contemptuous of the Briton than in the matter of the way the latter has
of treating war as he does his sport, of fighting his battles in the
same spirit with which he plays his games. Yet it has been this very
desire of the latter to play the game at all stages that is responsible
for the fact that the German, for a time at least, was given credit in
the popular mind of even the neutral and Allied countries for a great
deal that never should have been credited to him. This is especially
true of two or three of the earlier naval actions of the war. The fact
that a German captain fought his ship gallantly seemed to his British
opponent of that period sufficient reason for forgetting, or at least
forgiving, him for not fighting fairly, and so it was that the bravery
of Von Spee at the Falkland, and the skill and pluck of Von Müller
in the _Emden_ at Cocos Island, had the effect of mitigating in the
minds of the officers of the British ships, which emerged as victors
from those battles, the impression of a number of things, ranging all
the way from "not playing the game" to downright treachery. And so it
chances that in the eyes of even the civilised world the Germans have
been given a clean sheet for these earlier encounters, and one hears
them spoken of to-day in London as though they stood apart in this
respect from every battle the German has fought on sea--or on land for
that matter--since then. It is regrettable to record that this popular
belief has no more to base itself on than the sportsmanlike reticence
of the British officer in refusing to broadcast the real facts. One had
a sort of pleasure, as the record of the Hun grew blacker and blacker
the more chance he had to give expression to his real self, in hugging
that delusion that the sailors of the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ and
_Emden_ were at worst only a dull grey in comparison with their infamous
mates of the High Sea Fleet who were drawn upon to man the U-boats.
But that they were all of a kind one has only to talk with any of the
British officers and men who came in contact with them in and after
battle to learn beyond dispute. I will cite a single instance from the
Falklands before going on to the _Emden_, on which latter even more
false sentiment has been wasted on the score of the supposed "sporting"
behaviour of her officers than on any other of the German ships which
were in the limelight of publicity during the opening months of the war.
After the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ had been sunk off the
Falklands by the _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, the latter ships made
every possible effort to pick up all the Germans who had survived the
fighting and were floating in the water. A considerable number of these
were brought aboard Admiral Sturdee's Flagship, the _Invincible_.
Among the few German shells which had struck the latter battle cruiser
was an "eight-point-one" which had failed to explode. Knowing that
Von Spee had been near the end of his munition, but wishing to gain
indisputable evidence on that point by establishing beyond a doubt
whether the shell in question contained an explosive charge or was
only a practice projectile fired for want of anything better, Admiral
Sturdee decided to have it taken to pieces. Thinking it might be useful
to get the testimony of the prisoners on the matter first, the Admiral,
after having the shell in question brought to his cabin, ordered that
the captured Germans be sent in for interrogation. Without exception
they all declared that the projectile before them was made only for
practice, and that, as it carried no explosive charge, there would be
no risks whatever in knocking it apart to prove that fact. Questioned
specifically as to whether any special precautions need be taken in
handling it, they replied with equal unanimity in the negative.
As the prisoners began to file out, however, one of them caught the
Admiral's eye and shook his head slightly, as though to convey--without
his mates observing it--a warning that the shell was dangerous. On
calling this man back, the Admiral was informed that the projectile
really contained a full charge of high explosive, and that tinkering
with it before certain precautions were observed would inevitably result
in detonating it. A keen student of human nature, Admiral Sturdee
recognised at once the unparalleled opportunity to test German honour
and study a phase of the then imperfectly understood German psychology.
The prisoners were ordered to be brought in separately, and in such a
manner that those who passed out after interrogation should have no
chance to communicate with their mates who were waiting their turn. To
each man as he appeared it was pointed out that he owed his life to the
fact that the British had not followed (as they well might have) the
precedent set by the Germans at Coronel of making no effort to pick up
the survivors from the ships they had sunk. It was also pointed out
to him that his failure to tell the truth would probably be attended
with serious loss of life among those to whom he owed his own. Then the
question respecting the nature of the shell was again put. Without a
single exception (the man who had confessed was not, of course, examined
again) they reiterated most emphatically their former statements that
the shell contained no explosive and might therefore be disassembled
with impunity.
