A School History of the Great War by Armand Jacques Gerson;Albert E. (Albert Edward) McKinley;Charles Augustin Coulomb
page 72 of 183 (39%)
page 72 of 183 (39%)
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detached for work in the Indian Ocean, and the rest of the squadron
raided over the Pacific. November 1, a British squadron met the German ships near the coast of Chile. In a little over an hour two of the British ships had been sunk and the remainder fled to the south. Immediately on news of the defeat the British Admiralty sent a squadron of seven powerful ships to find and destroy the German squadron. The British vessels stopped at the Falkland Islands to coal. The next day the German ships appeared. When they saw the strength of the British squadron they vainly attempted to escape. In the battle that followed, four German vessels were sunk. Of the two that escaped one was, a few months later, interned in a United States port and about the same time the other was destroyed. The "Emden," after separating from the other warships, cruised in the Indian Ocean for three months, and was the most destructive of the German raiders. She was finally located by an Australian cruiser. After a fight the German captain drove his vessel on the rocks to escape sinking. A lieutenant and forty men who had landed to destroy a wireless station, seized a schooner and escaped, landed on the coast of Arabia, and finally made their way back to Germany. NAVAL SITUATION AT THE CLOSE OF 1914.--As a result of the activities of the Allied fleets, the German navy was shut up in port back of its mine fields, German commerce raiders had, with a few exceptions, been driven from the sea or destroyed, German merchant vessels were laid up in neutral or German ports, and the Allies were free to carry on the transport of troops, munitions, and other supplies with practically no fear of interference from the enemy. "The British ships, whether men-of-war or merchantmen, are upon the sea, the German in their ports." |
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