Even so, his dash on horseback overnight in summer 1913 to liberate Adrianople (Edirne) in European Turkey (already abandoned by the Bulgars, as it happens) had won him laurels and he became Minister of War in 1914, still only 33. He helped himself to the title of Chief of the General Staff. A convinced Germanophile since his year as military attaché in Berlin not long before the war, he won over the other two members of the CUP’s ruling triumvirate, Talaat and Jemal, to the treaty he had secretly been negotiating with Wangenheim. Jemal was finally persuaded when in the last days of peace Churchill seized the two dreadnoughts bought by Turkey.
In the final weeks of peace following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian imperial throne, and his wife Sophie at Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, by a Serbian nationalist on 28 June 1914, Wangenheim redoubled his efforts to win over the Turks to a full-blown alliance with Germany. He held out prospects of protection against the old enemy, Russia, and potential territorial gains at its expense on the successful conclusion of a war between it and the Central Powers. He talked of reviving the caliphate and promised a guarantee of Turkish territorial integrity. In the late evening of Monday 27 July the new Grand Vizier, Prince Said Halim, strongly urged on by Enver and supported by Talaat, sent for Wangenheim and formally requested a defensive and offensive alliance against Russia. This was to be kept secret not only from the world at large but even from the rest of the Cabinet. Within 24 hours the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, telegraphed a treaty text for Wangenheim to show the Turkish conspirators. Earlier that day Austria had declared war on Serbia over the double assassination – and Churchill ordered the seizure of the Turkish dreadnoughts.
The Turks havered and wavered. The particular objection of those in the know was the clause that limited the treaty to the end of the coming war. They thought this would not protect Turkey against Russian post-war revenge. The Turks shared the widespread belief among the future belligerents that the coming war would be ‘over by Christmas’ or not much later. The clause was therefore amended so as to make the treaty last until the projected end of the tour of duty of General Liman von Sanders as head of the German military mission – 31 December 1918. It would then be renewed for five years unless one party or the other gave six months’ notice of termination. Among its provisions were a German guarantee to help Turkey against external threat and Turkish acceptance of a commanding role for Liman von Sanders and his colleagues if the Turkish Army went to war. The alliance was to remain secret until an announcement was made. Enver as War Minister jumped the gun on 31 July by ordering general mobilisation in support of Turkey’s declared posture of ‘armed neutrality’ in the coming conflict. On 2 August he lost patience with his vacillating colleagues, still debating Turkey’s stance in wartime, and pressed the Grand Vizier to sign the treaty. Talaat and Halil of the Chamber of Deputies were the only other Cabinet members in the know at the time. Such was the character of the only major diplomatic triumph of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the prelude to the war of 1914. Turkey would suffer for it; but then so would Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and even Newfoundland.
Wangenheim’s main concern, as he impatiently awaited the signing of the treaty (which he was confident was only a matter of time), was how Germany could quickly demonstrate its practical value and significance to the many sceptics in Constantinople. So on 1 August, the day Germany declared war on Russia, he wired Berlin asking for the dispatch of Souchon’s Mediterranean Division, a familiar and much-admired sight at the Golden Horn, to Constantinople. The Foreign Office in Berlin replied that the Kaiser did not deem this appropriate; but Grand Admiral Tirpitz, head of the Navy Office, intervened and told Wangenheim on the 3rd, the day Germany declared war on France, that the Goeben and the Breslau had been ordered to proceed to Constantinople after all. He also suggested that Souchon should be proposed to the Turks as commander-in-chief of their fleet. As Germany violated Belgium’s neutrality by sending a vast army through the country to attack northern France, Britain decided to go to war in support of France and Belgium with effect from midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 4 August.
