The Last Voyage of the Emden

The gripping account of the last voyage of the German cruiser Emden

The German cruiser S.M.S Emden, for three brief months during the first year of the Great War, terrorised the Indian Ocean and took some sixteen British ships (usually by boarding) and sank two warships - one Russians and one French - before being finally brought to heel by the guns of H.M.A.S. Sydney. Her story captured the imagination of friend and foe alike and so whilst I am familiar with her story when the opportunity came along to pick up the book you see above for the princely sum of a couple of pounds the decision was an obvious one!

The book itself is full of pictures of the Emden and many of her victims but best of all the main bulk of the text was written by her second torpedo officer - Prinz Franz Joseph Von Hohenzollern (a relative of the Kaiser and distantly related to George V). The original version was published in 1925 and this updated edition includes a useful outline on the development of German cruisers and compiled by Prinz Franz Joseph’s naval officer son.

The story outlines the last voyage of the Emden and her destruction and the fate of the crew that were captured and sent to Malta but that is not the full story. The party that went ashore before her final battle subsequently escaped by sea in a leaky schooner and made their way back to Germany via the Arabian peninsula and Turkey - a story which I will need to research further for sure!

From a gaming perspective the story of the Emden falls squarely in the ‘hunt the raider’ category and is eminently suitable for a campaign. This is very much in keeping with the thought process behind my planned expansion of the Madasahatta campaign. The island itself is within easy reach of the key Indian Ocean shipping lanes leading up into the Red Sea and ultimately the Suez Canal. A powerful Axis naval force placed there could make life very difficult for the Allies in the area and so would present a challenge that must inevitably be faced by them.

Methinks that the whole Madasahatta idea has just gone up a notch in the project list….