Voyage of SMS Emden

this episode of the history guy brought to you by magellan tv and their exciting new release kaiser's pirates the wolf [Applause] at the outbreak of the great war the german empire had already given up on creating a surface fleet that could go toe to toe with the royal navy but germany did have a global empire that required defense so while the german ships in the european theater mostly stayed in port and only engaged in combat occasionally would notably the battle of jetland german ships that were already abroad were sent out as commerce raiders to attack untaunt shipping they were far from home had no support and almost no chance of a friendly port and were literally always running the risk of sinking and so most of them didn't accomplish much but a few managed to become a legitimate threat to untaunt shipping and among those was sms imden a dresden class light cruiser that terrorized and paralyzed on top shipping in the indian ocean for nearly two months in an unlikely thirty thousand nautical mile campaign it is history that deserves to be remembered the story of the emden is just a ripping yarn about a ship that accomplished so much more than anybody should have expected that it would and to that extent it's very similar to sms wolf another german commerce writer the first world war whose story is told in a new exciting documentary called kaiser's pirates the wolf that you can watch streaming a magellan tv i've talked about magellan tv a lot and i know that many of you are already magellan subscribers and great documentaries like kaiser's pirates the wolf are the reason fans of history appreciate their subscription to magellan tv the story of sms wolf is utterly amazing but just as interesting as how the success of the commerce writer demonstrated the failings of the kaiser's navy to the crew contributing to the ultimate german defeat in the great war kaiser's pirates the wolf is the story of a special made german conversator who found unlikely success by commerce raiding in the pacific far from where allies expected the german commerce raider to be it's a story about how brilliant seamanship an unlikely plan and a fair amount of luck allowed a rare german naval success for a crew who called themselves the kaiser's pirates and of course fans of the history all know all good stories involve pirates and the story of sms wolf is a good companion to the just as unlikely story of sms imden both taking place in a forgotten battlefield of the first world war and to show their appreciation for history guy viewers magellan tv is offering kaiser's pirates the wolf for free view for the next seven days that means if you don't currently have a magellan tv membership you can stream kaiser's pirates the wolf from today september 24th until october first for free using the link in the description if you're a fan of the history guy or just a fan of history then you'll probably love the documentary kaiser's pirates the wolf and the amazing thing is that magellan tv which already has more than 3 000 documentaries adds exciting new documentaries like kaiser's pirates the wolf every week it's a compelling reason to continue subscribing to magellan tv and if you haven't already subscribed to magellan tv a new kind of streaming service that's run by documentary filmmakers well then kali you should you can get a free special offer just for fans of the history guy of a one month free trial by signing up using the link in the description and after you do check out the exciting documentary kaiser's pirates the wolf though a late comer to the european colonial game germany had seized a large overseas empire including part of new guinea german samoa and several colonies in africa at the beginning of the war germany had two heavy cruisers six light cruisers and four gunboats overseas protecting german interests they were immediately at risk given britain's advantage at sea and were given orders across the board to act against the antanto countries the imden was laid down in 1906 and launched in 1908. she was armed with 10 10.5 centimeter guns and 5 5.2 centimeter guns as well as two torpedo tubes she was christened by the mayor of her namesake the city of emdin and in 1910 she was assigned to join the german east asia squadron from 1903 the ship was commanded by carl von mueller carried crew of about 400 including one of the kaiser's nephews the emden was stationed with a squadron in kyosho bay least territory a port in china that germany had seized and then leased in 1898 after the murder of several german priests at the outbreak of war the emden was alone at port on july 31st only days before war was declared mueller had emmed and prepared and left port to prepare for commerce rating germany officially declared war on august 2nd and the following day the indian captured a russian steamer the reason the ship was known to the infant crew and had visited the german port when the german official announced that the steamer was a prize of war the captain said i don't know what you're saying i do not speak german the official responded well you've forgotten a lot you knew german well enough of fortnight ago when we were drinking beer together in the club the ship was then sent back to germany's chinese port where was converted to an auxiliary cruiser was the first ship captured by the germans in the first world war it enjoyed the rest of the german east asia squadron commanded by emerald maximilian bunch bay in the mariana islands bunch space plan was to cross