I read the article and was prompted to join the discussion group for that page. The complaints discussions are quite lengthy, as there are a great many errors on that page. I asked for help with a [Citation needed] note for that sentence, since I've been hearing that story since I was a kid, and have yet to find a single instance of anyone actually claiming to have done any of those.

As for the dogfight mentioned, the Wiki article does make reference to a fight between a Serbian and an Austro-Hungarian pilot with a pistol in late August, with good reference, but I can't find anything about a fight over Paris on September 4th.

September 5:

In order to make desperately-needed engine repairs HMS Dresden puts into a secluded bay at Isla Hoste, at the very tip of South America, on her way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, where Kpt.z.s von Lüdecke hopes to join von Spee's squadron.




A further note on U-21 and HMS Pathfinder: Ten u-boats had been sent out on the very first war patrol. They had sunk nothing, and only eight had returned. On August 14th three of them - U-19, U-21 and U-22 - had been sent out again to patrol between Scotland and Norway. They had sighted a cruiser and a destroyer but hadn't been able to attack.

The German high command decided to try a new tactic. Rather than going in large groups the u-boats would now be sent out alone, or at most in pairs. The commanders responded by making trips to every British North Sea port, and periscopes were sighted almost daily. At one point a periscope was seen off Scapa Flow and Admiral John Jellicoe ordered every ship at the base to put to sea. This would infect the fleet so badly that it would come to be known as "periscopitis". On the side of the u-boats there are stories of the boats stopping at the Orkney Islands and huntin wild goats and sea birds.

At one point U-20 and U-21 made a sweep into the Firth of Forth, but could not reach the main anchorage.

On September 5th Kapitänleutnant Otto Hersing had just surfaced U-21 for a battery recharge off the Isle of May, at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, when the light cruiser Pathfinder was sighted. He immediately dove the boat, but was forced to watch as the cruiser sailed away. Hersing surfaced and resumed charging the batteries. The weather worsened and the waves were rising when a ship was spotted. It was Pathfinder, patrolling in a pattern that brought her right back into U-21's sights. Hersing waited until the right moment and fired a single torpedo. It struck Pathfinder behind the bridge and apparently set off a magazine. The ship sank in just four minutes and the era of modern submarine warfare had begun. HMS Pathfinder was the first ship ever sunk with a self-propelled torpedo.



In Langini Bay at Simalur SMS Emden resumed coaling at 0600 hours. The job needed to be finished quickly as the Dutch regulations only allowed one 24-hour stop by beligerent warships every three months. At 0800 Emden was approached by a small steam yacht flying the Dutch flag. A local government official came on board and insisted that Emden leave immediately, as her 24 hours were long past. Captain von Müller called for senior engineer Friedrich Ellerbroek, and pointedly asked him when the engines would be ready for sea. Ellerbroek caught on immediately and said repairs would take at least two more hours. Von Müller invited the official in and offered him whisky and soda. The crew had the coaling finished by 1100 and Emden was on her way, steaming south-eastward until the island was completely out of sight, then turning north toward the trade routes from Khota Raja to Colombo.

September 5 - Some interesting addenda:

On August 30th a special edition of The Times contained a dispatch from correspondent Arthur Moore. The story mentioned the "terrible defeat" suffered by the British Army at Mons and described the the troops as "the broken bits of many regiments." On September 5th First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill wrote a letter to the owner of The Times. "I think you ought to realise the harm that has been done by Sunday's publication in The Times. I never saw such panic-stricken stuff written by any war correspondent before, and this served up on the authority of The Times can be made, and has been made, a weapon against us in every doubtful State."

Prime Minister Asquith asked Churchill to write a letter for publication, describing the retreat in detail. Churchill wrote "There is no doubt that our men have established a personal ascendancy over the Germans, and they ar conscious of the fact that with anything like even numbers the result would not be doubtful." Of course the numbers were not even close to even, but the British were only a small part of the Allied army at that time.

The Belgian underground was doing their part. They had torn up so much of the railway system that the Germans had to devote 26,000 railroad workers just to try to make repairs, and they were losing ground. The distance from the rail head to the front line was 20 miles on August 25th. By September 4th the German 2nd Army had to move men and equipment more that 100 miles to get to the fighting.