Souchon’s orders in the event of war between Germany and France were simple enough: he was to take his two ships and disrupt the anticipated movement of large numbers of colonial troops across the western basin of the Mediterranean from North Africa to metropolitan France. In the dying days of July 1914 the Goeben (Captain Richard Ackermann, IGN) was visiting Trieste, then Austrian, while the Breslau (Commander Kettner, IGN) was at Durrazzo (now Durres) as part of an international flotilla supporting the government of Albania, newly independent from Turkey after the Balkan wars of 1912. The admiral, uncertain as to who would go to war and when, ordered the two ships to join up at the south-east Italian port of Brindisi on 1 August, so as not to be trapped in the Adriatic. The omens were not good. The Mediterranean Division anchored in the roads outside the harbour and Souchon asked the port authorities for coal – only to be refused. Italy had decided on neutrality, and was not obliged to help the Germans because they had declared war on France rather than the reverse. Souchon ordered his two ships to sail on to Messina, the port at the north-eastern tip of Sicily, just two miles from the Italian mainland. On the way the crews were told after breakfast on 2 August that they were now at war, the articles of war were read out and three cheers raised for the Kaiser.
Once again the Germans anchored offshore in the roads. There too the Italian authorities refused to supply coal, and even food – but later relented. The ships were allowed to load some coal from Italian government and German mercantile bunkers. Since Germany had ordered general mobilisation on 1 August, Souchon now had legal powers to issue orders to any ship flying the German flag. He instructed the East Africa Line ship SS General to rendezvous with him at Messina so he could plunder the big liner’s bunkers. The passengers were disembarked and sent away with financial compensation while the ship’s decks were opened up to gain access to the coal. Anything of potential value to a warship on active service, including naval reservists, was commandeered. The coal was laboriously transferred by barges, lighters and small boats, the Goeben acquiring just 173 tonnes and the more accessible Breslau 200, bringing her up to almost a full load of 1,200. The larger ship still had only two-thirds of her maximum capacity of about 3,000 tonnes, worrying for Souchon because she was designed for short-range deployment in the North Sea rather than blue-water operations. Her bunker space was small anyway, and now she was one-third short of a full load just as Souchon was preparing to carry out his first war assignment, the bombardment of the Algerian coast. Italian policy looked likely to prevent him getting much more.
None the less at midnight on 2 August the two ships sailed separately northward from Messina, which meant, as decreed by local geography, that they were westward-bound. Souchon ordered them to link up again briefly at a point south of Sardinia, from where the Goeben would make for Philippeville (now Skikda) – and her escort for Bône (now Annaba) – on the Algerian coast, each arriving at first light, about 3.30 a.m. GMT. Interestingly, in view of future events much further east, Souchon’s orders to his captains included an injunction not to ‘waste ammunition by firing at forts’. On the way southward, Souchon received the following message:
Alliance concluded with Turkey. Goeben, Breslau proceed at once to Constantinople.
Having come so far, and without consulting Berlin, Souchon decided to complete the mission he had begun, reckoning that the confusion he was bound to cause among the French would be worthwhile. He was more right than he knew.
The subsequent escape of the Mediterranean Division to the Dardanelles, and all the disastrous consequences, are usually blamed exclusively on the British, even by the British themselves. But Souchon’s ships crossed the path of the bulk of the French fleet, and were detected by it, not once but at least twice, during their run to and from North Africa; and the French Navy did not have the excuse of the British Mediterranean Fleet that it was not y
et at war with Germany when it failed to catch or even challenge Souchon. The first war-task of the French fleet, as the Germans had guessed, was to collect the army’s XIX Corps, the ‘Army of Africa’, from French North Africa and deliver it to Toulon and Marseilles for forwarding by rail to its place in the line in northern France. So urgent was this that Admiral Lapeyrère, the amiralissime or commander-in-chief, was ordered to let each troopship sail individually as soon as loaded rather than having it wait to join a convoy. The various divisions of the fleet would cover them by seizing control of the Mediterranean, dealing with the Austrian and Italian fleets if and when necessary, the admiral said before the war broke out. He did not bother to mention the Germans. But on 28 July he startled Paris by questioning his long-agreed orders: now he wanted to form trooping convoys escorted by naval squadrons. The Ministry of Marine overruled him, specifically accepting the risk of individual sailings and pointing out that the French fleet was strong enough to dominate the entire Mediterranean. The message reached Lapeyrère at the main naval base of Toulon on 31 July.
