"Penang’s links with the German Navy in two world wars" Topic

"In a recent blog article, inspired by a visit to Malaysia some while back, I described Fort Cornwallis, at Georgetown, the main city on the island of Penang off the west cost of Peninsular Malaysia. Though built in the early 19th Century to deter French attack, the fort was never to experience direct assault – a measure indeed of its value as a deterrent. (Click here to read the earlier article if you missed it). Penang was however to be the witness to a spectacular battle directly before its walls over a century later, one that involved a foe that was undreamed of as a menace by the original builders. And three decades thereafter it was also to see a most unexpected naval group based in the harbour that it was designed to protect. This article is therefore about Penang's connection with the German Navy in two world wars.

When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, Penang must have seemed to be an unlikely battleground. German and Auto-Hungarian naval power was almost entirely concentrated in European waters and though limited German cruiser units were scattered around the globe, the most direct threat in the Indian Ocean, the cruiser Konigsberg, based in Tanganyika, East Africa, was quickly bottled up and neutralised, if not yet destroyed. The most powerful single German naval force overseas was the East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron, based in China – which seemed very far indeed from the by-then sleepy anchorage of Penang which had been overtaken in importance by nearby Singapore. The bulk of the East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron was to disappear into the Pacific, only to reappear off the coast of Chile in late October at the Battle of Coronel, but one of its ships, the light cruiser SMS Emden, was detached to create havoc in the Indian Ocean…"
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Armand

By the way… those looks good…

Amicalement
Armand

It's a bit dismissive of the Mousquet's actions in that affair
Actually, the ship did all it could : armed with only an obsolete torpedo, it needed to close to 600 before attempting to torpedo the German cruiser. The ship tried gallantly but of course stood no chance and was blown out of the water. Though her captain was killed, her secon=d in command kept fighting. 43 crew members were killed, and 36 survived.