The French armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta settles by the stern after her torpedoing in the Mediterranean on 27th April 1915 by the Austro-Hungarian U-boat, SMU-5, whose periscope witnesses the warship’s last moments. The Leon Gambetta was the first major French warship to be sunk by a submarine, and one of the largest to be lost by the Marine Nationale during the entire war. She was also the first victim of a naval captain whose surname is instantly recognisable to lovers of musicals but whose wartime exploits are all but forgotten.
Captain Georg Johannes Ritter von Trapp was born in the Adriatic port of Zadar (Zara) in 1880. His father, August Johann von Trapp, who’d died only four years after Georg’s birth, had his own distinguished naval career, having participated in the Battle of Lissa aboard the frigate SMS Schwarzenberg. In 1874, August had been decorated for saving his ship and crew during a great storm, receiving the hereditary title ‘Ritter’ (Knight) and a coat of arms bearing the motto ‘Nec Aspera Terrent’ – Hardships do not deter us.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Georg had entered the Kaiserlich und Königlich Kriegsmarine (KuKK) naval academy at Rijeka (Fiume) in 1894. After graduating in 1898, he’d served as a cadet aboard the sailing corvette SMS Saida II on a round-the-world training cruise. Afterwards, he’d been assigned to the newly-commissioned protected cruiser SMS Zenta. Georg had got his first taste of war when this ship had been sent to the Far East as part of a multinational naval force to help suppress the Boxer Uprising. He had been among an Austro-Hungarian landing party which had joined in the allied assault on the Taku Forts, a series of river fortifications that guarded the approaches to Tientsin and the Chinese imperial capital at Peking. For this military undetaking, Georg was awarded a Silver Bravery award.
Returning home in 1903 and given the rank of ‘Fregattenleutnant’ (frigate lieutenant), Georg continued his naval training at Rijeka, taking courses in sea-mines, torpedoes, and even hot-air ballooning. In 1908, he’d been promoted to ‘Linienschiffsleutnant’ (ship-of-the-line lieutenant, or lieutenant). However, his naval future was not to be in battleships but submarines.
The port of Rijeka held the distinction of being home to the world’s first torpedo factory. It had been set up in 1874 by the British engineer Robert Whitehead, who, along with his Austro-Hungarian associate, Giovanni Luppis, had pioneered the development of self-propelled torpedoes.
As with all the major navies, the KuKK were greatly interested in the emerging technology of the submarine. Lacking the expertise to design their own vessels, the Austro-Hungarians ordered submarines from three overseas manufacturers in order to compare designs and refine their requirements. The first two vessels were built by the American pioneer Simon Lake. Two more were constructed by Germania-Krupp at Kiel. The last pair, named U-5 and U-6, were pre-produced by the Electric Boat Company, following a design by John Phillip Holland. The two vessels, which had Holland’s distinctive ‘tear-drop’ shaped hulls, were then shipped in parts to be re-assembled in the Robert Whitehead Co. workshops at Fiume.
Georg attended the launch of the first of these vessels at Rijeka in February 1909. Also in attendance was Agatha Whitehead, the 18-year-old grand-daughter of Robert, who was given the honour of christening the new submarine. The couple were formally introduced at a ceremonial ball held the same evening. They were married two years later at the naval academy chapel.
On her completion in July 1910, Georg took command of the U-6, both man and ship relocating to Pula (Pola). There, von Trapp conducted rigorous testing of the submarine and intensive training of her crew. In some months, the vessel undertook ten training cruises. After one trial, U-6 was rammed by the submarine tender Pelikan, though no serious damage resulted. The two Holland boats were found to compare favourably with the other designs, their tear-drop hulls giving them superior underwater mobility. However, they suffered from inadequate ventilation, and their crews were often overcome by toxic fumes when running their gasoline-powered surface engines.
Georg remained with the U-6 for three years. In the spring of 1914, he participated in a training cruise to Egypt and the Holy Land aboard the old battleship SMS Monarch. In July 1914, shortly after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand had made a major European war inevitable, he was given command of one of the KuKK’s newest 250-ton sea-going torpedo-boats, stationed at the strategic port of Cattaro, which guarded the Straits of Otranto, the Adriatic’s narrowest point. In April 1915, however, Georg was re-assigned to submarines. Why he did not return to his previous command is unclear, but he may have opted for the U-5 because of its association with his wife.
The Leon Gambetta was to become U-5’s first and most militarily significant victim. The French armoured cruiser had been commissioned in 1905, a year before the introduction of HMS Dreadnought made such sluggish and lightly-armoured, mixed-calibre warships obsolete. As the war would prove, pre-dreadnought battleships were especially susceptible to underwater attack due to their poor magazine protection and insufficiently compartmented hulls. The Leon Gambetta’s sinking on the night of 27th July occurred within a day of the signing of the Treaty of London, which had committed Italy to declaring war on Austria-Hungary. Von Trapp had evidently had the 12,500t warship in his periscope sights for several days. Inexplicably, the French naval authorities had left the cruiser steaming through the night in waters known to be hostile at only 6 knots and without any form of protective escort.
Von Trapp used the moonlight to set up his attack, firing two torpedoes from a range of only 500m. In what was the first successful underwater submarine attack at night, both torpedoes struck home, causing massive flooding and the loss of all power. In less than ten minutes, the Leon Gambetta went to the bottom of the Adriatic, some 20 miles southeast of Cape di Leuca, the heel of Italy. Her crew, many of whom were caught sleeping in their bunks, had only had time to launch two of the lifeboats, one of which subsequently foundered due to over-crowding. Thus, through his periscope Von Trapp bore witness to the mass drowning of French sailors; only 137 out of a complement of 820 would survive the sinking, these fortunates being picked up by Italian warships the following day.
The U-5’s heroic actions were recorded artistically by Von Trapp’s compatriot Alexander Kircher (1867–1939). Rejected by the KuKK due to a chronic foot injury, Kircher had turned his hand to marine painting, sometimes using his own yacht in order to get close enough to paint units of the Austro-Hungarian fleet and large commercial vessels visiting its ports. Kircher’s greyscale painting does justice to the drama of the moment although the presence on the horizon of a ‘Flying Dutchman’ is a curious embellishment.
The Leon Gambetta’s destruction was, Georg later wrote in his memoirs, ‘a horrible handiwork’ which he bitterly regretted having to undertake. Nevertheless, it was handiwork, for which he was given the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Knight’s Cross of the Leopold Order and the German Empire’s Iron Cross. Her torpedoing had the effect of causing French and allied naval forces to withdraw southwards to a patrol line where they would be less at risk of such attacks. Ironically, Von Trapp’s next command would be a French warship.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 