Quote:
Originally Posted by Catfish
The thing with Churchill and Dresden came up recently, when the fight at the Falklands (former Malvinas) in WW1 was thoroughly researched, with the "Dresden" running and hiding in South America - which had made Churchill really furious - he did take this personally after it had escaped the second battle at the Falkland isles.
When the "Dresden" was detected again, it was able to outrun the british again, and finally reached an island in the Pacific (forgot the name), where the crew decided to surrender.
Its engines (turbines, thus the speed) lacking any maintenance, outworn and spent, no coal in the bunkers and half of the british fleet on their back there was no way out. Some of the crew was on the beach, and some were aboard under the white flag, when the british task force came in sight and blew the "Dresden" to smithereens.
This had been directly ordered by Churchill, " ... accept no surrender, and after the sinking kill them or take prisoners as you see fit."...
Greetings,
Catfish
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As with many things there is both more and less here than meets the eye.
Churchill's orders regarding
SMS Dresden in 1914 had nothing whatsoever to do with the cruiser's name and everything to do with him trying to embarrass Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, victor of the Battle of the Falkland Islands fought on 8 December 1914.
First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill personally loathed Sturdee who was pre-war naval Chief of Staff and who had weakly advocated for the creation of a formalized staff at the Admiralty. Churchill was entirely against the pre-war creation of a Naval Staff as he felt it would dilute the powers of the First Lord. In the wake of the defeat of Craddock's squadron at Coronel on 1 November 1914, the RN had to look closely at how it was being run and to deflect the responsibility from himself he tried to blame the disaster on Chief of Staff Sturdee. This backfired however when, owing to his availability and senority Sturdee was given command of the reinforcements to the South Atlantic including the battlecruisers
Invincible and
Inflexible and charged with destroying von Spee's East Asia squadron.
In the event, Sturdee proved perfect for the task and provided the Royal Navy with as neat a victory as it has ever achieved. Five of six German crusiers were sunk at trifling losses to the British, mostly on
HMS Kent which closed to effective range of the much lighter German 10.5 cm guns and suffered accordingly. Churchill attempted to slur Sturdee after the action and severely criticized him in the press for fighting the action at long range, expending too much ammunition and dividing his forces. Sturdee was a great decentralizer, practically his only squadron order was "General Chase", correctly trusting that his captains would win the fight. This was against the current Royal Navy doctrine of closely centralized command and intolerable to a micro-manager like Churchill and the unguarded malice towards Sturdee is very evident in his books. Sturdee's greatest error was winning big using his own rules, something that was unforgivable.
In an attempt to embarrass Sturdee, Churchill ordered the two battlecruisers home without him and sent his South Atlantic commander the orders that included your quote above. The aim was to delay Sturdee's return and diminish the Admiral and his victory, a huge event that Churchill had no part in although he would later claim much credit. It didn't work, Sturdee sailed home in his flagship to a hero's welcome, the thanks of Parliament and a squadron command in the Grand Fleet. When Churchill wrote his account of WW1,
The World Crisis, he successfully tarnished Sturdee's reputation for future generations. Sturdee remained loyally silent throughout and never offered any public defence against Churchill's slanders which are accepted as the "Truth" even today.
SMS Dresden would attempt cruiser warfare but she sank nothing and surrendered, scutttling herself in Cumberland Bay at the Chilean island of Juan Fernandez on 14 March 1915. She was the last regular German cruiser on the high seas and after Coronel she accomplished exactly nothing.
It's s big leap from there to the idea that Churchill used the escape of
SMS Dresden to order the firebombing of Dresden almost two decades later. As mentioned, his quarrel was with Sturdee not the city.