The next day the French government rejected a German ultimatum to stay neutral in a war between Germany and Russia, which meant France was at war. General mobilisation was ordered from midnight on the 1st and Lapeyrère was informed on his flagship, the Courbet, at Toulon. The following evening a message from the French naval station of Bizerta in Tunisia reported that the wireless of the Goeben had been heard clearly nearby. Assuming correctly, even though the report was a false alarm, that the Germans would try to interfere with French troop movements, the admiral at seven p.m. on the 2nd ordered all troopships to stay in port until naval escorts arrived. As the entire fleet was also still in port, this implied a two-day delay for XIX Corps. Despite the chaos at the Paris Ministry of Marine, following the resignation of the minister after a nervous collapse, the Cabinet cobbled together a message to Lapeyrère, telling him the German ships had been seen at Brindisi on the night of 31 July–1August. He was told unequivocally to ‘set sail … and stop them’. Once again he was ordered to let troopships sail at once, alone if necessary. Once again he stayed in port. Early on the morning of 3 August he was told that the Germans had arrived at Messina on the afternoon of the 2nd. Lapeyrère finally set sail at four a.m.
The fleet was divided into three sections. Vice-Admiral Chocheprat led Group A, consisting of the First Squadron (six of the latest pre-dreadnoughts) and the First Light Division (four heavy cruisers and a dozen destroyers). This amounted to half the fleet and was bound for Philippeville. Lapeyrère himself led Group B in the dreadnought Courbet, accompanied by the Second Squadron of five older battleships (Rear-Admiral Le Bris), the Second Light Division and various auxiliaries, all bound for Algiers. The slow Group C, including the elderly Reserve Division of battleships with one extra added and four destroyers, had been sent out of Toulon on the evening of the 2nd and had reached the Balearic Islands, whence it was sent to Oran. All three groups were sailing at an almost leisurely 11–12 knots, Group A to the east, Group B in the centre and C to the west, corresponding to their destinations. All were in close order; amazingly, there was no screen of cruisers or destroyers to scout, despite the known imminence of general war.
On the afternoon of 3 August the French commander-in-chief received an offer of support from Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, commanding the British Mediterranean Fleet (who embarrassingly outranked the Frenchman under whom he was expected to serve in wartime). He reminded the French that he had 3 battlecruisers, 4 heavy cruisers and 4 light, plus 16 destroyers. Taking his time, that night Lapeyrère thanked Milne, told him he was covering the passage of the Army of Africa and airily asked him to watch the movements of the Italian, Austrian and German fleets. ‘You will be informed as soon as I have regained my freedom of movement.’ By midnight he knew that Italy had declared herself neutral and that the Germans had left Messina a second time and were being hunted by the British. Just after one a.m. on 4 August he received the text of a message from Paris which had taken an inexcusable five hours to decode and clarify, once again ordering him not to waste time with convoys, to work with the British to provide general cover for the troopships and to ‘destroy German cruisers, hostilities with Germany being now declared’. Germany had formally declared war with effect from six p.m. CET on 3 August. Lapeyrère had been ordered three times in 80 hours not to form convoys and twice in under 30 to catch the German ships.
The Breslau fired 190 15-cm shells at her target in 19 minutes; the Goeben, delayed for an hour by the need to avoid being sighted by two unidentified steamers, opened fire for ten minutes just after five a.m. with her secondary, 15-cm guns; 36 rounds caused a spectacular conflagration ashore. News of the shelling of Bône reached Lapeyrère by five a.m. on 4 August; and that of Philippeville, 60 miles to the west, 80 minutes later. The Germans were reported to be heading west after their bombardments – a feint, as subsequent reports revealed: Souchon was eastward-bound, heading back to Messina, desperately hoping he could find some more coal, especially for the Goeben, her bunkers now less than half-full. Lapeyrère ignored the subsequent correction because, like Milne, the French Ministry of Marine and the British Admiralty, he was convinced that Souchon must run west, in a bid to get home to Germany. It was the idée fixe of all his opponents. But wherever the Germans might be headed, one or both of them was sure to cross the path of the French Group A. Chocheprat, however, had slowed down because one of his battleships and a destroyer had engine trouble. Later calculations of the courses and timings of the French and the Germans indicated that Chocheprat’s left wing, westbound, passed within 40 miles of the Goeben, heading east, at about seven a.m. on 4 August. Had the Frenchman been travelling at a normal speed, had he put out a cruiser or destroyer screen in the normal way, he would have sighted Souchon on a morning offering visibility of ten miles. For her part the Breslau overheard clear, plain-language signals between two French battleships (of Group A) at about 1.30 a.m. on the 4th. She sighted an unidentified, darkened ship to starboard an hour later.
