The Last Corsair: The Story of the Emden
by Dan Van der Vat
Category: History

Karl von Muller, captain of the Emden was to the sea as the 'Red Baron' was to the air. For three months his ship terrorised the Indian Ocean. She delayed troop movements, sank two warships, held up twenty-one merchantmen - sinking sixteen - abducted four colliers, shelled Madras and raided Penang. It took seventy-eight warships to hunt her down. Yet even after she made her last heroic stand her story still continued. Fifty of her crew hijacked a schooner and tried to sail home. After reaching the Red Sea they fought their way across the desert against hostile tribesmen to Jiddah and the railhead that took them to Constantinople and thence home to Germany. So great was her reputation that The Times and other British papers expressed their relief that her captain and many of her crew had survived!