The Russian Revolution and the Forgotten Submarine Flotilla

The second 1917 Russian Revolution commenced on 7 November.  It had a devastating impact on the Royal Navy’s highly-successful Baltic Submarine Flotilla under the command of Commander Francis Cromie, but the tale seems to have been forgotten.  With the collapse of order in Russia came the mutiny of the Russian Fleet and Cromie could no longer rely on the support of his Russian allies to prosecute the war against Germany.  Worse, the mutineers removed all the officers from their ships and submarines, imprisoned many and murdered others, including their Commander-in-Chief.  Cromie tried hard with some success to rescue his former comrades-in-arms.  However, it was clear that there would be no more Royal Navy operations in the Baltic that winter.

Under Cromie’s command had been six E-class and five smaller C-class submarines.  Some had been lost to enemy action or mines.  The Admiralty agreed to recall Cromie’s men to Britain for the winter and hoped to send out crews for the remaining submarines in the spring, ready to begin new offensive operations in 1918.  By this time, the flotilla had withdrawn from their base in Estonia to Finland where they hoped they would be out of reach of the Germans.  In typical fashion, the proud submariners cleaned and polished their boats from end to end, even laying out clean deck cloths on the decks before laying up their submarines for the winter.  There was no question of sailing home in the submarines as the Germans had successfully applied pressure on the Danish government to mine the entrance to and exit from the Baltic.  The men instead marched to the station to commence the long journey overland to Murmansk and then the sea crossing back home, but Cromie had to inform them he had been asked to remain behind. 

Cromie was now a fluent speaker of Russian, had good contacts with the Russians and, above all, had their respect, even amongst the mutineers.  Lacking an intelligence network in Russia, Captain Smith-Cumming, the head of the Secret Service, needed Cromie to set up a network to report back on Bolshevik activities.  Cromie was promoted to acting-Captain and appointed as the British Naval Attaché.

Cromie single-handedly set up a network of agents and a propaganda operation to try to persuade the Russians to remain in the war against Germany, bringing himself to the attention of the Russian Secret Police, the dreaded Cheka.  Moreover, with the collapse of the Russian Army, the Germans were able to advance towards Finland and the RN’s submarine flotilla was in danger of being captured.  Evading the Cheka, Cromie returned to Finland and enlisted the help of civilian volunteers to help him tow the submarines into deep water and scuttle them, along with three British merchantmen loaded with stores of use to the invading Germans.  One could not write a more exciting spy thriller and yet I have tried!  In my 5* novel, Where The Baltic Ice is Thin, I have, according to the many positive reviews, been successful in fictionalising the story of Cromie and his Baltic flotilla up to the early days of the Russian Revolution.  The story continues, but I am not going to reveal all just now.  You will have to wait until I write the final instalment of my For Those in Peril WW1 series.  I promise the climax will be no less thrilling!