To be ready to attack the French transports was indeed one reason why the Goeben and her consort had been sent to cruise the Mediterranean after their launching in 1912. At the final moment Germany discovered they had a more important function to perform. On August 3 when the Germans realized the need to bring every possible pressure upon the reluctant Turks to declare war, Admiral Tirpitz ordered Admiral Souchon to Constantinople.
Souchon, a dark, compact, and incisive sailor of fifty, had raised his flag aboard the Goeben in 1913. Since then he had steamed the inland seas and straits of his new command, roamed its coasts and capes, rounded its islands, visited its ports, familiarizing himself with the places and personalities with which he might have to deal in the event of war. He had been to Constantinople and met the Turks; he had exchanged courtesies with Italians, Greeks, Austrians, and French, with all but the British, who, he reported to the Kaiser, rigorously refused to allow their ships to anchor in the same ports at the same time as the Germans. Their habit was always to appear immediately afterward in order to wipe out any impression the Germans might have made, or, as the Kaiser elegantly expressed it, “to spit in the soup.”
At Haifa when he heard the news of Sarajevo, Souchon immediately felt a premonition of war and a simultaneous concern for his boilers. They had been leaking steam for some time, and the Goeben was in fact scheduled to be replaced by the Moltke in October and return to Kiel for repairs. Deciding to prepare for the worst at once, Souchon departed for Pola, after telegraphing ahead to the Admiralty to send him new boiler tubes and skilled repairmen to meet him there. Through July the work proceeded feverishly. Everyone in the crew who could wield a hammer was pressed into service. In eighteen days 4,000 damaged tubes were located and replaced. Still the repairs were not finished when Souchon received his warning telegram and left Pola lest he be bottled up in the Adriatic.
On August 1 he reached Brindisi on the heel of Italy where the Italians, making excuses about the sea being too choppy for tenders, refused him coal. Clearly Italy’s anticipated betrayal of the Triple Alliance was about to become a fact, depriving Souchon of her coaling facilities. He assembled his officers to discuss what should be their course of action. Their chances of breaking through the Allied screen to the Atlantic, while inflicting what damage they could upon the French transports on their way, depended upon their speed, and this depended in turn upon the boilers.
“How many boilers leaking steam?” Souchon asked his aide.
“Two during the last four hours.”
“Damn!” said the Admiral, raging at the fate which crippled his splendid ship at such an hour. He decided to make for Messina where he could rendezvous with German merchant ships from whom he could obtain coal. For the event of war Germany had divided the world’s seas into a system of districts, each under a German Supply Officer, who was empowered to assign all vessels in his area to places where German warships could meet them and to commandeer the resources of German banks and business firms for the warships’ needs.
All day the Goeben’s wireless, as she rounded the Italian boot, tapped out orders to German commercial steamers, calling them into Messina. At Taranto she was joined by the Breslau.
“Urgent. German ship Goeben at Taranto,” wired the British consul on August 2. The view had stirred ardent hopes at the Admiralty of first blood for the British Navy; locating the enemy was half the battle. But as Britain was not yet at war, the hunt could not yet be loosed. Ever on the tiptoe of readiness Churchill on July 31 had instructed the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, that his first task would be to aid in protecting the French transports “by covering and if possible bringing to action individual fast German ships, particularly Goeben.” Milne was reminded that “the speed of your Squadrons is sufficient to enable you to choose your moment.” However, at the same time, and with a certain ambivalence, he was told “husband your force at the outset” and “do not at this stage be brought to action against superior forces.” The last edict was to ring like a buoy’s melancholy knell through the events of the next several days.
The “superior force” Churchill had in mind, as he later explained, was the Austrian fleet. Its battleships bore the same relationship to the British Inflexibles as the French battleships did to the Goeben; that is, they were more heavily armored and armed but slower. Churchill also later explained that his order was not intended “as a veto upon British ships ever engaging superior forces however needful the occasion.” If it was not intended as a veto, then it must have been intended for commanders to interpret as they saw fit, which brings the matter to that melting point of warfare—the temperament of the individual commander.
