The Last Cruise of the Emden: The Amazing True WWI Story of a German-Light Cruiser and Her Courageous Crew [Paperback]

Edwin P. Hoyt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

The true story of the most extraordinary and little-known escapades of a German light cruiser called into the thick of battle during World War I.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Altogether engrossing, tautly told bit of history."--The New York Times

From the Back Cover

The Last Cruise of the Emden is the true story of one of the most extraordinary and little-known escapades of World War I. On August 2, 1914, the Emden, a German light cruiser, was steaming peacefully off the China coast when over its wireless came the message that the German Empire was at war. The ship was made ready for action. Sailing to the Indian Ocean under orders, the Emden sank some twenty merchant vessels - most of them British - a Russian cruiser, and a French destroyer.
What followed was a six-month voyage that took the Emden and its crew halfway around the world, fighting heroic battles both on land and at sea, culminating in a dramatic journey across the Arabian desert, which saw the crew survive attacks of malaria, typhus, dysentery, and the murderous onslaught of Lawrence of Arabia's bedouin tribesmen.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press; 1st edition (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585743828
• ISBN-13: 978-1585743827
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,042,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amazing story...a serviceable book, December 12, 2004

By 

Steve Frazier (Seattle) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Last Cruise of the Emden: The Amazing True WWI Story of a German-Light Cruiser and Her Courageous Crew (Paperback)

I stumbled across the story of the Emden in another book and really didn't quite believe it, so I tracked down this book to read more. It really is an amazing story -- a lone German cruiser roaming the Indian Ocean in the early days of World War I, harrassing shipping and confiscating the cargoes of merchant ships it encounters. Many ships are sent out to find and destroy the Emden, and finally one does. But the story doesn't end there -- part of the crew escapes in a sailing ship, determined to make it back to Germany. They survive numerous threats to make it to the Arabian peninsula, where they travel by camel caravan and survive an attack by Beduouin tribesman before reaching safe haven in Istanbul.

One thing the book makes clear is that the captain and his officers did not expect to survive their adventures. Their goal was to create as much havoc as they could...as they continued their cruise without stopping for routine maintenance, their boat grew battered and slower as its systems were pushed to their limit, week after week. (They employed numerous ruises to escape their pursuers, including a false canvas funnel that they used on occasion to try to make their three-funnel German ship look like a four-funnel British steamer of the time.) The book also explains that the captain had to constantly be on the lookout for shiploads of coal it could confiscate, as the Emden would burn through hundreds of tons of coal per week. But through it all, the captain pretty much expected that the ship was doomed, and his goal was merely to keep running as long as he could.

If the book is to be believed -- and it is part of the legend of this ship and her crew -- the ship became famous for its chivalrous treatment of captured prisoners. The book also takes some time explaining the various "rules" of war that the captain paid attention to: when it could confiscate an enemy ship vs. when it could only take the cargo.

The book does a serviceable job of telling the story in a very straightforward way. There is a just enough detail to explain what's happening without the mind-numbing jargo that sometimes spoils books on naval history (at least for me). However, it seems to me the story could have been told with a fair amount more drama -- it seems as if the book has been drawn mainly from other books of the early 20's and 30's about this shop...surely in the years between then and the 60's, when this book was written, more personal diaries and journals about the Emden might have surfaced that could have added more color. Likewise, the book could have used more follow-up on the main characters -- we trace their movements back to Germany but never really hear what became of them.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The German cruiser Emden against the British., March 9, 2004

By 

Kevin M Quigg (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Cruise of the Emden: The Amazing True WWI Story of a German-Light Cruiser and Her Courageous Crew (Paperback)

This is a great adventure story by Edwin Hoyt. I am glad this book is back in print. This is the true story of the German light cruiser Emden and its adventures during the first part of World War I. The Emden was based in the German colony of Tsingtao and was commanded by Von Muller. This ship broke away from the main German Asiatic fleet and raided Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean. It shelled the oil refinery in Madras, India and sailed into a Malayan harbor and sunk an Allied cruiser. It caused so much havoc that the Allied authorities tied down valuable warships hunting for the Emden. It was eventually caught and destroyed by the Australian heavy cruiser Sydney.
The story does not stop there because fifty of the crew escape capture and take a sailing vessel and go to Arabia, and then eventually make their way home to Germany. This was truly a great story.
This is one of Hoyt's early works. I always enjoy his books and recommend them to anybody who wants to both learn and enjoy a good read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most unbelievable journey on land and sea, April 17, 2009

By 

Roman Nies (Helibrunna) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Cruise of the Emden: The Amazing True WWI Story of a German-Light Cruiser and Her Courageous Crew (Paperback)

