One hundred years ago tomorrow, 5 August 1914, at 12.39pm (EST), the first hostile action of World War I took place, not in Europe but in the eastern entrance to Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne. Refer also to my earlier blog of 27 February 2014, First engagement of hostilities? Very odd angry shots indeed!, for more details of the circumstances.

The first shot came from the Australian military gun emplacements stationed at Fort Nepean on the extremity of Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula overlooking the stretch of open water which separates Port Phillip Bay from the Bass Strait. The target was a German steamer, the SS Pfalz, (the name a reference to the German Rhineland-Palatinate region), was carrying 200 tons of coal intended to supply the nearby warships of the Pacific Squadron of the Imperial German Navy.

The incident that followed is now reasonably widely known – Britain (and by necessity, the British Empire) was expected to declare war on Germany that day. As soon as the news was cabled through from London that this had happened, on instructions from the naval command at nearby Fort Queenscliff, the Fort Nepean battery was given a command to stop the (now enemy) vessel from leaving Australian waters. Two warning volleys were fired from the Fort battery before the German captain surrendered (it seems scarcely credible to believe but the first hostile shot launched by the Allied side in the Second World War 25 years later was also fired from the same gun at Fort Nepean!)

The not-so-certain element of this story is the intriguing question of who actually fired on the SS Pfalz, effectively the first shots of World War I. Among the numerous news items currently circulating in the Australian press, the Age identifies Sergeant John Purdue as the individual who fired that first momentous shot 100 years ago [“Fort Nepean’s Sergeant John Purdue fired first shot of World War I”, The Age, 4 August 2014]. Concurrently with this, some papers are running articles on the role of Corporal William Carlin, which suggest that it was Carlin who fired the first shot [“Historic shot echoes a day later”, The Standard (Warrnbl. Vic.) 4 August 2014; “Marshall’s First Shot Connection”, The Surf Coast News (Bell. Pen. Vic.) 31 July 2014]. Both servicemen are now long deceased, and interviews with members of their families reveal their great pride in the part played by their respective kinsman.

Ft Nepean today

The apparent contradiction can be possibly explained as Sgt. Purdue issuing the on-the-ground command to fire, and Corp. Carlin, or another gunner, launching the shells. Given that the gun emplacement crew at Fort Nepean consisted of five or six men, the reality is that we will probably never know in any definitive sense which gunner fired the first shots across the bow of the German coal steamer. At the very least, we do know that both Sgt. Purdue and Corp. Carlin played key roles in the exact operation which symbolically marked the onset of the World War’s hostilities.

◖◗ See also the earlier, related article on this blogsite – “First engagement of hostilities? Very odd angry shots indeed!”