Some aspects of operational employment of Russian naval forces in World War I

Military Thought,  April-June, 2005  by D.Yu. Kozlov

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It proved impossible to disrupt all of the enemy transport movements in the Black Sea though, but "coal hunger" and food shortages in Constantinople, which had been caused by the elimination of the greater part of Turkish freight tonnage, forced the Ottoman Government, in January 1916, to cut food rations, ration fuel, and start importing coal from Germany to the detriment of weapons and ammunition supplies, which the Turkish army was badly in need of. (12) After a minelaying operation in the latter half of 1916, exiting from Bosporus became practically impossible for big transport vessels during almost half a year.

The problem of defending sea routes acquired special importance in the Black Sea and in the Northern maritime theater. The extremely limited rail transport capacities in southern Russia were responsible for the vital role of Black Sea transportation in supplying the Romanian, South-Western and Caucasian fronts, as well as in maintaining normal economic life in Black Sea governments. The defense of sea routes became even more of a problem in the North in connection with the organization of strategic inter-allied transportation. Suffice it to say that almost 25 million tons of imported freight, (13) primarily costly weapons and military equipment, came to Russian northern ports between 1914 and 1917. To effect defense (antimine and antisubmarine in the first place) of the lines of communication in the north, an operational large force, Arctic Ocean flotilla, (b) was deployed for the first time. Despite an acute shortage of forces and assets, the latter managed, in coordination with allied naval forces, to minimize freight shipping losses. Even in 1916, when German submarines achieved their biggest successes against inter-allied transportation in Russian northern waters, only 31 vessels out of 1,582 that passed through northern sea routes were lost (less than 2%). (14) The defense of sea routes was based on the zonal-target principle, and was effected, as a rule, in the form of systematic combat operations. Only where transportation of troops or particularly valuable cargoes was involved in the Black Sea, these operations assumed the scale of a naval operation to defend lines of communication.

The task of engaging enemy naval forces was tackled by the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet within the context of efforts to gain (keep) supremacy on the seas in the form of naval operations, combat operations and sea battles. There were cases where striking forces were guided to the enemy by radio reconnaissance. On May 2, 1915, for example, a guidance session performed by the Black Sea Fleet signal service under Rear-Admiral A.I. Nepenin succeeded in prompting a Russian striking force how to locate a German task force, leading to a battle off Gotland Island between 1st cruiser brigade under Rear-Admiral M.K. Bakhirev (Admiral Makarov, Bayan, Oleg, and Bogatyr) and a squadron under Commodore Karf (light cruiser Augsburg, mine-layer Albatros, and three destroyers), which resulted in the destruction of the enemy mine-layer. (15)