Fisher's Invasion Plan

[stuartd]

As a last ditch attempt to save what was certainly panning out to be an interesting thread....is there any news yet from Andrew Lambert? This was all evry interesting stuff and it'd be great to hear his views on the invasion of north western Germany.

[PhilB]

I echo your post, stuartd. It would be a pity if a potentially informative thread was scuppered by puerile bickering. We await news of Mr Lambert!

[simonharley]

I'm still waiting to hear from him, hence my quietness.

Simon

[melliget]

Clio.

To me, you're the one coming across as domineering and just a tad supercilious. Your recent posts are, I feel, getting a little personal. Why not keep all that out of it? What's killing the debate is the off-topic squabbling. Let the discussion proceed and see where it goes, rather than curtail it at the outset because it's not proceeding in the direction you think it should be heading. If, at the end, the discussion ends up nowhere, then poo-poo at that point if you must.

In regard to your perceived weakness of forums like this, what remedy do you suggest? As everyone does have a voice here, the erudite historian and bombastic blimp alike (and all the other types in that spectrum under which I suspect the majority would fall), the options as I see it are simple: have your say and contribute to the topic, for or against, or simply ignore the thread. Off-topic bickering gets us nowhere.

Martin

[Clio]

I seek to put on record that I believe Crunchy to be a fine soldier and a gentleman of the highest calibre. He has my full and absolute respect.

My valediction is that the rest of *************************** to even remotely understand the grounds for my post. You epitomise what is wrong with this site.

Edited 26 November , 2009 by Matt Dixon
Edited, offensive remarks, lack of respect for fellow members.

[Matt Dixon]

Clio,

Too far.

[PhilB]

See Naval OPs, Vol.II, by Corbett

there are several refs but is well summed up by a footnote on page 410

"Lord Fisher's plan was to occupy the Baltic in sufficient strength to enable an army to land in Pomerania. He had instituted a vast building programme of 612 ships, including battle cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, submarines, monitors and smaller vessels, a large number of which were especially designed for service in the Baltic. The new (Admiralty) Board did not proceed further with the plan." [mid-May 1915]

Hopefully we can carry on with reasonable discussion.

To get back to basics - could the RN occupy the Baltic (& presumably its approaches) in sufficient strength to make an invasion feasible?

[ionia]

The actual evidence for Fisher’s Baltic plans is fragmentary – Fisher was very secretive about plans. However, Corbett, the author of the first three volumes of “Naval Operations”, was a close confident and it should be remembered that Fisher had sent the Channel Fleet “up the Baltic” in 1905 during the Moroccan Crisis – on the basis that “our drill ground should be our battle ground”.

[bob lembke]

When was Fisher planning to do this? Mid-war the Germans could move a division from the West Front to the Eastern Front in two days by rail. The distance to, say, the German coast of the North Sea is a third or less than the distance to the Eastern Front. The interior of Germany was very well supplied with rail routes, facilities, etc. In 1915 the British Army, after the meat-grinder of Belgium in 1914, effectively was quite small. I cannot imagine, even if the landing, in a naval sense was successful and not seriously disrupted, could not pour in troops and supplies nearly as quickly as the Germans could bring up reinforcements. The German Landsturm component of the German reserve system must have had a strength of over a million men and was generally not deployed outside of Germany. Although really third-rate, composed of older men, and not fully equipped with artillery, it certainly would have been of assistance in a defensive action.

In short, the Germans could probably focus several hundred thousand troops in the area of the landing in a matter of three or four days. How many troops was Fisher planning on landing? How quickly could troops be landed, considering the various sorts of naval disruptions that could be anticipated? As more and more British troops landed, the Germans would have felt free to strip large numbers of troops from the northern Western Front. In the case of a really large operation, like a drive on Berlin, hundreds of thousands of troops could be quickly moved from the Eastern Front to drive into the other flank of any advance. It would have taken the Russians weeks to figure out how to take advantage of that situation.

One does not have to over-analyse this proposal to realize that, if carried out on a large scale, an invasion, not a brief raid, an attempt to drive a significant distance inland (talking of reaching Berlin must have been fueled by opium) this proposed operation would almost certainly turned out to be an enormous fiasco.

