The Battle of the Falkland Islands, 1914 ⚓ Major Naval Clash in the South Atlantic

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In December 1914, as the First World War raged in Europe, Falkland Harbour underwent strategic fortifications under Governor Allardyce. Unbeknownst to the approaching German squadron led by Admiral von Spee, the British fleet, commanded by Admiral Sturdee, lay in wait in the calm waters of Port Stanley. A tense standoff ensued as warning shots were fired, revealing the British presence, and both sides prepared for the imminent Battle of the Falkland Islands.
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🧾 Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
📚 Sources:
Written by House of History
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🖼 Photos, paintings and imagery: Public Domain, Wikicommons
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#HouseofHistory #History

[@HoH]

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[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Love your content! Keep beign awesome

[@beepboop204]

as a stoner i swore i heard you mention a HMS Cannabis 😅

[@spamhonx56]

Perhaps i have a longer memory than most but i recall when betterhelp had their first scandal, if i recall correctly it was around the fact that their "professional therapists" were actually nothing of the sort- it was a big thing at the time, with massive youtubers like philip defranco issuing apologies for promoting such a shady business. I wondered if they had changed over time but they're currently under investigation for selling their patients confidential data to places like facebook, in breach of all kinds of legal and moral client confidentiality rules. Please consider looking into this. If what you find is not enough to put you off from accepting sponsorships, or if this channel simply needs this particular sponsorship to stay afloat, then by all means do what you must, but i rather hope you'll be able to find a less sketchy sponsor.

[@a.m.pietroschek1972]

Ancestors: Which part of `hold still and get conquered´ did these Brexit Islanders not understand..? 🤣

[@yaqui4994]

1806: First British invasion of Buenos Aires Criolla Victory !!! 1807: Second British invasion of Buenos Aires Criolla Victory !!! 1845 - 1850: War of Parana Criolla Victory !!! ........ .... ................

[@RoberttheFox0001]

It's great to find you tubers that spend the time to know the difference between Battlecruisers, heavy cruisers and armored cruisers and express that in the videos. Thank you.

[@tannerdenny5430]

Yeah to a land lubber,, it's hard to break down these seemingly sometimes very slight nitpicky seeming differences. But indeed once the booms break out the lines unblurr and suddenly it makes sense

[@levipierson4946]

Heavy cruiser? Wasn't invested till 1922 lmao

[@voidwalker9223]

@@levipierson4946were you really laughing your ass off? Be Honest

[@voidwalker9223]

@@levipierson4946 so why do they keep saying heavy cruiser in these videos?

[@peregrinemccauley5010]

Oh.

[@jetgnome]

Love watching. My great-grandfather was a sailor in Von Spee’s fleet. Family history is that he was sick and left in an hospital in Valparaiso. I don’t know in which ship he served. He settled in Chile and raised a family there. Before he lived in Bremen. My mother found a photocopy of a document issued by the German government that accompanied a medal for WWI service

[@NefariousKoel]

There was a whole group of German sailors left there from that fleet. I recall they all stayed there for awhile, due to not being able to get home during the war. A fair number of them decided to stay and live there after it was over, having started their civilian lives while there.

[@jetgnome]

@@NefariousKoel Thanks for the information. My father told me that there were a lot of Germans in the city after both wars.

[@daveweiss5647]

Wow! What great family history!

[@tombogan03884]

Sturdee was waiting for Von Spee. Canopus was run aground, inside the harbor . Out of sight, but with spotters on the hills. The first Von Spee knew was when he saw real big shell splashes

[@arthurblundell6128]

after Coronel a lady offered flowers to Von Spee -- he smiled as said "save them for my funeral"

[@Jake-xe4cv]

...my grandfather was on HMS Glasgow as an engineroom artificer. He was at the battle of Coronel a month before this and I went there, to the Falklands, in another RN task force in 1982. Little had changed...

[@mattanderson9029]

I had never realised the irony of the graff spee being scuttled before. Thanks, liked and subscribed!

