Sinking of the cruiser Léon Gambetta

During the night of 26–27 April 1915 the Austro-Hungarian submarine U-5 torpedoed the French armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta, which was patrolling the entrance to the Adriatic Sea. The torpedoes struck at about 12.40 a.m., and the ship sank within about ten minutes. 684 of her 821 crew were killed, among them the commander of the cruiser division, Rear-Admiral Victor Baptistin Sénès. The British chronology of the war places the sinking under 26 April, although the torpedoes struck after midnight, in the first minutes of 27 April.

Patrol at the entrance to the Adriatic

Since August 1914 the French fleet under Vice-Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère had been guarding the Strait of Otranto, the only exit from the Adriatic into the Mediterranean. Armoured cruisers stood guard, cruising on a line between Cape Santa Maria di Leuca on the “heel” of the Italian boot and the island of Lefkada. They patrolled at low speed to save coal. In the last days of April, as Italy was signing its agreement with the Entente in London, Lapeyrère moved the cruisers closer to the strait, fearing a sortie by the Austro-Hungarian fleet.

The Léon Gambetta was the flagship of the 2nd Light Division, commanded by Rear-Admiral Sénès. Launched in 1902, the cruiser, the first of three ships of her class, displaced about 12,500 tons and was armed with four 194 mm and sixteen 164 mm guns. She was commanded by Captain André. During the night of 26–27 April she was sailing alone, according to later findings at a speed of only about 6 knots, a dozen or so miles south of Santa Maria di Leuca.

U-5’s attack

The small submarine U-5 had sailed from her base in the Bay of Kotor. She had recently come under the command of Lieutenant (Linienschiffsleutnant) Georg von Trapp. Shortly after midnight he sighted the cruiser and fired two torpedoes from a range of about 500 metres. Both hit: one near the electrical generating room, the other near the boiler room. The ship lost power, listed to port and after about ten minutes capsized and sank.

The darkness and the rapidly increasing list meant that only one boat could be lowered. Intended for 58 people, it took 108 survivors and reached Santa Maria di Leuca in the morning. Italian destroyers and torpedo boats from Brindisi and Taranto picked up another 29 survivors and 58 bodies. 137 men survived. All the officers were killed, among them Admiral Sénès and Captain André. Some sources give a slightly different number of dead, but 684 killed is the figure most often accepted. The bodies of the recovered sailors were buried at Castrignano del Capo, to which Santa Maria di Leuca belongs. The Italians, still formally neutral, received the survivors very warmly.

Consequences

It was one of the heaviest losses of the French navy in the war and the greatest success yet of the Austro-Hungarian submarines. Lapeyrère withdrew the cruisers further south and ordered them to patrol at 14 knots instead of the previous 6. From then on large French ships ventured near the strait less often. The sinking of the Léon Gambetta showed that in the Mediterranean too submarines had become a serious threat to large surface ships.

Georg von Trapp became one of the most successful submarine commanders of Austria-Hungary. In August 1915 he sank the Italian submarine Nereide, and later, in command of U-14, many merchant ships. To the wider public, however, he is known above all as the father of the singing family whose story is told in the musical “The Sound of Music”.