Bob Lembke

[PhilB]

A number of members have expressed that opinion, Bob. It looks to be a good case against invasion, but Fisher obviously thought otherwise. What arguments might he have put forward that overrode yours?

[mbloy]

In response to Phil (and in the absence of anything coming our way yet from Lambert) - as I see it, the main naval problems with a Baltic incursion would have been...

1. The necessity for a decisive sea battle with the HSF first, otherwise the North Sea would have been wide open to counter-attack. This would necessarily have been a huge operation, quite on a different scale to the Dardanelles.

2. Vulnerability of the British fleet, its transports and supply ships to bombardment from Danish shore batteries whilst coming down the Kattegat - assuming that Denmark didn’t want to play ball with the Allies and needed to demonstrate her neutrality (bearing in mind the sensitivity of sharing a land border with Germany).

3. Possibility of encountering pre-positioned units of the HSF immediately after exiting the confines of the Belts. Imagine the British fleet restricted to sailing in single column encountering a gun line of German capital ships each with every one of their turrets trained on a lone British unit emerging one by one through the narrows and into the Baltic.

4. The severe threat from sea mines in these shallow, restricted waters.

5. Interdiction by small coastal forces. Once in the Baltic, Royal Navy ships would have been very vulnerable to night-time attack by torpedo boats and submarines.

6. British Fleet composition and disposition would have been readily observable by shore observers and by German land based spotter aircraft, so no element of surprise would have been possible.

Obviously once any army was landed and ashore there would then have been a whole host of other military issues, not least the problem of re-supply and the difficulty of disengagement should events not have proceeded to plan.

Owing to the above listed factors, the operation would undoubtedly have resulted in heavy sacrifice (not my personal revisionist opinion, but rather the generally accepted belief of senior naval officers at the time). Therefore it never became a reality.

But would it have been worth it? What was the incentive to even contemplate such a proposal?

- it might perhaps have averted the break-up of the Russian army, and it would certainly have facilitated much needed supplies reaching Russia.

- it would have cut the supply of Swedish ore to the German steel industry.

- it would have stopped the egress of U-boats from Lubeck out into the North Sea and Atlantc, thus cutailing attacks on the Allies merchant shipping.

- Germany would have had to respond and divert significant forces and resources away from the Western Front.

- The attack on the Dardanelles and the ill-feted Gallipoli landings would very likely have never have taken place, had this Baltic invasion idea actually gone ahead and preceded it.

What say the others?

mb

[Crunchy]

Egypt,

With my very limited naval knowledge and only knowing the region from looking at maps and charts, IMO, you have addressed the issues that would have concerned me in passing a fleet and transports through the narrows between Denmark and Sweden and having the ability to sustain them through these waters. With the Kiel Canal, any German naval units could quickly move between the Baltic and the North Sea areas of operation and faster than the RN could do so. You raise the very good point about how was the RN to support an invasion and also meet a threat from the HSF in the North Sea? I don't know enough about the relative strengths of the RN and the HSF, but it would certainly have required a re-distribution of British naval assets. The question is, would this have weakened both the force required to keep the HSF at bay in the North Sea and the naval force needed to protect the invasion and its logistical lifeline. I suspect so, but perhaps others could advise on this. Lambert may have a different view.

You have also raised the very important issue of what could have been achieved by undertaking such an invasion. Gallipoli was launched as a result of very optimistic and muddled strategic thinking, a very optimistic result and completely underestimating the resources required to achieve the aim of knocking Turkey out of the war. I don't know the objectives Fisher had in mind but given the points you have raised and those Bob has highlighted regarding the ability of the German Army to quickly react to an invasion, I am inclined to think Fisher's suggestion falls into the same category. That is why I would be very interested in Lambert's reasoning as to why it might have been successful.

Regards

Chris

[bob lembke]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Nov 27 2009, 02:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A number of members have expressed that opinion, Bob. It looks to be a good case against invasion, but Fisher obviously thought otherwise. What arguments might he have put forward that overrode yours?

