Felix von Luckner
Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf von Luckner, sometimes called Count Luckner in English, was a German nobleman, naval officer, author, and sailor who earned the epithet Der Seeteufel, and his crew that of Die Piraten des Kaisers, for his exploits in command of the sailing commerce raider SMS Seeadler during the First World War. After the war, Luckner became a war hero in Germany and was renowned around the world for his seamanship and chivalrous conduct during the war, which resulted in a minimal loss of life on both sides.
Early life
Luckner was born in Dresden, Germany, the great-grandson of Nicolas Luckner, Marshal of France and commander-in-chief of the French Army of the Rhine, who in the 18th century was elevated to the rank of Count by the King of Denmark.First journey
The young Luckner had dreams of being a sailor, but his father was determined that he should follow the family tradition and go into the cavalry. After failing his exams at various private schools, at the age of thirteen Luckner ran away to sea, with the promise in his mind that he would not return until he was wearing "the Emperor's naval uniform, and with honour". He signed up, under the assumed name of "Phylax Lüdecke", as an unpaid cabin boy on the Russian sailing ship Niobe travelling between Hamburg and Australia. His story might have ended there, because the Russian captain, fearing that the lives of other crew members would be endangered, refused to allow a lifeboat to be launched in order to pick Luckner up when he fell overboard in the middle of the ocean. The chief mate defied the captain, and launched a lifeboat with the help of volunteers. As a number of albatrosses circled over Luckner, one swooped down and seized his outstretched hand in its beak, but Luckner grabbed the bird in desperation. Although severely pecked, he hung on for his life. The flapping of the bird's huge wings and the circling of the other albatrosses gave the crew of the lifeboat a point to aim at in his rescue.Unpaid cabin boy or paid sailor?
The description of Luckner's young life travelling the world on sailing ships is taken directly from his 1921 memoir, Seeteufel: Abenteuer aus meinem Leben, and the English language version, Count Luckner, the Sea Devil, published by the American journalist and broadcaster Lowell Thomas in 1927.If Luckner had sailed on the Niobe at the age of thirteen, it would have been 1894 or early 1895. Until mid-1896 there was no Russian ship called Niobe. At this time Robert Steele of Greenock, Scotland, sold his ship Niobe to a Finnish company.
The Niobe sailed from Hamburg in April 1897 bound for Australia. If Luckner sailed on this voyage, he would have been nearly sixteen years old. In Luckner's memoir, the Niobe
Jack-of-all-trades
The memoir continues... Arriving at Fremantle, Western Australia, Luckner jumped ship and for seven years worked in a bewildering array of occupations: he was a seller of the Salvation Army's The War Cry; an assistant lighthouse keeper at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in Augusta, Western Australia, a job he abandoned when he was discovered with the lighthouse keeper's daughter by her father; a kangaroo hunter; a circus worker; a professional boxer ; a fisherman; a seaman; a guard in the Mexican Army for President Díaz, a railway construction worker, a barman, and a tavern keeper. He was incarcerated for a short time in a Chilean prison accused of stealing pigs, he twice suffered broken legs, and he was thrown out of a hospital in Jamaica for lack of money.Was Luckner a lighthouse keeper?
A careful reading of the Lowell Thomas text shows that Luckner did not claim to be an assistant lightkeeper at Cape Leeuwin, but rather "an assistant to the lightkeeper".The German version claims that Cape Leeuwin has 100-metre cliffs and the lighthouse is 100 metres high. Neither is true. However, certain other aspects of Luckner's description of Cape Leeuwin do stand up to scrutiny, which suggests that he may have been there at some stage.
Luckner claims to have sailed on the German flagged ship Caesarea. The Caesarea called at Flinders Bay in July 1901 to load timber for Liverpool, England. At that time Flinders Bay was a timber port approximately seven kilometres from Cape Leeuwin. This is probably when Luckner visited the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, and was inspired to imagine himself as an employee at the lighthouse.
In 1938, when he visited Australia, Luckner met and was photographed with Mr E. Pickett, who it was stated had employed Luckner as an assistant lighthouse keeper, at Cape Leewin, 34 years earlier.
