Möwe returns from her first cruise

On 4 March 1916 the German Admiralty Staff announced that the auxiliary cruiser Möwe had put into a home port after a cruise of several months. The raider, which had put to sea on 29 December 1915, returned to Wilhelmshaven, from where she had sailed. A British chronology of the war states that she returned to Bremen, but German studies and ship lists agree on Wilhelmshaven. It was at Bremen that Möwe, still the banana boat Pungo, had lain before her conversion into a warship. The communiqué did not name the port, speaking only of a “home” port. According to the British official history of the war at sea, the news became public a day later, on 5 March. Most studies date the return to 4 March.

The tally of the cruise

According to the communiqué, Möwe brought back 199 prisoners and gold bars worth a million marks, taken in January from the liner Appam. She had sunk or captured 12 British steamers, from just over 3,000 to nearly 7,800 tons, one British sailing ship and one French and one Belgian vessel each. In all this came to 15 vessels with a total tonnage, according to various calculations, of between about 57,000 and more than 60,000 tons. The raider kept three of them as prizes: the freighter Corbridge served her as a coal reserve, Appam sailed with prisoners to the United States, and the freighter Westburn was sent with more prisoners to the Canary Islands. The communiqué also admitted for the first time that it was on mines laid by Möwe off the north coast of Scotland that the battleship King Edward VII sank on 6 January. The raider laid another minefield off the mouth of the Gironde.

After capturing Appam, Möwe sailed far out into the Atlantic, to the area of the Fernando de Noronha islands off the coast of Brazil. News of the raider reached the British only on 1 February, when Appam anchored in Hampton Roads, and British warships and four French cruisers set out to hunt for her. According to the British official history, on 9 February the cruiser Highflyer was only a few dozen miles from her, but did not pick up the call for help from the stopped Westburn and led the search in the wrong direction. The raider’s commander, Korvettenkapitän Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien, then concluded that the aim of the expedition had been achieved, and turned for home. On the way he also sank the French freighter Maroni at the entrance to the Bay of Biscay and the British Saxon Prince.

Heroes of Berlin

In Germany Möwe’s return was received with enthusiasm. The crew were welcomed as heroes, and Dohna-Schlodien became one of the most popular officers in the navy. His account of the cruise, published in 1916, reached a print run of about 150,000 copies. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour, said in the House of Commons on 7 March that Berlin had for two or three days been decorated with flags to celebrate the return of a “disguised and armed tramp” which had sunk a number of unarmed merchant ships. He credited the commander and crew with seamanship and enterprise, but concluded that if the capital of a great empire celebrated such a success for several days, the bar of German achievement did not hang very high.

British admirals took the matter more seriously. The British official history observes that so successful and encouraging an expedition was bound to prompt the Germans to make more, and the commander of the Grand Fleet, John Jellicoe, expected them all winter. At the end of February the next raider, Greif, tried to break out, but was sunk by British cruisers. After a refit at Wilhelmshaven, Möwe served in the summer of 1916 under the name Vineta in the waters of the Kattegat, and in November set out on a second, even more successful cruise into the Atlantic.