100 Years Ago Today

[TarJak]

8 September 1914

Turkey refuses to close the Dardanelles to foreign ships despite strong German pressure to do so. The Treaty of Paris, 1856, and the Treaty of London, 1871, the signatories, England, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia had agreed that foreign war ships would be prohibited from entering the Dardanelles Straits while Turkey was at peace.

Early in 1914 the Germans sent their new and impressive battle cruiser Goeben, on a goodwill visit, a shrewd demonstration of the modern naval power of Germany. The Goeben lay at anchor off the Golden Horn on the Bosphorus for several weeks, while the Germans played on Turkey's fear that the Russians would seize the Dardanelles, and without German military protection would take them.

The Turk's acceptance of the Goeben'spresence was an implicit statement that Turkey was no longer 'at peace',
Turkey had placed orders with Britain some years beforehand for two modern Battleships, one was virtually complete. On 3rd August 1914, as the Turks were laying their mines in the Straits, Britain announced that it was taking over the Turkish Battleships ships for the Royal Navy, The Turks were shocked and dismayed and accused Britain of dishonesty.

Turkish anger was at its height when news came of Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 4th August 1914, This brought back into the Turkish scene the battleship Goeben, which had been in the Mediterranean with its escort, the cruiser Breslau.Chased by the Royal Navy, the German ships sought sanctuary through the narrow neck of the Dardanelles.

By the end of September Turkey had violated all treaty rights concerning the Dardanelles, no vessel of any kind was allowed to enter. Britain, France, America and other nations protested, but took no action. By closing the Straits, Turkey and Germany separated Russia from its allies and destroyed it militarily, for it could no longer receive supplies from overseas by the southern route.

In order to keep the German high command informed of his activities, Spee sent Nürnberg on 8 September to Honolulu to send word through neutral countries. Spee chose the ship because the British were aware she had left Mexican waters, and so her presence in Hawaii would not betray the movements of the entire East Asia Squadron. She was also ordered to contact German agents to instruct them to prepare coal stocks in South America for the squadron's use. Nürnberg brought back news of the Allied conquest of the German colony at Samoa.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Spee sent Nürnberg on 8 September to Honolulu to send word through neutral countries.

I believe that date to be incorrect. I have Spee dispatching Nürnberg from Eniwetok on August 20, and she met the squadron at Christmas Island on September 6. She raided Fanning on the 7th. It may be possible that Spee sent her to Honolulu a second time, but I doubt it. I could be mistaken of course. I should have a definitive answer by Tuesday.

[TarJak]

Quite possible. I've found a number of conflicting references to actual dates. Where possible I try to find two or more to back it up, but that's not always possible.

[Jimbuna]

8th September

German troops are forced back over the river Marne as French and British troops advance.

General Foch at the Marne Battle: “My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.”

A census is conducted in Paris in order to ascertain how many people must be fed if the city comes under siege.

Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion (he is pardoned in 2006).

On 5 September 1914, the first day of the Battle of Marne, Thomas Highgate, a 19-year-old British private, was found hiding in a barn dressed in civilian clothes. Highgate was tried by court martial, convicted of desertion and, in the early hours of 8 September, was executed by firing squad. His was the first of 306 executions carried out by the British during the First World War.

http://www.historyinanhour.com/2013/...world-war-one/

Ottoman ambassador to the U.S. warns that Britain is trying to drag America into the war.

A German Zeppelin commanded by Heinrich Mathy, one of the great airship commanders of World War I, hits Aldersgate in central London, killing 22 people and causing £500,000 worth of damage.

RMS Oceanic of the White Star Line runs aground off the Isle of Foula.

Ship Losses:

Kamerun ( Germany): The cargo ship was scuttled at Duala, Kamerun. She was subsequently refloated, repaired and entered British service as Cameronia.
HMS Oceanic ( Royal Navy) The armed merchant cruiser ran aground off Foula, Shetland Islands. All on board were rescued by the fishing trawler Glenogil ( United Kingdom and transferred to HMS Alsatian and HMS Forward (both Royal Navy. Oceanic was wrecked in a storm on 29 September.

