EARLY LIFE AND CAREER
The son of a colonel in the Prussian Army, Karl Friedrich Max von Müller was born in Hanover on June 16, 1873. After attending gymnasium at Hanover and Kiel, he entered the military academy at Plön in Schleswig-Holstein… but transferred to the Imperial German Navy in 1891.
The young Müller first served on the training ship SMS Stosch, then the SMS Gneisenau on a voyage to the Americas. In October 1894. he became a signal lieutenant aboard the old ironclad SMS Baden. He later transferred in the same capacity to the sister ship SMS Sachsen.
Müller was then promoted to Oberleutnant zur See and posted to the unprotected cruiser SMS Schwalbe. During Schwalbe’s deployment to German East Africa, he caught malaria, which troubled him for the rest of his life.
After returning to Germany in 1900, Müller served on shore before becoming second gunnery officer of the pre-dreadnought battleship Kaiser Wilhelm II. His career reached a turning point… as Müller was given an appointment to the staff of Admiral Prince Heinrich of Prussia. With receiving high praise and assessments from his superiors, Müller wax promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitän in December 1908 and assigned to the Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Navy Office) in Berlin, where he caught the attention of Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.
THE COMMANDER
As a reward for his admiralty work in Berlin, Müller was given command of the light cruiser SMS Emden in the spring of 1913. He soon achieved fame and notoriety for skill snd initiative in shelling rebellious forts along the Yangtze River at Nanking in China. Müller was soon awarded the Order of the Royal Crown (Third Class) with Swords.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the Emden was anchored in the German base at Tsingtao in the Far East. She steamed out to sea on the evening of July 31, 1914… and four days later, the Russian mail steamer Ryazan was intercepted and captured (the first prize taken by the Kaiserliche Marine in the Great War). The Emden then made rendezvous with the German East Asia Squadron of Admiral Count Maximilian von Spee in the Mariana Islands.
It was during a conference on the island of Pagan that Müller proposed the Emden should be detached to raid Allied commerce in the Indian Ocean. The remainder of Spee’s squadron continued to steam eastward across the Pacific.
In the following twelve weeks, the Emden and Müller achieved a reputation for daring and chivalry unequaled by any other German ship or captain. He was highly scrupulous about trying to avoid inflicting non-combatant and civilian casualties. While taking fourteen prizes, the only merchant sailors killed by the Emden’s guns were five victims of a bombardment of Madras that targeted British oil tanks and a merchant ship… despite the care Müller had taken to establish lines of fire that would minimize the risk of hitting civilians.
The Emden also sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet during a raid on Penang in Malaya. Thirty-six survivors from the Mousquet were rescued by Müller and the Emden… and when three men died of their injuries, they were buried at sea with full honors. The remaining Frenchmen were transferred to a British steamer, the Newburn. It had been stopped by the Emden, but not attacked… so as to allow the French survivors to be transported to Sabang, Sumatra in the neutral Dutch East Indies.
DEFEAT AND CAPTIVITY
When the Emden sent a landing party to destroy a radio station at Port Refuge in the Keeling Islands on November 8, 1914, she was cornered by the Australian light cruiser Sydney and defeated in the Battle of Cocos. Müller, along with the rest of his surviving crew, was captured and taken to Fort Verdala on the island of Malta. A detachment of his crew which had gone ashore evaded capture and escaped to Germany under the leadership of the Emden’s first officer, Hellmuth von Mücke.
On October 8, 1916, Müller was separated from the rest of the prisoners and taken to England. He was interned at a prisoner of war camp for German officers located at the Midlands Agricultural and Dairy College (now the Sutton Bonington Campus of the University of Nottingham).
In 1917, Müller led an escape of twenty-one prisoners through a tunnel, but they all were promptly recaptured. The English climate disagreed with his malaria, and Müller was eventually sent to the Netherlands for treatment (as part of a humanitarian exchange of prisoners). He was repatriated to Germany a month before the armistice was signed at Compiegne.
FINAL YEARS
Karl von Müller was awarded the Pour le Mérite (the “Blue Max”) and finally promoted to Kapitän zur See. In early 1919, he retired from the navy on the grounds of ill health and settled in Blankenburg. Müller politely refused to write a book detailing his war service and exploits.
Later on, Müller was elected to the parliament of the Free State of Brunswick on an anti-class platform as a member of the German National People’s Party. But sadly and suddenly, he died on March 11, 1923 in Brunswick at the age of forty-nine, most likely weakened by his frequent bouts of malaria.