Scapa Scuttle
Under the terms of the Armistice, writes Geoffrey Bennett, the ships of the German High Sea Fleet were interned and not surrendered. Hence they were manned by their own crews, who eight months later were able to carry out “an act of treachery.”
In 1919 occurred an act of treachery that tarnished the gold of the British Navy’s predominant part in the Allied victory over the German High Sea Fleet in the First World War.
“The Germans,” wrote Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond at the time, “have made the British Navy ridiculous.”
There were some who contended that the affair was a blessing in disguise, that it obviated an unseemly wrangle over the division of the victors’ spoils, but there is no evidence to support the suggestion that, to this end, Britain connived at it.
Could it, then, have been prevented; could the treachery have been foreseen and measures taken to guard against it?
After a lapse of forty years, history can record the facts and pass judgment upon those chiefly responsible.
In October 1918, Germany opened negotiations with the Allies for an armistice. The draft of the terms with which she was presented by the Supreme War Council included these articles:—
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