[Sailor Steve]

September 8:

In surprise night raid a French cavalry unit attacks a German airfield near La Ferté-Milon and then moves on to von Klucks headquarters. Four years later von Kluck said "All members of the Staff seized rifles, carbines, and revolvers, so as to ward off a possible advance of the French cavalrymen, and extended out and lay down, forming a long firing line. The dusky red and clouded evening sky shed a weird light on this quaint little fighting force. These bold horsemen had missed a goodly prize!"


SMS Leipzig puts into Guaymas, Mexico, in the Gulf of California (or Sea of Cortez), to take on coal. Leipzig has been partrolling off Mexico since the start of the war. A couple of sources say Leipzig sank a British merchant a week or so later, but don't give the name or any other information.


SMS Emden reaches the trade route between Colombo and Rangoon, and again spends the day cruising without sighting an enemy ship. Finally von Müller gives the order to set course for the Colombo-Calcutta route.


Pyotr Nikolayavich Nesterov was the first pilot to perform a loop, on September 9, 1913, in a Nieuport IV monoplane. Almost exactly one year later, on September 8, 1914, Nesterov took off in Morane 'G' number 281 to attack an Austrian Albatros B.II flown by by Franz Malina and commanded by Baron Friedrich von Rosenthal. According to witnesses on the ground Nesterov appeared to fire a pistol at the enemy aircraft, then attempted to ram it by putting his wheels through the fabric of the Albatros's upper wing. The attack was successful, but Nesterov's plane was also damaged and all three men died. It was the first "kill" ever, if somewhat pyrrhic in nature.

Most sources date the incident as either the 25th or 26th of August. I tend to credit the ones citing the 26th, as they are also the only ones which mention that Russia was still using the "Old Style" Julian Calender and that the date for the rest of Europe was September 8th.

[Sailor Steve]

Sorry to drag this off-topic, but the book came a day early! It is Graf Spee's Raiders: Challenge to the Royal Navy, 1914-1915, by Keith Yates. I read a borrowed copy many years ago, and I'm wondering why I waited until now to buy my own. The book is filled with explanations and anecdotes. It leaves out a lot of the personal details such as the ship's cat, but it supplies everything I've been looking for.

Anyway, here's what I've found. Nürnberg did indeed depart for Honolulu from Eniwetok, but on August 22 rather than the 20th as I had thought. She rejoined the fleet on September 6th and never went to Hawaii again. I followed and read the source for the Leipzig at Fanning Island story, and Yates gives a precise log and map for Leipzig's cruise, and she was never anywhere near Fanning or Christmas Islands, sailing down from Mexico and meeting the squadron at Easter Island. It was the cargo ship SS Titania which had dredging and cutting equipment and severed the cable at Fanning.

I'll be going back and editing my older posts to match this new information.

[Jimbuna]

And I should bloody well think so!!

[TarJak]

I won't. I couldn't be arsed.

[TarJak]

HMAS MELBOURNE, (cruiser), landed a party of 4 officers and 21 petty officers, under LCDR M. A. Blanfield, on Nauru, to dismantle the German wireless station on the island. They did not occupy the island, and the formal surrender did not take place until two months later when Australian officers, embarked in the merchant ship SS MESSINA, accepted the German surrender.

En route to the Colombo-Calcutta freighter route, at about 2300, the SMS Emden spotted a white light to the North about 4 degrees to starboard. The Emden, pressed forward at high speed, ordering the Markomannia to follow at 14 knots. General quarters was sounded as the Emden did not know whether the light belonged to a warship, a freighter or some other vessel. It was some time before the ship they were chasing took shape in the darkness and what they finally saw as a merchantman with one funnel. With steam up, the crew were dismayed to find that their "smokeless" Hungshan coal issued a rain of sparks from the funnels spoiling their chance of remaining undetected until the last minute. The freighter however, did not seem to notice what was closing in on her stern. Two warning shots were fired by Emden and the cruiser signalled for her to stop engines and not use her wireless. Leutnant Lauterbach and his barding party armed with rifles and pistols, pulled alongside the stationary freighter. A radioman and signaller were part of the boarding party and the Emden waited tensely as the minutes ticked by until the message "Greek steamer Pontoporos." was received.

