THE AUSTRALIAN REMOUNTS DEPOT AT ABASSIA.
Over 1,000 horses are in lines here and about and
also ready for transport to any part of the world.
OUR TROOPS IN EGYPT.
Cavalry galloping out into the desert.
His little cruiser could make a speed of twenty-four knots, and so long as he kept out at sea he was able to show his pursuers a clean pair of heels. Possibly his three months of immunity had rendered him a little over-confident; anyhow, it occurred to him that he might increase the difficulties of the chase by destroying the wireless plant on Keeling Cocos Island, and at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 9th November he carried out his intention. He sent an armed launch ashore, towing two boats containing forty men, three officers, and four maxims. They effected a landing without trouble in a quarter of an hour; the officers behaved with the correctest courtesy towards the officials and damaged nothing but the wireless installation, which they very efficiently reduced to ruins. But it happened that an hour earlier the approach of the Emden had been detected, and the wireless operator had immediately flung a warning into the air and an urgent appeal to the Sydney, which was believed to be somewhere in the vicinity. This belief was so well founded that as the expeditionary force from the Emden were returning to their boats, after completing their mission, a dense smoke was seen on the horizon, and breaking through it the Sydney, coming under full steam, hove rapidly into sight.
Captain von Müller was as quick to observe it, recognised that there was no escape, and instantly prepared for action. Leaving his landing party to look after themselves, he steamed for the open sea, and his men on shore with equal promptitude commandeered a schooner that lay at anchor in the bay, hastily provisioned it, cut the cable, made a dash for liberty and got away.
As soon as she was clear of the island the Emden opened fire on the Sydney and at first made excellent practice, but the Sydney answered by pouring in such an accurate and deadly fire that the enemy's three funnels were shot away, some of his guns silenced, and all the speaking-tubes smashed, so that the captain had difficulties in transmitting his orders, and his firing began to fall off considerably. If there were pluck and determination enough on the Emden, there was at least as much of both on her antagonist. For three months the Sydney had been kept waiting for this hour, with her crew spoiling for a fight, and now they had got what they had been waiting for, and officers and men alike were keen to render a good account of themselves. Before the Sydney left the harbour she was named after, three boys came aboard from the training ship Tingua and offered themselves as volunteers for service in any capacity. The captain thought they were too young and did not want to take them, but they were so desperately bent on going that he yielded and let them have their way. Two of them were now attached to the officers of the gun crew, and throughout the action with the Emden they were as eager and as perfectly cool as the hardiest seaman of them all. One of these youngsters was told off to help in carrying ammunition to the guns, and he went briskly, capably to and fro on his job, with the enemy's shells bursting around and overhead, and never even seemed to think of attempting to take cover. The fearful joy of battle possessed him as it possessed the rest of the crew. The cheerfulness and reckless ardour of them all were amazing; nobody thought of danger; nobody thought of anything except that they were at grips with the enemy at long last and did not mean to let him go.
It was a short, sharp, heroic combat; there was no flinching on either side; but the Sydney's guns were the more powerful and her gunners the better marksmen. She was very little damaged and her only loss was three men killed and fifteen wounded; but the Emden was so terribly punished that her decks became a very shambles; there were over two hundred killed and wounded, and the finish came when the whole after-part of the vessel burst into flames. The Sydney at once ceased firing, and von Müller threw up the sponge and smartly beached his ship to save it from sinking. The Britishers ashore and rescue parties in the Sydney's boats assisted to get the wounded out of the blazing wreck, and, accepting the inevitable with his customary good grace, the German captain surrendered. But Captain Glossop, the Sydney's commander, knew how to respect a brave enemy and refused to deprive his beaten foe of his sword. It was characteristic of von Müller that when one of his officers, smarting under the sense of defeat, accused the Sydney of continuing to fire after the white flag had been shown, he called the remnant of his forces together and repeated the charge to them, only to repudiate it indignantly, saying that no white flag had ever been hoisted on his vessel.
He and the Kaiser's kinsman, Prince Franz Joseph Hohenzollern, with the rest of the captured German officers and men, were sent as prisoners of war to Australia, and the most romantic and one of the most momentous episodes in the war at sea came to a fitting conclusion when the vast crowd which gathered at Sydney Harbour to welcome with storms of cheering the triumphant Captain Glossop and his men, broke into a generous ovation for the hero of the Emden as his conquerors brought him in.
The Indian and Pacific Oceans were now swept completely clear of all enemies, except for the small German fleet that was still groping about precariously off Chili, and on the 8th December a British squadron drew this fleet into an engagement and totally destroyed it; but the significance of the Sydney's dashing victory was not merely that it removed the last serious menace from the ocean trade routes of the Empire–it created the profoundest impression throughout India, and did more to restore confidence among our Indian fellow-subjects in the eventual triumph of British arms than the hurling back of the German hordes from before the walls of Paris or the greater successes of our Navy in the North Sea.