Hipper: the neglected admiral

rdfreeman987
5 days ago
14 min read

Admiral Franz von Hipper (1864-1932).

Jutland Hero

Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper stood on the bridge of Seydlitz, puffing vigorously on his cigar. He had been born for this day. His Scouting Force had first made contact with Vice Admiral David Beatty’s battlecruisers at about 2.20 pm that afternoon. It was now 4.40 pm and behind him lay the most exhilarating hours of his life. True to his duty, he had, for two hours, engaged Beatty’s ships in a running battle, first south towards the High Seas Fleet, then north towards the Grand Fleet. Despite Beatty having 13.5-inch guns to Hipper’s 11- and 12-inch ones, Hipper had thrashed his enemy with consummate ease. Two of Beatty’s great ships – the Indefatigable and the Queen Mary – lay on the bed of the North Sea. While Hipper’s ships had scored 42 hits on the British battlecruisers, Beatty’s ships had taken only 21 hits. The Battle of Jutland – or Skagerak as the German’s were to call it – had barely begun and Hipper was already hero of the day.

British Historians have paid little attention to the German naval commanders of the First World War. Hipper has never been the subject of an article in a learned journal and the one English language biography of him is very limited in its coverage. Yet Hipper was an outstanding war-time admiral, who deserves a better appreciation.

A Bavarian childhood

Franz Ritter von Hipper was born on 13 September 1863 in a remote Bavarian town. His father owned a grocery-hardware store and the family were of very modest means. Hipper senior died when Franz was only four years old, so it was left to Franz’s mother, Anna, to bring up him and his three siblings. Anna, whose life was said to be ‘an unending round of toil and trouble’, kept the shop running until her eldest son took it over in 1879. Franz was shipped off to a Catholic boarding school at an early age. From the school and his family he developed the habits and beliefs of what was to be a disciplined and high-minded life. When things went well in battle, he always gave the credit to God, without whose aid he would not have prevailed.

The small town of Weilheim lies to the south west of Munich being close to the border with Austria. It is doubtful whether, in 1863, many of its inhabitants had ever seen the sea, so Franz’s decision to join the navy was a surprise to his family. His mother was horrified, saying: ‘Only adventurers and failures join the navy.’[1] Her attempt to deter him with some Captain Marryat books backfired – reading them redoubled his enthusiasm for the sea.

A born commander

Hipper entered the German naval cadet school in 1881. His first prolonged experience of the sea came a year later when on the corvette Leipzig during its world cruise of 1882-84. At the start of the voyage the young Hipper survived the worst North Sea and Channel storms for years. As the mercury fell to 732 mm, the Leipzig heeled over and nearly capsized. Stripped of her masts the ship crawled into Yarmouth in a sea strewn with the wreckage of eighteen less fortunate vessels. LaterLeipzig dragged its moorings and crashed into another ship. Neither the storms nor his assignment to top gallant hand deterred the courageous Hipper from his chosen career.

By 1889 Hipper had attained the rank of lieutenant and was with the Practice Squadron in the Mediterranean. He used his command of the despatch boat Wacht to draw attention to himself as he tested both her and himself to the limits. A fellow officer recalled that he had a ‘special gift’ for speed.[2] His return to Wilhelmshaven in December 1889 marked the last time that he was to serve outside home waters.

By 1895 Hipper had obtained command of the 2nd Destroyer Division. When sent to the Baltic for a winter cruise his officers were disappointed to find that there was to be no time for hunting. Instead Hipper filled their days with cruising and attacking exercises. Not even the foulest weather was accepted as an excuse for staying in port. At sea Hipper shared the life of his men, including the monotonous diet of soup made from bones on Monday, pork chops on Tuesday, roast (vinegared) meat on Wednesdays, goulash on Thursdays and hard-boiled eggs with salad on Fridays.

In the new century Hipper was picked out to be the navigation officer of the royal yacht, Hohenzollern. This was both a great honour and an opportunity to network. But networking was not in Hipper’s make-up; he omitted to take chance to establish connections with the higher echelons of the navy and failed to find any rapport with Kaiser Wilhelm II.

His period on the Hohenzollern coincided with the death of Queen Victoria. The ship was hastily diverted to Osborne, where Hipper saw the dead Queen lying in state. Later he stood on the deck of the ship as it assisted in escorting the Queen’s body from the island. They passed through a double line of warships to salutes from the guns and the sound of the dead march.