[@tirantloblanch1]

And like 25 years later a pocket battleship named after the admirald graff spee has a historical combat in front of argentina again, the irony

[@kumasenlac5504]

Yes, the Kreigsmarine honored their forebears in naming not only the Admiral Graf Spee but also the two battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

[@Michael.Talbot]

@@kumasenlac5504 I think you missed the irony, he means Admiral Graf Spee lost twice to the British off the Argentinian coast . BTW most navies use past Admiral names like USS Nimitz, HMS Nelson etc.

[@mbryson2899]

Beautifully done. The battles of Coronel and the Falklands starkly underscore the pointlessness of war. So many killed in mere footnotes. 😢

[@pete5691]

So true. From atop their ivory towers the leaders of these nations sent millions to their deaths.

[@GrenvilleP710]

Of course it wasn't pointless. War has a point ior you don't do it.

[@pete5691]

@@GrenvilleP710 War is powerful wealthy men, unable to agree, who send powerless poor men to fight. This battle gained really nothing. A bunch of young men perished thousands of miles from home. WWI was one of the most pointless wars possible.

[@watsondove849]

I'm sure concentration camp victims would agree with you

[@JRyan-lu5im]

@@pete5691 Worse yet - whether they made it back to Germany or not, or sank more or less of the English warships, the blockade of German waters would have held. It's all about pride: how could a admiral possibly inter his crews in a neutral port, or scuttle his ships? Unimaginable, so the solution - to send thousands of people on a suicidal smash and dash across half the world.

[@wswaine]

Thanks for this. My Great Grandfather was on HMS Canopus during this battle.

[@akula9713]

Canopus was in the Harbour. Her guns were directed by shore based observers. It was her masts that alerted the Germans to the fact that the Falkland had heavy naval units.

[@mkaustralia7136]

Actually her masts had been taken down to avoid being seen and spotters placed on the intervening hill. The Germans spotted the masts of the battlecruisers once they were alerted by the heavy shells from Canopus.

[@user-mj1gg4qp2m]

The Canopus was hidden and aground inside the harbor. Your map appears to have her outside the harbor

[@LewisPulsipher]

As I recall, von Spee could see the masts of the battle cruisers in the port. His only hope at that point was to charge in and rely on surprise and short range to survive/prevail. By running he assured his defeat - his massacre - as he had no hope of getting away.

[@i-a-g-r-e-e-----f-----jo--b]

Yeah I agree, maybe show up at 4AM instead of 8AM would have helped too!

[@mkaustralia7136]

It is worthwhile to track down the Dracinifel YT on this battle and a subsequent Dry Dock where he discusses various “what ifs”. A big one is the time Von Spee spent at Cape Horn region before going to the Falklands. He could have arrived before Sturdee. Another is the idea of scuttling one of his ships in the channel to block Sturdee from pursuit.

[@richgweil]

I love your videos, great stuff! Just wanted to point out that the graphic at 4:14 , the info on Inflexible is slightly off. Inflexible had 4 twin 12-inch gun turrets for a total of 8 12-inch guns. Not "4 x 12 in" as seen in the graphic. The narrative info is correct, of course. Just nit-picky really. Keep up the great work!

[@paulceglinski7172]

Love the channel HoH. From ancients to WWII. What a playlist!! Been digging the WWI naval stuff of late, but Alte Fritz is still my go-to guy. Cheers from Tennessee

[@napoleonibonaparte7198]

I want to believe there was an old geezer on the islands that saw this battle as a child, witnessed WW2 and the Falklands War as well.

[@adventussaxonum448]

Quite possible. My granddad joined the Royal Navy in 1914, aged 14. Served in both world wars and died in the 80s.

[@halbkuppe4895]

very likely actually

[@sof5858]

I am a sucker for these Naval animated battle videos. I would be up for watching any major battle.

[@HoH]

I am currently working on a series on the Mediterranean theatre during the Second world war!

