PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XXII
Wilhelm Souchon
Born in Leipzig on June 2, 1864 to a family of Huguenot ancestry, Admiral Wilhelm Anton Souchon commanded the Kaiserliche Marine’s Mediterranean squadron in the early days of the First World War. His initiative played a major part in the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the conflict.
TURKEY AND THE PURSUIT OF THE GOEBEN AND BRESLAU
Kaiser Wilhelm II had been sedulously courting the Ottoman Turks in the years before the outbreak of the Great War. The Franco-Russian alliance of 1894 made a two-front war a sobering reality, and the Kaiser needed Turkey to cut that threat.
The Turkish Army was an undisciplined rabble prior to 1914. Soon, German generals commanded the military, and the lower ranks wore field gray uniforms and pickelhaube helmets. The Turks even learned to goose-step on parade!
Tsarist Russia had only ONE supply line to the Western democracies, the Dardanelles. It was a forty-mile long water route that ran from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The Dardanelles were also the dividing line that separated Asian Turkey from the sliver of land that was European Turkey on the Balkan peninsula. If the Central Powers could close the Dardanelles, the Romanov Dynasty would be starved of the necessary equipment and war materiel from the West.
But Turkey also feared the loss of the narrows, as the empire was losing power from within! In 1908, a band of revolutionaries from the mountains of Macedonia stormed Constantinople (the seat of Ottoman power for over 450 years). Called the “Young Turks”, these men deposed Sultan Abdul Hamid in an attempt to “cleanse” and reform the dying empire into a democracy. The result was a debauched government, as murder, torture, and terror were employed to consolidate gains. The Young Turks were led by Mehmed Talaat Pasha.
With the physical appearance of a heavyweight wrestler and rumored to be a Bulgarian gypsy, Talaat wielded power from the interior ministry. His right hand man was the minister of war, Ismail Enver Pasha. Better known in intimate circles as Napoleonik (“little Napoleon”), Enver was a pretentious man who was “the hero of the revolution”.
In the spring of 1914, Talaat and Enver Pasha were in the process of exiling Greeks from Smyrna and the nearby islands in the Aegean Sea. These foreign inhabitants were deemed security risks, and the impetus to the deportation came directly from Berlin.
Later in June, the Greeks were negotiating the purchase of two American ships, the Idaho and the Mississippi. Upon hearing the news, German ambassador Baron von Wangenheim tried to block the deal. He warned U.S. ambassador Henry Morgenthau that such a sale may lead to war. Nevertheless, both ships were sold to Greece via a broker for $12.5 million.
Talaat and Enver then sought two ships from England: the Reshadieh and the Sultan Osman. These two vessels were to be handed over in August 1914 after the tests were completed. The final payment was made just before the murders in Sarajevo, but with the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia one month later, the release of the two ships was put into question.
On July 27, 1914, the Turks agreed in secret with the Germans to a mutual defense pact against Tsarist Russia. A few days later, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill (unaware of the secret agreement) requisitioned without compensation the two Turkish ships for the Royal Navy, now renamed the Agincourt and the Erin. He felt (1) war with Germany was unavoidable and (2) Turkey posed no threat to England.
As the European war was beginning to spread, Turkey mobilized on the last day of July 1914. Two days later, the Turks officially signed a treaty with Imperial Germany. On the day of that treaty, Britain offered the Ottoman Empire a solemn guarantee from the Entente that all Turkish territory would remain intact in return for a pledge of neutrality. It was a waste of breath!
Wangenheim told Talaat and Enver Pasha not to trust the British in light of losing the two ships to Churchill and the Royal Navy. He suggested that the Turks purchase two ships from Germany: the Goeben and the Breslau (both of which had been in Mediterranean waters since 1912). Germany was acting as Turkey’s best friend against the betrayer England… and the Turkish press stirred the public to a war-fever pitch. On August 3, 1914, the deal was closed.
German Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz promptly sent a message to the Mediterranean commander Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, ordering him to proceed to Constantinople.
At the time, Souchon was sitting idle in the Adriatic port of Pola in Istria. He feared being trapped in the event of other nations joining in the conflict, and he did not want to play second fiddle to the Austrians. When he received the message from von Tirpitz, Souchon gleefully complied with the order and proceeded south to the heart of the Mediterranean. But both German vessels were low on fuel, and to make matters worse, the Goeben was experiencing boiler trouble.