When the moment of live ammunition approaches, the moment to which all his professional training has been directed, when the lives of men under him, the issue of the combat, even the fate of a campaign may depend upon his decision at a given moment, what happens inside the heart and vitals of a commander? Some are made bold by the moment, some irresolute, some carefully judicious, some paralyzed and powerless to act.
Admiral Milne was made careful. A bachelor of fifty-nine, a polished figure in society, a former groom in waiting to Edward VII and still an intimate at court, son of an Admiral of the Fleet, grandson and godson of other admirals, a keen fisherman, deer stalker, and good shot, Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne appeared a natural choice in 1911 for the Mediterranean Command, the most fashionable, if no longer the premier post in the British Navy. He was appointed to it by the new First Lord, Mr. Churchill. The appointment was promptly, if privately, denounced as a “betrayal of the Navy” by Admiral Lord Fisher, former First Sea Lord, creator of the Dreadnought Fleet, the most passionately vital and least laconic Englishman of his time. His cherished project was to ensure the appointment for the war he predicted would break out in October, 1914, of Admiral Jellicoe, the navy’s gunnery expert, as Commander in Chief.
When Churchill appointed Milne to the Mediterranean, which Fisher believed put him in line for the post he wanted reserved for Jellicoe, his wrath was tremendous. He lashed out at Winston for “succumbing to court influence”; he roared and fumed and erupted in volcanic disgust for Milne as an “utterly useless commander” and “unfitted to be Senior Admiral afloat and practically Admiralissimo as you have now made him.” He referred to him variously as a “backstairs cad,” as a “serpent of the lowest type,” and as “Sir B. Mean who buys his Times second hand for one penny.” Everything in Fisher’s letters, which always carried flaming admonitions to “Burn this!”—happily ignored by his correspondents—appears ten times life size and must be reduced proportionately if they are to be read in any reasonable relation to reality. Neither a serpent of the lowest type nor a Nelson, Admiral Milne was an average, uninspired ornament of the Senior Service. When Fisher discovered that he was not in fact being considered for Commander in Chief, he turned his fiery attentions upon other matters, leaving Sir B. Mean in untroubled enjoyment of the Mediterranean.
In June 1914 Milne, too, visited Constantinople, where he dined with the Sultan and his ministers and entertained them aboard his flagship without concerning himself, any more than did other Englishmen, about Turkey’s possible place in Mediterranean strategy.
By August 1, after receiving Churchill’s first warning, he had assembled at Malta his own squadron of three battle cruisers and the second squadron of armored cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Ernest Troubridge. Early on August 2 he received a second order from Churchill, saying, “Goeben must be shadowed by two battle cruisers” and the Adriatic “watched,” presumably against the appearance of the Austrian fleet. The specific order to send two battle cruisers after the Goeben clearly envisaged combat, but Milne did not obey it. Instead he sent the Indomitable and Indefatigable along with Troubridge’s squadron to watch the Adriatic. Having been informed that the Goeben had been seen that morning off Taranto heading southwest, he sent one light cruiser, the Chatham, to search
the Strait of Messina where he reasoned the Goeben would be and where in fact she was. The Chatham left Malta at 5:00 P.M., ran through the Strait at seven next morning and reported back that the Goeben was not there. The search had missed by six hours, Admiral Souchon having already left.
He had reached Messina the previous afternoon just as Italy declared her neutrality. Again refused coal by the Italians, he was able, however, to take on two thousand tons provided by a German merchant shipping firm. He requisitioned, as a tender, a merchant steamer, the General of the German East Africa line, after debarking her passengers who were given the price of a railroad ticket as far as Naples. Having received no orders as yet from his Admiralty, Souchon decided to put himself in a position to taste action at the earliest moment after hostilities should begin and before superior forces could prevent him. In the darkness, at 1:00 A.M. on August 3, he left Messina, heading west toward the Algerian coast where he planned to bombard the French embarkation ports of Bone and Philippeville.