Phil;

I can't speak for Fisher, but I poked about for a bit more information on the size of the reserves in Germany. In 1914 the German Army marched out 25 active duty army corps, 15 reserve corps, and, I think, one Landwehr corps. But they left behind the following:

- Each of the 218 active duty infantry regiments, 113 Reserve, and 75 Landwehr regiments that marched off left behind, in Germany, an Ersatz (Replacement) regiment and two recruit depots, for a total of 406 Ersatz battalions. At that time there were 12 infantry battalions in an infantry division, in 1916 it went to 9. So we are talking about the infantry component of about 34 "square" divisions.

- In 1914 the armies marching off left behind 21 Landwehr and 334 Landsturm infantry regiments. Again, speaking in terms of square divisions of four regiments, we are talking about the equivilent of 89 infantry divisions.

So there was, in Germany, in organized battalions and regiments, the infantry components of 123 square divisions, How many divisions did Fisher plan to bring with him?

As the war went on, some of these formations were also sent to the front, but not the Ersatz battalions; however, the number of units in the German Army of course increased, so, therefore, the number of Ersatz battalions for the regiments at the front. In 1916-1917-1918 there probably were about 600 Ersatz battalions in the homeland.

These were not first-rate troops. But let me give you an example. In 1914 the III. Reservekorps was north of Brussels in a blocking position facing Fortress Antwerp while the German Army passed on their way west, to the south of them. It was basically two reserve divisions. (I have studied this in detail, as my grand-father was in the Generalkommando, head of one of the four sections of the General Staff Section of the Generalkommando of the corps. I am writing a book about this.) Then the corps was to attempt to take Antwerp. It was enlarged with a mixed bag of four divisions, mostly only raised days before, from Ersatz formations, naval recruit depots (the German Naval Division was raised in a matter of days.), Landwehr, etc. The original corps was short on artillery, but these new formations had very little. They did have about 15 barrels of super-heavy siege artillery.

They were opposed by six of the seven first-line divisions of the Belgian Army, which were enormous, double-sized, something like 20,000 men each; the British Naval Division, led by the formidable Sir Winston; and at least 30,000 Belgian fortress troops. The German troops, mostly third-class troops actually organized into units days and weeks before, troops and units that would be similar to the units that would respond to an invasion of Germany from the sea, beat up the opposing forces and took the third largest fortress complex in the world in a matter of a few weeks. The defenders, mostly first-rate, active-duty troops, outnumbered the attackers about three to one. One brigade of the Naval Division had to flee into internment in Holland.

The logistics of such an invasion of Germany would have been horrendous, really quite impossible. Would they bring their own rail rolling stock? Would they land 30,000 draft horses to move their supplies? As I have explained, there were the equivelant of over 100 divisions of infantry in organised battalions and regiments stationed in Germany.

Bob Lembke

[per ardua per mare per terram]

The proposition actually ran counter to Fisher's own instructions for the operation of the fleet in the vacinity of enemy destroyer bases that he had formulated pre war.

In addition to the excellent points presented by Egypt in post #61: the endurance of British destroyers in 1914-16 would not have been sufficient for them to accompany the invasion force. Any operation to resupply them by having tankers and depot ships accompanying the fleet would present perfect targets to the defensive forces.

Following Bob's admirable summing of the opposition. I have one simple question: does anyone really think that the German forces faced with an invasion of their homeland would have put up less resistance than the Turks in Gallipoli?

[truthergw]

Congratulations to the last few posters. Well thought out and presented argument and observations.

Reading mb's post I was struck by the similarity in the problems between entering the Baltic and negotiating the Dardanelles. In the latter case, it was decided that the peninsula would have to be occupied before the narrows could be navigated. I suspect that the same is true at the Baltic. It would only have worked if Britain had occupied Denmark. I doubt if that was ever going to happen. But... if we had? Instead of Gallipoli? 

