group of torpedo boats and the ships intended for scuttling. The cruisers opened fire on the naval harbour, the railway line and the lighthouse. According to various accounts the bombardment lasted from four and a half to five hours. Latvian sources speak of about 600 shells fired. Fires broke out in the town and about a hundred buildings were destroyed or damaged. There were killed and wounded among the inhabitants, but their number is not precisely known.

At the same time the torpedo boats brought the old steamers intended for scuttling almost up to the harbour entrances and sank them there. Sources differ on their number: most often three or four ships are mentioned, sunk in the northern and southern entrances to the harbour. They were meant to prevent submarines from entering and leaving Libau.

Consequences

Blocking Libau did not change the situation in the Baltic. The Russians had no intention of defending the port anyway, and the British submarines were operating from bases in the Gulf of Finland. For the Germans the price of the operation proved high, since for a few hours’ bombardment of an abandoned port they paid with the loss of a large cruiser. The sunken ships later caused trouble for the Germans themselves. When the German army took Libau in May 1915 and wanted to use the port, the entrances first had to be cleared of wrecks. German minesweepers widened and deepened the channel in the northern entrance so that larger ships could pass through it.