Steve R. Dunn - Battle in the Baltic: The Royal Navy and the Fight to Save Estonia and Latvia 1918–20

BATTLE IN THE BALTIC

By the same author

Southern Thunder: The Royal Navy and the Scandinavian Trade in World War One

Baylys War: The Battle for the Western Approaches in the First World War

Securing the Narrow Sea: The Dover Patrol, 19141918

Blockade: Cruiser Warfare and the Starvation of Germany in World War One

Formidable: A true story of disaster and courage

The Coward? The Rise and Fall of the Silver King

The Scapegoat: The life and tragedy of a fighting admiral and Churchills role in his death

IN THE

BALTIC

The Royal Navy and the Fight to

Save Estonia & Latvia 191820

STEVE R DUNN

For Joseph and Eve: may they grow up without fear.

Copyright Steve R Dunn 2020

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

Seaforth Publishing,

A division of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street,

Barnsley S70 2AS

www.seaforthpublishing.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5267 4273 5 (HARDBACK)

ISBN 978 1 5267 4274 2 (EPUB)

ISBN 978 1 5267 4275 9 (KINDLE)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing of both the copyright owner and the above publisher.

The right of Steve R Dunn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl.

Plate section between pages 96 & 97

Maps

The Baltic Sea and surroundings. (P ETER W ILKINSON ) p 16

The Gulf of Finland and Kronstadt. (P ETER W ILKINSON ) p 18

Plates

HMS Cardiff leading the German High Seas Fleet into internment. ( N ATIONAL M ARITIME M USEUM BHC0670)

HMS Cardiff at Reval. ( I MPERIAL W AR M USEUM Q19366)

HMS Curacoa , flagship of Rear Admiral Cowan in May 1919. ( I MPERIAL W AR M USEUM FL5370)

The forward 6in gun of the light cruiser/flotilla leader Royalist . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Divers going down to examine the propellers of the light cruiser HMS Calypso which were damaged when she ran aground entering Libau. ( I MPERIAL W AR M USEUM Q19338)

The light cruiser HMS Caradoc bombarding Bolshevik positions from off the Estonian coast, December 1918. ( I MPERIAL W AR M USEUM Q19345)

HMS Princess Margaret loading mines at Grangemouth. (P HOTO : A LAMY ) L-class submarines similar to L-55 . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Aerial view of Kronstadt harbour, 26 July 1919. ( I MPERIAL W AR M USEUM Q107944)

Agars boat CMB-4 at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

ML-22 , a typical example of a Motor Launch. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The Russian pre-dreadnought battleship Andrei Pervozvanni . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The Russian battleship Petropavlosk . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The Russian cruiser Pamiat Azova . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The Russian cruiser Gromoboi pictured here in 1901. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The Russian protected cruiser Oleg . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Aft turret on the Oleg , 1905. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

A Russian Orfei -class destroyer. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

British squadron in Kaporia Bay in October 1919. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

A copy of a painting by Cecil King (18811942) of Libau Harbour in February 1919. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

A restored CMB on the River Thames. (P HOTO : D R V A M ICHELL )

A close-up view of the torpedo launching trough aboard the CMB. (P HOTO : DR V A M ICHELL )

The French armoured cruiser Montcalm pictured in 1902. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The crew of CMB-4 that sank the Oleg . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss. (L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS )

Admiral Walter Cowan. ( N ATIONAL P ORTRAIT G ALLERY )

Johan Laidoner, commander of the Estonian Army. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Konstantin Pts, Estonian political leader. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

K rlis Ulmanis, first Prime Minister of independent Latvia. (L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS )

David Lloyd George. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

The Estonian Army High Command in 1920. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

General Gustav Adolf Joachim Rdiger Graf von der Goltz. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Baron Mannerheim, Regent of Finland (seated) with his aides. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

An old postcard of Dunbeath Castle, home to Rear Admiral Alexander-Sinclair. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

An old postcard of Wemyss Castle, ancestral home of Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Memorial to four RN admirals, Alexander-Sinclair, Cowan, Fremantle and Thesiger, erected in Tallinn by a grateful Estonian nation. (P HOTO : E RNEST B ONDARENKO )

Inside of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn, showing the memorial plaque to the Royal Navy. (P HOTO : E RNEST B ONDARENKO )

Memorial plaque to the Royal Navy sailors who died in the Baltic Campaign, Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn. (P HOTO : E RNEST B ONDARENKO )

The interior of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallinn. (P HOTO : E RNEST B ONDARENKO )

Cowans rear admirals flag, hanging in St Peters Church, Kineton. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Admiral Sir Walter Cowans tombstone at the New Cemetery, Kineton. (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

A Sopwith Camel 2F.1 such as was flown from HMS Vindictive . (A UTHORS COLLECTION )

Fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real highest, honestest business of every son of man. Everyone who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickedness in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown s Schooldays (1857).

I hope that you will not have the Litany in my flagship; but if you insist will you please omit the petition where we ask to be delivered from battle, murder and sudden death. Hang it! Ive never been trained for anything else.

Rear Admiral Sir Walter Cowan to the Chaplain of HMS Hood in 1921.

Russia is rapidly being reduced by the Bolsheviks to an animal form of barbarism civilisation is being completely extinguished over gigantic areas, while the Bolsheviks hop and caper like troops of ferocious baboons amid the ruins of cities and the corpses of their victims.

Winston S Churchill, speech 24 November 1918.

We believe that if Germany, far from making the slightest effort to carry out the peace treaty, has always tried to escape her obligations, it is because until now she has not been convinced of her defeat We are convinced that Germany, as a nation, resigns herself to keep her pledged word only under the impact of necessity.

Raymond Poincar, prime minister of France, writing to his ambassador in London, December 1922.