The SMS Goeben and the
Great War on the Black Sea

Introduction and Opening War Efforts

by Michael Bennighof


As dawn broke over the Crimean coast, seaman Oskar Endam of the German battle cruiser Goeben peered through the gray light at the fortifications of Sevastopol.

"As the enemy guns began flashing, we also received the order to open fire," he wrote to his family. "Around us were forts with heavy guns, most of them 28 and 30.5 cm. We of course evaded their fire with all our energy. Our captain maneuvered back and forth. ... A few of the forts began to fall silent.

"We went back slowly and began to bombard the city and the harbor. In the harbor a terrible sight met us. The city burned because of the oil and petroleum tanks which we had set on fire."

Endam exaggerated slightly. The Goeben, a huge red Turkish battle ensign flapping in the early morning breeze, fired all of 47 shots from her main battery, setting one or two fires and damaging several installations but leaving the idle warships of the Imperial Russian navy undamaged. But the shelling's effects reached far deeper - for better or worse, Turkey and Russia were at war.

When war broke out in late July, 1914, the Goeben lay in dry dock at the Austrian naval base at Pola while dockyard hands replaced hundreds of her delicate boiler tubes. She had been sent out in 1912, immediately after commissioning, as Germany's contribution to the Triple Alliance's newly-formed naval command. The boiler defects had plagued her from the start and had never been corrected; her sister ship Moltke was due in October to replace her.

Unwilling to wait out the war cooped up in the narrow Adriatic Sea, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, an impatient North German, took his ship and the light cruiser Breslau to Messina in Sicily on August 2. From there, he planned to strike the French convoys bringing their tough colonial troops to the decisive battlefields in Flanders. That night he sailed for Algeria, and received word of the formal declaration of war on France by radio the next evening.

On the morning of August 4 the Goeben fired the first shots of the war in the Mediterranean, shelling the Algerian port of Phillippeville. That afternoon, another radio message came through informing Souchon that an alliance had just been signed with Turkey and ordering him to head for Constantinople. Souchon obediently turned his ship back to Messina to take on more coal.

Vital Geography

Geographically, Turkey held a vital place for both sides. With the Germans able to seal off the entrance to the Baltic Sea and the arctic port of Arkhangelsk iced over half the year, only through Russia's Black Sea ports could she export her grain and import the weapons, ammunition and machinery she needed from Britain, France and the United States to keep her war machine running. The Dardanelles, heading from the Aegean Sea into the small Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus, leading from the Sea of Marmora into the Black Sea, ran through Turkish territory and the narrow channels could easily be sealed off by the Turks.

If it was vital for the Allies to keep Turkey friendly or at least neutral, it was equally important to the Central Powers to make sure Turkey adhered to her alliance responsibilities. While the Turks had little hope of defeating their enemies alone, German observers had recognized what others had missed during recent Turkish defeats by such military giants as Serbia, Greece and Italy - with firm leadership and adequate armament, the Turkish soldier proved a formidable defender. Every Russian or British soldier hurling themselves against the Turks was one less to face the Germans or Austrians in France or Poland.

Souchon readily accepted the importance of his mission. In the Sicilian Channel he met the British battle cruisers Indefatigable and Indomitable. But Britain and Germany were not yet at war. It was 10:30 a.m., August 4, 1914. Several hours earlier, German troops had begun pouring into Belgium. The ships exchanged no salutes; all were cleared for action but Goeben kept her gun turrets trained fore-and-aft while the British were less polite, tracking the German ship with their main batteries. The two British ships turned to follow he Goeben, while Souchon ordered his stokers to lay on all possible speed.

At noon, Indomitable's Captain Francis Kennedy sent his crew to lunch. Farther north, the British government gave the German army until midnight to leave Belgium. By the time the ultimatum expired, Goeben was out of her pursuers' sight, coaling at Messina.

Certain Souchon planned to head back through the Strait of Gibraltar to Germany, British Admiral Sir Archibald Berkely Milne ordered his forces to await the Goeben and Breslau to the west of the Strait of Messina. A snappy dresser and one-time lover of Queen Alexandra, Milne owed his position purely to influence at court. Only the light cruiser Gloucester waited at the eastern end of the Straits of Messina when Souchon broke out, and she took up the pursuit at long range as the German squadron headed north toward the Adriatic Sea and Austria's secure naval bases.

At Pola, Admiral Anton Haus faced a terrible decision. Should he sail with all his available forces -six battleships, two armored cruisers and six destroyers - he might overwhelm the British squadron, but would in turn be badly outgunned by the French fleet which he was sure lurked outside Messina.

Unwilling to leave his ally alone at sea, Haus and his fleet steamed out of Pola, his sailors excited at the prospect of battle. Unknown to him, the French were wandering aimlessly about the western Mediterranean. Meanwhile, Souchon turned away from the Adriatic to head for Constantinople, signalling his thanks to the Austrians.

Off the Greek island of Zante the British 1st Cruiser Squadron moved to intercept the two German ships. Rear Admiral E.C.T. Troubridge had four large armored cruisers and orders not to engage a superior force - the Austrian battle fleet. Did the Goeben constitute a superior force? His orders did not specify. The German battlecruiser's 28 cm. 11-inch) guns outranged his 9.2-inch main batteries, but with four ships he might be able to press close enough to overwhelm the enemy.

Ordering his squadron to prepare for action, Troubridge began to have second thoughts, encouraged by Captain Fawcet Wray, commander of the flagship Defence. Troubridge hesitated, then ordered his ships to shelter behind Zante before bursting into bitter tears. Souchon was past the last barrier before Constantinople.

"I did not think it proper practically to ensure the defeat and possible loss of HM Squadron without any corresponding injury to the enemy or loss to our arms," Troubridge wrote in his official report. "I reluctantly gave up the chase, convinced that my personal desire and that of my squadron to engage at all costs should be sacrificed to the general objectives of war in the Mediterranean as emphasized in Their Lordships' instructions."

A court-martial acquitted Troubridge of failing to vigorously pursue "SMS Goeben, an enemy then flying." No charges were filed against Milne. However, neither was ever again permitted to command ships at sea.

The SMS Goeben and the Great War on the Black Sea

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