Castles of Steel (9 page)

Ernest C. T. Troubridge was a genial, rugged, fifty-two-year-old seaman whose thick mane of white hair had earned him the sailors’ nickname the Silver King. His navy pedigree, like Milne’s, was impeccable: his great-grandfather, a comrade of Nelson’s, had been at the Battle of the Nile. Troubridge himself had become a close friend of Prince George, later King George V, when the two were young lieutenants and when Troubridge was known as “the handsomest officer in the navy.” As an observer with the Japanese fleet during the Russo-Japanese War, he had seen from Admiral Togo’s bridge the devastating effectiveness of long-range, heavy-caliber naval guns. Fisher liked Troubridge and, writing to the younger officer, said that he had “met Mrs. Troubridge in the Abbey and lost my heart.” In 1911, he became Winston Churchill’s private naval secretary; in 1912, the First Lord appointed him chief of staff of the newly created Naval War Staff. When Troubridge came to the Mediterranean to take over the armored cruisers and serve as deputy to Admiral Milne, his relationship with the Commander-in-Chief was correct but not warm. By August 1914, Troubridge already had been designated to command the British Mediterranean Fleet once Admiral de Lapeyrère had assumed the supreme Allied naval command and Milne, his tour of duty concluded, had returned to England.

Despite his reputation, Troubridge worried as his ships steamed south. Before he left Malta, Milne had shown him Churchill’s July 30 message declaring “you must husband your force at the outset” to avoid “being brought to action against superior forces.” These instructions, Troubridge knew, had been addressed to Milne and referred to any possible engagement between the three British battle cruisers and the twelve slower but more heavily armored Austrian battleships. But the fact that Milne had shown Churchill’s message to Troubridge gave it application to him, too. After this meeting and before sailing on August 2, Troubridge had called his captains together and warned them that “they must not be surprised if they saw me with the squadron run away.” In addition, Milne had specifically warned him not to seriously engage a superior force. Here, again, Milne was referring to the Austrian fleet—but, again, Troubridge applied the admonition more generally. He had no doubt that in daylight
Goeben,
with her speed and the size and range of her guns, was a force superior to his own and that therefore his instructions not to engage applied. He also had to consider that his destroyers were seriously short of coal and had been falling behind the squadron; by daylight, only three of the original eight would still be in company. Nevertheless, he still believed that he might succeed if he could meet and attack
Goeben
at dawn, when poor light might partially nullify the advantage of the greater range of the German vessel’s guns.

These thoughts were turning in Troubridge’s mind when, at 2:45 a.m., he found himself confronted in the flagship chart room by
Defence
’s captain, Fawcett Wray.

“Are you going to fight, sir?” asked Wray, who, as Flag Captain, was also Troubridge’s second in command. “Because, if so, the squadron ought to know.”

“Yes,” Troubridge replied. “I know it is wrong, but I cannot have the name of the whole Mediterranean Squadron stink.” Troubridge then signaled his ships: “I am endeavoring to cross the bows of
Goeben
by 6 a.m. and intend to engage her if possible. . . . If we have not cut him off . . . [I intend] to avoid a long-range action.”

Wray, a gunnery expert, went away disturbed by this answer. Forty-five minutes later, he came back determined to express his opinion. He found Troubridge lying on his bunk in his cabin. The lights were out but the admiral was awake. “I don’t like it, Sir,” said Wray. “Neither do I, but why?” asked Troubridge.

Wray knew that Troubridge had orders not to engage “a superior force,” and he shared Troubridge’s opinion that, at a range greater than 16,000 yards,
Goeben
was such a force. Wray explained to the admiral how
Goeben,
using her superior speed, could circle the squadron “at some range outside sixteen thousand yards which her guns would carry and your guns will not. It seems likely to be the suicide of your squadron.”

Troubridge asked whether Wray was certain that the cruisers could not get in close before
Goeben
opened fire. Wray said that he was convinced of this, but that he would ask for confirmation from his ship’s navigator. Before Wray left to find this officer, Troubridge said, “I cannot turn away now. Think of my pride.” Wray replied, “Has your pride got anything to do with this, Sir? It is your country’s welfare which is at stake.”

When
Defence
’s navigator appeared, Troubridge asked whether, on its present course and speed, the squadron would have any chance of bringing
Goeben
within range of the British 9.2-inch guns before daylight. The navigator replied that there was no chance. A few minutes after 4:00 a.m., Troubridge called off the interception. When Wray went back to see him, he said, “Admiral, that’s the bravest thing you have done in your life.” Later, Wray added, “I think he was in tears.”