At the beginning of the Battle of the Marne General Joffre wrote "At the moment when the battle upon which hangs the fate of France is about to begin, all must remember that the time for looking back is past; every effort must be concentrated on attacking and throwing the enemy back."

"I visited the Divisions and found the men very elated at the idea of moving forward rather than backward."
-General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, diary

Among the first French troops to attack the German line were 5,000 Moroccans. As they came under heavy fire a French battalion charged to their rescue. First killed was the French Captain. Lieutenant Charles-Henri de la Cornillière led the soldiers forward until he himself was mortally wounded. As his men started to shout "The lieutenant is killed!" and show signs of panic, de la Conrillières dying words were "Yes, the lieutenant has been killed, but keep on firm!" This incident became famous among French patriots.

It was also on September 5th that the Daily Opinion first ran the picture of Lord Kitchener, drawn by Alfred Leete.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps168c6412.png

It would later become the legendary recruiting poster:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps7149453f.png

6 September 1914

Some 30 miles northeast of Paris, the French 6th Army under the command of General Michel-Joseph Manoury attacks the right flank of the German 1st Army, beginning the decisive First Battle of the Marne at the end of the first month of World War I.

After invading neutral Belgium and advancing into northeastern France by the end of August 1914, German forces were nearing Paris, spurred on by punishing victories that forced five French armies into retreat after the Battles of the Frontiers at Lorraine, Ardennes, Charleroi and Mons. In anticipation of the German attack, the anxious French government appointed the 65-year-old General Joseph-Simon Gallieni as the military governor of Paris. Gallieni, predicting that the Germans would reach Paris by September 5, did not wish to sit idly back and wait for invasion. In the first days of September, he managed to convince the French commander in chief, Joseph Joffre, to spare him an army—Manoury’s 6th Army—from the front in order to aggressively defend the capital.

At the same time, General Alexander von Kluck, at the head of the German 1st Army, was disobeying orders from its own headquarters to double back and support General Karl von Bulow’s 2nd Army, thus protecting itself from possible attacks from the French on its right flank, from the direction of Paris. Not wanting to subordinate himself to Bulow’s command, Kluck ordered his forces to proceed in their pursuit of the retreating French 5th Army, under General Charles Lanrezac, across the Marne River, which they crossed on September 3. When Gallieni learned of Kluck’s move that morning, he knew the French 6th Army—the new army of Paris—had been given its opportunity to attack the German flank. Without hesitation, he began to coordinate the attack, urging Joffre to support it by resuming the general French offensive earlier than army headquarters had planned.

On September 4, Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German general staff, learned that Kluck had disobeyed orders, and that his troops—exhausted and depleted of resources, having outrun their lines of supply over the course of their rapid advance—had crossed the Marne. Fearing the attack from Paris on the 1st Army’s exposed flank, Moltke ordered that the march of the 1st and 2nd Armies towards Paris be halted in order to face any threat from that direction. The order came too late, however, as Gallieni had already readied his army for an attack, and Joffre—with help from the British minister of war, Lord H. H. Kitchener—had obtained the promised support of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Sir John French, for the French 5th and 6th Armies in their renewed offensive against German forces at the Marne.

On the morning of September 6, the 150,000 soldiers of Manoury’s 6th Army attacked the right flank of the German 1st Army, whose turn to meet the attack opened a 30-mile-gap between Kluck’s forces and Bulow’s 2nd Army. Acting quickly, the French 5th Army—under a new leader, General Louis Franchet d’Esperey, appointed by Joffre to replace Lanrezac—and divisions of the BEF poured into the gap and simultaneously attacked the German 2nd Army. Fierce fighting continued over the next several days, with Manoury’s exhausted army managing to hold its ground only after being reinforced on September 7 by a corps of 6,000 rushed from Paris in taxi cabs. After Franchet d’Esperey’s 5th Army launched a successful surprise attack on the German 2nd Army, Moltke ordered a general German retreat on September 9. Over the next few days, Allies slowly pushed the Germans back towards the Aisne River, where the 1st and 2nd Armies dug in, beginning the entrenchment of positions that would last well into 1918.

