{"id":28655,"date":"2014-11-14T00:03:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T05:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28655"},"modified":"2018-01-15T18:36:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T23:36:11","slug":"hmas-sydney-versus-sms-emden-9-november-1914","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/11\/14\/hmas-sydney-versus-sms-emden-9-november-1914\/","title":{"rendered":"HMAS Sydney<\/em> versus SMS Emden<\/em>, 9 November 1914"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the first major naval victory<\/a> of the Royal Australian Navy, when Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney<\/em> fought against one of the Kaiser’s most effective commerce raiders, SMS Emden<\/em> in the Indian Ocean:<\/p>\n

November 9 is when the light cruiser HMAS Sydney<\/em> met the light cruiser SMS Emden<\/em> in action in the Indian Ocean, dispatching a surface raider that had taken a heavy toll on Allied merchant and naval shipping since the guns of August rang out. R. K. Lochner chronicled Emden<\/em>\u2019s exploits in the late 1970s, dubbing her \u201cthe last gentleman of war<\/a>.\u201d Lochner awarded the cruiser this title to acknowledge skipper Karl von M\u00fcller\u2019s and his crew\u2019s scrupulous fidelity to the laws of cruiser warfare. The Germans\u2019 enemy paid homage to Emden<\/em>\u2019s gallantry as well. Two days after the engagement, for instance, the London Daily News<\/em> saluted the \u201cresourceful energy and chivalry\u201d displayed by the raider\u2019s crewmen throughout their voyage. That, of course, was an era when knightly conduct was in decline on the high seas, yielding to unrestricted submarine warfare. Striking without warning, as U-boats commonly did in the Atlantic, left mariners and passengers scant prospects of escaping an attack.
\n

\"SMS<\/a>

SMS Emden<\/em> underway in 1910 (via Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>
\nThe battle, then, helped mark the passing of an age. Emden<\/em> had remained behind at the onset of war, after the German East Asian Squadron quit Southeast Asia to return home. Hers was not destined to be a prolonged cruise. Cut off from logistical and maintenance support, Captain M\u00fcller had to forage for coal and stores. The cruiser coped with this hand-to-mouth existence \u2014 for a while \u2014 and in the process sank or captured twenty-five merchantmen, destroyed two Allied men-of-war at Penang, and bombarded the seaport of Madras, along the seacoast of British India. That\u2019s quite a combat record. It\u2019s especially noteworthy when compiled by seafarers who were unsure where they could refuel next \u2014 if anywhere at all \u2014 and were sure that equipment that suffered a major breakdown would never be repaired for want of spare parts and shipyard expertise.
\n

\"The<\/a>

The light cruiser HMAS Sydney<\/em> steams towards Rabaul. The Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF), which included HMAS Sydney<\/em>, HMAS Australia<\/em>, HMAS Encounter<\/em>, HMAS Warrego<\/em>, HMAS Yarra<\/em> and HMAS Parramatta<\/em>, seized control of German New Guinea on 11 September 1914 (via Wikipedia<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>
\nNo ship can keep going for long without putting into port or tapping resources from nearby fuel or stores ships. Heck, U.S. Navy commanders \u2014 like their counterparts in other fleets, no doubt \u2014 get antsy when the fuel tanks drop to half-empty or hardware fails at sea, hampering performance or reducing redundancy in the propulsion plant or other critical machinery. And that\u2019s in a navy accustomed to having logistics vessels steaming in company to top off the tanks, replenish stores, or transfer or manufacture spares when need be. Imagine being altogether alone in some faraway region \u2014 at risk of running out of some vital commodity or suffering battle damage and finding yourself dead in the water. Such loneliness and doubt were constant companions to Emden<\/em> officers and men during the fall of 1914.<\/p>\n

It takes extraordinary pluck to seize the offensive amid such circumstances. And yet the Germans did. In November, nonetheless, Sydney<\/em> found Emden<\/em> in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, where M\u00fcller had decided to attack a communications station that was aiding the hunt for his raider. Like so many naval actions, it was a chance encounter. The station got off a distress call, and Sydney<\/em> \u2014 which happened to be in the vicinity while helping escort a convoy transporting Australian and New Zealand troops to Europe \u2014 responded to it. Emden<\/em> gave a good account of herself, landing several punches before Sydney<\/em>\u2019s heavier main guns began to tell. Hopelessly outgunned, M\u00fcller ultimately ordered his vessel beached on North Keeling Island to save lives. Of the crew, 134 seamen fell while 69 were wounded and 157 were captured.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the first major naval victory of the Royal Australian Navy, when Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney fought against one of the Kaiser’s most effective commerce raiders, SMS Emden in the Indian Ocean: November 9 is when the light cruiser HMAS Sydney met the light cruiser SMS Emden in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[331,1118,7,5,246],"tags":[927,30],"class_list":["post-28655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-germany","category-history","category-military","category-ww1","tag-indianocean","tag-navy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7sb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28655"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28658,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28655\/revisions\/28658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}