The Dandarnelles Disaster by Dan Van der Vat Page A

with financial compensation while the ship’s decks were opened up to gain access to the coal. Anything of potential value to a warship on active service, including naval reservists, was commandeered. The coal was laboriously transferred by barges, lighters and small boats, the Goeben acquiring just 173 tonnes and the more accessible Breslau 200, bringing her up to almost a full load of 1,200. The larger ship still had only two-thirds of her maximum capacity of about 3,000 tonnes, worrying for Souchon because she was designed for short-range deployment in the North Sea rather than blue-water operations. Her bunker space was small anyway, and nowshe was one-third short of a full load just as Souchon was preparing to carry out his first war assignment, the bombardment of the Algerian coast. Italian policy looked likely to prevent him getting much more.
    None the less at midnight on 2 August the two ships sailed separately northward from Messina, which meant, as decreed by local geography, that they were westward-bound. Souchon ordered them to link up again briefly at a point south of Sardinia, from where the Goeben would make for Philippeville (now Skikda) – and her escort for Bône (now Annaba) – on the Algerian coast, each arriving at first light, about 3.30 a.m. GMT. Interestingly, in view of future events much further east, Souchon’s orders to his captains included an injunction not to ‘waste ammunition by firing at forts’. On the way southward, Souchon received the following message:
    Alliance concluded with Turkey. Goeben , Breslau proceed at once to Constantinople.
    Having come so far, and without consulting Berlin, Souchon decided to complete the mission he had begun, reckoning that the confusion he was bound to cause among the French would be worthwhile. He was more right than he knew.
    The subsequent escape of the Mediterranean Division to the Dardanelles, and all the disastrous consequences, are usually blamed exclusively on the British, even by the British themselves. But Souchon’s ships crossed the path of the bulk of the French fleet, and were detected by it, not once but at least twice, during their run to and from North Africa; and the French Navy did not have the excuse of the British Mediterranean Fleet that it was not yet at war with Germany when it failed to catch or even challenge Souchon. The first war-task of the French fleet, as the Germans had guessed, was to collect the army’s XIX Corps, the ‘Army of Africa’, from French North Africa and deliver it to Toulon and Marseilles for forwarding by rail to its place in the line in northern France. So urgent was this that Admiral Lapeyrère, the amiralissime or commander-in-chief, was ordered to let each troopship sail individually as soon as loaded rather than having it wait to join a convoy. The various divisions of the fleet would cover them by seizing control of the Mediterranean, dealing with the Austrian and Italian fleets if and when necessary, the admiral said before the war broke out. He did not bother to mention the Germans. But on 28 July he startled Paris by questioning his long-agreed orders: now he wanted to formtrooping convoys escorted by naval squadrons. The Ministry of Marine overruled him, specifically accepting the risk of individual sailings and pointing out that the French fleet was strong enough to dominate the entire Mediterranean. The message reached Lapeyrère at the main naval base of Toulon on 31 July.
    The next day the French government rejected a German ultimatum to stay neutral in a war between Germany and Russia, which meant France was at war. General mobilisation was ordered from midnight on the 1st and Lapeyrère was informed on his flagship, the Courbet, at Toulon. The following evening a message from the French naval station of Bizerta in Tunisia reported that the wireless of the Goeben had been heard clearly nearby. Assuming correctly, even though the report was a false