The Allied check of the German advance during the Battle of the Marne made the struggle one of the most decisive battles in history. Events at the Marne signaled the demise of Germany’s aggressive two-front war strategy, known as the Schlieffen Plan; they also marked the end of the general belief, held on both sides of the line, that the conflict that broke out in the summer of 1914 would be a short one. As the historian Barbara Tuchman wrote as a conclusion to her book The Guns of August (1962): "The Battle of the Marne was one of the decisive battles of the world not because it determined that Germany would eventually lose or the Allies ultimately win the war but because it determined that the war would go on. There was no looking back, Joffre told the soldiers on the eve. Afterward there was no turning back. The nations were caught in a trap, a trap made during the first thirty days out of battles that failed to be decisive, a trap from which there was, and has been, no exit."

the situation on the 5th of sept 1914
 

6th September

Western Front

General fighting all along the line, from the vicinity of Paris to Lorraine

A copy of Joffre’s order of Sep.04 falls into German hands - Moltke notifies his armies that they’re facing a general French counteroffensive

The advancing I Corps on the right of the BEF begins to engage Kluck’s 1st Army - British II Corps begins to advance across the Grand Morin River

Battle of the Marne: General offensive by French and British.

Foch’s 9th Army and Langle’s 4th Army are heavily engaged from Sézanne to Vitry le François: Foch is pushed south of the St. Gond Marshes

A German attack briefly routes the left flank of Sarrail’s 3rd Army, stalling its planned offensive and taking Revigny

German advance also checked at Beauzec, near Verdun, and at Jezanville, near Pont-a-Mousson.

Along most of its front, the cautiously advancing French 5th Army easily pushes back the German 2nd Army’s right wing to Sep.07, taking Courgivaux - in 5th Army’s left wing, Petain takes Montceaux-les-Provins after hard fighting

Germans reach Provins, the most southerly point of their advance.

Northeast of Paris, after some initial gains by French 6th Army, Kluck’s right flank holds its ground; heavy fighting at Etrépilly

In response to pressure from the French 6th Army, Kluck skillfully transfers two of the four corps advancing southeast of Paris to his right flank; Bülow weakens his right - a dangerous gap is developing between the German 1st and 2nd Armies

The German 7th Army is disbanded; part is sent to the right flank near Paris

Eastern Front

In Poland, the centre of General Dankl's Austro-Hungarian 1st Army was broken at Krasnostav by the Russian 5th Army, forcing them to fall back to the San River.

In Poland, the General P.A. Lechitskiy's Russian 9th Army was moving south of Ivangorod toward Sandomir.

In Galicia, the Russian 8th Army was advancing on Grodek, southwest of Lemberg. Heavy fighting continued through the 12th.

Southern Front

Serbian Invasion of Syrmia begun: the Save crossed at Novoselo: Obres occupied: failure to take Mitrovitsa.

Naval and Overseas Operations

Cameroons: British reverse near Nsanakong.

Affair of Tsavo (East Africa).

Political, etc.

Great Britain: The Admiralty announce organization of a Royal Naval Division.

War Minister Sukhomlinov reported to the Tsar that “a list of the most important measures of the War Ministry from 1909 to March 1914 fell into the hands of German intelligence through Pashkevich and Dumbadze.” Both men were friends of Sukhomlinov. The Tsar paid no attention to the report.

The American military attaché in Paris reports “mutterings against the leaders of the government and army”

Ship Losses:

Argonaut ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Chameleon ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Imperialist ( United Kingdom): The trawler struck a mine and sank in the North Sea off the mouth of the River Tyne with the loss of two of her crew. Survivors were rescued by the trawler Rhodesian ( United Kingdom).
Lobelia ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Harrier ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Pegasus ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Pollux ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Rideo ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Rhine ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Seti ( United Kingdom): The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.
Valiant ( United Kingdom): World War I: The trawler was shelled and sunk in the North Sea by two cruisers and four destroyers (all Kaiserliche Marine). Her crew were taken as prisoners of war.