At the same hour Churchill sent a third order to Milne: “Watch on mouth of Adriatic should be maintained but Goeben is your objective. Follow her and shadow her wherever she goes and be ready to act upon declaration of war which appears probable and imminent.” When he received this, Admiral Milne did not know where the Goeben was, the Chatham having lost her. He believed she was heading west to attack the French transports, and from a report he had received of a German collier waiting at Majorca he concluded that she would thereafter make for Gibraltar and the open sea. He now detached the Indomitable and Indefatigable from their watch on the Adriatic and sent them westward to hunt for the Goeben. All day of August 3 the Goeben, steaming westward from Messina, was followed by her hunters, a day’s distance behind.
At the same time the French fleet was steaming across from Toulon to North Africa. It should have left a day earlier, but in Paris on August 2 occurred the unhappy collapse of the Naval Minister, Dr. Gauthier, after he was discovered to have forgotten to send torpedo boats into the Channel. In the uproar that followed, the orders to the Mediterranean fleet suffered. Messimy, the War Minister, became possessed by a need to hasten the arrival of the Colonial Corps. The embarrassed Dr. Gauthier, endeavoring to cover his lapse in the Channel by jumping to the opposite extreme of belligerency, proposed to attack the Goeben and Breslau before a declaration of war. “His nerves were on edge,” President Poincaré thought. The Naval Minister next challenged the War Minister to a duel, but after fervent efforts by their colleagues to separate and calm the combatants, he embraced Messimy in tears and was persuaded to resign for reasons of health.
French uncertainty over the British role, which had not yet been declared, further complicated matters. At 4:00 P.M. the Cabinet managed to compose a more or less coherent telegram to the French Commander in Chief, Admiral Boué de Lapeyrère, which informed him that the Goeben and Breslau had been sighted at Brindisi, that as soon as he received the signal for the opening of hostilities he was to “stop them,” and that he was to protect the transports by covering them, not by convoy.
Admiral de Lapeyrère, a forceful character largely responsible for bringing the French Navy out of its rusty obsolescence, promptly decided to form convoys anyway, since, in his view, the “doubtful” role of the British left him no choice. He started his fires at once and got under way at four o’clock next morning, a few hours after Souchon left Messina. During the next twenty-four hours the three squadrons of the French fleet steamed southward bound for Oran, Algiers, and Philippeville while the Goeben and Breslau were coming westward toward the same destination.
At 6:00 P.M., August 3, Admiral Souchon’s wireless told him that war had been declared on France. He pressed forward, as did the French, but his speed was greater. At 2:00 A.M. on August 4 he was approaching his goal and the climactic moment of fire, when he received Admiral Tirpitz’s order to “proceed at once to Constantinople.” Unwilling to turn back without, as he wrote, “tasting that moment of fire so ardently desired by us all!” he kept on course until the Algerian coast came in view in the early morning light. He thereupon ran up the Russian flag, approached within range, and opened fire, “sowing death and panic.” “Our trick succeeded brilliantly,” enthused one of his crew who later published an account of the voyage. According to the Kriegsbrauch, or Conduct of War manual issued by the German General Staff, “The putting on of enemy uniforms and the use of enemy or neutral flags or insignia with the aim of deception are declared permissible.” As the official embodiment of German thinking on these matters, the Kriegsbrauch was considered to supersede Germany’s signature on the Hague Convention of which Article 23 prohibited the use of disguise in enemy colors.
After the shelling of Philippeville—and of Bone by the Breslau—Admiral Souchon turned back for Messina by the way he had come. He planned to coal there from German merchant steamers before setting course for Constantinople 1,200 miles away.
Admiral de Lapeyrère, hearing of the bombardment by wireless almost at the moment it was happening, assumed the Goeben would continue westward, perhaps to attack Algiers next, on her way to break out to the Atlantic. He forced his speed in the hope of intercepting the enemy “if he presented himself.” He detached no ships to scout for the Goeben because, as he reasoned, if the enemy appeared he would be given battle; if he did not appear he would be of no further immediate concern. Like everyone else on the Allied side, Admiral de Lapeyrère thought of the Goeben purely in terms of naval strategy. That she might perform a political mission, profoundly affecting and prolonging the course of the war, neither he nor anyone else ever considered. When the Goeben and Breslau did not again appear across the French path, Admiral de Lapeyrère did not seek them out. Thus on the morning of August 4 the first opportunity was lost. Another was immediately offered.