Enver immediately wanted the two ships, but Talaat wanted to maintain a show of feigned neutrality until Turkey was ready for war. Wangenheim urged Enver to ignore Talaat and formally make a declaration of war.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian puppet (the Grand Vizier, Said Halim) was working outside the design of both Talaat and Enver Pasha. He wanted NO German ships for fear of offending England.
On the day the German armies in the West began their march through Belgium, the British and French fleets steamed from Toulon to North Africa with orders to intercept Souchon. However, the Allied ships proceeded with hesitation on what should have been an easy sweep!
After coaling at Messina in Sicily, Souchon bombarded the French-Algerian ports of Bône and Philippeville. As the Allied combed the seas for Souchon’s whereabouts, a chase ensued in the eastern Mediterranean. The German rear admiral successfully defied British attempts to corner him… and on August 10, 1914, Souchon’s small squadron arrived at the Dardanelles.
Enver assured the Germans that the pursuing Allied ships would draw fire from the forts in the Dardanelles. At the same time, Halim (unaware of the pact with Germany) continued to cable friendly messages to London!
The Allies wanted the Goeben and Breslau interned and disarmed. Of the two ships, the Goeben could outrun and outgun any ship in the Russian Black Sea fleet!
After two days of negotiations, Souchon was allowed to take his ships to Constantinople where they were officially transferred into the Turkish Navy. Souchon was then appointed commander-in-chief of the Ottoman Navy, a position he would hold for three years. With both the army and navy under Teutonic control, the Germans had “captured” the Ottoman Turks!
THE BLACK SEA RAID AND WAR IN TURKEY
On August 15, 1914, in the aftermath of Souchon’s daring dash to Constantinople, Turkey cancelled its maritime agreement with Britain, including the Royal Navy mission under Admiral Limpus. The Dardanelles were fortified with German assistance, and the Bosporus was now secured by the presence of the Goeben (promptly renamed the Yavuz Sultan Selim).
Following the advice of German army commander Otto Liman von Sanders, Enver officially closed the Turkish straits to all international shipping on September 27, 1914. As a result, Russia was doomed economically and militarily. Imports slowed to a mere trickle, finance to pay for the war and goods to energize it were insufficient, and Russian soldiers in the East went into battle lacking gun cartridges. It led to instability in the Romanov Dynasty!
On October 29, 1914 (the Turkish religious holiday known as the Festival of Bairam), Souchon’s fleet launched the Black Sea Raid. It was Turkey’s opening strike of the First World War…
Three Turkish torpedo boats shelled the Russian Black Sea ports of Sevastopol and Odessa. The Donetz was sunk; the Russian minesweeper Prut and French freighter Portugal were also destroyed and shelled in the process. At Odessa, a sugar factory fell victim to the bombardment, injuring a large number of workers and killing a smaller quantity.
In vain, Said Halim sent a message of peace to Russian ambassador Giers. The latter replied with a guarantee that the Turks would never again enter the Black Sea! In addition, British naval units quickly retaliated on Turkish merchant ships off Smyrna (present day Izmir).
On November 2, 1914, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. On the 3rd, tiny Montenegro joined the fight. Britain and France followed suit three days later. The Ottoman government responded on 12th and officially declared war on the Triple Entente.
For the next three years, Souchon attempted to reform the Ottoman Navy while conducting a number of raids on Russian ships, ports, and coastal installations in the Black Sea. Promoted to vice admiral, Souchon was awarded the Pour le Mérite, Germany’s highest military order, on October 29, 1916 (two years to the date of Turkey’s entry into the war).
THE KIEL MUTINY
In September 1917, Souchon returned to Germany. There he received command of the Fourth Battleship Squadron of the High Seas Fleet during Operation Albion. By the end of the war, he was commanding officer of the Imperial Navy base at Kiel.
At the outbreak of the Kiel Mutiny on November 3, 1918, Souchon asked for outside troops, but revoked his request for military help when his staff claimed the situation was under control. Souchon had been deployed to Kiel four days earlier, and he relied heavily on his staff.
On November 4th, the request had to be renewed. A total of six infantry companies were brought to Kiel. However, these troops showed signs of disintegration and some of them joined the revolutionaries. Souchon had to negotiate and order the withdrawal of the units. In the course of the events, he stepped down as governor and was replaced by the Social Democrat politician Gustav Noske.
Admiral Wilhelm Anton Souchon would survive the war, the rise of Nazi Germany, and the whole of World War II. He died in Bremen on January 13, 1946 at the age of eighty-one.
NOTE: His nephew, Hermann Souchon (1894–1982), was the assassin of Rosa Luxemburg.