September 6:

Maximilian von Spee's squadron arrives at Kiritimati, or Christmas Island, some 1162 nautical miles south of Hawaii, to find SMS Nürnberg waiting for them, having returned from Honolulu with supplies and news of the war in Europe. Spee then dispatches Nürnberg to destroy the wireless station at nearby Tabuaeran, or Fanning Island. Part of the news Nürnberg had brought was of the capture of German Samoa by New Zealand forces on August 29th. Spee decided to take Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to see what could be done.



At the siege of Tsingtao the first attack ever made from an aircraft carrier is launched from IJNS Wakamiya. A Farman seaplane is lowered into the water by crane, takes off and proceeds to bomb the Austro-Hungarian cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth and the German gunboat Jaguar. As with prior attempts in the European war, the 12-pound bombs all miss. Meanwhile Wakamiya's other three planes carry out more successful attacks on radio stations and supply huts.



In the Indian Ocean SMS Emden encounters heavy rain squalls. This is a relief as water supplies have been running low and there has been only enough for drinking, so the men and their clothes have been going unwashed. Every available container is put out to collect the rainwater. After showers and laundry the crew sets about scrubbing their ship clean for the first time in weeks.

7 September 1914

A joint Australian army-navy expedition, the AN&MEF sailed for German New Guinea from Port Moresby embarked on board the auxilliary cruiser HMAS BERRIMA, escorted by HMAS AUSTRALIA, HMAS SYDNEY, HMAS ENCOUNTER, HMAS WAREGO, and HMAS YARRA, together with submarines HMAS AE1 and AE2.

On 2 September Sydney, Encounter, Berrima and Aorangi received orders to sail for Port Moresby where they arrived on 4 September to take on coal and oil and rendezvous with the remainder of the RAN fleet, the Kanowna and several colliers. While in Port Moresby the ANMEF’s military commander, Colonel W. Holmes, inspected the men of the Kennedy Regiment who, although full of enthusiasm, were deemed to be unprepared and ill-equipped for active service. Consequently he recommended that they be returned to their home state. It transpired that the matter was resolved for him when the firemen in the ship in which they were embarked, the Kanowna, mutinied, refusing to carry out their duties. This demonstration was centred on them having not volunteered for overseas active service. Kanowna was subsequently ordered to proceed directly to Townsville, taking no further part in proceedings.

The rest of the force, then comprising Sydney, Encounter, Parramatta (Lieutenant W.H.F. Warren, RAN), Warrego (Commander C. L. Cumberlege, RAN) Yarra (Lieutenant S. Keightley, RAN), AE1, AE2, Aorangi, Berrima, the oiler Murex and collier Koolonga sailed on 7 September bound for Rossel Island and a rendezvous with HMAS Australia which took place two days later. There Admiral Patey, Colonel Holmes, Captain Glossop, Commander Stevenson and Commander Cumberlege, of the destroyer flotilla, discussed the final plans for the attack on German New Guinea culminating in the release of an operational order for an attack on Rabaul.

Two points had been chosen for the landings, one at Rabaul, the seat of Government, the other at Herbertshöhe on the Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain. It was decided that the naval contingent should undertake the landing at Herbertshöhe. Patey’s orders were that should a preliminary reconnaissance of Blanche Bay reveal it to be empty of enemy ships, Parramatta was to examine the jetty at Rabaul and report whether Berrima could berth there. Sydney, which had embarked 50 men of the naval contingent prior to sailing from Port Morseby, would meanwhile transfer 25 of them to the destroyers Warrego and Yarra for landing four miles east of Herbertshöhe. The remaining 25 remained in Sydney to be landed at Herbertshöhe along with a 12 pounder gun. From there they would proceed inland to locate and destroy the enemy wireless stations. Intelligence indicated that two enemy wireless stations were operating in the area, one inland from Kabakaul at Bitapaka and the other at Herbertshöhe.