[@sof5858]

@HoH Looking forward to it 👍🏻. I don't think I've seen a Operation Pedestal covered at all. That would be interesting and obviously Taranto.

[@raoulsandhu1415]

⁠@@sof5858the channel ‘Historigraph’ has covered both Pedestal and the Taranto raid

[@Paludion]

@@sof5858 Historigraph covered both battles, but it's always interesting to have another youtuber have his take on this.

[@ericdack3891]

I could be wrong, but I think the future Admiral Canaris was aboard the Dresden, as Intelligence Officer. If killed what affect on WW2. ?

[@ultimo36]

awesome. really brings home how far flung the battles in the 1st world war ACTUALLY were.

[@johnfisher9692]

Nicely done The battle of the Falklands Islands shows the brilliance of the Dreadnought Armoured Cruiser design as when they were used in the role they were designed for they were highly effective ships.

[@TheCowgirlBookworm]

Loved it, and love all these visualizations of WW1 naval battles. I’ve read quite a few good naval histories on the war but it can be hard to picture everything when only given lines on a page. Hope you continue on with these, would love to see the Scarborough Raid and Jutland!

[@johnnygolden7401]

THank you for the video. It was a great summarization of that battle!

[@wr1120]

Why didn't the Germans send the Dresden ahead as the fastest ship in order to scout the presence of any British ships? It could have been done at dusk, share the information with the rest of the German fleet, and attack at dawn less than eight hours later or flee during the night. Remember it's maximum daylight with only seven hours of darkness in December at the Falklands.

[@sonnyjim5268]

Once again, a quality production. Thank you.

[@williamkennedy5492]

The Germans realised they were in deep poo when they spotted tripod masts, only capital ships had those, Canopus did open fire and hit one of the German ships, however there is a story attached to that hit, Canopus was due a practice shoot in the morning and the forward turret always won the competition, so in the night the rear turret crew loaded up with practice shot, In the morning they found themselves in a real shooting match they could not unload the rear turret 12 inch guns, so had to fire them and they hit the German ship with basically a practice concrete shell !

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Love your content man! Thanks for all your hardwork! Wish You a happy new year!🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤

[@HoH]

Same to you!

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

@@HoH ❤️❤️❤️

[@domenicozagari2443]

Old Sailor told me that the first English shot was a dud, because they where to do a time drill the next morning so they cheated and loaded in advance with a test shell, when the Germans come they had to shoot the dud before putting a real shell.

[@mkaustralia7136]

The Greenwich Museum page on the Canopus has the same story, so I suspect it was right. Fastest way to unload a shell is to fire it. Removing it and the charges via the turret is no trivial exercise.

[@domenicozagari2443]

The old sailor told me that it was a coastal gun watching the entrance to the harbor.@@mkaustralia7136

[@samuelcolt502]

It is correct. The Canopus was stinging from criticism over missing the battle of Coronel and had loaded practice shells to improve its firing speed the next morning.

[@domenicozagari2443]

The old sailor lived in Bentley a suburb of Perth Western Australia.

[@domenicozagari2443]

The old sailor was on a coastal gun protecting the entrance to the harbor.

[@ProfShikari]

I love these videos, a lot of these naval battles are never given life like you have given them, as someone that has been fascinated by naval history in recent years, it is great to learn of battles from history

[@HoH]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@waveranger4974]

Truly and amazing account of the battle. Narration was excellent as was the animation. Bravo!

[@HoH]

More to come! Tonight's video is about the allied ambush against the Espero convoy in 1940. Hope to see you there!

[@deejj9766]

Amazing channel. Love your work

[@krad_eno9399]

Thank you for still making videos!

[@HoH]

My pleasure!

[@KHK001]

Amazing video as always HOH!

[@HoH]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@bravo2zero796]

These videos are fantastic 👏

[@johnwright9372]

Naval warfare before radar and sealplanes was a risky business. It involved guessing where the enemy would be, poor visibility, bad weather and mechanical issues, great respect for all involved, especially all the poor crew who were killed or wounded by enemy fire, went down with the ship or went into the sea with little hope of survival.

