Thread by @AliceAvizandum

everybody seems to like the naval threads so I have a temptation to do another one about an ancient battleship saving the day with one last job, an order to eat breakfast, and a historically significant set of signalling flags

oh, and three women and a bicycle as a source of naval intelligence

oh alright fine. THE YEAR IS 1914. WORLD WAR HAS BROKEN OUT

Germany has a tiny bit of a colonial empire, most notably the possession of Tsingtao in China - which is why their beer is so good, by the way

To protect this empire you need ships, so there is a German East Asia Squadron, under the command of this guy, Maximilian von Spee

However: there’s no way his ships are a match for all of the British colonies’, plus Japan has just entered the war on the allied side. So the mission is: get your ships home to Germany where they might be some use, and maybe bushwhack a few cargo ships on the way

So von Spee sets out on his anabasis, and runs into a string of unexpected good luck. He sails southeast, runs into the British off the coast of Chile, and wins

in fact, he wins too much

See what he doesn’t want to do is
- get attention
- fire ammunition he can’t get more of

and he uhhhhhhh kills the British admiral and sinks his flagship, using half of his ammunition

he kind of knows he’s fucked up. the squadron resupplies in Valparaíso, Chile; someone gives him a bouquet of flowers and he says ‘these will look nice on my grave’, emo that he is

so obviously the empire has to strike back, right? so while von Spee is rounding the bottom of South America to get into the Atlantic, the Royal Navy sends a squadron after him. They run into each other off the Falkland Islands/Malvinas

we now get to the bicycle ladies. Mrs Muriel Felton manages a sheep station on the islands and she has two maids with her. she gets a phone call from the capital, Port Stanley, saying ‘hello, don’t panic but there are some German ships coming’

so the three of them take turns riding the bicycle up the hill, noting the position of the German ships, then riding back down and calling them in by phone. Muriel gets an OBE for this

When the Germans arrive, though, the Brits are in port, taking on coal. It takes a while to get the boilers on a warship going in 1914, so on the face of it, they’re trapped, right?

the British commander, a man with the absolutely fake name ‘Doveton Sturdee’, is unfazed. he orders the men to have breakfast. everyone thinks he’s insane

von Spee can’t resist a target of opportunity like this, and just maybe he is on a good run of luck. his captains are less certain. they want him to just make a run for it while the British are occupied and head back to Germany. of course he says no

here we get to the old battleship. and I mean old, like end of the 19th century old. HMS Canopus, this goofy little thing

in a rare stroke of genius, the British have realised that Canopus sucks as a boat but still has good long range guns. so they beach it outside Port Stanley as an artillery battery. and thanks to Muriel & co, they know where the German ships are

so as poor old von Spee is steaming in to get some easy British kills, he starts getting shelled from he knows not where. there’s a hill in between him and Port Stanley so he can’t even see Canopus, which is firing over it. this is unexpected

the crews of the British squadron finish their breakfast. the boilers have by now got up steam, so while the Germans are caught by surprise, the British sail out. now for the flag stuff

by 1914 you can command a fleet by radio, but signal flags are part of tradition and in particular there is this set, which to the Royal Navy means General Chase

this is of most use when you are fighting in like 1815 and you need to tell everyone, ‘stop holding formation, the enemy are running and everyone should go after them independently to sink or capture as many as you can’

this is somewhat famous amongst naval officers, so obviously it is a morale boost. actually this is the second to most recent (not wanting to say last) time the Royal Navy has used a General Chase signal - the last involved fighting U-boats in the Bay of Biscay

so of course it’s a slaughter. von Spee and his two sons are killed, his large ships, Gneisenau, Leipzig and Scharnhorst are all sunk, only two escape. here’s HMS Inflexible rescuing the survivors

and all this for the sake of a Victorian ship and a bicycle

there is of course a twist

von Spee wasn’t stupid, right? we saw that earlier with the emo-ass flowers remark. he knew how much danger he was in and all his officers were warning him too. so why attack at all?

everyone knows about British naval cryptography of the Second World War, but we were pioneers of it

and so von Spee had gotten a secret radio message from German high command directing him to the Falklands. I don’t know how the British kept a straight face sending that message

and that - with an ace up each sleeve - is how you can hear ‘sir, enemy warships bearing down on us’ and respond, ‘have you had breakfast yet, I’m starving’