Back in Germany
At the age of twenty, Luckner entered a German navigation training school, where he passed the examinations for his mate's ticket. By 1908 he had joined the Hamburg-Südamerikanische Line steamer Petropolis, intending to serve for nine months before volunteering to serve in the Imperial German Navy for a year, to obtain a naval commission. He had vowed not to return to his family except in uniform and was eventually welcomed back by his family, who had given him up for lost. In February 1912 Luckner was finally called up by the Navy and served on the gunboat.First World War
In the early months of the First World War Felix von Luckner saw action at the Battle of Heligoland Bight. At the Battle of Jutland he commanded a gun turret on board the battleship.At the beginning of the War, Germany converted a considerable number of merchant ships into merchant raiders by equipping them with guns and sending them in search of Allied merchant shipping. Most of the armed raiders were not particularly successful, but they did tie up considerable Allied forces in hunting them. By early 1915, most of the armed raiders had either been hunted down and sunk or else had run out of fuel and been interned in neutral ports.
Image:SMSSeeadlerFront.PNG|thumb|SMS Seeadler, the three-masted windjammer that raided the Atlantic and Pacific in an age of dreadnoughts
Hoping to revive commerce raiding, the Imperial Navy equipped the impounded three-masted sailing ship Pass of Balmaha with two 105 mm guns hidden behind hinged gunwales, several machine guns, and two carefully hidden 500 HP auxiliary engines. She was commissioned as the auxiliary cruiser Seeadler. As he was almost the only officer in the German Navy with extensive experience of large sailing ships, Luckner was appointed to command her.
The Voyage of ''Seeadler''
Raider
Seeadler left port on 21 December 1916 and managed to slip through the British blockade disguised as a Norwegian ship. Many of the crew of six officers and 57 men, including Luckner himself, had been selected for their ability to speak Norwegian, in case they were intercepted by the British. By Christmas Day, Seeadler was southeast of Iceland, where she encountered the British armed merchant cruiser Avenger. Avenger put an inspection party aboard, but failed to detect the German deception.On 9 January 1917, Seeadler came upon a single-funneled steamer, raised a signal requesting a time signal, and raised the German ensign too late for the target ship to take any evasive action. Three shots were needed to persuade the 3,268 ton Gladys Royle, carrying coal from Cardiff to Buenos Aires, to heave to. Her crew was taken off unharmed, and she was scuttled.
The following day, Seeadler encountered another steamship, which refused to identify itself. The German ensign was raised and a shot fired across the bow of the Lundy Island, which was carrying sugar from Madagascar. The steamer still refused to heave to, and Luckner fired four rounds directly at her. The steamer then hove to and lowered her boats, but her captain ignored an order to come to Seeadler. A German boarding party was sent over and discovered that the crew had abandoned ship when the first shots were fired, leaving the captain alone on board. Captain Bannister later told Luckner that he had previously been captured by a German raider and had given his parole, which he had broken; thus, he was not anxious to be a prisoner of war again. Luckner continued his voyage southwards, and by 21 January he was in mid-Atlantic between Brazil and West Africa when he found the 2,199 ton French three-masted barque Charles Gounod, which was loaded with corn. She was quickly dispatched, but her log book recorded information about other ships she had met and their intended route.
On 24 January, the small 364-ton Canadian schooner Perce was met and sunk by machine gun fire, after taking off her crew and her captain's new bride. The 3,071 ton French four-master Antonin, which was loaded with Chilean saltpetre, was overhauled on 3 February and soon scuttled. On 9 February, the 1,811 ton Italian Buenos Aires, also carrying saltpetre, was sunk. On 19 February, a four-masted barque was spotted, which immediately piled on sail in an effort to get away; however, Seeadler engines allowed her to overhaul the 2,431 ton British steamer Pinmore, which was carrying a cargo of grain. By coincidence, Luckner had himself sailed in Pinmore in his civilian sailing days, back in 1902. He took Pinmore into Rio de Janeiro in order to get more supplies, before eventually scuttling her.
The next ship to be stopped was the Danish barque Viking, but as there was nothing unusual about her cargo the neutral ship was allowed to proceed unmolested.
Image:Felixvonluckergermanensign.jpg|thumb|right|290px|The ensign which Luckner would raise on the Seeadler to convey hostile intent is now on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.