The author is a prolific writer of books on military and nautical history. Why did he had to write this book? The story about the escape of the courageous crew of a German World War I cruiser is the most adventurous stories I ever heard of. It is unbelievable and amazing from the beginning till the end, nevertheless it is no fiction, it is fact.
The title is almost irritating. But it is true that most part of the book is dealing with the time before the escape. The small cruiser "Emden" was in the beginning of WW I the only German warship that cruised in the Southeast Asian seas (after the German East Asian fleet departed to Southamerica). There in the Indian Ocean the ship sank some twenty merchant vessels, most of them British, plus a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. It also brought some desolation to the port of Madras, effecting even standstill of the trade routes. The British navy took great efforts to put an end to the terrifying affair. But the Emden fooled the chasers time and again.
When it anchored in front of the Cocos Island and sent a landing troop to occupy a wireless radio station it was attacked by superior forces. The ensuing battle on the sea ended the story of the Emden but not of the crew, because the captain of the landing troops captured a much too small sailing boat and sailed off with 50 men to Indonesia, hoping to get a German ship home. But they were refused in the Dutch colony and they set sails again with the leaking ship. Captain von Mücke and his men, who were all younger than thirty, decided to make it to Saudi Arabia, that time under the reign of the Turks who were thought to have joined the war on the side of the Germans.
At that time the Indian Ocean which they had to cross was a British lake, surrounded by British possessions or lands where Britain held protectorate or enough influence to have its way. What followed was a six-month voyage with battles both on land and at sea, culminating in a dramatic journey across the Arabian desert, which saw the crew survive attacks of malaria, dysentery, typhus and the murderous onslaught of Lawrence of Arabia`s Bedouin tribesmen until the survivors reached the railroad which brought them to Constantinopel under the hail of even the British press.
An involuntary adventure that seems to be unique in many respects. The author is giving also a description of the pre War conditions in the Asian East especially as the German colony in China, Tsingtau, which harboured the German East Asia fleet in peace times.
Although the book was written in the sixties the author tries to be fair with the Germans. He is hailing the conditions in the German colony, the "Pearl of East Asia": "There was a happy mingling of the races in the business and even in the social world, much more so than in the other European colonies and spheres of influence in the Far East. The people, the Chinese people were happy and the colony was prosperous." And what is even more amazing, shortly before the start of the big war in Europe: "There was a camaraderie among the Europeans in Asia that almost, if not quite, transcended nationality." A German, a Russian, and an Englishman might be found any sunny day lying together on the sand, taking the sun and discussing the problems of East Asia, not those of their homelands. Especially the Germans and the British got on amazingly well, considering the atmosphere that existed during those days in June 1914 between their stupid governments. There were only sporting rivalry: the English won in football and the Germans in the Tug-of-war
In the second chapter the author describes the ship, in the third the crew. He could not restrain from some kind of admiration. I found the statement interesting that "Perhaps it is the old law that the courageous attract the courageous, the noble attract the noble, the pure attract the pure". Throughout the odyssey of the Emden its officers and men were distinguished additionally for their loyalty and responsibility above all. I doubt whether we find these qualities so much in our youths in the West today! Most of the men of the Emden were under twenty-one!
In chapter 4 the Emden goes to war, zigzagging through the ocean, always trying to outwit the hunters, while sinking the enemie`s merchant ships, after stopping them, boarding the crews on the support ship and even releasing them in the next possible opportunity. They even made captured ships to life boats. Some kind of "noble" war in the beginning of the war.
The captain of the Emden, von Müller, was "compared several times to a knight of the days of chivalry for his gentle treatment of the crews from the vessels he captured". And in the British press! Another problem was the "coaling". The range of the ship was limited, therefore it had to find merchant ships which carried coal and tranship it.
The Emden had travelled thirty thousand miles in the heart of the enemies territory, leading the enemy navies a merry chase, being the object of frantic search by no fewer than 78 of the ships of the combined allied navies.
The captains plan was to keep on going, dodging and shifting, sinking and fighting, until the end. There was no alternative. The end came for the ship and death to a hundred sailors in the process of the desperate battle with the Australian cruiser Sydney. That also faster ship stayed so far away that the minor guns of the Emden could not reach her whereas the Sydney`s heavier artillery could hit the Emden at will. The Emden attacked nonetheless until no more artillery was left. The captain von Müller and a hundred sailors survived and were taken as prisoners of war.
But meanwhile the landing party with captain von Mücke took their leave. To get home they had to cross thousands of miles of unfriendly sea, where they could not expect to find a single friend and every ship`s smoke would indicate another enemy. They did not even possess charts.
They got into the worst storm they ever had experienced. They reached after 800 Miles sailing Padang in Indonesia where they were refused. They turned south and found a German merchant ship outside the normal shipping routes. The "Choising", they planned, should bring them to the Arabian peninsula, where they would disembark to make their way overland to Turkey and fight again for the Kaiser.
They chose to masquerade the ship as an Italian ship, with the thought that the British would not harry an Italian. They luckily made it unmolested to Hodeida, a port in Arabia, controlled by a French warship. From there on tortuous mountain trails further inland to Sana, now Yemen, and return, because they learnt that the sea was more their element. The area was not under control of the Turks and neither pacified at all.
They also had the first cases of dysentery and malaria, 80 percent of the men were down with fever. The climate was miserable. On smaller vessels they made it unpleasantly slowly through the Red Sea, trying to avoid the patrolling ships of the enemy navies.
When von Mücke`s little ship entered El Lith harbour, four months and seventeen days had passed since the morning on which the landing party of the Emden started their journey on the Cocos island. They had now to equip camels and set forth across the wide desert. They were attacked by bandits. From cover on every side the Arabs were firing down on the caravan.
The Arab guides fled and left the Germans alone. They were under siege because the enemy had gathered many hundreds of combatants armed with guns whereas the munition of the Germans went short. They took shelter behind the corpses of the shot camels. The men slept with the gun in the hands at night.
Finally the Arabs who suffered heavy casualties left the place and the men reached Jidda. Again they took to sea and again they had to take the camles from El Wegh to begin the trek to the railroad, through the desert and across the mountains. They could not trust anymore any Arab. In El Ala they got their train finally. The trip to Contantinople took them another 7 days. When they got off the train, von Mücke, his sword in his hand, ordered a salute, stepped to his admiral and spoke: "I report the landing squad from the Emden, five officers, seven petty officers and thirty men strong."