FIRST VICTORY. 
By Mike Carlton.
William Heinemann Australia. 496pp. $45.

This timely book is about more than just the 1914 hunt for the SMS Emden, though her legendary cruise and the Battle of the Cocos Islands are well covered from both the German and the Australian viewpoints. First Victory documents the urgent transition made from peace to war in the last half of 1914 by the young Royal Australian Navy and its parent service, the Royal Navy. It also explains the fate of the ships and men of the German navy's East Asia Squadron that was perceived in 1913 as being a threat to Australia's maritime trade and ports.

The book opens with the nation-building arrival of the RAN's First Fleet Unit, led by the battle cruiser HMAS Australia, in October 1913. This was a moment of national rejoicing and relief, as the modern battle cruiser and her escorts were an insurance that the German ships in the North Pacific were now checked and matched. The actions of the Australian Naval Brigade in German New Guinea are retold and the logic of that expedition carefully considered.

Most of the book is devoted to providing the best account in recent decades of how the light cruiser Emden and her intelligent and resourceful captain, Karl von Muller, roamed the Indian Ocean and sank or delayed British merchant shipping and trade in port for several weeks. Even the sailing of the first convoy of Australian and New Zealand troops to the Middle East was delayed by doubt about where Emden was. The risk of troopships coming under fire from accurate German gunners could not be lightly dismissed.

Emden's night attack on Madras' oil storage depot, the surprise destruction of the Russian cruiser Zhemchug in Penang and the one-sided battle with the brave French torpedo boat destroyer Mousquet are all well covered. Von Muller's punctilious observance of the rules of war at sea made him into something of an international hero and his hunting by a dozen ships became a game followed in newspapers.

The contrast between von Muller's humane, correct behaviour towards his prisoners and that of the German army's troops ravaging the civilians of ''brave little Belgium'' in 1914 was noted at the time.

The account of the last battle of the ''Swan of the East'' with her more powerful nemesis HMAS Sydney is movingly retold with a wealth of detail that brings the battle to life. The description of the human carnage reminds one that when brave men are being torn apart by high explosives, there are no winners and no cause for national exultation. Certainly, Sydney's Captain John Glossop was not among those who felt triumphant after he had seen at first hand what his shells had done to Emden's sailors. He wrote: ''I've seen my first naval engagement, and all I can say is thank God we did not start the war.''

John Glossop asked his prisoner, Karl von Muller, what he would have done had he known of the presence of the troop convoy so near to Emden. Von Muller made it clear that he would have done his duty, which would have been to shadow the troopships by day and attack by night with guns and torpedoes until he was himself sunk by the escorts or out of ammunition.

The final chapters of this extraordinary story cover the voyages of the Emden's shore party, led by First Officer Hellmuth von Mucke, from Direction Island back to Turkey and eventually Berlin.

When his captain sailed into battle with Sydney, von Mucke was ashore attempting to destroy the British cable and wireless telegraphy station. He realised that Emden was overmatched and saw that von Muller's luck had run out. He deduced that any German survivors of the battle must be prisoners. He was determined to avoid the same fate and before Sydney returned for him, he boarded and stored the leaky local trading schooner Ayesha, and led his sailors on a remarkable and prolonged adventure. He sailed from the middle of the Indian Ocean to the Dutch East Indies and rendezvoused at sea with a German steamer bound for the Middle East. He led his men in two dhows up the Red Sea, evading the RN's patrols, and fought the local Bedouin ashore to get to a Turkish railhead and thence back to Constantinople in June 1915.

The escape and survival of most of the Emden's shore party is perhaps without parallel for sheer daring in modern naval history. It makes a great finale to this gripping and well-written history.

The level of success enjoyed by the little Emden and her gallant ship's company hint at what Count Maximilian von Spee might have achieved with his whole squadron if Australia had not possessed a battle cruiser that deterred him from implementing his pre-war plans and orders. Von Spee wrote to his wife that until the arrival of HMAS Australia, the German plan in the event of war had been to attack Australian ships, ports and cargoes.

Carlton makes clear in his foreword that in his view, the fashionable concept that World War I was nothing to do with Australia could not be further from the truth. In 1914 Australia faced the destruction of her economy, trade and prosperity and the possible bombardment of her ports. This was indeed a world war, not a European dynastic quarrel.

This book is well illustrated with photographs, diagrams and charts. It contains a postscript to explain what became of the protagonists and provides reports and letters as appendices. The author makes clear his debt to the naval historians of the Seapower Centre - Australia. His German research partner was a descendant of one of Emden's officers, a retired German naval flag rank officer. The result is a scholarly book, rich with the fruits of careful research from both sides, which can be enjoyed by naval historians and general readers with equal satisfaction.