Emden's first prize in the Indian Ocean

On 10 September 1914 the German light cruiser Emden stopped the Greek steamer Pontoporos, carrying coal under charter to the British, in the Bay of Bengal. It was Emden’s first prize in the Indian Ocean and the beginning of one of the most famous cruiser raids in the history of naval warfare.

A lone raider

Emden belonged to the German East Asia Squadron, based at Tsingtao. She was commanded by Fregattenkapitän Karl von Müller. In the very first days of the war the cruiser captured the Russian steamer Ryazan in the Sea of Japan, which the Germans converted into an auxiliary cruiser. Emden then joined the main force of Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee at the island of Pagan in the Marianas, who had left Pohnpei at the beginning of August.

Spee decided to take the squadron across the Pacific towards the coast of South America. Müller proposed detaching one cruiser for independent operations in the Indian Ocean, through which ran important shipping routes of the British Empire. Spee agreed and chose Emden, the fastest ship in the squadron. On 14 August the cruiser, accompanied by the collier Markomannia, left the squadron and made her way into the Indian Ocean through the waters of the Dutch East Indies, including the Lombok Strait. To avoid recognition, the crew rigged a dummy fourth funnel that made the ship resemble British cruisers.

Pontoporos

On 5 September Emden entered the Bay of Bengal. The British believed she was still sailing with Spee across the Pacific and did not expect her in these waters. For several days Müller met no ships at all. Only when he moved to the route between Colombo and Calcutta did the lookouts sight a steamer’s lights on the night of 9–10 September.

She was the Greek Pontoporos, with a cargo of about 6,000 tons of coal. Greece was neutral, but the ship was sailing under contract to the British, so her cargo was contraband of war and could be seized. Sources differ on whether the coal was bound for Calcutta or Bombay. Müller did not sink the ship. Coal was priceless to a raider, so the Germans kept Pontoporos as their own collier, and Müller made an agreement with the Greek captain and promised to pay his crew for further service.

The terror of the Bay of Bengal

The following days brought Emden a whole series of prizes. By 14 September the Germans had sunk or stopped several British ships, including the transports Indus and Lovat. The crews of the sunk vessels were transferred to one of the captured ships and sent to port. Shipping in the Bay of Bengal came to a standstill for a time, and British, French, Russian and Japanese warships joined the hunt for the raider. On 12 October the British cruiser Yarmouth intercepted both of Emden’s colliers, Markomannia and Pontoporos, off the coast of Sumatra.

On 22 September Emden shelled the oil tanks at Madras, and on 28 October she entered the harbour of Penang by a ruse and sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet there. In less than three months she sank or captured more than twenty merchant ships. Her raid ended on 9 November 1914 off the Cocos Islands, where the Australian cruiser Sydney caught Emden and wrecked her. Müller, who took care to spare the lives of the crews of the ships he stopped, earned a reputation even among his enemies as a gentleman of naval warfare.