The Dandarnelles Disaster (6 page)

In autumn 1912 Turkey, fearing an attack on Constantinople itself by Bulgaria, whose heavy artillery could be heard from the city, had called a meeting of ambassadors of all the participants in the Congress of Berlin of 1878 to ask for an international naval force to protect the Ottoman capital and the lives and property of foreign citizens living there. Nine nations agreed to take part, including Russia. The British sent two cruisers and even the small and elderly Royal Netherlands Navy managed to provide one. The Kaiser, whose country had hosted the Congress, was angry and embarrassed when he awoke to the fact that the Imperial Navy had no presence in the Mediterranean, apart from the modest gunboat it kept at the Golden Horn, like the other powers, to look after its interests and privileges (the humiliating ‘capitulations' whereby Turkey conferred virtual legal immunity on resident citizens of the principal powers). The United States was content to be represented merely by the gunboat it normally kept on station. On the advice of Admiral Tirpitz, co-architect with himself of the High Seas Fleet, Wilhelm, always on the lookout for chances to assert Germany's claim to great-power status, created the Mediterranean Division of the Imperial Navy on a whim in November 1912, sending it to fly the Kaiser's imposing black and white naval ensign off Constantinople as the tenth constituent of the protection squadron. It consisted of just two shining new ships, both in the process of completing their sea trials at the time: the battlecruiser
Goeben,
with the light cruiser
Breslau
as her sole escort.

The pair caused a sensation when they arrived at Constantinople on 15 November. The
Goeben
was not only by far the most impressive ship in the
squadron and its only dreadnought; it was also the fastest and most powerful capital ship in the entire Mediterranean. The divisional flag officer, Rear-Admiral Kummler, placed himself at the disposal of the French vice-admiral nominally commanding the force, France being the leading naval power in the Mediterranean. The foreign warships were in the event not called upon to take any action as the Turkish front against the Bulgarians managed to hold firm and save Constantinople. The squadron dispersed in due course, but the Mediterranean Division remained in being, free to use the naval bases and harbours of Germany's allies, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The German presence in the inland sea was to be permanent, a new piece on the strategic board which however aroused little concern in the French and British Mediterranean fleets, both of which were much larger: the British alone possessed three battlecruisers in the region, any one of which fired a heavier broadside than the
Goeben,
although each was inferior in armour and speed
.
Britain also disposed of an array of heavy and light cruisers plus destroyers. The French had two dreadnoughts and 17 other, sometimes elderly, battleships with several squadrons of lesser vessels.

Admiral Kummler was relieved in October 1913 by Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Anton Theodor Souchon, aged 49, son of an artist of Huguenot descent. He hoisted his flag on the
Goeben
in Trieste and immediately set out on a detailed exploration of his area of operations. Showing the flag at friendly, neutral and potential enemy ports not only offered an endless series of floating drinks parties but also opportunities to study local conditions. He met the commanders-in-chief of the Austrian and Italian fleets but was not impressed by their French contemporary, Vice-Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, whom he called upon at Messina in Sicily (Souchon's acquaintance with the port would soon prove very useful). He never met Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, commander-in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet, whose policy was to send a strong British contingent to any port visited by the Germans as soon as possible afterwards, to counteract any favourable impression gained by the locals. The Kaiser called this transparent spoiling tactic ‘spitting in the soup'.

Rear-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, Milne's second-in-command and flag officer of the First Cruiser Squadron, did not meet Souchon either, but was entertained by the captain and officers of SMS
Breslau
during a visit to Durrazzo in the last week of peace: he left an imposing impression. Uncertain of Italy's semi-detached role in the Triple Alliance, Souchon held talks with the Austrian naval commander-in-chief, Admiral Anton Haus, at his main
base of Pola (now Pula in Croatia) and agreed that the Mediterranean Division would serve under the latter's overall command in the event of war.

In May 1914 the
Goeben
continued her unceasing round of showing the Kaiser's flag by calling at Constantinople on the invitation of the Sultan, not for the first time, nor yet the last. While she was in port on 22 May a large fire broke out at a nearby Turkish army barracks. Some 150 sailors volunteered to help (without detracting from their heroism, one may reasonably deduce mixed motives on their part: they were in the midst of coaling ship, the most hated task in the navies of the day). They rushed half-naked and covered in coal dust through the narrow streets to fight the flames; three German sailors died in the blaze and four were injured. Thousands of Turks turned out for the funeral to acknowledge their courage and sacrifice. The gesture was not primarily intended to do so, but undoubtedly conferred invaluable prestige on Germany and its navy at a very useful moment, encouraging the Germanophiles in the divided government.