The signal continued: "Loaded with 6500 tons of Indian coal for the British en route from Bombay to Calcutta." Muller decided to seize the cargo as contraband. A prize crew for watch and engine duty was dispatched to the Pontoporos, where Lauterbach, on orders from Muller, proposed to the Greek captain that he join the Emden under a German charter with generous compensation. The captain heartily agreed to that. Emden now had a lot of coal, and her presence in the Indian Ocean would not be revealed. Unfortunately the Ponotporos could only make 9 knots.

[Jimbuna]

9th September

Western Front:

Marne...On 9th September the German First Army began to pull back as the British First Army moved in on its left flank. With no option but to make a fighting withdrawal, all the German forces in the Marne river region retreated in a northerly direction, crossing the Aisne to the high ground of the Chemin des Dames ridge.

The First Battle of the Marne was a strategic victory for the Allied Forces. It marked a decisive turn of events for the Allies in the early weeks of the war and Germany's Schlieffen Plan was stopped in its tracks. One of the famous events in the crucial defence of Paris is that 600 Parisian taxis were sent from the city carrying French reinforcement troops to the fighting front.

Air Warfare:

Russian aviator Pyotr Nesterov dies after intentionally ramming an Austrian plane....he was also the first person to fly an aerial loop.

Political etc.

U.S. Democrats propose a tax on beer as part of the war tax. It will be raised to 50 cents a barrel ($11.91 today).

In a letter written to the government of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing demands the recall of Constantin Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador in Washington, D.C.

Von Bethmann-Hollweg lays out the Septemberprogramm, which lays out German plans for European domination after the war.

Ship Losses:

Swedish SS Tua (345grt), rammed by Royal Arthur, large cruiser, Edgar-class, 7,700t, 10th CS Grand Fleet on Northern Patrol, off Peterhead. Sunk with two men drowned, survivors taken into Cromarty.
Chesterfield ( United Kingdom): The sloop was driven ashore at Spurn Point, Yorkshire and wrecked. Her crew were rescued.

[Aktungbby]

Interesting take on what cost Germany the war in the first month: " The Battle of the Marne as the last set-piece battle fought on rules of classical strategy. Superior French command and control (And taxis) decided this battle; Moltke was content to remain in headquarters hundreds of miles from the front and let his armies execute a rigid plan while Joffre successfully coordinated his armies in a coherent strategy in real time. Joffre surely had a better understanding of what Kluck was doing-good aerial observers- than Moltke did as his transfers from the Marne to the Ourcq were transparent from ground level. Modern warfare had clearly not yet reached a stage where managing the actions of hundreds of thousands of men was impossible." Moi? Flexibility over rigidity? In better detail: the tide turns...http://www.theartofbattle.com/battle-of-the-marne-1914.htm

[Sailor Steve]

September 9:

The First Battle of the Masurian Lakes begins in East Prussia as von Hindenburg's 8th army, having decisively defeated Samsonov at Tannenberg and pushed Rennenkampf's 1st Russian army north for two days, goes on the attack. Rennenkampf orders yet another withdrawal.

Indian Expeditionary Force "A" begins to arrive at Suez.

Belgium: King Albert's army attacks German forces outside Antwerp. Kaiser Wilhelm orders the capture of the port city.

The Marne: When French troops fall back under a German assault General Foch tells his officers they must rally their men and renew the fight. "You say you cannot hold on, and that you cannot withdraw, so the only thing left is to attack." The weary French troops do rally and return to their positions, then advance, only to find the Germans gone.

When German troops leave the village of Varreddes on the north bank of the Marne river, they take 20 elderly hostages as security for 20 wounded soldiers they were forced to leave behind. When two of them fall down exhausted, they are shot. Yet another has his skull crushed. Another man in the village is beaten by an officer until a shell lands on the house, killing the German. The 70-year-old Frenchman dies from his injuries dies two days after the French army retakes the town.