the pacific to south america where they would be able to find coal mueller suggested that a single light cruiser be detached to harass allied shipping in the indian ocean vanch bay authorized the mission and mueller was assigned with the imden to detach from the squadron around this time the fleet also learned that japan was aligning itself with the antant and dispatching a fleet to hunt down the whole squadron the indian was not entirely alone as it was accompanied by a coal ship the marco mania mueller ordered his crew to build a fourth dummy smokestack aboard the ship which would disguise it as a british slice cruiser and specifically imitated the three-round funnels and one oval funnel of hms yarmouth by september 5th emden had sailed to the bay of bengal where it achieved complete surprise the british believed that empton was still with the rest of the asian squadron mueller and his crew captured the greek ss pont poros on the 7th which was carrying 6 500 tons of coal for the british he took the ship into his service and even agreed to pay the crew even better the captured ship had a newspaper only a few days old full of reports of merchant ships leaving ports now the emden had targets on the 10th the emptying captured the british ss indus the german strategy was not to fly a flag but coming close to the unsuspecting merchantmen until it was too late for them to flee to announce themselves as german the indus assuming that a british cruiser was approaching sent up her flag and greeting the indus was well supplied chartered by the british government and ready to carry horses and men to europe a proper prize they took what they could on the sea put the british crew under guard aboard the marco mania and sank the ship on the 11th the imden captured the loveit another troop ship the crew was taken and the ship sunk the english captains let slip that more ships were following these they captured the kabinga to use as a junk ship meant to carry captured crews on the 12th they sank two more bringing their total to seven ships captured or sunk they met an italian ship later that day italy was officially neutral but had signed the defensive triple alliance with germany and austria-hungary mdin asked the italian not to give away their position before they broke off two days later they captured their eighth and finally piled all the captured crews aboard the kabinga and sent the ship on its way to release the sailors at the nearest british port all of this was within the code of gentlemanly conduct which had been established in previous wars in which captain mueller was determined to follow not one soul had been heard and capturing eight ships is war was generally considered to be a conflict between governments and their property not the individual sailors or at least that's what mueller believed they set charges aboard the eighth ship to sink but coal aboard ignited sending the whole ship up with a spectacular blaze while the sun set the imden fled the side and spotted another ship this one fled immediately but the ending caught up identifying the ship as the clan matheson english asked the germans british the ship replied the captain was scottish the matheson was full of rolls royces locomotives and thoroughbred racehorses the horses couldn't be taken on the mdin so they were killed before the ship was sunk the germans intercepted a message sent to all steamers the italian ship they had met earlier had given away the imden's position it hardly mattered as the junk ship had alerted the admiralty anyway the british kept the information quiet but warships were said to hunt the imden down ultimately they had to call at sea but found the cold to be of a bad quality that would smoke heavily giving away the emdan's position they caught a norwegian ship next but norway was neutral so they handed over the captured crew of the matherson and sent them on their way as they parted the freed british gave a cheer for the germans who treated them so well the french and the uk were unwilling to report the full extent of emdan's victories hoping to prevent panic so mueller decided to take an action that couldn't be ignored he turned his ship towards the indian city of madras sailing there took four days and intercepted reports showed newsmen desperately speculating about where the germans had gone several reported that she was already sunk at madras mueller hoped to target the burma oil companies supplies as they approached the city on the night of september 22nd they were surprised to find the city had taken no precautions all of its lights were on illuminating the german's targets at 9 45 pm the emden began firing hitting the fuel tanks and firing into the city 125 rounds were fired in total the defenders hardly managed to shoot back most of the guns were unmanned as large party was happening in town party being held to celebrate the reported singing of the emmett allied ships were all over the ocean now searching for the germans sailed to ceylon worried about their smoky coal officers aboard joked that they prayed every night for god to send them a british ship loaded with carter's finest coal at ceylon to date sri lanka they captured two more ships including turmeric which had only stopped at ceylon hoping to learn where the imden was the germans overheard the captain making plans to sabotage the turmeric engines hoping to delay the imden instead the captain was arrested and the tamira casely sunk the germans did find reports of the damage they'd done at madras which