HMS Highflyer sinks Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- War at sea
- Date:
- 26 August 1914
- Author:
- Łukasz Skowroń
On 26 August 1914 the British cruiser HMS Highflyer surprised the German auxiliary cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse off the coast of Río de Oro, a Spanish colony on the Atlantic coast of Africa. After an exchange of fire lasting more than an hour, the former luxury liner went to the bottom. She was one of the first German raiders lost in this war.
A three-week raid
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, a Norddeutscher Lloyd liner converted into a warship, sailed from Bremen on 4 August. Commanded by Captain Max Reymann, she sank three British ships in the Atlantic, Tubal Cain, Kaipara and Nyanza, having first taken their crews on board. Two liners she encountered with women and children on board, Galician and Arlanza, she let go.
At the end of August the raider, running short of coal, put into a bay near Villa Cisneros, today’s Dakhla in Western Sahara. German and Austro-Hungarian supply ships were waiting for her there. Spain was neutral, and international law allowed the warships of belligerents to stay in neutral ports only briefly. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, however, had already been there for more than a week.
The clash
On 26 August HMS Highflyer, an old protected cruiser of 1898 commanded by Captain Henry Buller, appeared in the bay. The British captain called on the Germans to surrender. Reymann replied that he was in neutral Spanish waters and that an attack would violate them. Buller took the view that the Germans had been the first to break Spanish neutrality by prolonging their stay, and at 3.10 p.m. he opened fire. The fight lasted until 4.45 p.m. On the British side one sailor was killed and several were wounded.
Sunk or scuttled?
The accounts of the two sides differ. The British announced that the German ship had been sunk by their shells. According to the Germans, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse had run out of ammunition, and Reymann, unwilling to surrender his ship, had her scuttled with explosive charges prepared in advance. Modern accounts usually combine the two versions: the ship was damaged by British fire but was finally sent to the bottom by her own crew. On this basis a British prize court in 1916 awarded Highflyer’s crew a bounty for destroying an enemy warship.
Most of the Germans managed to get ashore before the ship sank. Sources describe the fate of the crew in different ways, and Reymann himself eventually made his way back to Germany. The wreck in shallow water remained visible for decades. The loss of Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse showed that big liners, which consumed enormous quantities of coal, were poorly suited to raiding: they depended on supply ships and neutral ports, where they were easy to track down.
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Meanwhile
(04)Elsewhere in the same days.
- 26 August 1914 · Western FrontBattle of Le CateauOn 26 August 1914 Smith-Dorrien's II Corps stood and fought at Le Cateau against the wishes of GHQ. It paid a high price but halted the German pursuit.
- 26 August 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of Komarów beginsOn 26 August 1914 Auffenberg's Austro-Hungarian 4th Army attacked Plehve's Russian 5th Army near Zamość. The Battle of Komarów had begun.
- 26 August 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of the Złota Lipa beginsOn 26 August 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Third Army attacked east of Lviv and collided with the much stronger armies of Ruzsky and Brusilov.
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