The CUP coup of January 1913 brought in Mahmud Sevket Pasha as Grand Vizier. His Cabinet had a ‘distinct German colouring' in the view of the British ambassador, Sir Louis Mallet. When Sevket was assassinated in June, Prince Said Halim Pasha succeeded him without giving Mallet reason to revise his assessment. The driving forces in both CUP and Cabinet were Enver, Minister of War from early 1914, and Talaat Bey, party leader and Minister of the Interior, originally inclined towards Russia but opportunistically turned pro-German. They formed a ruling triumvirate with Jemal Pasha, who became Minister of Marine in 1913. Halim favoured neutrality, but without passion. Halil, the Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, and Jemal Pasha, initially pro-French, allowed themselves to be won over to Germany. But there were several other members of the government, such as Javid, the Foreign Minister, who favoured Britain and had supported an offer to London of a formal alliance, declined in 1911. As late as July 1914 the majority in the Turkish Cabinet was friendly disposed towards Britain, Enver and Talaat as usual standing out against such a policy.

Enver was born in 1881 and schooled for an army career. In 1903 he was a staff captain with III Corps in Salonica as well as a committed activist for the CUP. As we saw, his prominent role in the revolution of 1908–9 won him a posting to Berlin as military attaché. A lieutenant-colonel at the time of his counter-attack on the Bulgarians which led to the recovery of Edirne, he was promptly promoted brigadier-general, which brought the title
Pasha. Small, dapper, vain and energetic, he cut a figure rather different from that of Talaat Bey, a hard-working politician of a more traditional mould (and build) with a strong character and a bluff manner that masked considerable intelligence and shrewdness. Just 27 when he led the coup by the CUP in June 1908, Enver was anointed ‘Hero of the Revolution' but later unsuccessfully fought the Italians in North Africa, until a humiliating peace was hastily signed with them as general war broke out in the Balkans in 1912. Energetic, ruthless and determined, Enver always cut a dashing and dapper figure and earned the not necessarily affectionate nickname of
Napoleonlik
– little Napoleon. In his study he kept a portrait of the French emperor on one wall and of King Frederick the Great of Prussia on another but the implicit assessment of his own military talent was seriously exaggerated.

Even so, his dash on horseback overnight in summer 1913 to liberate Adrianople (Edirne) in European Turkey (already abandoned by the Bulgars, as it happens) had won him laurels and he became Minister of War in 1914, still only 33. He helped himself to the title of Chief of the General Staff. A convinced Germanophile since his year as military attaché in Berlin not long before the war, he won over the other two members of the CUP's ruling triumvirate, Talaat and Jemal, to the treaty he had secretly been negotiating with Wangenheim. Jemal was finally persuaded when in the last days of peace Churchill seized the two dreadnoughts bought by Turkey.

In the final weeks of peace following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian imperial throne, and his wife Sophie at Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, by a Serbian nationalist on 28 June 1914, Wangenheim redoubled his efforts to win over the Turks to a full-blown alliance with Germany. He held out prospects of protection against the old enemy, Russia, and potential territorial gains at its expense on the successful conclusion of a war between it and the Central Powers. He talked of reviving the caliphate and promised a guarantee of Turkish territorial integrity. In the late evening of Monday 27 July the new Grand Vizier, Prince Said Halim, strongly urged on by Enver and supported by Talaat, sent for Wangenheim and formally requested a defensive and offensive alliance against Russia. This was to be kept secret not only from the world at large but even from the rest of the Cabinet. Within 24 hours the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, telegraphed a treaty text for Wangenheim to show the Turkish conspirators. Earlier that day Austria
had declared war on Serbia over the double assassination – and Churchill ordered the seizure of the Turkish dreadnoughts.