After providing adequate safeguards, the shell was taken to pieces,
and at once proved to be everything that all but one of the several
score of rescued Huns had declared it was not, which meant, of course,
that if it had been handled in the way these had insisted would be
perfectly safe, all near it would have been killed. Since there is no
punishment provided for this brand of treachery, no action was taken
against the prisoners, and the incident was remembered principally for
the illuminative sidelight it threw on the unexpected moral obliquity of
the German sailor. It was something quite new in the annals of civilised
naval warfare, and Sturdee's officers were scarcely less grieved than
shocked that men who had fought so bravely could behave so despicably.
Yet that (to the Germans) incomprehensible sporting code of the British,
by which it reckoned as not "playing the game" to speak ill of a brave
foe after he is beaten, has prevented the story from finding its way
to the public, and it is only now, when four years more of war have
established the fact that the action of the Huns on this occasion was
characteristic rather than (as so many of Sturdee's officers tried so
hard to persuade themselves at the time) exceptional, that I am given
permission (by one who observed at first hand all that took place) to
publish it.
Perhaps (doubtless on account of the greater spectacularity of the
lone-hand game she played) the _Emden_ and her able and resourceful
Captain came in for more of this misplaced credit than any other of the
German cruisers of similar career. In one instance this even went so far
as to prompt the people of the sporting Australian city from which the
ship which brought the _Emden's_ career to a finish took her name to
request that the doughty Von Müller and his surviving officers should
be sent to Sydney that they might be tendered a public reception. This
kindly but misdirected instance of sportsmanship on the part of a people
who--at this stage of the war at least--saw nothing incongruous in
treating an enemy who had put up a good fight in precisely similar a way
to which they had been accustomed to treat a visiting cricket eleven,
was occasioned largely by the fact that the officers of the _Sydney_,
in their eagerness to do full justice to a beaten foe, laid stress in
their accounts of the fight on his bravery and said little or nothing
of anything else. Yet, when one comes to learn the real facts of this
historic battle (as I have done recently, by talking at length with a
number of the British officers and men who took part in it), he finds
evidences of "Hunnisms" splashing with muddy spots a record which might
have been golden bright on the score of physical courage and devotion to
duty.
It is no pleasure to write what I have to set down here, for I am quite
frank to confess that the story of the _Emden_, according to the first
accounts that were published of it, in connexion with the classic
exploit of Lieutenant Mucke in escaping from Cocos Island in a small
sloop and ultimately reaching Constantinople by way of Arabia, stirred
my imagination as few episodes of the war have done. The time is long
past, however, when the German has a right to expect anything further
in the way of chivalrous reticence in the recording of his deeds and
misdeeds. What I am setting down here was told me by an officer of the
_Sydney_ who boarded the beached _Emden_, and was also entrusted with
the task of rounding up and bringing off the men from the latter that
had jumped overboard and made their way to the beach of North Keeling
Island.
As regards the battle itself, no one in the _Sydney_ has anything
but admiration for the pluck and skill with which the _Emden_ fought
a losing battle against a faster and more heavily gunned ship. But
perhaps the one thing which they do hold most heavily against Von Müller
personally is for the characteristically Prussian way he tried to bluff
them, after he had run his ship aground, into allowing him to leave his
flag flying when the _Emden_ had been put completely out of action and
was out of the running for good and all. I have already written of this
historic incident in considerable detail as it appeared to a signalman
of the _Sydney_ who had unusually favourable opportunity for observing
just what transpired, so that it will suffice here merely to summarise
it and record that this man's version is fully borne out by what was
subsequently told me by officers.
