Castles of Steel (10 page)

At first light on August 10, clouds of black smoke poured from
Goeben
’s funnels, anchor chains rattled in, and
Goeben
followed by
Breslau
glided out of the harbor. Across a flat, silvery sea, the two ships steamed north at 18 knots toward the Dardanelles. By noon, stifling heat crushed down from a white sky; the only animation came from blue water foaming back from the ships’ bows and washing along the gray steel sides. At five that afternoon, when the sun was lower and the western sky blazed in fiery splendor, watchers on
Goeben
’s bridge could see the island of Imbros and the plains of ancient Troy. Coming closer, they observed the coast of Asia Minor dividing itself from the narrow tongue of the Gallipoli peninsula with the gleaming water of the Dardanelles, the fabled Hellespont, in between. Off Cape Helles at the mouth of the Dardanelles,
Goeben
and
Breslau
halted. The German officers stared at the the water flowing smoothly out of the Narrows and looked up at the brown heights on both sides of the entrance. They could see clearly the outer forts of Kum Kale on the Asiatic side and those of Sedd el Bahr on the European side. Behind, farther up the historic passageway, lay the massive fortress of Chanak with its heavy guns. Over all of these fortifications, the green crescent flag waved in the evening breeze. Motionless, the two ships lay before the entrance. An uncanny hush filled the air. Then came the signal “Action Stations.” Slowly,
Goeben
’s turrets swung around until the muzzles of the 11-inch guns were trained on the forts. The 5.9-inch guns in their casements also swiveled into position. There was a responding movement in the forts, and the long, menacing barrels of the coastal guns were trained on the two German ships.

Souchon had to make a decision. Should he attempt to fight his way through? He knew that the British were coming up behind; already his lookouts reported distant columns of smoke behind him on the horizon. From the signal bridge, he signaled Cape Helles: “Request pilot.” Two dark shapes emerged from the small harbor at Cape Helles; they were Turkish destroyers coming at full speed. Uncertain of their mission,
Goeben
’s secondary guns trained on the approaching ships. Then the Turkish leader hoisted flags signaling, “Please follow me.” The delay had been caused by uncertainty in Constantinople. The commander of the Chanak fortress had reported that the German warships had requested permission to enter the Straits. Enver Pasha, the Ottoman war minister, who controlled the forts and the minefields, pondered the risks to Turkey and to himself and then declared, “They are to allow them to enter.” Asked whether the British warships following the Germans should be fired on, Enver paused and then said, “Yes.”

Goeben
and
Breslau
moved slowly into the Narrows, passing a shoreline, now hilly, now flat, lined with villages and vineyards. Along the way, the Germans could see numerous fortifications, many of them obsolete, lying half concealed beneath the heights. Twilight came as they glided past Chanak, the old, rust-colored fortified castle, and turned into a little creek where they anchored peacefully. Supper arrived with the crews still standing by the guns. Later that night, Souchon was told, a British warship had appeared off the entrance to the Dardanelles and had been refused permission to enter.

For three days,
Goeben
lay quietly at anchor. Then the battle cruiser and her consort steamed out into the Sea of Marmara, with the green coastline shimmering in the distance across a light blue sea. A few hours later, the German sailors saw at last the imperial city of Constantinople glittering in the sunlight. Before their eyes lay its chain of hills, its giant domes and soaring minarets, the ancient castles, the white palaces and villas, the massive, crumbling city walls, the rows of dark cypresses, the flowering gardens along the water. Their voyage was over.

Ironically, the
Goeben
’s arrival at the Dardanelles brought great satisfaction in Britain.
Goeben,
apparently so quickly hounded out of the Mediterranean into what seemed ignominious internment, was depicted as a hunted animal scurrying for cover; her escape became part of a glorious “sweeping of the seas” by the Royal Navy. Asquith wrote to Venetia Stanley that the news was “interesting,” but that “as we shall insist that the
Goeben
should be manned by a Turkish instead of a German crew, it doesn’t matter much. . . . The Turkish sailors cannot navigate her—except onto rocks or mines.”