The Turks havered and wavered. The particular objection of those in the know was the clause that limited the treaty to the end of the coming war. They thought this would not protect Turkey against Russian post-war revenge. The Turks shared the widespread belief among the future belligerents that the coming war would be ‘over by Christmas' or not much later. The clause was therefore amended so as to make the treaty last until the projected end of the tour of duty of General Liman von Sanders as head of the German military mission – 31 December 1918. It would then be renewed for five years unless one party or the other gave six months' notice of termination. Among its provisions were a German guarantee to help Turkey against external threat and Turkish acceptance of a commanding role for Liman von Sanders and his colleagues if the Turkish Army went to war. The alliance was to remain secret until an announcement was made. Enver as War Minister jumped the gun on 31 July by ordering general mobilisation in support of Turkey's declared posture of ‘armed neutrality' in the coming conflict. On 2 August he lost patience with his vacillating colleagues, still debating Turkey's stance in wartime, and pressed the Grand Vizier to sign the treaty. Talaat and Halil of the Chamber of Deputies were the only other Cabinet members in the know at the time. Such was the character of the only major diplomatic triumph of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the prelude to the war of 1914. Turkey would suffer for it; but then so would Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and even Newfoundland.

Wangenheim's main concern, as he impatiently awaited the signing of the treaty (which he was confident was only a matter of time), was how Germany could quickly demonstrate its practical value and significance to the many sceptics in Constantinople. So on 1 August, the day Germany declared war on Russia, he wired Berlin asking for the dispatch of Souchon's Mediterranean Division, a familiar and much-admired sight at the Golden Horn, to Constantinople. The Foreign Office in Berlin replied that the Kaiser did not deem this appropriate; but Grand Admiral Tirpitz, head of the Navy Office, intervened and told Wangenheim on the 3rd, the day Germany declared war on France, that the
Goeben
and the
Breslau
had been ordered to proceed to Constantinople after all. He also suggested that Souchon should be proposed to the Turks as commander-in-chief of their fleet. As Germany violated Belgium's neutrality by sending a vast army through the country to attack northern France, Britain decided to go to war
in support of France and Belgium with effect from midnight Greenwich Mean Time on 4 August.

Souchon's orders in the event of war between Germany and France were simple enough: he was to take his two ships and disrupt the anticipated movement of large numbers of colonial troops across the western basin of the Mediterranean from North Africa to metropolitan France. In the dying days of July 1914 the
Goeben
(Captain Richard Ackermann, IGN) was visiting Trieste, then Austrian, while the
Breslau
(Commander Kettner, IGN) was at Durrazzo (now Durres) as part of an international flotilla supporting the government of Albania, newly independent from Turkey after the Balkan wars of 1912. The admiral, uncertain as to who would go to war and when, ordered the two ships to join up at the south-east Italian port of Brindisi on 1 August, so as not to be trapped in the Adriatic. The omens were not good. The Mediterranean Division anchored in the roads outside the harbour and Souchon asked the port authorities for coal – only to be refused. Italy had decided on neutrality, and was not obliged to help the Germans because they had declared war on France rather than the reverse. Souchon ordered his two ships to sail on to Messina, the port at the north-eastern tip of Sicily, just two miles from the Italian mainland. On the way the crews were told after breakfast on 2 August that they were now at war, the articles of war were read out and three cheers raised for the Kaiser.

Once again the Germans anchored offshore in the roads. There too the Italian authorities refused to supply coal, and even food – but later relented. The ships were allowed to load some coal from Italian government and German mercantile bunkers. Since Germany had ordered general mobilisation on 1 August, Souchon now had legal powers to issue orders to any ship flying the German flag. He instructed the East Africa Line ship SS
General
to rendezvous with him at Messina so he could plunder the big liner's bunkers. The passengers were disembarked and sent away with financial compensation while the ship's decks were opened up to gain access to the coal. Anything of potential value to a warship on active service, including naval reservists, was commandeered. The coal was laboriously transferred by barges, lighters and small boats, the
Goeben
acquiring just 173 tonnes and the more accessible
Breslau
200, bringing her up to almost a full load of 1,200. The larger ship still had only two-thirds of her maximum capacity of about 3,000 tonnes, worrying for Souchon because she was designed for short-range deployment in the North Sea rather than blue-water operations. Her bunker space was small anyway, and now
she was one-third short of a full load just as Souchon was preparing to carry out his first war assignment, the bombardment of the Algerian coast. Italian policy looked likely to prevent him getting much more.