[bob lembke]

Another small factor that would have been very useful to the Germans. The navy had a good number of Zeppelins, which, although proven very vunerable in venturing over an area with land-based aircraft, were a supurb asset for long-range, long-on-station reconnaisance, probably, if flying slowly, with an on-station duration of several days (how many?), and of course with wireless. And of course the germans had plenty of light ships, the advantage of the Kiel canal, while as someone posted the British probably could not esily deploy destroyers et al in the Baltic. Without the light ships, and few or no aircraft, the British would both really not know what was going on, and be hard pressed to escort their supply ships.

But, as I think I have shown, the Germans had over 100 divisions' worth of organized battalions and regiments in Germany. Every one of the 25 original active army corps at the front left behind, in Germany, a second army corps headquarters staff, and there were many other staff officers on a multitude of duties in Germany. In a week or two the Germans could have organized about 50 temporary divisions, admittedly third-rate, but not a lot different than the troops that were victorious at Antwerp, most of those units having literally been organized in a matter of days, largely from unorganized men sitting about army and naval replacement and recruit depots, officered in large part by naval officers wearing swords and uniforms resembling Nelson in long pants.

So Fisher, at the least, would have to bring 50-60 divisions, and IMHO even such a force would have been defeated and captured. We are talking about a minimum force ten times the allied forces at Gallipoli. Did the British have that many units sitting about? And if large numbers of units were withdrawn from the Western Front, the Germans would certainly have gotten wind of it, and attacked there. And, especially with major weakening of the Western Front, the germans could have brought up one or two first or second-rate divisions a day from the East and Western Fronts to suppliment the 50 or more divisions they could have easily raised within germany. Germany could have brought up 2-3-4 divisions a day for at least 2 or 3 weeks to the new Baltic front. Could Fisher land and supply troops fast enough to equal that?

Such a plan might possibly have worked in July or August 1918, not earlier.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

Further note. After 1915-16 the Germans had some dozen independent army corps HQ staffs, not related to specific divisions, each structured to command 2-6 divisions in combat. They could have 10-12 of these at the new Baltic front in say 3 days, aside from the 25 "deputy" army corps HQs stationed at German army corps districts across germany. So, in a week, aside from the infantry for over a 100 divisions that could raised in a few weeks, they could have the organized command staffs for about 35 army corps at the new front in a week, before the troops themselves arrived.

I am probably beating a dead horse here, but it is astonishing that Fisher could work toward such a crazy project, to the point of designing and building two purpose-built unsea-worthy battle cruisers for this adventure. I don't know much about Fisher, but at the time of WW I he seems to the outsider to be an unpredictable whacky old duck, if much revered by some.

Bob

PS I am writing up my grand-father, as we speak. He worked a lot with the 420 mm howitzers and 305 mm mortars in Belgium and Russia, some of which, due to motorized transport designed by Dr. Porsche (yes, that one), could really move about quickly. By mid-war these were mostly at rest and available. They had been originally given cover names as coastal defense artillery. If the British were going to be sailing capital ships thru narrow straits, and conducting prolonged landing and debarking operations, these assets might have been an interesting addition to the mix. There were probably about 20 batteries available.

Did Fisher ever see the film classic "The Mouse that Roared"?

[PhilB]

All this makes Fisher & Co`s aims ( If it was foolery, it had several high level backers throughout the war. - TomR, Post #5) all the harder to comprehend. So what made them think it was feasible?

[truthergw]

I know zilch about the Royal Navy and how it worked but, in reading about the Supreme Command and the CID etc. one comes across him. He was a very strange man. His letters are frankly worrying. English eccentricity should be confined to vicars in the Home Counties and not exhibited in First Sea Lords. My reference to high level backing was for landings on the North Sea coast in conjunction with the 1917 Ypres advance. These are the ones where forces were assigned and training was carried out. In the end, that part was dropped and IIIYpres went ahead. 

[SiegeGunner]

Just to clarify, am I right in thinking we have two possible amphibious invasions on the table - Fisher's plan for a landing 'on the inside', on the Baltic coast and Andrew Lambert's possible enthusiasm (yet to be clarified) for a landing 'on the outside', on the north west coast of Germany ? Bob's observations and calculations about the availability and mobility of troops for 'homeland defence' would clearly hold good for both scenarios, and, even if out by as much as 50%, would seem fatal in themselves to such enterprises.