The Turks were unsure whether to be pleased or frightened by this turn of events. A nervous proposal that the Germans disarm
Goeben
and
Breslau,
“temporarily and superficially only,” was scornfully rejected by Souchon. No one knew what to do next, until the German ambassador suggested that perhaps the ships could be “sold” to Turkey. This would not only solve the immediate problem but also serve as retribution on the British for their “requisition” of the two Turkish battleships. The idea was quickly accepted by both countries. On August 16, a solemn ceremony took place off the Golden Horn. The crews were mustered on deck and informed that their ships had been bought by Turkey. The German flag was lowered, the crescent was raised, and the Turkish naval minister officially received the
Jawus Sultan Selim
(the former
Goeben
) and the
Midilli
(the former
Breslau
) into the Ottoman navy. The following morning, fezzes were brought out to the ships and distributed to the men. The day of worship aboard the two ships was advanced from Sunday to Friday. At about this time, the pro-Allied Turkish minister of finance met a distinguished Belgian to inform him sadly that the Germans had captured Brussels. The Belgian pointed to
Goeben
lying at anchor off the Golden Horn and said, “I have even more terrible news for you. The Germans have captured Turkey.”

When the British ambassador protested what had happened, he was informed that
Goeben
and
Breslau
were now Turkish ships. If so, the ambassador contended, the German crews should immediately disembark and be repatriated to Germany. Ah! but they were no longer Germans, Enver told him; they were Turks: they wore fezzes and worshiped on Fridays. In any case, Enver pointed out, the best native Turkish sailors were still in England, waiting to man the two British-built dreadnoughts; nothing could be done until these men returned. Churchill, who had explained the confiscation of the Turkish battleships by saying, “We could not afford to do without these two fine ships,” now rumbled that Turkey’s behavior in the acquisition of the
Goeben
and
Breslau
was “insolent,” “defiant,” and “openly fraudulent.”

On September 23, Admiral Souchon was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman navy, but Turkey remained at peace. She did not close the Dardanelles to Russian trade or take any other action violating her own neutrality. In the German embassy and in Berlin, consternation grew; it began to seem that the Ottoman empire might never actually enter the war as an ally. From Turkey’s perspective, there seemed to be no need to go to war: no one had attacked her; no one, neither the Russians nor the British, even posed a serious threat. Indeed, the unexpected entry into the war of Great Britain, whose fleet and diplomacy had always been a buttress of Ottoman power, raised serious doubts and hesitations in Constantinople. While trying to sort out the situation and calculate who might win this war, Turkey’s ministers smiled and prevaricated.

This state of affairs continued for ten weeks. Ultimately, Admiral Souchon saw his duty: it was to precipitate war. On October 27, with Enver’s collaboration, he took his fleet—
Goeben, Breslau,
a Turkish cruiser, and four Turkish destroyers—into the Black Sea for “maneuvers.” Once at sea, he steamed to the Russian coast and, on the morning of October 29, with no declaration of war and no warning, bombarded Odessa, Sevastopol, and Novorossisk. Russian civilians were killed, oil tanks were set on fire, and a Russian gunboat, a minelayer, and six merchant ships were sunk. “I have thrown the Turks into the powder keg and kindled war between Russia and Turkey,” Souchon wrote to his wife.

The rest happened quickly. The grand vizier, protesting that he not been consulted, threatened to resign, and a majority of the Cabinet wished to disavow the violent act, but Enver prevailed. He had only to point to
Goeben,
with her German crew—fezzes notwithstanding—and her 11-inch guns, lying off the Golden Horn. On October 30, the British ambassador presented an ultimatum to Turkey, demanding that the German crews be removed within twelve hours. There was no response. The British still hoped to prod the Turks back from the brink by a demonstration of sea power; on November 3,
Indomitable
and
Indefatigable
with two French battleships bombarded the forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles. The British ships fired forty-six 12-inch shells at Fort Sedd el Bahr on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, blew up a magazine, and raised huge clouds of dust. Still the Turks did not respond. On November 4, Russia declared war on the Ottoman empire, and the following day Britain and France followed suit.

