SMS Emden
Chennai remembers SMS Emden, the dreadful First World War German battleship Not many know about some of the different, interesting facets of the Great War, more commonly known as the First World War, in the Asian front. The German navy during the war, tried to flex its muscle as far as the Indian Ocean and Chennai (then called as Madras) a southern port city in British India then, became the unfortunate ‘beneficiary’ of its wrath. On the late hours of September 22, 1914, a peaceful and unsuspecting Chennai retiring in to the night was stealthily approached by SMS Emden, a Dresden class light cruiser of the German navy and commanded by Captain Karl von Müller, with the singular objective of ‘enlightening’ the unperturbed and leisurely Indians of the horror and destruction of the Great War. On reaching the Madras harbor, the captain after surveying the scene around for a while, gave the order to fire at the numerous large oil tanks of the Burmah Oil company at