[@GunnersMovies]

Thank you for the history :)

[@i-a-g-r-e-e-----f-----jo--b]

The cruiser crews never used torpedoes, it seems. Awesome history, thanks!

[@richardkeilig4062]

Well done historical account.

[@Aurelio4491]

It’s kind of a ridiculous thought compared to the hundreds lost on other ships, but man, imagine being the wife or parent of the ONE guy who died on the Glasgow.

[@Ryan-pu9yw]

I'd love to see videos on WW1 submarine engagements

[@Harldin]

The South Atlantic is not a good place to go if you have Spee as part of yours or your ships name🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@kevinc.3579]

Found this channel, it is awesome

[@HoH]

Welcome aboard!

[@philipdawes2661]

Canopus wasn't at Coronel - so should not be included in the survivors of that battle.

[@brownwrench]

HMS Stiff, the lesser known sister ship of HMS Inflexible.

[@skeksis3082]

You should do a video on Colonel Angus.

[@ScottSmith-wq8um]

HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible were two of three sister ships, the third being HMS Indomitable. All three were at the Battle of Jutland on 31st May 1916. Your presentation is superb, congratulations. A pity that your specs on their main armament of 4 x 12 in caliber in twin turrets is incorrect! In fact they were armed with 8 x 12 in in four twin turrets! HMS Invincible was sunk after a magazine massive explosive at Jutland. Ironically Admiral Hood was on board.

[@Cba409]

Great choice

[@brownwrench]

Warning shots? What a gentlemanly and stupid thing to do.

[@MarcusAgrippa390]

Will this series include the Battle of Jutland?

[@ericfg806]

What an embarrassing beatdown. Coronel in reverse. And then Graf Spee some years later. The German surface Navy doesn't have a good track record, other than a few, rare surprises.

[@commy1231]

I like this sort of content but what I am looking forward to most is a Franco-Prussian war series. Is that in the works?

[@davidlewis8397]

HMS Cavaliers engagements will be interesting destroyer that based in Chatham Dock, UK

[@zintosion]

The empire strikes back.

[@daveweiss5647]

I wonder if the two initial German Cruisers who reached the Falklands had just cherged in upon furst being fired at in the morning while the Brits were still at anchor if they could have wrecked enough havoc to bottle up the Brits and make them sitting ducks for the entire squadron to bombard.... would that have been able to effect a different outcome? Or was the British firepower just too much to overcome? I would think that the British being at anchor, with little or no steam built up to maneuver that the Germans could habe just raked them with fire and sunk them in the harbor. Does anyone with more Naval knowledge have an opinion? Was it possible to change the putcome with more agression? Perhapse if the Germans had all arrived together? Or arrived earlier, like at of before dawn? Also, why would they sink the German colliers? Why not keep them and use them? Thanks to anyone who can help offer some insights to my questions.

[@mkaustralia7136]

Drachinifel in one of his YTs has done a job on the “what ifs” regarding this battle, including scuttling a ship in the channel to prevent the battlecruisers leaving port. Even stationary, but with spotting available from Canopus, the two battlecruisers and Canopus would have been putting a lot of shells in the direction of a single armoured cruiser and a protected one. I am not sure the position of Canopus is correctly shown on the video. She is described by the Greenwich Museum as anchored in Stanley Harbour covering the approaches and hidden from the seaward side by a hill upon which she had set spotters. Her top masts were taken down to hide them from view. Her guns were fired using these spotters. So the Germans would have had to use indirect fire on their approach without knowing quite where the British ships were and receiving fire from three sets of large calibre guns targeted by spotting.