By 1908 Hipper was in command of the 1st Destroyer Division at Kiel, where his work came under the gaze of Rear Admiral Hugo von Pohl. In an official report Pohl declared Hipper to be ‘one of the best captains we have’ and recommended him for battleship command and for higher independent commands.[3] With war approaching Hipper became rear admiral in 1913 and was appointed to the post which brought him international fame: the command of the Scouting Force of the High Seas Fleet. Few men of his age and rank could match his sea experience: twenty-five of his thirty-three service years had been spent in ships and destroyers. Yet, although near to the top of the service, he had never once set foot inside the Ministry, nor ever held an Admiralty appointment.

On the eve of war

At 50 years of age Hipper, an inveterate bachelor, was more than ready for the war that he had anticipated for so many years. A fellow officer described him as ‘an extraordinarily attractive, slim, wiry officer’. On the short side and not giving the appearance of great strength, he was as tough as any hardened sailor. When on the bridge he found perfect contentment. When at sea he neither took off his clothes nor slept. He seemed to have little need of a social life, although he appears to have maintained loyal friendships over the years. His German biographer described him as ‘essentially a spiritual hermit’.[4] His great passion was sport, but he was addicted to both smoking and the sea. Riding gave him all the exercise that he felt he needed.

Hipper preferred to work alone, rarely consulting others or seeking their approval. He eschewed pomp and ceremony, always preferring a simple and unostentatious life. Although he travelled the globe in the early stages of his career, he never took to foreign parts – no place was ever able to match his beloved Bavaria. This may well explain why he never took the trouble to learn another language. Paperwork and writing were anathema to him. His only recorded reprimand occurred very early on in his career when he failed to keep a ship’s diary to the standard required. Until the war came, he never bothered to read the orders and papers sent to him, trusting his officers to handle the detail while he pursued his instinctive style of command. When dealing with men he preferred face-to-face talk: ‘Slanging,’ he said, ‘doesn’t go well on paper. If it’s necessary at all it should be done direct.’[5]

From raids to Jutland

On 30 July 1914 Hipper received orders to ‘stand by’ as war fever gripped Europe. The next day German declared war on Russia and at 8.00 pm Hipper received his full mobilisation orders. His battlecruisers – Seydlitz (his flagship), Moltke and Von der Tann – were ready and waiting in the Schillig Roads. (Derfflinger and Lützow were added later.)

For many years both the British and German high commands had assumed that a war would commence with an almighty naval battle in which a good part of each fleet would be destroyed. Hipper, too, expected an initial clash, but the German High Command chose a policy of ‘defence with readiness to attack’.[6] The British Admiralty had adopted much the same policy for its Grand Fleet, which Winston Churchill had despatched to the relative safety of Scapa Flow in the Orkneys on 29 July. With the two largest navies in the world in voluntary isolation Hipper was to begin his deeply frustrating war.

The principal role of Hipper’s Scouting Force was to protect Germany’s North Sea coast. When at full strength he had five battlecruisers, which were supported by light cruisers, destroyers, U-boats, minesweepers, aeroplanes and airships. He laid out his forces in three concentric arcs, centred on the Elbe 1 lighthouse. The outermost arc at 35km radius held the destroyers. At 29km were his submarines and, inside them was an arc of mine-sweepers. On the wings of this protective zone he placed a small number of light cruisers. The U-boats and destroyers were withdrawn at night – a move that was to have serious consequences for Hipper. No disposition of his forces could have more clearly underlined the defensive posture adopted by the German navy at the start of the war. His own view in August 1914 was that ‘The best and only possible course which we can take is to wait.’[7] It was an uncharacteristic remark from a man who would spend the war itching for action.

For the first twenty-two months of the war, that is until the Battle of Jutland, Hipper’s forces kept vigil. This tedium was broken on one occasion by a British raid and on four occasions by his participation in German raids at Dogger Bank and on the British coast.

Of these raids the British ambush at Heligoland on 28 August 1914 was the most serious since it forced Hipper to rethink his protection strategy. At dawn that day, as his light cruisers accompanied his destroyers to their station on the Bight, they were set upon by Commander Reginald Tyrwhitt’s destroyers sweeping from east to west right through the protective zone. To add to Hipper’s woes, the seas swarmed with Captain Roger Keyes’s submarines. A morning’s work by the British cost Hipper three light cruisers, two torpedo boats and one destroyer, plus over 1000 men killed, wounded or captured. His protection zone had failed in the first month of the war.

