The shelling of Scarborough, on December 16th, was the first direct naval attack on Britain in 100 years, and the first direct attack of the First World War.  German forces, under Admiral Franz von Hipper, had set off from Heligoland on the German coast the previous evening and engaged with British ships, under Admiral David Beatty, which set out to meet the fleet after intercepting German transmissions.  The battle took place before dawn and under heavy mist.  Due to these low visibility...

The shelling of Scarborough, on December 16th, was the first direct naval attack on Britain in 100 years, and the first direct attack of the First World War.  German forces, under Admiral Franz von Hipper, had set off from Heligoland on the German coast the previous evening and engaged with British ships, under Admiral David Beatty, which set out to meet the fleet after intercepting German transmissions.  The battle took place before dawn and under heavy mist.  Due to these low visibility conditions, there were light losses on both sides, and the German fleet managed to slip by.  At this point, the German fleet divided:  three ships headed for Hartlepool, and the battle cruisers SMS Von der Tann and SMS Derrflinger, accompanied by the Kolberg, a light cruiser and mine layer, headed to Scarborough.

The bombardment began shortly before 8 a.m. and lasted approximately thirty five minutes.  After the shelling had finished, the death toll stood at eighteen, the youngest victim being just fourteen months old.  There were also eighty people injured.  Derrflinger and Von der Tann fired between five hundred and seven hundred shells which hit around two hundred buildings, either damaging or destroying them.  The Kolberg also left mines in the harbour which would further increase the loss of life in the following weeks.  The reasons for the attack are fairly unclear; Scarborough was not a military threat and only had a few new Territorial Army recruits residing there.  One reason could be that the attack was part of a German scheme to draw out and destroy parts of the British fleet, or that it was a German propaganda raid, designed to boost morale at home.  Bob Clarke, a Scarborough historian, speculates that as Scarborough was listed as a ‘defended’ or ‘fortified’ town and had 3 radio stations.  It was marked as a communications target and a point in Britain’s defences that needed to be taken out.

Meanwhile, the battle cruisers SMS Seydlitz and SMS Moltke, and the armoured cruiser SMS Blücher were attacking Hartlepool.  Unlike Scarborough, there were several batteries that housed artillery guns, the prime target of the invaders, enabling a company from the 18th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry to fire back.  Each of the German ships had been assigned at target at Hartlepool; Seydlitz was to attack Cemetery Battery, Moltke, Heugh Battery, while Blücher would bombard the harbour.  Returning fire, Heugh would target the first two cruisers, and Lighthouse Battery would attack the armoured cruiser.  The latter of these would be more successful; Blücher took several direct hits to its gun turrets and bridge and retreated back to concentrate on attacking the British ships that were now arriving.   The shelling of Hartlepool lasted approximately forty minutes and left ninety five dead and over four hundred injured, with significant damage to over three hundred buildings.  On their way to meet up with the rest of the fleet at Hartlepool, Derrflinger and Von der Tann also battered Whitby in an 11 minute bombardment of over one hundred and fifty shells around 9 a.m. that left three dead and damaged many buildings including schools, houses and Whitby Abbey. 

These attacks on the British coast were a grim reminder that war was not as distant as the residents of Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby believed and as a result several government campaigns were launched under the name ‘Remember Scarborough’ with slogans that highlighted the barbaric attack on an undefended town and the deaths of innocent people.  Recruitment levels also soared with many signing up to ‘avenge’ the victims of Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool.  As highlighted in the film, the press immediately condemned the attack referred to as an act of a nation that had gone mad, and Admiral von Hipper was dubbed “baby killer” by Churchill.  However, slow response of the Royal Navy and the Battle of Dogger Bank the following year raised suspicions and conspiracy theories that the government had known about the attack before it took place.

 

References:

Admiral Franz von Hipper

BBC local history: The Bombardment of Scarborough 1914

Bob Clarke, Remember Scarborough: A Result of the First Arms Race of the Twentieth Century, Amberley Press, 2010.

John Sadler, ‘On British Soil: Hartlepool, 16 December, 1914’ The Historian, Autumn 2014, p28-31. 

Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, 1914

 

Further reading/viewing:

Battle of Dogger Bank 1915 (First World War website)

’Battle of Dogger Bank revealed ‘a failure to process intelligence’’ , The Times [London, England], 26 April, 2014.

BBC Look North 1914 Bombardment of Scarborough (News report video, YouTube)

Remember Scarborough!  (Online archive of images and videos pertaining to the events at Scarborough)