At 4:05 a.m., Troubridge signaled Milne: “Being only able to meet
Goeben
outside the range of our guns and inside his, I have abandoned the chase with my squadron.
Goeben
evidently going to Eastern Mediterranean. I had hoped to meet her before daylight.” He asked for instructions, giving Milne a chance to overrule him and order battle at all costs. For six hours, according to Troubridge, he received no reply. Then Milne signaled, “Why did you not continue to cut off
Goeben
? She’s only going seventeen knots.” (Milne knew this from
Gloucester
’s reports.) By then, however, Troubridge had turned back; at 10:00 a.m., he entered the port of Zante to coal his destroyers before returning to watch the Adriatic.

Later that morning in a long message to Milne, Troubridge attempted to explain his decision: “With visibility at the time, I could have been sighted from 20 to 25 miles away and could never have got nearer unless
Goeben
wished to bring me to action which she could have done under circumstances most advantageous to her. . . . I had hoped to have engaged her at 3.30 in the morning in dim light. . . . In view of the immense importance of victory or defeat at such an early stage of a war, I would consider it a great imprudence to place a squadron in such a position to be picked off at leisure and sunk while unable to effectively reply.”

Meanwhile, unaware that a battle with four British armored cruisers had been in the offing and had been called off, Souchon continued eastward. When the red ball of the sun rose out of the sea—about the time the British cruisers might have opened fire—the blue Ionian Sea was empty. Then, far astern, a column of smoke appeared. It was
Gloucester.
Souchon, of course, was unaware that the three British battle cruisers, the only antagonists whose speed and power truly menaced his force, were far away to the west; for all he knew they were just behind
Gloucester,
straining to overtake. Once again, every spare man in
Goeben
’s crew went below to the coal bunkers and boiler rooms. Inside these steel compartments, where the temperature was 125 degrees Fahrenheit, half-naked men, sweat streaming down their bodies, flung coal into the furnaces. Black coal dust penetrated their noses, clogged their throats, inflamed their eyes. Every two hours, the men were rotated up to the relative paradise of the open deck, where they lay insensible until summoned to return below. As the day progressed, it grew worse. The ship’s boiler tubes began to burst and spouts of steam and boiling water spurted onto bare bodies. Four men were scalded to death.

On his bridge, Souchon paced. He was afraid to turn and engage
Gloucester,
as, for all he knew, British battle cruisers might be just over the horizon. At the same time, he could not meet his collier and coal with
Gloucester
in view. Desperate to rid himself of this shadow, he signaled
Breslau
to scare her away by pretending to lay mines in her path.

On his own bridge, Captain Howard Kelly of the
Gloucester
was equally anxious to delay
Goeben
until—as he assumed was imminent—Milne arrived. All day, Kelly had been ignoring Milne’s command to “gradually . . . drop astern to avoid capture.” When
Breslau
turned back, Kelly decided to attack her and thereby force the battle cruiser also to turn and deal with him. At 1:35 p.m.,
Gloucester
’s forward 6-inch gun opened fire at a range of 11,500 yards. Splashes rose in the sea astern of
Breslau.
The German light cruiser immediately replied, first with ranging shots, then with rapid, accurate salvos, one grouping landing only thirty yards from the British ship. Kelly responded by increasing speed, closing the range to 10,000 yards, and turning sufficiently to fire his full broadside.

This scuffle finally provoked Souchon. From
Gloucester
’s bridge,
Goeben,
a distant smudge in the haze over the bow, was seen to turn. Bright glows marked the flash of her guns; seconds later, tall white columns of water, produced by 11-inch shells, appeared in the sea. Kelly, having achieved his purpose of forcing the battle cruiser to arrest her progress, broke off and fell back. Souchon, who could not afford to spend precious coal chasing a light cruiser, resumed his course.
Gloucester
resumed shadowing. At 2:45 p.m., Kelly signaled Milne: “Have engaged at long range with
Breslau
and retreated when
Goeben
turned. I am now following again.”
Gloucester,
firing eighteen rounds of 6-inch and fourteen rounds of 4-inch, had hit
Breslau
at the waterline, but this inflicted no casualties and failed to affect her speed. For another three hours, Kelly trailed his enemies. Then, at 4:40 in the afternoon, when the mountains of Cape Matapan, the central southern promontory of the Peloponnesian Peninsula, appeared on his port bow, with his coal nearly exhausted and with stern orders from Milne forbidding him to go beyond Matapan, Kelly broke off. He had done his best, had hung on tenaciously and only relinquished the chase under explicit orders. Free at last,
Goeben
and
Breslau
rounded the cape and entered the Aegean Sea.