When the _Sydney_ returned to the grounded _Emden_ after pursuing and
sinking the latter's collier, it was seen that the German Naval ensign
was still flying at her maintopmast. Nothing in the nature of a white
flag was displayed anywhere upon her. After making three times the
signal, "Do you surrender?" and each time receiving only an evasive
reply, or none at all, the Captain of the _Sydney_ had reluctantly to
give the order to reopen fire. The three broadsides which were required
to convince Von Müller that his bluff would not go down are estimated
to have killed sixty men in the _Emden_ and to have caused a number of
others to jump over into the surf. These lives were nothing more or
less than a sacrifice on the altar of Von Müller's Prussian pride, and
under the circumstances he was just as blood-guilty for causing them to
be snuffed out in a typically Hunnish attempt to "put one over" on the
ship that had beaten him and make the report of his defeat read better
in Potsdam as if he had ordered them to be mown down by the guns of the
_Emden_.
Lieutenant X----'s account of the work he had charge of in the _Emden_
shows Von Müller in a better light, but reveal a terrible callousness
and negligence on the part of his medical officers. As he must always be
the most weighty witness as to how things were on the stricken ship at
this juncture, I shall set down his account of what he saw and did in
some detail.
"It was the morning after the fight before we had cleaned up all the
other incidental business and were free to give our attention to
looking after what was left of, or rather who was left in, the _Emden_.
Fortunately, her stern was lying out beyond where the surf broke, so
that, with a line they threw us from the deck, it was possible to ride
under one quarter, with the boat's bow to seaward. I had rather a hard
time getting aboard, once nearly falling into the water through getting
a hawser between my legs, but I finally managed it through a hand which
one of the German officers standing aft reached down to me. I told
Von Müller that the Captain of the _Sydney_ was prepared to take the
surviving officers and men to Colombo provided they would give their
parole. At first he rather stuck over the word, as though he would
like to make out that he did not understand it, a perfectly absurd
bluff in the light of the fact that he was fluent in both English and
French, and that the term is in common use by the Germans themselves.
He quickly came round, however, when I hastened to explain exactly what
the Captain would require of him. Ultimately he signed a paper agreeing
that for such time as all officers and men of the _Emden_ remained in
the _Sydney_ they would cause no interference with ship or fittings,
and would be amenable to the ship's discipline. This parole was
substantially observed.
"The surgeon of the _Emden_, though unwounded, was doing nothing at
the time of our arrival, and, from the appearance of the wounded, it
was evident that he had done very little during the twenty-four hours
which had elapsed since the action. By way of excuse, he claimed that
his staff were all killed and his dressings and instruments destroyed.
Accepting this as the literal truth, we made a signal for more medical
supplies to supplement those already brought, and Dr. Ollerhead, the
Eastern Extension Telegraph Company's surgeon, who had come with
us from Cocos Island, set to work to get the wounded ready to be
transferred. Neither at that time, nor during the three days in which
the surgeon of the _Sydney_ worked without rest to save as many as
possible of the _Emden's_ eighty wounded, did the German surgeon render
anything like the assistance that might have been expected from him
under the circumstances.
"What disgusted us most, however, was to find before we left the _Emden_
that there _had_ been ample supplies of uninjured dressings all the
time. The action station of Dr. L----, the surgeon in question, had
been in the stokehold, which was quite undamaged. A bent and twisted
ladder or two formed the only obstacles to reaching and utilising the
considerable stores of dressings, lotions, etc., which were still
available there. Although it was true that the assistant surgeon was
missing (he had come on deck after his station in the tiller flat aft
had been struck, and was blown overboard by an exploding shell), it was
_not_ true by a long way that there was not ample help, skilled and
unskilled, available for at least first-aid dressing all around, and on
this they had hardly made a beginning."
