HMS Gloucester attacks Goeben and Breslau off Greece
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- War at sea
- Date:
- 7 August 1914
- Author:
- Natalia
- Tags:
- SMS Goeben, Royal Navy, Mediterranean Sea
On 7 August 1914 in the Ionian Sea, off the west coast of Greece, the British light cruiser HMS Gloucester fought a brief skirmish with the German ships Goeben and Breslau. It was an episode in the pursuit that ended with the Germans’ escape to the Dardanelles.
A lone pursuit
After shelling ports in Algeria on 4 August, the ships of Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchon coaled at Messina in Sicily. On the evening of 6 August they put to sea heading east. The British forces in the Mediterranean expected the Germans to try to break out westwards into the Atlantic, and had concentrated their main squadrons there. Only Gloucester, under Captain Howard Kelly, was watching the eastern exit of the Strait of Messina.
Kelly shadowed his much stronger opponent all night, reporting its movements to headquarters. On the morning of 7 August, wishing to slow the Germans down, he closed on Breslau and opened fire. The German cruiser replied, and Goeben turned back to cover her consort. Faced with the superiority of the battlecruiser, Kelly drew off, but did not break off the pursuit.
The order to withdraw
Gloucester shadowed the Germans as far as Cape Matapan, the southernmost point of the Peloponnese. There, on the orders of the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, she broke off the chase. She was running short of coal, and the lone cruiser risked destruction. Earlier Rear-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, commanding the armoured cruisers, had given up on intercepting Goeben, judging her too strong an opponent.
Significance
Kelly’s persistence was one of the few bright spots in British operations in the Mediterranean in those days. The Germans nevertheless slipped away from their pursuers and on 10 August entered the Dardanelles. The escape of Goeben and Breslau to Constantinople had far-reaching consequences: it contributed to the Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war on Germany’s side. Troubridge and Milne later had to answer before a court of inquiry and a court martial.
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