Through the long day during which
Gloucester
with her two 6-inch guns and ten 4-inch guns had pursued
Goeben
and attacked her consort, Admiral Milne had kept his three battle cruisers with their combined total of twenty-four 12-inch and forty-eight 4-inch guns at Malta. When the Commander-in-Chief finally cleared Valletta harbor at 1:00 a.m. on August 8, he set an easterly course for Cape Matapan, where the German force had last been seen by
Gloucester
eight hours before. Milne’s speed was a leisurely 12 knots; still convinced that Souchon’s course was an elaborate feint and that eventually
Goeben
would turn back for the western Mediterranean, the British admiral was saving his coal for battle. At 2:30 the next afternoon, an urgent signal from the Admiralty upset this stately progress: “Commence hostilities at once against Austria.” Milne’s original war orders dictated that in the event of war with Austria, he should concentrate near Malta and keep watch on the Adriatic. Obediently, he turned north to merge his three battle cruisers with Troubridge’s four armored cruisers and to prepare to engage the Austrian fleet.
Goeben
was forgotten.

In fact, war between Britain and Austria did not come for another four days. The erroneous war telegram was a product of the misplaced initiative of an Admiralty clerk who, discovering a draft of the contingency coded war message lying in a tray on a colleague’s desk and wishing to be helpful, sent it off. Four hours later, the mistake was corrected and Milne was told by an embarrassed Admiralty, “Negative my telegram hostilities against Austria.” Nevertheless, for nearly twenty-four hours, Milne kept his fleet concentrated; then, leaving Troubridge to guard the Adriatic, he again turned to the east. Still in no hurry, still waiting for
Goeben
to turn, he reduced his speed to 10 knots.
Goeben
had gone into the Aegean? Splendid! Now to devise a plan to keep her bottled up. If all went as Milne planned, the German battle cruiser would never come near the French transports.

Souchon, at last free of surveillance, still needed coal. He signaled his collier, coming from Piraeus, to meet him at Denusa, a remote, sparsely inhabited island on the far side of the Aegean. Through the daylight hours of August 8,
Goeben
cruised furtively among the Greek islands and, at dawn on the morning of August 9, slid quietly into the bay of Denusa, which was deserted except for a few fishermen. While the sun rose higher and heat radiated from the sheer rock walls of the surrounding cliffs,
Goeben
and
Breslau
coaled simultaneously, one warship made fast to each side of the collier. Both ships were cleared for action and prepared to get under way in thirty minutes. Coaling continued through the night by candlelight; the searchlights normally used to illuminate the decks remained switched off lest beams or glow be seen far out to sea. Day and night, lookouts posted on the summit of a cliff swept their binoculars across the horizon. The first signs of danger, however, were reported from
Goeben
’s wireless room: beginning at nine on the evening of the ninth, the ship’s radio operators began picking up signals from British warships. The signals grew louder. At 3:00 a.m. on August 10, Milne and three battle cruisers entered the Aegean.

While his men shoveled coal, Souchon thought about what he should do. It was essential to communicate with Constantinople; despite his earlier bravado, he had come to believe that an attempt to enter the Dardanelles without Turkish permission risked naval and diplomatic disaster. To avoid revealing his whereabouts by using
Goeben
’s radio, he sent the liner
General,
now in the Aegean operating under his orders, to the island of Smyrna to forward a message to the German embassy in Constantinople: “Indispensable military necessity requires attack on enemy in the Black Sea. Go to any lengths to arrange for me to pass through the Straits at once with permission of Turkish government if possible; without formal approval if necessary.” The hours passed and Souchon waited for an answer. The sun set and the moon rose, but there was no reply. At 3:00 a.m. on August 10, learning that the British had entered the Aegean, he decided that, with an answer or without one, he must leave at dawn for the Dardanelles; there he would enter or fight whoever he had to: British or Turkish. Finally, he received an ambiguous message forwarded from Constantinople by
General:
“Enter. Demand surrender of forts.” Souchon did not know whether he was being told to force his way into the passage or was being requested to save face for the Turks by staging a charade of battle. Not knowing, he still had to sail.