Wilhelm Anton Souchon

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Admiral Wilhelm Anton Souchon, (2 June, 1864 – 13 January, 1946) served in the Imperial German Navy.

Life & Career

Souchon would oversee the audacious and successful German initiatives with the Ottoman Empire as the Great War was brewing. He delivered the battlecruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau to Turkey on 10 August, 1914, having brushed past British armoured cruiser forces in the Mediterranean which wrestled with the enormity of unfolding events as they attempted to parse uncertain instructions.

On 24 September, Souchon appointed commander-in-chief of the Ottoman Navy. His first action, a months later, under Turkish aegis was to take his two ships and a coterie of Turkish destroyers and gunboats on a shotgun raid against Odessa (Turkish destroyers Muavenet, Gairet and another), Sebastopol (Göeben and two destroyers and a gunboat), Feodosia and Yalta and Novorossiysk (Breslau and two Turkish ships).

Souchon commanded the two German/Turkish ships at the Battle of Cape Sarych on 18 November, 1914. In this action, he attempted to ambush a retiring Black Sea Russian raiding force of pre-dreadnoughts in fog as their returned to Sevastopol. The Russians secured a lucky on Göeben in the opening salvo and seemed to use grouped firing. This proved unnerving, and prompted Souchon to retire before pressing the point.

In 1917, Souchon was be recalled to Germany and be placed in command of the Fourth Battle Squadron. In this role, he was involved in covering Operation Albion, an effort to capture Russian islands off Estonia.

See Also

Bibliography

Naval Appointments
Preceded by
?
Captain of S.M.S. Wettin
? – Sep, 1909[1]
Succeeded by
Paul Behncke

Footnotes

  1. Wikipedia page on his successor.