Dreadnought

A dreadnought is a battleship of a new type, armed with many guns of a single heavy calibre and driven by turbines. It took its name from the British HMS Dreadnought of 1906, and all older battleships then came to be called pre-dreadnoughts. In the First World War dreadnoughts were the most valuable ships of the fleets and were seldom put at risk, while pre-dreadnoughts, worth less, were sent where the risk was greatest.

The ship that made fleets old

On 10 February 1906 a ship conceived by Admiral John Fisher was launched at Portsmouth. She had ten 305 mm guns, no medium-calibre guns at all, and turbines that let her steam for long periods at close to 21 knots. Battleships of the day usually had four 305 mm guns and many smaller ones, while Dreadnought could bring twice as many heavy guns to bear in a broadside. Overnight every existing battleship, British ones included, became obsolete.

The challenge was taken up by Germany, which since the law of 1898 had been building a fleet against Britain. From then on the strength of fleets was counted in dreadnoughts, and alongside them came faster, more lightly armoured battlecruisers. Britain did not lose its lead in this race up to 1914.

Dreadnoughts in the war

Dreadnoughts formed the core of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet. The weaker German fleet avoided a decisive battle, and the British did not seek one at any price, because as long as the Grand Fleet existed Germany could not break the blockade. The only great clash of dreadnought fleets was the Battle of Jutland in 1916. In December 1917 American dreadnoughts joined the Grand Fleet.

No dreadnought was sunk at Jutland. Instead they were lost to explosions in their own magazines and to torpedoes. In 1916 the Russian Imperatritsa Mariya blew up at Sevastopol, and the Italian Leonardo da Vinci at Taranto. In 1917 the British Vanguard exploded at Scapa Flow, and in June 1918 the Austro-Hungarian Szent István was sunk by the torpedoes of a small Italian motor boat.

Pre-dreadnoughts

Old battleships could be lost, so they took on tasks too risky for dreadnoughts. Most of them were gathered at the Dardanelles. On 18 March 1915 Bouvet, Irresistible and Ocean were sunk there on Turkish mines. In May 1915 a Turkish destroyer sank Goliath, and the German U-21 sank Triumph and Majestic.

Pre-dreadnoughts were lost on other seas too. On 1 January 1915 U-24 torpedoed Formidable in the English Channel, and 547 men died with her. Germany took a squadron of old battleships to Jutland, which their sailors called the “five-minute ships”. One of them, Pommern, blew up after a British torpedo hit and sank with her entire crew of more than 800 men. In October 1917 German dreadnoughts wrecked the Russian battleship Slava in the Moon Sound.

After the war most battleships of both generations went for scrap. The Treaty of Versailles allowed Germany to keep eight pre-dreadnoughts as coast-defence ships. One of them, Schleswig-Holstein, shelled Westerplatte, opening the German invasion of Poland.