The Last Gentleman of War,The: The Raider Exploits of the Cruiser Emden

by R.K. Lochner, Thea Lindauer, Harry Lindauer

A book which gives an authentic picture of a lost era of naval warfare.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World War I, War, Military History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1988

Reviews

[JD · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the incredible true story of the German cruiser SMS Emden during it's successful raiding voyage in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during World War 1. It covers the lead up to the war for the Emden, it's raiding career and how they conducted themselves during this time and then it's final battle. Then the story gets more incredible when it covers the journey of the landing party that was left behind on Cocos Island, back to Germany. The author also gives details about what happened to the Germans after being captured and after the war.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased my copy of this book in paperback, used, on eBay earlier this year. I have visited the National World War One Museum in Kansas City, MO a couple of times this year. On one visit, I discovered the WW1 exploits of the German light cruiser "Emden". I found the info at the museum intriguing, so I decided to learn more, leading me to this book. The story of the "Emden" is quite remarkable. In August 1914, when war broke out in Europe, the "Emden" along with other German warships was stationed in Tsingtao, Germany's colony in China. Most of the German squadron departed departed China and headed for the Atlantic, but the "Emden" was sent out as a lone commerce raider into the Indian Ocean. Similar to other historic commerce raiding ships like the "Shenandoah" and the "Alabama" in America's civil war, the "Emden" operated as a lone wolf with no bases at which to stop for fuel, supplies, and repairs. Over a period of months, the "Emden" chased down and stopped multiple British merchant ships, replenished their stocks of coal and food from the victims, and then sank the captured ships after removing the crew and passengers to safety. Finally the "Emden" was cornered and sunk by a faster and better-armed Australian warship. There is a side story involving a shore raiding party from the "Emden" that became stranded on a British-held island. The German sailors stole a small sailing ship from the island and navigated their way from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, then proceeded overland through the desert to Turkey. The group had many adventures and misadventures along the way, including a gun battle with Bedouins in the desert, like something right out of "Lawrence of Arabia". The author tells the "Emden's" tale mostly from the point of view of the ship's officers, but accounts from ordinary sailors are included. I thought the book went into about the right level of detail, and was about the right length, for the subject matter. If you like interesting tales from the sea, this would be a good choice. Four out of five stars.

[ТАИСЛАВ МЫЛОВАРОВ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting review of the Emden's time at sea, as well as both the experiences of the prisoners and the landing party that escaped.

[Carson Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book follow a log format, each day (or few days in sufficiently little happens) is labelled and the happenings of that day are told, and the book follows the strict chronological order of events as they happened. This is an excellent telling of the saga of SMS Emden from the perspective of the German crew. That means that while the details given of the ship and crew and her exploits are comprehensive, you will share their lack of knowledge of the wider goings-on around them (mainly the Entente efforts to hunt them down). That doesn't devalue this book for me, but you should know that going in.

Despite the nearly exclusively single-sided viewpoint (some first-hand accounts of HMAS Sydney's crew are used for the battle), the author finds a fair amount of opportunity to bring in the wider world; mentioning what captured newspapers had for news of the war, what captured captains said about shipping lanes moving to avoid Emden, etc. I also really appreciated how footnotes are used to briefly tell the fate of ships that come in and out of Emden's influence over the course of the saga.

I think the author did a great job in deciding how much detail to give each aspect of the life and operations of the ship, for example the first few times that the Emden intercepts another ship the author gives a detailed explanation of the event but then rightly assumes that the reader will remember the tactics later and will be much more succinct in his narrative (eg. "... stopped the steamer in the usual manner."). The reader will have no doubt about what the crew is doing each day of the voyage, but not to a minutia that would be boring or drag on.

The actions of the ship, and then the groups of crewmen, have written an incredible story and the author does a great job retelling it.

The Lindauer's did a very good job translating this work as far as I can tell, with extremely few typographical errors.