The Wolf: How One German Raider Terrorized the Allies in the Most Epic Voyage of WWI [Hardcover]

When its High Seas Fleet was unable to break the Royal Navy's blockade in 1916 and unrestricted submarine warfare risked sparking war with the United States, the Imperial Germany Navy decided to use disguised merchant raiders (Hilfskreuzer) to attack Allied shipping on the high seas. The merchant ship Wachtfels was chosen for endurance, not speed, and she was armed with concealed 5.9-inch guns and duly commissioned as the raider SMS Wolf. This book, by authors Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen, chronicles the 451-day voyage of the Wolf in 1916-18 which destroyed about 110,000 tons of Allied shipping. In many respects, this is a fascinating and well-written piece of history, which delves in considerable detail into a chapter of the First World War at sea with which few readers will be familiar. However, the emphasis in this book is on the human story - particularly the privations of the prisoners taken from captured ships and the Wolf's Captain Karl Nerger. Readers expecting more military detail and insight will find these details often shoved to the background in favor of descriptions about what the prisoners were eating. Yet even though I was quite familiar with the Wolf's cruise - having written a book on German Second World War commerce raiders - I still learned a number of new pieces of information that the authors had unearthed in their diligent research. Overall, The Wolf shines a spotlight on an obscure corner of the First World War and a style of conduct in warfare that now appears almost quaint.

The Wolf is divided into twelve chapters and has four appendices (the Wolf's specifications, a list of ships mined or sunk, a by-name list of the Wolf's crew and a list of the Wolf's prisoners). The book also includes two maps, a very nice cutaway diagram of the ship itself, 16 B/W photos and a 5-page bibliography. Although much of the book is reliant upon post-war memoirs by German officers and former prisoners, the authors have included research from other archival sources to fill out the rest of the Wolf's story. The book focuses very heavily on a few characters, such as the captured Cameron family, Captain Nerger and his Leutnant Rose, and much of the cruise is seen from their perspective. However, many of the other prisoners are simply annoying, such as the alcoholic Mabel Whittaker or Gerald Haxton (whom the authors continually refer to as the "secret lover of novelist W. Somerset Maugham"). Who cares? Many readers would have preferred that the authors allow the Germans to throw these prisoners into the cargo hold, slam the hatch shut and forget about them, instead of returning every few pages to their whining about not having whiskey and soda aboard the raider. The authors also diverge onto a few characters, such as Carl Newman, who were neither prisoners or crew members. Newman was a ethnic German who lived in Australia as a fisherman but was jailed under suspicion that he was aiding the Wolf somehow by surreptitious meetings off the coast. Newman's story is tragic but barely related to the Wolf and it would have been more pertinent to discuss some of the Allied officers involved in hunting for the Wolf. Throughout the book, Allied efforts to counter the Wolf are discussed rather haphazardly and focus more on what the Allied media was saying, rather than naval intelligence.

My opinion of Karl Nerger and his crew did change considerably with this book. Heretofore, Nerger was regarded as virtually the epitome of the sea corsair and his crew the cream of the Imperial Germany Navy. While these authors do continue to depict Nerger's humane side, he comes across as less than daring and his aloofness from his crew contributed to a serious deterioration in morale. After a year at sea, Nerger's crewmen were often involved in drunken and violent incidents, one of which nearly sparked a mutiny. Nerger's decision to keep over 700 prisoners on board - over three times what the prisoner hold was designed for - seriously reduced the efficiency of his ship, consumed resources such as food and water at an alarming rate and created endemic morale problems. As the author's discuss, the presence of women prisoners aboard a ship with men who have been at sea for over a year caused real problems and Nerger seemed oblivious to it all. During the Second World War, German raiders made greater efforts to transfer prisoners to auxiliary ships or drop them off on isolated islands, but Nerger seemed obsessed with their potential to give the Allies information about his ship's activity (which they did through other means, including a message in a bottle).

Most readers should enjoy this book, with its in-depth characters and periodic adventure (including two prisoners who try to swim to an island), although specialist readers will not learn much about strictly military issues. The cruise of the Wolf belonged to a different era of warfare, where enemies could still act with a certain basic human decency toward each other and the combatants respected non-combatants (and to a lesser degree) neutrals.

I got hooked into reading the true naval stories about the WWI German Naval raiders through the exploits of Count Luckner: Count Luckner: The Sea Devil by Lowell Thomas, and Count von Luckner;: Knight of the sea, by Edwin Palmer Hoyt. The sea- tales of these chivalrous latter day privateers are fascinating, and you can root for the "underdog" with a clear conscience as most of these captains followed the rules of naval warfare scrupulously and with the sort of chivalry not seen since.

If you haven't read about Count Luckner, now is the time, you won't be disappointed.

This is the story of The Wolf, a armed merchant cruiser that sailed the seas late in WWI. She was also the first raider to use a seaplane with good effect. Fregattenkapitän (Commander) Karl August Nerger kept his ship at sea for 451 long days, baffling the Allies. When he finally brought his ship back to Germany, he was awarded the Pour le Mérite, aka "the Blue Max".

The story has been told before but not as often as some of the other raiders, and never to this depth.

The authors here have added quite a bit of focus on two subjects not covered as much: the Allies propaganda and censorship campaign, and the travails of the prisoners on board. I found the sections about the prisoners to go on a bit too long, and focus too much on the hardships. However, the research is impeccable. The personal stories are well done.

The info about the Allies censorship and propaganda campaigns is fascinating. The Allies refused to let the real story out, blaming the sinkings on "Hun saboteurs" leading to more sinking of ships in the minefields that they should have been able to avoid, and the persecution of German born Australians who were thought to have planted bombs and put mines loose in the seas.

Readers wanting more about the naval actions and military detail can find that in: Edwin P. Hoyt, "Raider Wolf, The Voyage of Captain Nerger,"), which is a very exciting book.

Further reading on this subject:Hoyt, Edwin P Elusive Seagull
Lochner, R. K. Last Gentleman-Of-War: Raider Exploits of the Cruiser Emden
The Germans who never lost;: The story of the Konigsberg, by Edwin Palmer Hoyt

I found that I could not put the book down. The Author's had carried out fantastic research to present such a detailed account of a German Raider, a converted coal burning merchant steamship, which went on a 15 month "rampage" from Kiel across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and return without going to a port to refuel.

The rampage took place at the time of the First World War from November 1916 to February 1918 laying mines in the main shipping routes off South America, South Africa, India, Singapore Australia and New Zealand.

Many Ships captured and sunk after bringing on board Wolf, passengers and crew as prisoners and transferring coal, supplies, and all other equipment required by Wolf at the time. A very good read.

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