reported that the principal result of this incident had been to stop the return of confidence of shipping men for two weeks no ships left the region's harbor out of fear on september 26th the germans captured their twelfth ship which was brought along as another junk ship the next day they finally captured their needed coal from another followed by yet another that reported the british had ordered a complete port embargo in the indian ocean while the emden remained at large five ships had been captured or sunk in the last week and they took a sixth that evening the crews of all those ships were finally sent off on an overpack junk ship which again offered three cheers for the captors as it left for a friendly port at least 16 ships were after the indian now from what they could hear from the wireless after months at sea the ship needed maintenance and so mueller fled to the chagos archipelago where they spent 10 days scraping and painting the rusty hole on october 15th they were back at it capturing another ship the next day they found a dredger which was worth little as a prize but whose crew was desperate to get off what they termed a coffin over the next few days they captured another four ships that captured so many so quickly the towers to sort out which ones to sink while one was kept as a coal ship and another set off with the captured sailors now mueller led his ship towards the malay peninsula to attack proper warships just before 5 am on october 28th the imden rushed into penang harbor they fired two torpedoes at a russian cruiser the second caused an interior explosion that split the ship in two they escaped just as quickly and captured another merchantmen later that day but had to abandon it as the french destroyer appeared in a fierce fight it too was sunk mueller sent boats to pick up the survivors though many of them fled from the german boats the eminent fled the area but found that a destroyer was tracking them staying just out of range they lost it in a storm and then sodaship to transfer the wounded frenchman aboard which they found on october 30th 23 merchant ships had been captured by the little cruiser and two warships sunk she didn't know it but at least 78 enemy warships were then searching for her while culling on the 31st after regrouping with her coal ships the indian's first casualty of the war was a torpedo man whose hip was broken by a dropped 500 pound bag of coal the next sale for direction island site of an important telegraph station force of men went ashore to find the base undefended here the crew learned that they had all been awarded the iron cross by the kaiser the station was thoroughly destroyed but what the germans didn't know is that they had been spotted hours earlier and an sos already sent out the germans believed the nearest enemy ship to be 250 miles away and at 9am mistook the oncoming sydney for their coaling ship the sydney was an australian light cruiser faster and slightly better armed than the ended it closed before the germans could get their steam up the germans fired first and her force salvo took out the fire control room but that was the last good luck imden would have the sydney retreated out of emptyness range and then opened fire with her superior guns ten minutes later shells landed near the bridge the wireless room was destroyed and hits damaged her steam system the guns were taken out one by one and then she lost internal communications when the imden finally closed most of her ammunition carriers were dead and the remaining guns could fire only intermittently mueller ordered his desperately wounded ship to run aground once on the reef the sydney seized her fire and turned away after her coal ship the germans many wounded were stranded on the deck without fresh water and menace by birds the sydney returned and opened fire because the infant's battle flag remained up mueller finally pulled it down and put up a flag of surrender sydney sent one of the captured small boats from the coal ship and left heading back to the telegraph station finally the next day the sydney returned retrieved the survivors 133 crewmen were killed another 65 injured aboard the emden the sydney had lost only four men with 17 wounded in an almost unbelievable adventure the shore party that had been sent ashore to destroy the telegraph station managed to escape in a stolen schooner and eventually by way of yemen make it all the way back to germany while her career during the war was short the ending was one of dory's most successful surface raiders most of the rest of the east asian squadron was destroyed at the falkland islands without having done nearly as much damage as the emden had and perhaps as impressive was the way that captain mueller was described as an honorable man even in the british press for the way that he treated prisoners one of the last of a generation of gentleman officers that would fade in the brutality of the first world war and the totality of the second world war the story of the indian is really one of military valor in the face of long odds all alone the little ship avoided a veritable navy that had been sent after it struck fear into the hearts of merchant captains and virtually paralyzed trade in the indian ocean making mueller perhaps germany's most successful pirate i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 84,448

Rating: 4.9574418 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, the great war, wwi

Id: sYy-sq7-ank

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021