"The Legendary Pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau " Topic

"In the summer of 1914 the Imperial German Navy had only two warships stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. The battle cruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau were under the command of Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, "a droop-jawed, determined little man," who was said to look "more like a parson than an admiral." As mounting international tensions pushed the nations of Europe toward war, Admiral Souchon found himself in a dangerous position. His two cruisers were outnumbered by the 27 ships of Great Britain's Mediterranean Fleet, a potential enemy.

Admiral Souchon's heavy battle cruiser, the Goeben. was one of the fastest and most powerful warships of its day. Manned by over 1,000 crewmen, the ship measured 640 feet in length, and carried 34 guns of various sizes. The Goeben's largest guns could accurately fire explosive shells at targets up to 15 miles away. Despite the Goeben's formidable size and weaponry, the two-year-old ship was plagued by defective coal-fired boilers that leaked water, causing a loss of power.

Hoping to repair the Goeben before a war began, Admiral Souchon took the ship to the Adriatic port of Pola, which was controlled by Germany's Austrian allies. Souchon's other ship, the Breslau, was in good repair but was a smaller and less powerful vessel, with a crew of 370. While the Goeben was being repaired in Pola, in July of 1914, the Breslau lay anchored off the southern coast of Italy…."
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Fascinating to me that the article's main source is Hough's 'The Great War At Sea'. I used that book as my primary source two years ago when I wrote up an article on my favorite website for the 100th anniversary. Putting together an hour-by-hour account was a lot of fun, as dealing with things in a linear fashion gives a lot of insight as to what happened when, and why. I knew little of the story before that time, and now it's one of my favorites, along with other events of the first year of the war.