On the morning of 9th November the operators in charge of the station saw a cruiser in the offing. At first they believed the vessel to be a British warship, but they were soon undeceived. Before a boat could be lowered and a landing-party sent ashore, the operators at the wireless station, with true British coolness, sent off distress signals, and warned the adjacent stations, by means of the three submarine cables which come ashore on the island, that the Germans were about to land. One launch and two cutters, containing three officers and forty men, arrived about 7.30; the wireless mast was blown up; the instruments were smashed, the storerooms and workshops were completely wrecked, and a dummy cable and one real cable were cut and a third damaged. The remaining cable was left uninjured, probably because the Germans did not know that it existed. In less than two hours the work of destruction was completed. Then suddenly loud and repeated siren calls were heard from the Emden. Before the boats could return she was off at top speed.
She had been trapped at last. In the wireless room of H.M.S. Sydney, then engaged in escorting Australian transports, a message had been received: "Strange warship off entrance." In a moment Captain Glossop guessed that it was the raider that had so long eluded him. Immediately he worked up to twenty knots an hour, and with the "white bone" in his ship's teeth sped towards the island. At 9.15 the feathery tops of the cocoa-nut trees were sighted, and a few minutes later the Emden was seen bearing down on the Sydney at a great rate. Captain von Müller knew that the Sydney's 6-inch guns could destroy his ship at a distance too great for his 4.7-inch guns to do much mischief. He therefore tried to close in with the Sydney, which endeavoured to keep sufficiently far off to obtain the advantage afforded by her bigger guns.
Then began a running fight which lasted for an hour and forty minutes. At first the Emden's fire was very rapid and accurate, but as the Sydney's shells began to burst on her decks it slackened quickly. The foremost funnel of the Emden was shot away, then the foremast, then the second funnel, and lastly the third funnel. She was now burning furiously, and her deck was strewn with dead and dying. A few minutes later and she was seen to be making for the beach on North Keeling Island, where she grounded at 11.20 a.m. Captain Glossop gave her two more broadsides, and then left her to pursue a merchant ship which had come up during the action.
The merchantman was overhauled, and found to be a captured British collier in a sinking condition. As she was past repair she was sent to the bottom, and the Sydney, with the crew of the collier on board, returned to the Emden, now a dismal wreck amidst the surf foaming on the reef. Her colours, however, were still flying at the masthead. When called upon to haul them down her captain replied that he would never surrender. Very reluctantly, Captain Glossop again fired at the Emden. Five minutes later white flags fluttered aloft, and her ensign was hauled down.
German Landing Party on the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Photo, The Sphere
The yacht shown in the photograph is the Ayesha, in which the landing party escaped from the island.
About six o'clock that night the Emden's landing-party seized and provisioned Mr. Ross's 70-ton schooner, the Ayesha, and made off. For months they were unheard of, though all sorts of rumours were current as to their fate. On March 1, 1915, it was reported that they had reached Damascus, and were on their way to Constantinople.
Captain von Müller was captured unwounded, and amongst his officers was Franz Josef of Hohenzollern, a nephew of the Kaiser. As a tribute to the gallantry and humanity which Captain von Müller had exhibited, he was permitted to retain his sword. While the German soldiers were making their name a byword of loathing in Belgium, Captain von Müller had been behaving as a sailor and a gentleman; consequently he was regarded in Britain as something of a hero. He had fought staunchly, and although he had perhaps violated the laws of war on several occasions, his sins were forgiven him because he had been merciful to the defenceless and the captive.
The Emden lost some 250 killed and wounded, while the Sydney had four killed and twelve wounded. Only about ten hits seem to have been made on the British vessel, and the damage done was surprisingly small. Australians were overjoyed to hear that a ship of their own navy had rid the seas of the famous raider. Their satisfaction was all the greater when they remembered that the victorious crew consisted largely of young and untried sailors.