http://www.navy.gov.au/sites/default...?itok=_GX-VY9i

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...S_Nurnberg.png

Elsewhere in the Pacific, a three funnelled warship flying the French flag, dropped anchor just off the North-West corner of Fanning Island, a low coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Two boatloads of men rowed ashore. they were from the German cruiser NURNBERG and the proceeded to wreck the cable station on the island. They harmed noone, but a demolition crew blew up the generators and accumulators and used axes to smash up the control room instruments and batteries. The landing party also looted all the gold sovereigns from the superintendent's safe where they found Alfred Smith's treasure map showing where he had hidden the spare instruments and the Fanning Island Volunteer Reserver's arms and ammunition. These were duly dug up and destroyed.

http://atlantic-cable.com/stamps/Oth...le_Station.gif

Meanwhile, the NURNBERG's companion ship, the Bremen class crusier LEIPZIG, had earlier hauled up the Fanning-Fiji cable, but dragged it out only as far as the shallow reef, where fortunately for the British, it could quite soon be dredged up and reconnected.

7th September

Sir John French, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), begins his first official dispatch from the Western Front during World War I, summarizing the events of the first several weeks of British operations.

"The transport of the troops from England both by sea and by rail was effected in the best order and without a check," French began. "Each unit arrived at its destination in this country [France] well within the scheduled time." The decision to send British troops to fight in France had been made on August 5, 1914—the day before Britain’s formal declaration of war on Germany. Initially, the BEF deployed only 100,000 men, the largest number that the small, professionally trained army could put in the field. On August 23, some 35,000 soldiers of the BEF saw action for the first time against the Germans at the Mons Canal, in southwest Belgium near the French border. The Battle of Mons—the fourth of the so-called Battles of the Frontiers—stalled the German advance by one day, ending nonetheless in a British retreat.

French subsequently took his men out of the front line, planning to let them rest behind the Seine River west of Paris. Under pressure from his French counterpart, General Joseph Joffre, as well as his own government, to rejoin the fray and offer support to the beleaguered French forces, he capitulated. As he recounts at the end of his first dispatch: "On Saturday, September 5th, I met the French Commander in Chief at his request, and he informed me of his intention to take the offensive forthwith, as he considered conditions very favorable to success." The offensive began the following morning, as British and French forces halted the German advance in the decisive Battle of the Marne.

Naval Operations:

Naval operations started against Duala, Cameroons, with armoured cruiser Cumberland (Cn - returned to UK January 1915), old light cruiser Challenger (Cn - left for East Africa in 1915), gunboat Dwarf, local converted gunboats of the Niger Flotilla - Alligator, Balbus, Crocodile, Ivy, Moseley (believed Mole), Porpoise, Remus, Vampire, Vigilant, Walrus taking part.

http://s14.postimg.org/ksb06wn41/image.jpg

Escape of Goeben - light cruiser Gloucester shadowed Goeben & Breslau off Cape Matapan, Greece.

Ship Losses:

Revigo ( United Kingdom): The trawler struck a mine and sank in the North Sea. Her crew were rescued by the trawler Andromeda ( United Kingdom).

September 7:

With the railway lines choked and 10,000 reserves stuck in Paris, On September 6 General Joseph Galieni suggests using taxis. A fleet of taxicabs is hastily organized and on the 7th somewhere between 600 and 1,000 cabs transported the infantry to the front. They kept their meters running and were later reimbursed the sum of 70,012 francs. The troops arrive in time to help General Manoury fend of a heavy German attack, preventing a possible breakthrough.

Kaiser Wilhelm visits the front lines, but when within sound of the artillery fire his escort decides the danger from capture by a French cavalry patrol is too great, and the Kaiser is hastily driven back to the rear area.

"Terror often overcomes me when I think of this, and the feeling I have is that I must answer for this horror."
-General Helmuth von Moltke, describing the number of deaths at the Battle of the Marne in a letter to his wife on September 7, 1914

"It is now certain that England is bringing over great numbers of troops from Asia."
-Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, letter home the same day


SMS Emden arrives at the Khota Raja-Colombo steamship route. After a day's cruising and seeing nothing, von Müller decides to move on to the Colombo-Rangoon route, crossing the Negabatang-Khota Raja line along the way.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

And I should bloody well think so!! :O:

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

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.

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.