Actual events suggest that, with a bit of reinforcement, the Dover and Harwich forces could have secured the southern end of a major naval undertaking, but I would not like to speculate about the prospects for the northern end.

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon All,

A very interesting thread. Bob's figures suggest that any actual sea-borne invasion of Germany would have been unsuccessful, with existing homeland forces been more than sufficient to repulse the British.

Fisher has been described as "eccentric" (amongst other adjectives !) but he was First Sea Lord, German Intelligence would no doubt be atuned to his thoughts and ideas - might this "planning" have just been a ruse to convince Germany to keep more of her "ersatz" troop strength ("100 divisions +") at home, just in case, when perhaps it could of been more decisively used elsewhere ?

[PhilB]

Wasn`t the shallow draft monitor building programme sufficiently advanced to show that he was serious?

[SteveMarsdin]

Good afternoon Phil,

Perhaps, I was only thinking out loud ! I don't know what resources were devoted/diverted to that programme but to take the proposition further, if it didn't use troops, which is what we were short of in 1914/1915, and it kept x number of German reserve divisions away from the Western Front, perhaps it had its merits (as a decoy "plan" which would never happen) ?

[simonharley]

I'm not disputing the fact that the Germans had the capability of being able to marshal and direct large numbers of men in response to any invasion of Germany - but this does beg the question - what happens when they pull large numbers of divisions out of the line to do so when you're already fighting a war on two fronts? These are consideration which as far as I can see hasn't been mentioned so far in this thread.

Simon

EDIT: Whoops, just seen that Steve Marsdin raised exactly that point!

[mbloy]

Earlier in this thread, I made an offhand remark about Fisher being a 'donkey'. That wasn't entirely justified, given his impressive record of achievement as a moderniser, innovator and creator of the biggest and best navy in the world at the time. Given his immence contribution to the Royal Navy, many people would (with good reason) have considered him to have been the greatest admiral since Nelson. It wasn't really his fault that he was recalled out of retirement to become First Sea Lord again at the ripe old age of 72 when perhaps it would have been reasonable to assume that his former drive and power of reasoning wasn't likely to have been as irrepressibly stong as it was when he was younger. The combination of Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty and Fisher as FSL was popularly regarded as being a dream team. Both had a reputation for being dynamic and inspirational leaders eminently suitable for a nation now at war. However it didn't quite work out that way in practice. Untill teaming up with Churchill at the Admiralty, Fisher had been accustomed to overwelming any one and any thing that came in his way, therefore Churchill's enthusiam for interfering directly in operational matters would certainly have been hugely annoying and frustrating for the old Admiral.

Fisher was a complex and sometimes contradictary man, so we can't always judge him by what he said or did, because he often had ulterior motives. For example, given he was obviously tired and weary of constant arguments with Churchill, maybe his failure to speak up when it mattered against the Dardanelles proposal may even have been a Machiavellian attempt to rid himself of his political overload (but as it was the failure of the Gallipoli landings caused both of them to loose their jobs).

Whether the Baltic invasion plan was ever something Fisher seriously intended to implement, we may never know. We do however know that this was something that he continued to refer to, even after leaving office (as per this letter to Lloyd-George dated March 28th, 1917).

"Dear Prime Minister,

I hardly liked to go further with my remarks this morning, recognizing how very valuable your time is, but I would have liked to have added how appalling it is that the Germans may now be about to deal a deadly blow to Russia by sending a large German Force by sea from Kiel to take St. Petersburg (which, as the Russian Prime Minister, Stolypin, told me, is the Key of Russia). And here we are with our Fleet passive and unable to frustrate this German Sea attack on Russia. All this due to the previous faulty Naval strategy of not adopting the Baltic Project put before Mr. Asquith in association with the scheme for the British Army advancing along the Belgian Coast, by which we should have re-captured Antwerp, and there would have been no German submarine menace such as now is. An Armada of 612 vessels was constructed to carry out this policy, thanks to your splendid approval of the cost when you were Chancellor of the Exchequer".

Regards,

mb