Thursday 4 July 2013

The Flight of the Goeben and the Breslau by Archibald Berkeley Milne

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DNH506Q/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DNH506Q/


The Flight of the Goeben and the Breslau (First World War Centenary Classics)

“For the peoples of the Middle East SMS Goeben carried more slaughter, more misery and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship.” Winston Churchill

“No other single exploit cast so long a shadow upon the world as the voyage accomplished by their commander [over]…seven days.” Barbara Tuchman

This is the account by Admiral Archibald Berkeley Milne of his forlorn search, in the capacity of Commander in Chief of the British forces in the Mediterranean, for the Goeben, the German battlecruiser whose fate was to have a decisive impact on the whole of the First World War. In the first two weeks of the war, the powerful Goeben and the smaller Breslau would slip out of the grasp of the Allied forces and fall into the hands of Turkey, accelerating that country’s entry into the war against Britain.

Despite being exonerated by the Admiralty, Milne attracted much criticism for his handling of this early episode in the war which was to have such drastic and bloody effects. Here is his side of this fascinating story in his own words. 

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