Free Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie

gray hull of
Goeben
was surrounded: colliers on one side, the liner
General
on the other. Not only the navy crews shoveled coal: Souchon enlisted four hundred German civilian volunteers from the merchant ships. Through the night, sacks of coal were swung across to the warships and clattered down on the steel deck, where shovels began to ply. In the heat, the men began to falter. Souchon tried beer, coffee, lemonade, band music, exhortation, and the example of officers who stripped off their shirts and worked beside the crew. Nothing could keep the men on their feet. In groups they were sent off to sleep in passenger bunks on board
General,
where, black with grime and sweat, they passed out on snow-white sheets.
    By noon of her second day at Messina,
Goeben
had loaded 1,500 tons of coal and her crew was exhausted; men lay collapsed on deck, shovels still gripped in their blistered hands. “With a heavy heart, for there was still much coal to be transferred,” Souchon halted the coaling—“It was essential,” he said, “to have at least some rest before preparing for battle”—and gave the order to raise steam for departure at five o’clock. Meanwhile, everyone in Messina knew that the German battle cruiser was preparing to meet its doom. “Numerous Sicilians, avid for sensation, besieged us night and day,” Souchon recorded.
    People in rags offered to sell fruit, tidbits, postcards, and keepsakes of every kind; singers with mandolins, mouth organs and castanettes; policemen, girls, monks, soldiers, . . . [nuns] and even some well-dressed people, tried untiringly to grapple with our half-naked, coal-blackened men, to steal everything that was not riveted or nailed down, from their jumper buttons to shovel handles, in memory of “those about to die.” The noise of coaling, the whistle of steam, the din of windlasses, the grinding of shovels mingled with the dust, the smell of oil and sweat, and finally the cries of paper sellers with special posters: “Into the Jaws of Death” . . . “The Last Departure” . . . “Disgrace or Death” . . . “The Perilous Leap to the Peak of Glory” . . . “All Day to Die” . . . “Shame or Defeat” . . . “Voyage to Death or Glory.”
    In his cabin, amid the noise of the coal scuttles, Souchon considered what to do. A defensive alliance had been concluded between Germany and Turkey, and he had been ordered to proceed to Constantinople. But in the three days since that order arrived, a diplomatic hitch had developed, making the earlier message from Berlin premature. Passage of the German battle cruiser through the Dardanelles would violate the neutrality that Turkey was still attempting to maintain. A majority of the Turkish Cabinet was insisting that permission for
Goeben
to enter the Dardanelles must be withdrawn, and the grand vizier had not yet made up his mind. This resulted in a new wireless from the German Naval Staff, which Souchon received at Messina at 11:00 on the morning of August 6: “At present time your call Constantinople not yet possible for various reasons.”
    The same message from Berlin bore the additional bad news that Austria had refused to give Souchon active naval assistance. There were several reasons. First, Austria, although Germany’s ally against Russia, was not yet at war with France. Second, Admiral Anton Haus, the Austro-Hungarian naval commander, considered his new, untried fleet inferior to France’s and did not wish to do battle without help from the Italians. Once Italy had declared its neutrality, Haus decided that it would be foolhardy to rush out of the Adriatic to Souchon’s rescue, exposing his ships to the French fleet. In addition, the Austrian government was anxious to avoid conflict with Great Britain and had told Haus that it did not want his ships engaging British warships. As a result, Souchon was informed that the Austrian fleet would not be coming south to support him.
    Under these circumstances, Berlin authorized