[@CountScarlioni]

Any assault would have been suicide with Canopus on spotting duty. Canopus had known for days that von Spee was likely on the way as they'd heard radio intel so were expecting trouble and prepared herself as a fortress battery. As happened in the battle, they were always going to see the Germans, before the Germans could see them. The only reason Canopus (only just) missed her shots was because she was indirect firing over a hill with guys stood on an outcrop yelling coordinates down a telephone. Had the German cruisers actually approached the harbour mouth they'd have come into direct line of sight and been ripped to pieces. Canopus may have been old and beached in the mud but her 12 inch guns were long range and vicious. Her Krupp armour was near indestructible to cruiser gun calibres and she had torpedo nets deployed. There really wasn't anything the Germans could do against that. The German squadron did the only sensible thing in immediately turning away and trying to disperse. They were commerce raiders, and tangling with battleships was very much _not_ part of their strategy - even obsolete ones from the 1890s! It's just von Spee's extreme misfortune that Sturdee's battlecruisers were in the same harbour or they would have assuredly escaped to fight another day. But even then, the net was closing and it was going to end in fire sooner or later. Von Spee himself knew that the RN would never let Coronel go unanswered. There was always something strangely fatalist about his attack on the Falklands, almost as if he was resigned to it being his last battle.

[@brokenbridge6316]

Great video. I enjoyed it. And I wonder what would've happened had Von Spee decided to bypass the Falklands instead of attacking it.

[@peterj5106]

You're good at doing research m8 so please do some on your sponsor's before advertising for them.

[@gnasher688]

Great video & historical insight .. Happy New Year to you my friend 🙏 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@pete5691]

Must have been something to be on that one surviving ship realizing everyone else was gone.

[@notthefbi7932]

Germany ruled the seas, for a few days 😁

[@peregrinemccauley5010]

Feel sorry for Admiral Spee. He was a man condemned, along with his squadron. Massive waste.

[@B61Mod12]

10:40 Ummm… perhaps it was the British who rapidly closed the distance?????

[@caelestigladii]

No it was the Germans. The presentation of this video is all over the place. Certain important details are omitted. So what was omitted here, and why were the Germans trying to close the distance rapidly? Weapon range. The British battlecruisers outrange the German heavy cruisers. The British are trying to keep/open the distance while the Germans are trying to close in.

[@caelestigladii]

At 10:38, the video says the Germans attempted to get out of range. What wasn’t said in the video was that it took some time before the British realized that the Germans were fleeing and no longer trying to close. And remember that the British were still trying to open the distance while the Germans were fleeing.

[@B61Mod12]

@@caelestigladii I agree I found the narration and presentation difficult to follow

[@lichkong141]

Next video battle of Jutland?

[@markhill4932]

Canopus didn't flee , it wasn't there , it was left at Stanley , because it wasn't keeping pace on the journey south

[@brownwrench]

Amazing the Brits landed such a long shot.

[@user-iu1db8vk2k]

Why do you refer to British warships as “the HMS” followed by the name? It should be either “HMS Glasgow” or just “the Glasgow”.

[@HoH]

Good point. It slipped in during proofreading. My bad.

[@Rybo-Senpai]

i believe you have Canopus positioned incorrectly, sources i have read tell me that Canopus was inside the Main Harbour, Positioned in such a way that she covered the entrance and was able to fire over land out to see, with spotters placed atop a small hill with telephone cables running back to the ship to allow for Indirect fire (shooting at without seeing your target), one account suggests that the first things the Germans knew about Canopus being there was when great big plumes of water straddled them. its a minor thing but all in, its an accurate recounting of the Battle, good job over all.

[@janlindtner305]

👍👍👍

[@roger_melly5025]

Graf von Spee translates as Count von Spee and not Admiral

[@HoH]

His rank was Vizeadmiral.

[@GrenvilleP710]

Good account but the narrator kept annoyingly saying The HMS. The correct term is just HMS. You don't say The His Majesty's Ship ...

[@chiefslinginbeef3641]

AFUERA!