At 9:30 that morning the Indomitable and Indefatigable which had been steaming west all during the night encountered the Goeben and Breslau off Bone as the German ships were heading east back to Messina. If Grey had sent his ultimatum to Germany the night before, immediately following his speech to Parliament, Britain and Germany would then have been at war and the cruisers’ guns would have spoken. As it was, the ships passed each other in silence at 8,000 yards, well within range, and had to be content with training their guns and omitting the customary exchange of salutes.
Admiral Souchon, bent on putting as much distance between himself and the British as he could before hostilities opened, sped off, straining his ship to the last ounce of speed his boilers could attain. The Indomitable and Indefatigable turned around and made after him, determined to keep in range until war should be declared. Their wireless, like a huntsman’s bugle sounding a find, reported the position to Admiral Milne, who immediately informed the Admiralty, “Indomitable and Indefatigable shadowing Goeben and Breslau, 37.44 North, 7:56 East.”
The Admiralty quivered in an agony of frustration. There, in the same waters that washed round Cape Trafalgar, British ships had the enemy within range—and could not fire. “Very good. Hold her. War imminent,” telegraphed Churchill, and rushed off a “most urgent” minute to the Prime Minister and Grey suggesting that if the Goeben attacked the French transports, Milne’s cruisers should be authorized “at once to engage her.” Unfortunately, when reporting their position, Admiral Milne had neglected to say which way the Goeben and Breslau were going, so that Churchill assumed they were heading west with further evil intent upon the French.
“Winston with all his war paint on,” as Asquith put it, “is longing for a sea fight to sink the Goeben.” Asquith was willing to let him have it, but the Cabinet to which he unfortunately mentioned the matter, refused to authorize an act of war before the ultimatum should expire at midnight. Thus a second opportunity was lost, though it would have been lost anyway because Churchill’s order was contingent upon the Goeben attacking the French transports, a goal she had already forsaken.
Now began a desperate chase across the calm summer surface of the sea with Ad
miral Souchon attempting to outdistance his pursuers and the British attempting to keep him in range until midnight. Driving his ship to its utmost, Souchon brought it up to 24 knots. Stokers who ordinarily could not work in the heat and coal dust for longer than two hours at a time were kept shoveling at an increased pace while bursting tubes scalded them with steam. Four died between morning and evening while the pace was maintained. Slowly, perceptibly, the space between prey and pursuers widened. The Indomitable and Indefatigable, also suffering from boiler trouble and understaffed furnaces, were not keeping up. In the afternoon they were joined in the long, silent chase by the light cruiser Dublin commanded by Captain John Kelly. As the hours wore on, the gap increased until at five o’clock the Indomitable and Indefatigable dropped out of range. Only the Dublin followed, keeping the Goeben in sight. At seven o’clock a fog descended. By nine, off the coast of Sicily, the Goeben and Breslau disappeared in the gathering gloom.
At the Admiralty all during that day Churchill and his staff “suffered the tortures of Tantalus.” At 5:00 P.M. the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg, observed there was still time to sink the Goeben before dark. Restrained by the Cabinet decision, Churchill could not give the order. While the British waited for the midnight signal, the Goeben reached Messina and coal.
When dawn broke the British, now at war and free to fire, could not get at her. From the Dublin’s last report before contact was lost, they judged she was at Messina, but in the meantime a new obstacle had intervened. An Admiralty order informing Milne of Italy’s declaration of neutrality instructed him to “respect this rigidly and not to allow a ship to come within six miles of the Italian coast.” The veto, which was designed to prevent some “petty incident” from causing trouble with Italy, was perhaps an excessive caution.