Neither Chocheprat nor his chief made any effort to find the Germans. Instead the entire French fleet slowed to a crawl to accommodate two limping ships, of no use in their condition, rather than detaching them and pressing on. There was no attempt to link up or co-ordinate with the British, and the fleet was wasting time on a task – shepherding troopships – which it had specifically and repeatedly been forbidden to perform. In fact the French Navy went even further than merely missing a chance to stop the Germans if Milne’s second-in-command, Troubridge, is to be believed: Lapeyrère’s flagship Courbet had actually sighted the Goeben’s smoke at a distance of 25–30 miles on the morning of 4 August but the admiral did nothing about it, not even telling the British, because he thought a chase would be futile, despite his orders to try. The French fleet might even have been able to surround the enemy battlecruiser. Lapeyrère disclosed this to Troubridge when they met at Malta on 16 August – by which time, as we shall see, Troubridge was in disgrace.
The two German ships joined up once more south of Sardinia just after nine a.m. and headed eastward for Messina. At 9.15, however, a lookout on the Breslau sighted two columns of smoke coming towards them from the west. Kettner alerted the Goeben and Souchon, who at first assumed they were from French battleships. But as they drew nearer the Germans could make out two British battlecruisers. This was serious news. The Goeben had ten 28-cm (11-inch) guns capable of firing a broadside weighing 6,600 pounds; British battlecruisers each had eight 12-inch guns with a broadside of 6,800 pounds, in combination therefore boasting more than twice the Germans’ firepower. But the German big guns were made of better steel, had a higher muzzle velocity, higher elevation (meaning greater range), superior rangefinders and more reliable ammunition. British battlecruisers sacrificed some armour to make them faster than battleships whereas German ships of this type had almost as much armour as battleships, together with bigger engines that gave them an advantage of at least two knots over their B
ritish contemporaries. Some 20 feet broader in the beam than these early Royal Navy battlecruisers, the Goeben (22,640 tonnes) offered a steadier gun platform. The British pair, Indomitable (17,250 tonnes) and Indefatigable (18,750 tonnes), had a design speed of 25 knots and carried much more coal than a German capital ship. Souchon ordered Kettner to sail away from the scene at top speed towards the north-east: this was no place for a light cruiser.
As the senior of the two British captains, Francis Kennedy, RN, of Indomitable commanded the pair and sent a simple wireless signal to Admiral Milne, who was at Malta at the time. Short though it was, it managed to include a mistake:
Enemy in sight, steering east, consisting of Goeben and Breslau.
The excitement at the Admiralty when Milne relayed the news at ten a.m. was palpable. Churchill, its political chief, was informed at once. But Kennedy’s error, though understandable, was fundamental – the use of the word ‘enemy’. His report was timed 9.46 a.m. GMT on 4 August, over 14 hours before Britain would officially go to war against Germany, at midnight. The Germans had been given until then to withdraw from Belgium. Meanwhile Milne’s message omitted to include the essential fact in Kennedy’s signal that the Germans were steering east. Churchill, as he was to do many times during what became known as ‘the Goeben affair’ and then during the ensuing Dardanelles campaign alike, personally wrote the first reply to Milne and Kennedy:
Very good. Hold her [Goeben]. War imminent.
After hasty consultation with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, Churchill added to his message 50 minutes later an order to ‘sink the Goeben’ if the Germans attacked French transports. But the full Cabinet cancelled this and the Admiralty rescinded the order just after two p.m. There was to be no act of war before midnight. This was merely the first of many slaphappy or merely sloppy signals from the Admiralty to Milne, his deputy Troubridge and individual ships, as will be shown. The ultimately disastrous abuse of the new invention of wireless at sea, a blessing but also a burden, by the Admiralty and Churchill in particular contrasts sharply with the way the Germans treated Souchon.
The Dandarnelles Disaster Page 5