World War I
Empress of Russia was requisitioned by the British Admiralty twice during the First World War. Initially, the ship was refitted as an armed merchant cruiser at Hong Kong; she was attached to a squadron blockading German merchant shipping in Philippine waters and retained her Chinese crew,[10] but took on French sailors to man her guns.[11] Later, she was transferred to the Indian Ocean.
In November 1914, the highlight of this Indian Ocean tour of duty followed from a rendezvous at sea with the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney (1912). In what was called the Battle of Cocos, Sydney had engaged the German cruiser SMS Emden (1908), forcing the raider to beach herself on North Keeling Island to avoid sinking. Some 230 Emden survivors were transferred from Sydney to Empress of Russia for transport to Colombo.[3] At this point, Empress of Russia was sailing in a convoy of troop ships carrying 30,000 ANZACs from Albany, Australia to Suez and Europe.[12]
On April 30, 1915, Empress of Russia sailed from Hong Kong to the Red Sea, where she served until October 1915.[13]
In one incident, the guns of Empress of Russia were brought to bear on Hodeidah in what is modern Yemen. Bluntly, the Turks were told that if British and French consuls, who had been kidnapped, were not brought back, the port city would be demolished.[13]
Shortly afterwards, Empress of Russia was released by the Admiralty for a return to civilian service. The ship was refitted at Hong Kong, arriving there on 19 October, going into dock on 25 October and finally paying off on 12 February 1916. Empress of Russia then returned to her familiar trans-Pacific route.[3] Amongst those sailing with Empress of Russia in this period was Sumner Welles, who was to become one of President Franklin Roosevelt's foreign policy advisers.[14]
In April 1917 Empress of Russia brought 2,056 members of the Chinese Labor Corps (CLC) from Weihaiwei in China across the Pacific to Williams Head on Vancouver Island. After quarantine the CLC were then transshipped to Port Moody on the Canadian mainland and transported by the Canadian Pacific Railway in guarded cattle trucks across Canada to the Atlantic Coast, where other Empress ships took them to Dunkirk.[15]
The British Admiralty called Empress of Russia to wartime service for a second time in early 1918. She was to be used in transporting American troops to Europe.
Empress of Russia's last wartime voyage began from Liverpool on 12 January 1919. She sailed to Le Havre where Chinese labor battalions boarded Empress of Russia for the return voyage via Suez to Hong Kong. From the Far East, she sailed across the Pacific to Vancouver for re-fitting.[3]
This ship remained a coal-burner after the Great War, even though many liners at that time were being converted to oil.[16]
