On 9 November 1914 the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney, detached from the first Australian and New Zealand troop convoy, caught the German raider SMS Emden at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, where she had come to wreck the cable and wireless station. After a gunnery duel of under two hours, Emden's captain ran his burning ship aground on North Keeling Island.1
Battle of Cocos
9 November 1914 · 111 years ago
The raider
Under Captain Karl von Müller, Emden spent the first months of the war preying on Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean. She captured or sank more than 20 merchant ships, by the counts of the Australian navy and the Australian War Memorial, and at Penang she sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet. The disruption she caused to trade reached far beyond the ships she took.2
Uncertainty over where Emden and the German East Asia Squadron were delayed the first Australian and New Zealand troop convoy. It finally left Albany in Western Australia on 1 November 1914, escorted by four warships, among them the Australian cruisers Melbourne and Sydney.3
The wireless station
Von Müller planned to wreck the cable and wireless station on Direction Island in the Cocos group, unaware that the convoy was passing close by. At dawn on 9 November Emden landed a party of 50 to 60 men, who smashed the instruments, blew up the wireless mast and cut a cable. Before Emden could jam it, the station sent out a distress call. HMAS Melbourne, leading the convoy escort, picked it up shortly before 7 a.m. and sent Sydney to investigate.4
Sydney, under Captain John Glossop, was faster than Emden and carried heavier 6-inch guns. Even so, Emden fired first, at 9:40 a.m., and her early hits killed four of Sydney's crew and wounded twelve, the only Australian casualties of the battle.5
Beached and done for
Glossop then used his speed to fight at a range that suited his heavier guns. Emden lost her funnels and foremast and was burning fore and aft, and at about 11:20 a.m. von Müller deliberately ran her aground on North Keeling Island.6
Sydney went after Emden's collier, Buresk, whose crew scuttled her. When Sydney returned at 4 p.m. the wreck was still flying the German ensign, and Glossop fired two more salvos before white flags were shown and the colors came down. He then had to deal first with the landing party on Direction Island, so the rescue of Emden's survivors began only the next day. More than 100 of Emden's crew were killed: von Müller gave 115 dead, and the Australian navy counts 134.7
Why it mattered
It was the first battle of the Royal Australian Navy, which describes it as the country's first single-ship battle at sea.8
Battle of Coulmiers, 1870: France's rare victory on the Loire
9 November 1870 · 155 years ago
French forces under General d'Aurelle de Paladines attacked a Bavarian army under Ludwig von der Tann at Coulmiers, west of Orléans, during the Franco-Prussian War. The Bavarians withdrew, and news of this rare French victory caused jubilation in besieged Paris.
Read the full story of Battle of Coulmiers, 1870: France's rare victory on the Loire ›
