Why Admiral von Spee attacked the Falklands

[ohrdruf]

In 1908, the British Government laid claim officially to Lower Patagonia below 50ºS, territory then belonging to Argentina and Chile, as British sovereign territory. The claim of right for this aggression was British occupation of the Falkland Islands.

There are indications that the attack on the Falklands by the German naval squadron under Admiral Graf Spee on 8 December 1914 was ordered by Berlin, and was intended to oust the British from the Falklands altogether.

(Regrettably there is a continuing fault in the system which logs me out after two paragraphs of a posting. I should be grateful if it could be suggested how to overcome this problem, possibly by cancelling my membership and allowing me to re-enter under another pseudonym.)

[Alanmccoubrey]

If the system is logging you out after two paragraphs then why are you doing paragraphs ? Until the fault is sorted just try writing without paragraphs and see if it still logs you out.

[Terry Duncan]

(Regrettably there is a continuing fault in the system which logs me out after two paragraphs of a posting. I should be grateful if it could be suggested how to overcome this problem, possibly by cancelling my membership and allowing me to re-enter under another pseudonym.)

I have not heard of such a problem but will ask others to see if they can advise you on this.

As to the statement about the British claim, it does not claim Lower Patagonia;

LETTERS PATENT OF 21 JULY 1908

BRITISH LETTERS PATENT appointing the Governor of the Colony of the Falkland Islands to be Governor of South Georgia, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands, the Sandwich Islands, and Graham's Land, and providing for the Government thereof as Dependencies of the Colony.—Westminster, July 21, 1908.

EDWARD the Seventh, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India: To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting.

Whereas the group of islands known as South Georgia, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands, and the Sandwich Islands, and the territory known as Graham's Land, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean to the south of the 50th parallel of south latitude, and lying between the 20th and the 80th degrees of west longitude, are part of our Dominions, and it is expedient that provision should be made for their government as Dependencies of our Colony of the Falklands;

A misreading of the later Letters Patent of 28th March 1917 might lead you to this conclusion if you considered the entirity of Lower Patagonia to already come into the category of a British territory and not under the classification of a sovereign nation. This could not be the case if ambassadors or minsters were representing each nation on the others soil.

Sadly I cannot get a link to work to the document, but if people type in "Letters Patent" 1908 the document is about three places down and from the journals.cambridge.org site.

There are indications that the attack on the Falklands by the German naval squadron under Admiral Graf Spee on 8 December 1914 was ordered by Berlin, and was intended to oust the British from the Falklands altogether.

I would love to see some supporting evidence for this claim, as Spee's communications with Berlin while in Chile make no mention of him doing any such thing, and from the accounts given survivors, his intention was simply to steal some coal and then set fire to the rest at best.

[Peter Brazier]

It's not that I always agree with you Terry but all the accounts I've read ( not just in books you own) point to Von Spee being low on coal and wanting to recoal and destroy the radio station in the Falklands.

[Navy Vet]

Here is the link, took a lot of work to figure it out! It is a PDF file.

http://journals.cambridge.org/productio ... id=5625720

[Marcus]

(Regrettably there is a continuing fault in the system which logs me out after two paragraphs of a posting. I should be grateful if it could be suggested how to overcome this problem, possibly by cancelling my membership and allowing me to re-enter under another pseudonym.)

Try clearing the cache and cookies if your browser.

/Marcus

[favedave]

Spee's attack was certainly based first on the need to coal in order to cross the Atlantic for home. But he could have coaled on the coast of South America. The decision to go for the Falklands was entirely his. It was closer to home, there were certainly adequate supplies on hand and Spee did not think the RN had gotten there before him. If Spee had been a few days earlier or a few days later, he would have taken the facilities there, fueled up and then destroyed the station and remaining supplies. That would have been very bad for British morale and their operations in the south Atlantic.

[ohrdruf]

I have experienced the problem for several years which is why I rarely post in AHF any more. When I say "paragraphs" it usually happens that after I have written a message of any length and press "Save" or "Preview" the system presents me with the Log-in face, even though while writing I have been able to see the Log-out facility proving I am logged in.

As regards the message, I have posted one-tenth of the whole. Nobody has the whole picture as yet because the intention of all nations involved has been to play it down and present the whole affair as a "hit-and-run raid". The original 1908 Letters claimed Lower Patagonia. The 1917 amendment followed an ultimatum by Argentina and Chile. The orders to von Spee reportedly came from the German Chancellery and German Admiralty according to a former Argentine Consul who saw the material during his service in England and Argentine.

Edit: 1430 hrs. I typed in the whole article in 75 minutes, the system wiped it out and told me to log in. That is end of my association with AHF, I am finding another forum to post it. Just for fun I used another of my E-mail addresses to attempt to re-register. At the foot of the application is a question to answer, e.g: What is the number between four and six?; what year did the Spanish Civil War start? Canada is south of Venezuela, true or false? Jack and Jill went up the hill, who did Jack go up the hill with? What was Himmler's first name? In every case I was told that my answer was invalid (answers are 5, 1936 and false, Jill and Heinrich) and therefore I was not permitted to register. There is obviously a problem in some area of AHF programming: from the forum itself with regret I now liberate myself permanently.

I will answer all and any enquiries on the subject which can then be reposted if anybody is interested: for this purpose contact me at: [email protected]

[Terry Duncan]

When I say "paragraphs" it usually happens that after I have written a message of any length and press "Save" or "Preview" the system presents me with the Log-in face, even though while writing I have been able to see the Log-out facility proving I am logged in.

