Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie Page B

battle cruisers and sent them charging toward Gibraltar, leaving Troubridge with only his armored cruisers. The Court of Inquiry had expressed regret that Troubridge had not made it clear to Milne that “he had no intention to engage
Goeben
in open water in daylight with his squadron unless supported by a battle cruiser.” In fact, Troubridge had done so repeatedly.
    Troubridge also claimed that at the same Malta interview, Milne had conceded that the man on the spot must be the final arbiter as to what constituted a “superior enemy” (in court, Milne reluctantly conceded that he had said this). Once the battle cruisers were taken away, Troubridge contended, his squadron was obviously inferior in gun power and speed: his armored cruisers had never registered hits at over 8,000 yards; their best speed in company was 17 knots. These factors left him—as the man on the spot—in no doubt that
Goeben
constituted a superior force, which he was forbidden to engage. “All I could gain [by engaging],” he said, “would be the reputation of having attempted something which, though predestined to be ineffective, would be indicative of the boldness of our spirit. I felt that more than that was expected of an admiral entrusted by Their Lordships with great responsibilities.”
    Milne, who was present throughout the Troubridge proceedings, was consistently hostile to his former subordinate. Addressing the Court of Inquiry, Milne had declared that he had expected Troubridge to fight
Goeben
and that in such an action it would have been difficult for
Goeben
to engage four ships at once; in practice, most single ships had all they could do to aim and fire at two enemy ships. For this reason, Milne said, he did not approve of Admiral Troubridge’s abandonment of the chase. Troubridge, regarding Milne, limited himself to expressing his “deep conviction . . . that
Goeben
had no right to be escaping at all and that if she had been sealed up in the Strait of Messina by the battle cruisers, as I thought she ought to have been, she would never have escaped.”
    Ultimately, the judgment of the court-martial, like Troubridge’s decision in the early hours of August 7, came down to a calculation of the relative strength of four armored cruisers as against one battle cruiser. Troubridge claimed that his first decision to attack was “a desperate one” made in the face of clear orders by his immediate superior
not
to engage “a superior force.” “But I made it and for a time I stuck with it,” he said. “Gradually, however, it forced itself more and more upon my mind that though my decision might be natural, might be heroic, it was certainly wrong and certainly in the teeth of my orders. . . . It was at this psychological moment . . . that my Flag Captain came back to me. . . . It was his duty . . . and, as a matter of fact, I did in reality completely agree with [him]. After he left me I thought it over a little further and then I made my decision.”
    Many British naval officers simply did not agree with Troubridge that in daylight
Goeben
constituted a force superior to his four armored cruisers. Battenberg emphatically declared that the twenty-two British 9.2-inch guns and fourteen 7.5-inch guns would have nullified and overpowered
Goeben
’s ten 11-inch guns. The Admiralty prosecutor argued that Troubridge had “assumed too readily” that all was well with
Goeben;
that she could steam at full speed and had plenty of coal and no worry about using up her ammunition. Churchill declared after the war that “the limited ammunition of
Goeben
would have had to have been wonderfully employed to have sunk all four British armored cruisers one after another at this long range.” Churchill also pointed out that at the Battle of the Falkland Islands a few months later,
two
British battle cruisers were to use up nearly three-quarters of their ammunition sinking only
two
German armored cruisers.
    Captain Fawcett Wray of
Defence
supported