[@mohammedsaysrashid3587]

It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage video about that naval clashed between Britain 🇬🇧 and the German empire during WW1. Where the German empire fleet suffered magnificent defeat ..German empire thin naval dominant over higher oceans had not sufficient colonial naval ports and bases. While thick British dominate had more naval ports and colonial naval bases rather than long periods, expirements over highly oceans .. Thank you 🙏 (house of history) channel for sharing this wonderful historical coverage video

[@Avinkwep]

Could you cover the wars of Joshua from the Bible?

[@typxxilps]

the thumbnail is wrong: this is the Admiral Graf Spee Therefore "Admiral Graf Spee last stand" - makes a difference cause it is the ship and not the Admiral Graf von Spee himself. Nazis were no fan of the aristrocrats. The ship is always named Admiral Graf Spee

[@HoH]

This video is about the person the cruiser Admiral Graf Spee was named after. Not the cruiser itself.

[@Harldin]

I think you may have your battles mixed up, this is about the 1914 battle of the Falkland Islands, the Admiral Graf Spee was a Panzerschiff built by the Nazis in the 1930s that was cornered and defeated by a British Cruiser Force in the Battle of the River Plate. Von in German means "of" and Graf means "Count"

[@HoH]

@@Harldin The ship you're talking about was named after the Admiral of this battle, Admiral Graf Maximilian Count (Graf) von Spee. They are two separate battles. This one features the admiral, the one you're talking about features the ship named after the admiral almost 25 years later. Let me know if I misunderstood your comment.

[@Harldin]

@@HoH Sorry I thought that is what I said in reply to @typxxilps, I thought he may be under the impression that the video was mainly about the Battle of the River Plate, which is probably the better known action outside Naval historian circles.

[@richardkeilig4062]

The British and German sailors were brave. It is sad that this war occurred. The Dresden was caught in neutral waters, a violation of law.

[@Michael.Talbot]

The Germans broke international law all the time so shut up.

[@RespectMyAuthoritaah]

I have always loved the way the Captains and sometimes the First Officers are named and how the lowly enlisted who actually fought and won or lost the battle remain nameless even to this day. This is why our officers are so narcissistic and entitled. I only ever met two officers who I would voluntarily follow, one of them was a Mustang and the other was just a guy who would rather serve his required time as an Enlisted man rather than an Officer. They were both Honor student Graduates from the University of Berkeley, CA. As an Officer you had to do 4 years of active service and two years of Reserve service. As an enlisted man you had to do two years of active service. My friend Sean chose to be an enlisted man and do his duty quickly so he could return to civilian life and make some real money. His brother later cursed him because Sean got into the RAND Corp before he did even though Sean was younger. Sean's older brother was never able to overcome his younger brothers lead in the RAND Corp.

[@TonySpike]

Well actually ...that is because its simply easier to name the 1 man out of 100 that has to decide what those other 99 men are supposed to be doing (no im not being accurate with those numbers) Instead of naming everyone You are over thinking it

[@RespectMyAuthoritaah]

@@TonySpike And you are taking away the credit which rightly belongs to the men who actually do the job. Instead you want to assign the credit to some goofball wearing bars who's battle plan fell apart, but the men got the job done anyway. I wonder how many years you served in the military? Perhaps you are over thinking it.

[@polarfamily6222]

Las Malvinas. Hopefully president Milei will get that issue settled

[@silgen]

Bullshite.

[@britishpatriot7386]

😂 not a chance 🇬🇧💪

[@richardkeilig4062]

Terrible war.

[@rogerramjet3083]

You lost me when you stated the HMS Canopus was a survivor of the battle of Coronel. She was nowhere bear the battle being 250 miles away at the time, a fact known by any amateur historian of naval warfare. If you get this simple easy to check 'fact' wrong everything else then become suspect in this video.

[@HoH]

I clearly state that exact fact in the video, however.

[@mariusgrobler]

His pronunciation is atrocious! Canopis, Spee, Carnavon all misspoken. Ugh!

[@beepboop204]