advantage in range, speed and firepower. This advantage was compounded by
the fact that the professional crews of these ships had earned accolades (the
‘Kaiser’s Prize’) for their gunnery efficiency prior to the war. On 01
November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel, and in
foul weather, the squadrons engaged
11 and the British lost several vessels
including two cruisers and sixteen hundred sailors. Von Spee’s casualties
amounted to just two wounded. For a short period after the battle, the
German navy controlled the shipping on the west coast of South America, to
such an extent that insurance on British nitrate ships at the time was refused.
A U.S. military expert of the day observed that ‘To strike at the source of the
Allied nitrate supply was to paralyze the armies in France… the destruction of a
nitrate carrier was a greater blow to the Allies than the loss of a battleship …’.
12
But German success came at a cost; her superiority was short-lived and her
end brutal. Von Spee’s squadron had used half of its ammunition, and he had
no prospect of replenishing it, for Germany’s Pacific territories had already
been occupied by the British and allied navies. Von Spee was therefore recommended to return to Germany. British reaction to her defeat at Coronel
however was to send a large force to track down and destroy the German
cruiser squadron. With no base in the Atlantic or Pacific, Spee it seemed was
forced to raid the coal bunkers in the Falkland Islands for fuel to return home.
The move was ‘anticipated’
13 by the ‘Brits’, and at the subsequent engagement on 08 December 1914 the German squadron was destroyed. Ten
British sailors were killed during the battle and nineteen wounded; none of
the British ships were badly damaged, but 2,200 German sailors were lost in
the encounter, including Admiral Spee and his two sons. As a result of the
action German access to the saltpetre beds of Chile was totally denied.
Germany’s need for nitrate—already desperate—therefore became acute
whilst the Allies quickly doubled the number of their freight vessels to the
region.
13.5 ‘Fixation’, Haber, and the Chemist’s War
The defeat of Spee’s squadron hammered the final nail into Germany’s saltpetre coffin, and at the end of 1914 her leaders were forced to form a national
‘nitrate commission’ to examine ways in which this vital resource could be
procured from within her own borders. As head of the Chemistry Department
of the Board of Wartime Raw Materials, Fritz Haber was naturally invited to
serve, and at the first meeting he immediately declared that he had a ‘financial
interest’ in the nitrogen question. Even before the war had started he was
246
D. Sheppard
the fact that the professional crews of these ships had earned accolades (the
‘Kaiser’s Prize’) for their gunnery efficiency prior to the war. On 01
November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel, and in
foul weather, the squadrons engaged
11 and the British lost several vessels
including two cruisers and sixteen hundred sailors. Von Spee’s casualties
amounted to just two wounded. For a short period after the battle, the
German navy controlled the shipping on the west coast of South America, to
such an extent that insurance on British nitrate ships at the time was refused.
A U.S. military expert of the day observed that ‘To strike at the source of the
Allied nitrate supply was to paralyze the armies in France… the destruction of a
nitrate carrier was a greater blow to the Allies than the loss of a battleship …’.
12
But German success came at a cost; her superiority was short-lived and her
end brutal. Von Spee’s squadron had used half of its ammunition, and he had
no prospect of replenishing it, for Germany’s Pacific territories had already
been occupied by the British and allied navies. Von Spee was therefore recommended to return to Germany. British reaction to her defeat at Coronel
however was to send a large force to track down and destroy the German
cruiser squadron. With no base in the Atlantic or Pacific, Spee it seemed was
forced to raid the coal bunkers in the Falkland Islands for fuel to return home.
The move was ‘anticipated’
13 by the ‘Brits’, and at the subsequent engagement on 08 December 1914 the German squadron was destroyed. Ten
British sailors were killed during the battle and nineteen wounded; none of
the British ships were badly damaged, but 2,200 German sailors were lost in
the encounter, including Admiral Spee and his two sons. As a result of the
action German access to the saltpetre beds of Chile was totally denied.
Germany’s need for nitrate—already desperate—therefore became acute
whilst the Allies quickly doubled the number of their freight vessels to the
region.
13.5 ‘Fixation’, Haber, and the Chemist’s War
The defeat of Spee’s squadron hammered the final nail into Germany’s saltpetre coffin, and at the end of 1914 her leaders were forced to form a national
‘nitrate commission’ to examine ways in which this vital resource could be
procured from within her own borders. As head of the Chemistry Department
of the Board of Wartime Raw Materials, Fritz Haber was naturally invited to
serve, and at the first meeting he immediately declared that he had a ‘financial
interest’ in the nitrogen question. Even before the war had started he was
246
D. Sheppard