But Hipper was a man who rapidly learnt from experience. He immediately stepped up his patrols of the inner and outer Bight and he placed four capital ships permanently outside the Jade Bar. (Ships inside the Bar could only cross it at high tide.) More importantly he decided that minefields offered better protection than screens of destroyers and submarines. Heligoland Bight thus brought about two monumental changes in naval warfare in the North Sea. The British proved that screens were vulnerable to surprise attack. And Hipper showed that the only response was mines.

Over the next few months Admiral Gustav von Ingenhol, Commander of the High Seas Fleet, used minor raids as bait to lure the Grand Fleet into action. Hipper took part in the raids on Yarmouth (November 1914) and Scarborough-Hartlepool (December 1914). The results were meagre. Indeed, Hipper refused to wear the Iron Cross that he was awarded after Yarmouth because he did not feel worthy of it.

Then came the disastrous raid on Dogger Bank in January 1915. Hipper had intended to search the fishing boats that lurked there, hoping to prove that they were engaged in espionage. Unknown to the Germans, the British Admiralty had broken the German naval code and so had early warning of Hipper’s sorties. On his arrival at Dogger Bank Hipper was set upon by Beatty’s waiting battlecruisers. In the ensuing battle Hipper lost an armoured cruiser, suffered a severely damaged battle cruiser and lost 1000 men. Given the ferocity of the surprise reception, Hipper was fully justified in later saying that ‘I have fought to the best of my knowledge and ability and have done all that is humanly possible despite the unfortunate result.’[8] Others disagreed and there were calls for his dismissal, but it was Ingenohl who went, while Hipper received the Iron Cross 1st Class.

Hipper was not in sympathy with Ingenohl’s replacement, Admiral Hugo von Pohl, who was a submarine man. On 4 February 1915 Pohl announced the commencement of unrestricted U-boat warfare. Hipper, a surface vessel man, dropped into the background. Less than a year later, von Pohl fell ill and was replaced by Admiral Reinhard Scheer. Although Scheer had called for Hipper’s dismissal in January 1915, the two men were now to work well together to the very last day of the war.

Justified by Jutland

At least three senior officers had sought Hipper’s dismissal since January 1915. Now, at Jutland on 31 May 1916, he was to prove how wrong they all had been. There is no room here to describe the battle, so I will pick out those of Hipper’s actions that justify calling him the man of the battle. In the first phase – the run to the south – Hipper’s battlecruisers completely outfought those of Beatty. Despite having slower ships, with shorter range guns, he put Beatty on the defensive from the opening moments of the battle. His ships worked together better than Beatty’s and their range-finding was far superior to that of the British ships. On the run to the north, Beatty was essentially trying to escape Hipper, but found his ships deluged by fire. But when Hipper ran into the 3rd Battle Squadron he was forced back by the rapidity and accuracy of its 15-inch guns. Beatty then succeeded in keeping Hipper out of sight of the British Grand Fleet to the north before the main battle began.

In the main battle the wireless on Hipper’s new flagship, the Lützow, was put out of action. He switched to visual signalling as the battle raged around him. Then, shortly after predicting that ‘something nasty is brewing’, a gun turret was blown to pieces.[9] A stunned Hipper was brought to his senses when his Chief of Staff told him ‘We can’t lead the squadron from the Lützow any more.’ All Hipper could reply was ‘But I can’t leave my flagship!’[10] After this uncharacteristic moment of weakness, Hipper rallied. He stepped into the torpedo boat G39 and went off in search of a new flagship. In turn he went to Seydlitz (too badly damaged), Van der Tann (her guns were out of action) and Moltke (unable to stop). Meanwhile around him raged the famous ‘Death Ride’ as forty German torpedo boats charged into Jellicoe’s fleet.

Finally Hipper was able to board the Moltke and resume command. So well had Hipper trained his captains that they had continued to execute his intentions in battle, even when he was no longer able to issue orders. The most recent assessment of his achievement that day rightly concludes that ‘Hipper … could have done no more. He destroyed the bulk of his enemy’s command and covered his own fleet’s retreat twice.’[11]

The Germans claimed Jutland as a great victory, despite the fact that Scheer fled the scene. Hipper shared in the glory with a Commander’s Cross from King Ludwig III of Bavaria, the rank of Baron and the freedom of his home town. He was also rewarded with his own home-ship in harbour – the Niobe.