[TarJak]

10 September 1914

The Australian government was advised that it was' very likely that Japanese ships and destroyers may cruise in the Pacific around Marianne and Caroline islands in order to hunt down the German squadron. In the following two weeks, Vice-Admiral George Patey, in command of HMAS Australia which was helping the Commonwealth's troops to take control of German New Guinea, endeavoured to contact the Japanese squadrons in order to plan a joint sweep through the North Pacific islands. Patey realised that the Japanese and Australian roles would have to be rationalised at some point.

SMS Emden, in company with Markomannia and Pontoporos steamed west by northwest to reach the sea-lane between Colombo and Calcutta. At about 0900 from the north, smoke was spotted and the cruiser accelerated towards the source of the smoke. As the target became visible, it was clearly not a purpose built warship, but structures that could be seen on the deck indicated that it may have been a converted auxiliary cruiser. It was however flying a blue British flag instead of the White Ensign which would have marked a warship. As the ships closed, it became clear that the strange structures were not gun emplacements. As they drew near, Emden fired a warning shot and signalled the merchant to stop and not use their wireless. The message not to use the radio as repeated by megaphone when the ships were within shouting distance. Out of the stern porthole of the freighter, smoking papers flew overboard as the captain destroyed important documents that must not fall into enemy hands.

On the British flag, the sign of the Indian government was displayed indicating that they had chartered the vessel.

The ship was boarded by a search and prize led by Leutnant von Levetzow. According to its papers, it was the British 3.413 ton Indus, built in 1904 which was plying a course between Calcutta and Bombay. Property of the shipping company James Nourse, the Indus had been chartered by the Indian government to take on troops in Bombay and had already been converted for troop carrying duties. The structures on the deck turned out to be horse stalls. Muller, running short on all sorts of provisions, ordered loading of what ever could be removed from the freighter, during this time the Markomannia and Pontoporos caught up.



Muller ordered the crew of the Indus to be transferred to the Markomannia which was completed at around 1pm that afternoon and that scuttling charges be prepared for sinking the ship. At 3pm, ten shots were fired and the scuttling charges were used to finish her off. Mr George Reed, Second Officer of the Indus, remarked that the marksmanship of the Emden was poor.

[Jimbuna]

10th September

Western Front

Battle of the Marne ended. Germans retreat on west and centre.

Pont-a-Mousson evacuated by Germans.

Eastern Front

Poland: Dankl defeated in second Battle of Krasnik, Archduke Joseph defeated at Opole.

Naval and Overseas Operations

Emden makes first appearance in Bay of Bengal.

Political etc.

Senator Stone urges Americans to support neutrality: “Why should any American at this time attack the Kaiser...& offend the German people?”

German and Austrian representatives expelled from Egypt.

Ship Losses:

Indus ( United Kingdom): The cargo ship was captured in the Indian Ocean (11°00′N 83°45′E) by SMS Emden ( Kaiserliche Marine) and was scuttled after all her crew had been taken on board.

[Sailor Steve]

September 10:

In France the Battle of the Marne comes to an end. French and British forces have successfully stopped the German advance on Paris, and pushed the German armies back 40 miles. The Germans dig in at the Aisne River and start building the first of the trenches.

In East Prussia the Battle of the Masurian Lakes continues. Russian General Rennenkampf uses two of his two divisions in an attempt to hold back the two armies led by Hindenburg and Ludendorff while the rest of his army escapes.

SMS Karlsruhe returns to her supply ships at Rocas, the departs with the to fastest, Crefeld and Rio Negro. The intent is to station the vessels 20 miles to either side of the cruiser. If a merchant is spotted the collier will approach first, hiding the presence of a German cruiser in the vicinity. It will also apprise Köhler of the presence of British warships before they can see him, increasing the chances of a quick escape.

"What pleased us most, however, was that she was carrying an almost fantastic amount of soap...Our upper deck looked like a colossal warehouse. There were stocks, or at least samples of everything. There were towels, soap, linen, tinned foods, fresh meat, live hens and ducks, drinks, nautical instruments, charts, pencils, and some very welcome oilskins with which we could re-equip the cutters' crews and the watches against bad weather."
- Franz Joseph, Prince of Hohenzollern, 2nd Torpedo officer aboard SMS Emden, describing the sinking of SS Indus.