Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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."

This was one of my earliest sea stories in my library when I was a youngster ~ back in the days of 'small paperbacks' with imaginatively painted (sometimes luridly so) cover art ~ and it is no less a classic today in its Lyons Press edition.

The shout-line on the cover, from "The New York Times" is equally one of the best of its kind ~ "An altogether engrossing, tautly told bit of history written in a crisp style".

World War One is not a conflict known for its Asia-Pacific connotations, but any student of maritime or global history who draws a longitudinal line of interest at the Balkans is doing themselves a great disservice.

In the 19th century, when the colonial conquest of China begun during the age of the tea clippers and the opium wars had entered its halcyon years, Germany had brought a slice of home to the Tsingtao (now transliterated as Qingdao) peninsula, southeast of Peking/Beijing. There, amongst its Euro-Asian architecture and German breweries, the Kaiser was able to establish his most significant colonial outpost and, concomitantly, a 'fleet' to protect it and show the imperial flag.

Coal was king then, and your speed and range was dictated by the size of your bunkers, the muscles of your crew and stokers, and your ability to re-coal and continue steaming. An era of balls, salutes, dignitaries, functions and 'gunboat diplomacy' which came to an unravelling end in August 1914.

Hoyt paints this scene and the context of the time, as he introduces the small light cruiser "Emden" and her near- and larger-sisters in the Kaiser's "East Asia Squadron" and fleshes out the portraits of her captain, principal officers and crew.

A well-balanced account where the reader senses the enormity of distance and space, in the pre-electronic era, Hoyt's tale of the "Emden's" cruising and raiding exploits throughout the Far East and Indian Ocean harks back to an almost 'Arthurian' time of gallantry, good manners, standards and chivalry at sea.

Yes, Virginia, it once WAS possible for several hundred men and a three-funnelled lightly armoured small cruiser to vanish for months in the vast reaches of the Indian Ocean, appearing sporadically to cause damage, fear and interruption to her enemies ~ but almost never any deliberate loss of life or injury.

If you are unfamiliar with human conduct in 'modern warfare' a century ago, you will shake your head in gentle wonder as you read the chapters in this book. It's a stirring adventure set in a time before 'the lamps went out all over Europe' when officers were gentlemen and even war had rules which were honoured.

More recent events (1941-2008) have highlighted the irony of HMAS Sydney surprising SMS Emden in the Cocos Islands ~ thus leading to her destruction and surrender ~ followed by the pyrrhic victory obtained by the latter's later German cousin HSK Kormoran over another HMAS Sydney in the same ocean less than 40 years later.

This is a ripping good yarn, and I close with a caveat. Two years after this book was published, Hoyt then published his expansive study of the exploits of the rest of the "East Asia Squadron" ~ if you can locate a copy of his "Kreuzerkrieg" ('Cruiser Warfare'), then do so.

Together, these two books will tell you an inspired, magnificently researched and brought-to-life account of maritime exploits across two oceans, and the dispersal and fates of the many ships and men that brought consternation to the British Empire.

Thus starts many a 'sea story' or 'war story' but not this one. However, reading this, you will feel that you were there. In short, it's an incredible story for fiction, but this book is real history making the 'plot' all the more remarkable. Big things come from small packages ... get the book. Read it. Read it again in a year. It will still be captivating.

Emden undoubtedly most successful German commerce raider during Great War at sea. The ship named after a small town in northern Germany straddling along the banks of river Weser which flowed into the North Sea.The ship formed the part of German East Asia squadron based at Tsingtao on the Kiachow bay located near the tip of China's Shantung peninsula washed by Yellow sea.3500-ton fast,light cruiser Emden was commanded by daring,skillful and chivalrous Captain Karl Von Muller; forty-one- year old ,tall, blond Prussian.

With the outbreak of World War 1,Emden peeled away from its parent squadron and steamed into Bay of Bengal through Sunda straits. The area teemed with allied shipping .For three months from August 14 to November 9 Emden ravaged allied shipping along the east coast of India and Indian Ocean.On the night of September 22,1914 ,veiled by darkness the ship stealthily approached to 3000 yards off Indian port city Madras.Suddenly switching on its search lights Emden raked the area with gunfire pumping 125 shells within half an hour. Oil storage tanks of Burmah Company went up in flames destroying half a million gallons of kerosene.

Emden virtually paralysed British trade along the Bengal coast .This single ship forced Admiralty to retain ships at ports and made troop-carrying vessels sail in convoys protected by escorts.Emden's marauding threatened to throw into disarray Britain's plans to fight Kaiser's Germany.Within a span of four days [September 10-14] Muller sank 8 steamers on the approaches to Kolkata. So Emden had to be stopped at all costs.In London Admiralty despaired.It pooled the resources of empire to form hunter-killer groups to comb ocean wastes to hunt down this elusive foe.

Fame of Muller's ship rests on its ability to evade Royal Navy for so long. The ship is used to pop up at unexpected places which bestowed upon it the status of a ghost ship.This was so because German captain masked ship' movements by resorting to a simple trick.This was done by installing an dummy funnel which gave it an appearance of 4-funnel British cruiser.

End came on November 9 when Emden while approaching Cocos island on the India Ocean was sighted and alarm sounded.A large Austalian troop convoy bound for Red Sea and Egypt picked up the signal.Soon Australian light cruiser [3knots faster carrying long-range guns] was dispatched. And in an unequal battle that ensued the German raider was sunk.Muller and his fellow officer surrendered and sat out rest of the war in prison in Malta.

However on the whole effect of Em den's raider warfare was minimal when we relate it to the maritime resources of British empire. But British public became restless ,indignant and wanted to know why despite Royal navy's supremacy Emden could evade destruction for so long. Answer is provided by American naval historian Arthur Marder. Sea is vast and huge ,dotted with myriad islands which gave ample scope to play a game of hide and seek.

This form of warfare ,fair enough to say,is now consigned to pages of History.Rapid strides in technology has affected the nature of war at sea.We have today satellites which can keep seas under surveillance and potential raider holds no chance of vanishing into its vastness.Air power can neutralise raiders within no time. .But before the advent of submarine raiders gave small naval powers the only means for disputing control over seaways.