Enforced inactivity

But events soon proved that Jutland was an illusory ‘victory’. With the North Sea now a patchwork of minefields and the High Seas Fleet more or less confined to port by the Kaiser’s orders, surface warfare had all but ceased. Hipper’s great ships did no more than cover mine-sweeps and mine-laying operations. Scheer made only a few attempts to make use of his fleet. There were small-scale sweeps with Hipper in August, October and November 1916, but nothing was found. Scheer lost interest in his surface ships and opted for a huge expansion of the U-boat fleet. Then, in February 1917, the Kaiser finally accepted the need for unrestricted U-boat warfare. (The 1915 unrestricted phase had not lasted long.) This effective admission that the building of the High Seas Fleet had been a colossal strategic failure had disastrous consequences for Hipper. Now the U-boats were to concentrate on attacking commercial shipping. The vessels that were so vital for protecting his own sorties were no longer available to him.

A bitter triumph

As the war neared its end there was another change in the German High Command when Scheer was promoted to Director of Naval Operations. Hipper stepped into the role of Commander-in-Chief. When Beatty heard the news his spirits rose. Surely the bold and dynamic Hipper would seek a great battle? But it was all too late. Hipper, who would have made a great commander-in-chief, had taken charge of a fleet that one officer described as ‘a mere shadow of its former self.’[12]

On 2 October the Army High Command declared the war to be lost. A distraught Hipper wrote in desperation to Scheer: ‘There must be a way out of this terrible situation.’[13] He suggested one last sortie. He argued that ‘the war should not be allowed to end without the employment of the fleet in its role as the trump card of national power’. What was needed was ‘a battle for the honour of the fleet … even if it were a death battle’. It would be ‘the foundation for a new German fleet’.[14] Ten days later, aware that Germany was already negotiating the terms for an armistice, Hipper began to plan his great operation. He was to take the High Seas Fleet to lie off the Belgian coast, while light cruisers were to penetrate the Thames Estuary. The large ships were to seek out French and British vessels and sink them. Meanwhile mines would be laid to the north to prevent the arrival of the Grand Fleet. The High Seas Fleet itself would have a submarine screen, ready to attack any enemy vessels that approached.

On 30 October Hipper ordered his fleet to sea. Not a ship slipped its moorings. The naval mutiny, which had been growing for weeks, had rendered Hipper powerless. He issued his last fleet order: ‘whoever abandons the struggle now … stamps himself as a coward’. The response was, said Waldeyer-Hartz, ‘coarse laughter’.[15] Troops were called in on 3 November to arrest the mutinous sailors, but the sailors merely disarmed the soldiers. On the last day of the war Hipper made one final effort to press his fleet to action as he read out a telegram from Scheer, which declared that ‘No one must quit his post without orders’.[16]

Alone

Hipper, now alone on his harbour ship, walked to the foot of the mast and hauled down his own flag. He was offered the job of escorting the defeated High Seas Fleet to Scapa Flow, but he declined. Hipper wrote ‘My heart is breaking with this; my time as a fleet commander has come to an inglorious end.’[17] On 30 November he signed the war diary for the last time and walked off into retirement. He never wrote a single word about the war.

Assessment

Hipper’s German biographer tells us that his subject ‘was haunted by the thought that he had occupied a high position and yet found himself helpless at the moment when the proud imperial fabric collapsed’.[18] In using the word ‘helpless’ Hipper was too hard on himself. There were many factors that had led to the naval stalemate in late 1918, not least the Kaiser and the British policy of long-distance blockade. It was no fault of Hipper’s that the High Seas Fleet was by then redundant.

We can be more generous and recognise the greatness in Hipper. Throughout the early part of his career he was repeatedly singled out by his superiors as a man destined for fleet command. His assiduous attention to technical detail and to the training of men, combined with his energy and daring were seen as qualities that the navy would need in war. When war came, as long as Hipper was permitted to act, he acted. From August 1914 to June 1916 he was the most energetic of all the German naval commanders as he vigorously sought ways to attack the Royal Navy. At Jutland he outshone Jellicoe, Beatty and Scheer as he combined audacity with rigour. His lack of enthusiasm for submarine warfare necessarily led to his eclipse in 1917. It was his great misfortune to reach the highest command when the war was already lost. Discontent in the cities, incipient mutiny on the ships, and fatalism in the high command rendered Hipper powerless to use the force that he had inherited. It was a sad end to a magnificent naval career.

. . .

Richard Freeman’s book Great Naval Commanders of the First World War is published by Endeavour Press Ltd and is available on Amazon Kindle. Author’s website: rdfreeman.net.

Richard Freeman's As It Was