A brief quotation or two from the report of the surgeon of the _Sydney_
may be interesting while on the question of the neglect of the _Emden's_
wounded by their own surgeon. Referring to the wounded which had just
been brought aboard, he says:
"In cases where large vessels of the leg or arm had been
opened, we found torniquets of pieces of spun yarn, or a
handkerchief, or piece of cloth bound around the limb above the
injury. In some cases, I believe the majority, they had been put on
by the patients themselves. One man told me he had put one on his
arm himself. They were all in severe pain from the constriction,
and in all cases where amputation was required, the presence of
these torniquets made it necessary to amputate much higher than
one would otherwise have done. _There was little evidence of any
skilled treatment before they arrived aboard._"
Again he writes:
"Some of the men who were brought off to the _Sydney_
presented horrible sights, and by this time the wounds were
practically all foul and stinking, and maggots 1/4 inch long were
crawling over them, only 24 to 30 hours after injury. _Practically
nothing had been done to the wounded sailors_, and they were
roughly attended to by our party and despatched to us as quickly as
possible."
Professional etiquette evidently operated to restrain the surgeon of
the _Sydney_ from stating in his report what he thought of these very
palpable evidences of neglect on the part of his "opposite number" in
the _Emden_. When I met him in the _Sydney_ last winter I heard him
express himself in no uncertain language on the subject, but I do
not feel at liberty to quote him without his permission, and he has
recently returned to Australia. I take it that he reckoned that to his
medical brethren, to whom his report was especially addressed, the plain
statements of the facts were sufficient to speak for themselves.
Lieutenant X---- credits the German officers with doing the best they
could in helping him transfer the wounded. "Shortly after I came over
the side," he said, "I took the opportunity to tell Von Müller that
we reckoned he had fought very well. To this he merely answered with
a rather surly 'No,' and turned away as though to hide his chagrin.
Presently, however, he came up to where I was standing, and, speaking in
a rather apologetic tone, said: 'Thank you very much for saying that,
but I was not satisfied. We should have done better. You were very lucky
in shooting away all my voice-pipes at the beginning.' I do not remember
whether or not I told him that this was hardly enough to balance his own
luck in getting both our range-finders in the first five minutes.
"The best of the whole lot of officers, however--indeed, the only one
who showed anything like the spirit one would expect a British officer
to display under similar circumstances--was Lieutenant ----, whom
I encountered in connexion with my 'sweep' of North Keeling Island
after the lot of Huns who landed there through the surf. I was a
good deal puzzled to account for the sporting spirit of ---- on this
occasion--until he chanced to tell me that his mother was English!
I had this little Keeling Island roundup all to myself, and, grim as
some features of it were, it had also its amusing side, and you may be
interested in hearing something of it.
"When we fired those last three broadsides into the _Emden_ a good many
men either jumped or were blown into the water, and of these a score or
more were carried to the beach by the surf. Most of these, as I found
later, were wounded in one way or another, and having no food or water,
their sufferings during the day and a half before help reached them were
unspeakable.
"From the _Emden_ the bodies of men--some of which appeared to have
life in them--were visible on the beach above high-water mark, and just
before we left the wreck for good I noticed a party setting off along
the shore to the right. If I had only _failed_ to notice this move, my
rescue party would have reached the poor wretches eight or ten hours
earlier than it did, and probably have saved several more lives than we
saved. The unfortunate delay was also largely due to my ignorance of the
fact that North Keeling Island was a coral atoll.
"When we got back to the _Sydney_ with the last of the wounded from the
_Emden_ I learned that our galley had already been sent away to take
food and water to the men on the beach, but that, for some reason, it
had gone in no further than the line of the outer reef where the surf
began to break. I volunteered to go in the whaler to find what the
trouble was, and if possible, make a landing with both boats. Just as
I was about to go over the side, a young Australian lad--some kind of
a Boy rating--came and asked to be taken along. I refused him rather
shortly, as I thought it would be of more hindrance than help in the
kind of job we had on hand. He disappeared quickly, and I did not see
him again until we had taken the galley in through the surf and were
pulling it up on the beach. Then he was discovered, curled up under the
thwarts, where he had managed to stow himself away before we pulled
off from the _Sydney_. It was a lucky thing he came along, for, as it
turned out, he was the only one of the lot of us who knew how to climb a
coconut palm in true native fashion.
"It was impossible to take a boat through the surf anywhere near the
point where the _Emden_ had grounded, but some miles up the beach there
appeared to be an opening in the reef through which a landing might be
made. Watching our chances, we managed to shoot the whaler in without
an upset, incidentally showing the way to the galley, which had been on
the point of giving up the job after staving a hole in its bottom in
attempting a passage at a less favourable point. Mustering my men, I set
out to find the Huns. It was here that I went wrong.
"Knowing that the island was but a small one, and having seen a number
of the _Emden's_ men making off to the right from the point where she
was grounded, I figured that I would be likely to intercept them more
quickly if I circled round to the left and met them face to face than
by trying to overtake them. As it was late, I was anxious to lose no
time in getting them together and into the boats while there was still
daylight to see to getting the latter through the surf. If the island
had been anything but a coral atoll my reckoning would have worked out
all right; as it was it upset things completely.
"The island was covered with coco palms, under which there was a thick
growth of pandanus and some sort of salt grass, the latter forming a
tangle which made walking extremely difficult, and ultimately forced me
to take to the beach to get opener going. Even here progress was slow on
account of the sand and coral clinkers, and it was already getting dark
when we suddenly found our way barred by a swift-flowing tidal passage
connecting the open sea and what I now saw for the first time--the
lagoon in the heart of the coral atoll. The island, like all others of
its kind, was in the shape of a rough letter 'C,' with water between the
two tips, and therefore quite impossible to walk around.
"As it was out of the question trying to swim what was probably a
shark-infested passage in the dark, especially as there was no certainty
of finding our men on the other side, there was nothing to do but turn
back. Here again I made the mistake of trying to take a short cut by
striking straight across the island instead of sticking to the beach.
I never saw the place in daylight which we stumbled into, and so can't
say just what it was; it seemed, however, to be a sort of wilderness of
reeds peopled with a million seabirds, many of them nesting. The roar
of our guns in the battle was as nothing to the bedlam of screams which
arose when I went slithering through a lot of eggs and flopped full
length into a rising mass of beating wings. They came batting against us
in the darkness throughout the several minutes we were groping our way
back to the open of the beach.
"It was well after midnight when we got back to where the boats were,
and so quite out of the question trying to do anything further in the
way of searching for the Huns till daylight. Several of the latter had
struggled in and given themselves up, and they told us that the rest
were all at the point where they had first come ashore from the _Emden_,
and suffering greatly from hunger and thirst. As we had expected to
be putting back to the _Sydney_ within an hour or two of the time we
landed, we had little food and water save that in the boats, and this
wouldn't have gone very far with the lot of us if it had not been
supplemented by the coconuts our young stowaway brought down for us.
"There was not much chance to rest that night on account of the small
land-crabs which kept crawling over you the moment you dropped off
to sleep, and it was not pleasant to think of how those more or less
helpless Huns were faring a few miles farther down the beach. We started
off at the first streak of dawn, and reached them by sun-up. The most
of them were in even worse condition than I had feared, for it seemed
inconceivable to me that they should not have contrived in some way or
other to get hold of some coconuts to eat and drink. It turned out that
they had not done so, however, and that, as a consequence, a number
of them had died of thirst. The worst case, perhaps, was that of the
assistant surgeon, whom I told you of as having been wounded and blown
overboard by a shell. Delirious from thirst, he had managed to induce
a sailor to fetch him a drink of salt water, and had died shortly
afterwards as a result of drinking it. All the open wounds, since they
had gone from twelve to eighteen hours longer without attention, were in
even more terrible condition than those of the men we had found on the
_Emden_ the previous day.
"The only one of the lot who seemed to have any hold on himself was
the Lieutenant ---- I have mentioned. Luckily, he was not injured, and
he appeared to have been doing everything he could to help those that
were. It must have kept the plucky chap's hands full, for several of
them were crazy, and a number of the wounded were too helpless to keep
the crabs away. He and one or two of the least knocked out of the seamen
had managed to keep these vermin pretty well away from the bodies of the
living, but with the dead down along the water's edge they were already
having their way.