This might be easier to slolve. After typing the original message, copy the entire message as you would for standard cut and paste type uses, log in again and then paste the message back in. This should allow you to then post the message in its entirity. I had a problem with Windows Explorer previously, this could be something connected to a Windows update which was the case with my problems. They did go after some time when a new update was released, and the only work around I had was to write the entire message in word or notpad and then paste it here.

As regards the message, I have posted one-tenth of the whole.

The link kindly provided by Navy Vet gives the entire Gazette entry and thus the entire claim made by the British goverment at the time. If it had included Lower Patagonia as you claim, this would have been a direct challenge the US Monroe Doctrine which claims all the America's mainlands as its sphere of influence.

The original 1908 Letters claimed Lower Patagonia.

No they did not. The link is to a copy of the original claim. Oddly enough this claim has been put forward on a number of sites in the last week or so and proof of this claim seems somewhat lacking in all cases, only an assertion that the 'original' says something that nobody can apparently even supply a wording to.

Nobody has the whole picture as yet because the intention of all nations involved has been to play it down and present the whole affair as a "hit-and-run raid".

Or more likely because there was no fuss at the time as everyone understood what the announcement meant and the lack of any inclusion of Lower Patagonia and the detailing of the included areas make it hard to misunderstand.

The 1917 amendment followed an ultimatum by Argentina and Chile.

Fine, so show this ultimatum and its wording. Given the 1917 statement is where some confusion could occur rather than the 1908 statement, though even then only if people fail to understand what a 'territotry' was - a clue is that large parts of what is now Canada were also considered territories previously. The 1917 statement says the following;

WHEREAS doubts have arisen as to the limits of the groups of islands known as South Georgia, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands, and the Sandwich Islands, and the territory of Graham Land otherwise known as Graham's Land; and whereas
it is expedient that provision should be made for the government, not only of these islands and territory but also of certain other of Our islands and territories adjacent thereto as Dependencies of Our Colony of the Falkland Islands:

1. Now We do hereby declare that from and after the publication of these Our Letters Patent in the Government Gazette of Our Colony of the Falkland Islands, the Dependencies of Our said Colony shall be deemed to include and to have included
all islands and territories whatsoever between the 20th degree of West longitude and the 50th degree of West longitude which are situated south of the 50th parallel of South latitude; and all islands and territories whatsoever between the 50th degree of West longitude and the 80th degree of West longitude which are situated south of the 58th parallel of South latitude.

It is obvious from the foregoing that ten ships converging from north and south on islands believed to be undefended were going there to occupy and not merely carry out a raid for yet more coal.

It is far from obvious as the ships contained no military invasion force or supplies to maintain the ships crews. There were no orders for them to occupy the Falklands, there is also no statement from the survivors of Spees force that would allow anyone to reach such a conclusion.

The terrible casualties on the Western Front inflicted by the German Army destroyed the British Army as a powerful imperialist fighting force and ended the policy of endless colonization.

THe British Army of 1917-18 is many times larger than that of 1914, have you never noticed the offensives that ended the war were conducted by an army vastly superior in capabilities? There had been no 'endless colonization' for many years prior to WWI.

In this connection, Colonel Perón stated on 4 April 1952:
"We shall never forget nor ever be able to repay the immense debt of gratitude we owe our conmrades, the German Army."(6) That debt was repaid in full during and after the Second World War.

A rather unclear quote, are you suggesting harbouring Nazi war criminals such as Eichmann was a noble action?

[Terry Duncan]

ohrdruf,

I can only apologise for the difficulties you say you have experienced, I have never heard of such problems previously and will attempt to investigate the problem.

The orders to von Spee reportedly came from the German Chancellery and German Admiralty according to a former Argentine Consul who saw the material during his service in England and Argentine.

Whilst the OP has said he has now decided to end his association with AHF, this point deserves a response. There would appear to be no record of any such signal being made from Germany, and as Spee was at sea, he would not have been able to receive it anyhow - he had been out of communication during the crossing of the Pacific and had needed to use the Chilean facilities at Valparaiso to make contact. Records of these communications exist, and there is no order to invade the Falklands. I would encourage people to do some investigation of these claims, and their source, and through the email so kindly provided.

This exact subject cropped on on a Falkland Islands forum only a couple of weeks ago, and again relied almost entirely on wild conjecture and a total lack of evidence;

http://falklandia.com/YForum/YaBB.pl?ac ... 1322919049

[ohrdruf]

An effort is being made to resolve the technical problem of which I complained, and I hope to reappear under a new guise within 24 hours. Terry Duncan many thanks for your help in this regard.

[Kingfish]

...lifts finger off the 'Dump ohrdruf' button...

[Terry Duncan]

Terry Duncan many thanks for your help in this regard.

Thank you. I can only suggest you write posts in Word or something similar for the moment, then copy and paste as needed until this problem resolves itself. It is a problem others should be aware of too. If you have any further problems email me or Marcus and we will try to help.

[Atrevida]

Ohrdruf calling. This new name suffers the same problem.

Kingfisher. First laugh I have ever had on AHF.

Terry Duncan. I have explained at length to Marcus what I believe the problem to be.
If you are interested I shall be posting on Falklandia tomorrow. Funny thing about that forum, only Redhoyt and Seydlitz ever posted in December, but it gets quite a few readers.

[Navy Vet]

Ohrdruf/Atrevida, do you have the "Log me on automatically each visit" box checked when you logged on? What web browser are you using? What computer operating system do you have?

Also, try the delete all cookies function (this will log you out):
http://forum.axishistory.com/ucp.php?mo ... te_cookies