Thereafter, the iron gates of geography closed on Russia. With access barred, first to the Baltic, and now to the Black Sea, the tsar’s empire was left dependent for imports and exports on the White Sea port of Archangel, icebound for many months. Ninety percent of Russia’s grain exports had come out through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. The closure of that passageway had an even greater choking effect on imports; now cannons, rifles, shells, and other essentials of war had no route by which to travel from Western arsenals to Russian armies. In time, this would contribute to Russia’s collapse. Turkey’s entry into the war also critically affected Britain’s strategy, leading to the bloody failure of the Gallipoli campaign and the diversion of manpower into the campaigns of the Middle East and Mesopotamia. Ultimately, Turkey paid for her choice with the breakup of the Ottoman empire. After the war, Winston Churchill himself wrote a grim epitaph to this historical episode. When
Goeben
arrived at the Dardanelles, he said, she brought with her “more slaughter, more misery and ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship.”

At the Admiralty, early satisfaction that the Mediterranean had been “cleansed” quickly soured into mortification that
Goeben
had been allowed to escape. Admiral Milne was recalled on August 18, came home, and retired. Sensitive to criticism, he argued that he had successfully carried out his primary orders to defend the French troopships. Battenberg backed Milne on this point; indeed, no one could argue that the transports had been attacked. As for
Goeben,
Milne declared accurately that the Admiralty had given him no hint that Turkey was a possible destination for the German ship. Why should he, a sea officer with his own pressing naval concerns, have been expected to fathom a secret diplomatic arrangement of which the Foreign Office, the Cabinet, and the Admiralty had no knowledge? Milne put the blame for
Goeben
’s escape equally on the Admiralty’s failure to give him guidance and on Troubridge for his failure to intercept. On August 30, a Court of Inquiry announced that after “careful examination” of Milne’s behavior and decisions, “their Lordships approved the measures taken by him in all respects.”

Troubridge’s career at first seemed unaffected. On September 8, once Admiral de Lapeyrère’s French battleships had taken over responsibility for containing the Austrians in the Adriatic, Troubridge’s force, again buttressed by
Indomitable
and
Indefatigable,
was posted at the entrance to the Dardanelles. “Your sole duty,” Churchill told him, “is to sink
Goeben
and
Breslau,
under whatever flag, if they come out of the Dardanelles.” But there was much talk in the navy about the failure to fight
Goeben,
and someone—if not Milne, then someone else—had to be held responsible. Troubridge was chosen. Surprisingly, the most vehement of his critics was the normally mild-mannered First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg. Troubridge was guilty of “amazing misconduct,” Battenberg wrote to Milne. Troubridge, Prince Louis continued elsewhere, had “signally failed in carrying out the task assigned to him. . . . Not one of the excuses which Admiral Troubridge gives can be accepted for one moment. . . . The escape of
Goeben
must forever remain a shameful episode in this war. The flag officer . . . responsible . . . cannot be trusted with any further command afloat and his continuance in such command constitutes a danger to the state.”

Troubridge returned to England to face a Court of Inquiry. The court judged that he had “had a very fair chance of at least delaying
Goeben
by materially damaging her,” and passed the case up to a court-martial convened on board the battleship
Bulwark
at Portland on November 5. The Admiralty did not dare charge Troubridge with cowardice; his reputation for physical courage was too high. Rather, the charge was brought that Troubridge “did, from negligence or through other default, forbear to pursue the chase of His Imperial German Majesty’s ship
Goeben,
being an enemy then flying.” Troubridge based his defense on the instructions from the Admiralty and from Milne not to engage a superior enemy force. Churchill’s July 30 message to Milne, shown to Troubridge at Malta, was exhibited: “Do not be brought to action against superior force.” Troubridge also cited Milne’s signal to him on August 5: “First Cruiser Squadron and
Gloucester
. . . are not to get seriously engaged with superior force.” The Admiralty prosecutor responded that the term “superior force” in both messages clearly referred to the Austrian fleet; Troubridge argued that under certain conditions the term also applied to
Goeben.
For a number of years, he told the court, it had been his “fixed and unalterable opinion that the advent of battle cruisers had killed the armored cruiser.” Milne, he contended, was thoroughly familiar with his opinion; in 1913, the Commander-in-Chief had asked him to lecture on the subject to officers of the Mediterranean Fleet. Indeed, according to Troubridge, their most recent discussion had come during the interview between Milne and himself at Malta on August 2: