Mediterranean Division

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The Mediterranean Division was an independently operating association of the German Imperial Navy that existed from 1912 to August 1914 and was disbanded on August 12, 1914 during the First World War when the division's two ships were transferred to the Ottoman Navy .

history

When the First Balkan War broke out in October 1912, at the request of the Foreign Office , the German admiralty decided to set up a naval unit mainly to protect German citizens in the eastern Mediterranean. For this, the battle cruiser SMS Goeben and the small cruiser SMS Breslau were moved to Constantinople . The two ships left Kiel on November 4 and reached Constantinople on November 15, 1912. They joined the station ship SMS Loreley , which had been stationed there since September 7, 1896. Rear Admiral Konrad Trummler became the first commander of the small squadron .

In the meantime, the Mediterranean Division had been created as an association by cabinet order of November 5, 1912 in Berlin.

From April 1913 on, the Goeben visited several ports in the Mediterranean, including Venice and Naples . She then went to Pola , at the time the main naval port of the Austrian Navy , and was re-equipped in the local shipyard from August 21 to October 16, 1913.

On June 29, 1913, the Second Balkan War broke out, so the presence of the fleet remained important. On October 23, Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon took command of the Mediterranean division. The Goeben and the Breslau continued the gunboat policy in the Mediterranean and made around 80 visits to the port until the beginning of the First World War.

The division was still assigned the old cruiser SMS Geier , deducted from the stationary position in East Africa. In addition, the head of division was able to dispose of the training ships operating in the Mediterranean if necessary, of which the SMS Hansa and the SMS Victoria Louise were expected in the winter of 1913/14 . At the beginning of the World War, however, both ships were again in the Baltic Sea and were no longer used in the Mediterranean.

Originally it was planned to replace the Goeben in June 1914 with her sister ship SMS Moltke . The assassination attempt in Sarajevo on the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28th made this impossible, because the outbreak of a war between the Triple Entente and the Central Powers was imminent.

Admiral Souchon ordered his two ships to return to Pola without further ado to have them overtaken again before the expected war. German engineers came to Pola and installed, among other things, 4460 new heating pipes in the ship's boilers.

In the first World War

When hostilities were expected to start in August 1914, Rear Admiral Souchon led his two ships, the Goeben and the Breslau , from the Adriatic Sea into the western Mediterranean and, after the outbreak of war, shot at the port facilities of Bône and Philippeville in Algeria . The Entente feared that the German ships would continue to disrupt the transfer of the French 19th Army Corps from Algeria to Europe. The French fleet chief, Vice-Admiral Auguste Boué de Lapeyrère , was deceived by Souchon and, in anticipation of German attacks further west, put the ports of Oran and Algiers on alert. Souchon, however, was already on the opposite course back to Messina.

Breakthrough of the Goeben and Breslau

British ships in pursuit

The two ships drove from the Algerian coast to Messina , where they were paid for by the freighters General and Barcelona of Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt . Since Italy was neutral at this time, the ships could 36 hours bunkers , unmolested by the British fleet.

After the bunkering, British commander Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne was expected to break out in the direction of Gibraltar . He therefore posted his battle cruisers Indomitable and Indefatigable and the light cruiser Dublin at the western end of the Strait of Messina. Only the light cruiser Gloucester guarded the eastern side. The French fleet was ordered to guard the Strait of Gibraltar to prevent a breakthrough into the Atlantic.

On August 6, the ships left Messina heading west to simulate an eruption into the western Mediterranean. After a five-hour drive, we turned around and set course for the Aegean Sea. The Goeben wanted to meet a cargo ship there in order to stash coal again. The only remaining pursuer, the Gloucester , was to be employed by the Breslau in order to allow the Goeben an undisturbed bunkering. There was a shorter battle with only minor damage. The pursuer continued to try to attack the German ships, but was too slow and according to the orders broke off the pursuit at Cape Matapan . On August 10, the ships finally reached the Dardanelles .

The two British commanders Archibald Milne and Ernest Troubridge were brought to court martial in the wake of the breakthrough in Portland Harbor . After a long negotiation, they were acquitted of the charge of cowardice before the enemy , but never again received a significant command.

After the dissolution

In the Ottoman Navy

After several days of negotiations, Souchon led his small squadron to Constantinople , where the two ships were officially taken over into the Ottoman Navy on August 12 . In fact, however, the German command and crew remained at their posts. Only the fez was now official headgear. The ships were renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli (in memory of an Ottoman town on Lesbos that was lost to Greece in 1913). Admiral Souchon was appointed commander-in-chief of the Ottoman Navy - and after Bulgaria's entry into the war also the Bulgarian Navy. He was promoted to Vice Admiral on May 27, 1915 and was awarded the Pour le Mérite order on October 29, 1916 .

On August 15, Turkey canceled its naval agreement with Great Britain and expelled the British naval mission under Admiral Arthur Limpus until September 15. The Dardanelles were fortified with German help, the Bosporus secured by the Goeben , renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim , and both straits were officially closed to international shipping on September 27, 1914. On October 29, Souchon attacked Russian port cities under the Ottoman flag , while almost simultaneously British units attacked Turkish merchant ships off Smyrna . On November 2, Russia declared war on Turkey and on November 12, 1914, the Ottoman government of the Triple Entente .

As the headquarters and barge crews of the two ships served during this time which is in the Bosporus at anchor HAPAG - Combination ship Corcovado .

The Ottoman fleet carried out various combat operations against the Russian navy and Russian port and coastal facilities in the Black Sea until 1917 . They shelled the ports of Sevastopol , Odessa and Novorossiysk . On November 18, 1914, she fought a Russian squadron on the Turkish coal coast in the sea battle of Cape Sarych.

But their most important battle was at the Dardanelles, see main article Battle of Gallipoli .

Battle of Imbros

Location of Imbros
Goeben aground in the Dardanelles

After the armistice on the Eastern Front of December 15, 1917, the two ships of the former Mediterranean division no longer had any tasks in the Black Sea. An attempt was therefore made to break out of the Dardanelles on January 20, 1918. The opportunity seemed opportune, for the two British battleships Agamemnon and Lord Nelson were not in their posts. Admiral Rebeur-Paschwitz's plan was to attract the attention of these ships. Only two monitors and two destroyers guarded the exit of the Dardanelles from the offshore island of Imbros . After the sinking of HMS Raglan and HMS M28 in the port of Kusu Bay , the journey continued to the British naval base on Mudros. On the way there, the ships got into a minefield. The Midilli received five mine hits and sank. The Yavuz Sultan Selim received three mine hits and was attacked by British destroyers and light bombers. However, it was able to withdraw into the Dardanelles, badly damaged, where it was set aground to prevent its sinking.

After the battle, the Yavuz Sultan Selim was stranded until January 26th, when she was towed back to Constantinople by the Torgud Reis .

On November 2, 1918, nine days before the end of the war , the Yavuz Sultan Selim was actually handed over to the Ottoman Navy.

Commanders

Command period Fleet chief flagship
November 5, 1912– October 22, 1913 Rear Admiral Konrad Trummler SMS Goeben
23.10.1913–15.08.1914 Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon SMS Goeben
August 16, 1914– September 3, 1917 Vice Admiral Wilhelm Souchon Yavuz Sultan Selim
September 4, 1917– September 2, 1918 Vice Admiral Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz Yavuz Sultan Selim

composition

literature

  • Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray: Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906-1922 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1984, ISBN 0-87021-907-3 .
  • Paul G. Halpern: A Naval History of World War I . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1995, ISBN 1-55750-352-4 .
  • Gary Staff: German Battlecruisers: 1914-1918 . Osprey Books, Oxford , UK 2006, ISBN 978-1-84603-009-3 .
  • James Sufrin: Ship of Misery and Ruin . In: Empire Press (ed.): Military History . , Leesburg, Virginia 1987, p. 1409.
  • Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 168 ff .
  • Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 5 : Ship biographies from Kaiser to Lütjens . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 230-233 .

Footnotes

  1. ^ Volker Tutenberg: The German Mediterranean Division and the London Ambassador Conference . Karlsruhe, 1987, pp. 16-29.
  2. ^ Tutenberg, Mediterranean Division , p. 55
  3. ↑ Th. Kraus, Karl Dönitz, The cruises of the Goeben and Breslau, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 1936
  4. ↑ Sufrin, pp. 30f.
  5. ↑ Halpern 1994, p. 255.
  6. ↑ Jameson 2004, p. 89.
  7. ↑ Haplern, page 255
  8. ^ Gardiner & Gray, p. 152
  9. ↑ Halpern, pp. 255f.
  10. ↑ Staff, p. 20