Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie

southward.” Just before midnight,
Goeben
and
Breslau
altered course again, this time to the southeast. Troubridge then signaled Milne, “
Goeben
is going towards Matapan.” Beyond Cape Matapan lay the Aegean, the Dardanelles, and Constantinople.
    At this point, Admiral Troubridge, patrolling south of Corfu at the entrance to the Adriatic, commanded the only British force that might interrupt
Goeben
’s voyage. Individually, the armored cruisers
Defence, Warrior, Duke of Edinburgh,
and
Black Prince
were smaller, slower, and weaker than the German battle cruiser, but there were four of them, they averaged 14,000 tons, and, in combination, their twenty-two 9.2-inch guns fired a heavy broadside. Troubridge also had eight destroyers armed with torpedoes. Thanks to
Gloucester
’s reporting, Troubridge knew Souchon’s course and speed. Informed at first that
Goeben
was headed north for the Adriatic, Troubridge had placed himself in a position to fight her in darkness and relatively confined waters, where his weaker ships would have a chance to get in close and neutralize the German advantage in range and gun caliber. After midnight, when it became clear that Souchon was heading away from the Adriatic, Troubridge realized that if he steamed south at once, he still might be able to intercept
Goeben.
Unable to contact Milne, he decided on his own to attempt to do this. For four hours in the bright moonlight, the quartet of big British armored cruisers steamed south at 19 knots, their maximum speed, with the prospect of action at daybreak. No one in the Royal Navy who knew Troubridge, the man and the admiral, could doubt that this decision would lead to a rewarding display of professional skill and courage.
    Ernest C. T. Troubridge was a genial, rugged, fifty-two-year-old seaman whose thick mane of white hair had earned him the sailors’ nickname the Silver King. His navy pedigree, like Milne’s, was impeccable: his great-grandfather, a comrade of Nelson’s, had been at the Battle of the Nile. Troubridge himself had become a close friend of Prince George, later King George V, when the two were young lieutenants and when Troubridge was known as “the handsomest officer in the navy.” As an observer with the Japanese fleet during the Russo-Japanese War, he had seen from Admiral Togo’s bridge the devastating effectiveness of long-range, heavy-caliber naval guns. Fisher liked Troubridge and, writing to the younger officer, said that he had “met Mrs. Troubridge in the Abbey and lost my heart.” In 1911, he became Winston Churchill’s private naval secretary; in 1912, the First Lord appointed him chief of staff of the newly created Naval War Staff. When Troubridge came to the Mediterranean to take over the armored cruisers and serve as deputy to Admiral Milne, his relationship with the Commander-in-Chief was correct but not warm. By August 1914, Troubridge already had been designated to command the British Mediterranean Fleet once Admiral de Lapeyrère had assumed the supreme Allied naval command and Milne, his tour of duty concluded, had returned to England.
    Despite his reputation, Troubridge worried as his ships steamed south. Before he left Malta, Milne had shown him Churchill’s July 30 message declaring “you must husband your force at the outset” to avoid “being brought to action against superior forces.” These instructions, Troubridge knew, had been addressed to Milne and referred to any possible engagement between the three British battle cruisers and the twelve slower but more heavily armored Austrian battleships. But the fact that Milne had shown Churchill’s message to Troubridge gave it application to him, too. After this meeting and before sailing on August 2, Troubridge had called his captains together and warned them that “they must not be surprised if they saw me with the squadron run away.” In addition, Milne had specifically warned him not to seriously engage a superior force. Here, again,