page_title: Hellmuth von Mücke
section_title: Return to Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Hellmuth von Mücke / Return to Europe
caption_attribution_description: English: THE GERMAN NAVY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR Portait of First Lieutenant Hellmuth von Mucke, the First Officer of the German light cruiser SMS Emden.
context_page_description: Hellmuth von Mücke was an Officer of the Kaiserliche Marine, the navy of the German Empire, in the early 20th century and World War I.
context_section_description: Initially, Mücke sailed his small command (numbering five officers, one surgeon, and 47 petty officers, and men) to the Dutch port of Padang on the west coast of Sumatra. There he arranged a rendezvous with a German freighter in port, the Choising, which transported them to the Ottoman Empire's port city of Hodeida, Yemen. Once on the Arabian Peninsula, Mücke and his men experienced months of delay securing the financial assistance of local Turkish officials to return to Germany. At last he decided to lead his men on an over-water voyage up the east coast of the Red Sea to Jeddah, and thence to Medina, then the southern terminus of the Hejaz Railway. A retired Ottoman official and his young wife travelled with them, as that was part of the deal. However, one of his small dhows sunk on the coral reefs near the Farasan Islands, and they commenced a dangerous overland journey along the Red Sea. Approaching Jeddah they were beset by hundreds of armed Bedouin tribesmen in a three-day battle that claimed one officer and had two enlisted men killed. They were eventually relieved by the Emir of Mecca. Mücke believed the hostile Bedouins had been hired by the British, based on weapons captured from killed Bedouin tribesmen. While guests of the Emir of Mecca at Jeddah, Mücke grew uneasy and feared being held as a hostage for political bartering. He sent one of his Arabic speaking enlisted soldiers to the Jeddah harbour in order to arrange for a Dhow. Under cover of night Mücke and his sailors sneaked away and made it by Dhow to the northern Hijaz fishing town of Al Wajh. From there they marched further inland until they reached the Hejaz Railway. Finally, in May 1915, Mücke and 48 other survivors boarded a train at Al Ula Oasis, and eventually reached Constantinople, the capital of Germany's ally, Turkey, from which they returned to Germany.
caption: Portrait of von Mücke from 1912, from the archives of the Imperial War Museum
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