The Ship that Changed the World, the Escape of the Goeben to the Dardanelles in 1914, by Dan Van Der Vat.
With the Black Sea closed, her exports dropped ninety-eight per cent and her imports by ninety-five percent. The cutting off of Russia, with all its consequences, the vain and sanguinary tragedy of Gallipoli, the diversion of Allied strength in the campaigns of Mesopotamia, Suez and Palestine, the ultimate break up of the Ottoman Empire, the subsequent history of the Middle East, followed from the voyage of the Goeben - Barbara Tuchman, August 1914. The escape of the German battlecruiser Goeben to Turkey in the early days of the First World War is one of the most under-reported turning points in twentieth century history. In 1914 the German Navys Mediterranean Division comprised just two ships: the Goeben and light cruiser Breslau. Despite having to run the gauntlet of the French Navy and the British Mediterranean fleet, the pair, ruthlessly commanded by Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Souchin, eluded a tired and irresolute French Commander-in-Chief and then an incompetent British admiral to arrive in Constantinople and bring Turkey into the war.
|