Scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow, 1919

Among the few people who saw it happen were schoolchildren from Stromness, out on a summer trip around the German ships. As their boat hurried back to Stromness, the German fleet was going down behind them.²

Background: a fleet handed over

The armistice of 11 November 1918 stopped the fighting in World War I, but it did not end it: if the peace talks broke down, the war could resume. Among its terms, Germany had to hand over all its submarines and most of the High Seas Fleet, 74 warships, for internment at an Allied base while the peace was negotiated.³ › Battle of Dogger Bank, 1915

Getting the ships to sea was not simple. After the November revolution much of the fleet was controlled by sailors' councils, and the crews no longer obeyed their officers. The fleet sailed under Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter and on 21 November was met in the North Sea by the Grand Fleet and warships of the other Allied navies, which escorted it into the Firth of Forth for its formal surrender.⁴

At sunset Admiral Sir David Beatty, commander of the Grand Fleet, signaled that the German flag was to be hauled down and not hoisted again without his permission. The centenary project calls it a slap in the face that German naval officers never forgot.⁵

The fleet and its jailers

From the Firth of Forth the fleet was taken north to Scapa Flow, a great natural anchorage in the Orkney Islands, about 24 kilometers long, enclosed by Mainland, Hoy and South Ronaldsay. The Grand Fleet had been based there for much of the war, and its strong tides and narrow channels made it a natural prison.⁶

Internment was closer to imprisonment. Thousands of German officers and men arrived, but most were sent home, among them the worst troublemakers, until only skeleton crews remained to look after the ships. Discipline was so poor on the big battleships that Reuter left his flagship, the Friedrich der Grosse, and moved to the light cruiser Emden.⁷

The fleet lay at anchor for months while the food and supplies sent from Germany ran low. The guard was the Royal Navy's 1st Battle Squadron under Vice Admiral Sir Sydney Fremantle.⁸

The plan

In May 1919 the Allies published their peace terms. They cut the German navy to a fraction of its size and divided the interned ships among the victors, though Britain would rather have seen them destroyed. The talks went badly, and in June there seemed a real prospect that the war would start again.⁹

Reuter decided that his ships would not be handed over. He told his officers of the plan and of the signal that would start it, an innocent-looking order to watch the flagship followed by the words “Paragraph eleven. Confirm.” Who decided is still argued: Reuter always said the decision was his alone, while the centenary project writes that most now conclude the order came from Admiral Adolf von Trotha in Germany.¹⁰

The scuttling in phases

The signal

On the morning of 21 June, midsummer's day, the 1st Battle Squadron left the Flow for a torpedo and gunnery exercise, leaving the German ships almost unguarded. Late that morning, at 10:30 by Orkney Museums' account and 11:00 by the centenary project's, the Emden hoisted the signal. Across the anchorage crews opened seacocks and torpedo tubes, smashed pipes and wrecked watertight doors, and threw valve wheels overboard so the flooding could not be stopped.¹¹

The fleet goes down

The first sign the British noticed was a sound: the bell of the Friedrich der Grosse began to toll as she listed, shortly after noon. One by one the great ships rolled over. The battleship Bayern went down by the stern in the early afternoon, watched by islanders on the shore and photographed by a Royal Navy cameraman.¹²

German crews took to the boats. British guards, not yet understanding what was happening, opened fire on them, and the Germans raised their hands. The 1st Battle Squadron was recalled and came back at high speed, but it was too late.¹³

What could be saved

The British managed to beach 22 ships. Among them were the battleship Baden, Reuter's Emden, the light cruisers Frankfurt and Nürnberg and a number of destroyers. Everything else went to the bottom, until only upturned hulls and the masts and funnels of the Hindenburg showed above the water.¹⁴

Turning point: the last dead of the war

By evening, in the centenary project's words, the pride of the German navy lay on the floor of Scapa Flow. The day also cost lives. Eight German sailors died, killed by gunfire or drowned as the British tried to force them back aboard their sinking ships; among them was a senior officer. A ninth, Kuno Eversberg of the cruiser Frankfurt, was shot aboard the battleship HMS Resolution a few days later. The centenary project notes that German records spell his name Evertsberg. The nine are counted as the last German dead of World War I.¹⁵

Aftermath

Sinking the ships broke the armistice, so Reuter and his men became prisoners of war. They were held in camps in Britain and returned to Germany in January 1920, after the Treaty of Versailles came into force. At home Reuter was welcomed as a hero who had saved the honor of the German navy.¹⁶

For Orkney the wrecks became an industry. Over the following years licensed salvors raised the beached ships and most of the sunken ones and towed them away for scrap. The centenary project calls it the greatest salvage of all time.¹⁷

Legacy and memory

For Germany the scuttling became a point of pride: in a few hours, the centenary project writes, the German navy did to itself what the Royal Navy had failed to do at Jutland, and sank more steel than had ever gone down in a day.¹⁸ › The Greatest Naval Battles in History

In Britain the reaction was mixed. Orkney Museums notes that the Admiralty was quick to denounce the scuttling, yet it removed the awkward question of what to do with the ships, which the other Allies had wanted to share out and the British would have preferred to sink. Suggestions that the Admiralty knew of the plan in advance have never been supported by evidence.¹⁹

The ships that the salvors left behind still lie in the Flow. Historic Environment Scotland describes the three battleships among them as the only surviving examples of capital ships from the interned fleet.²⁰ › 21 June in military history