May 25,. 1916 
LAND & ^\• A T E R 
23 
or later they must have been run down and brought 
to action. But the catching and destroying of these ships 
would have been no simple matter. It would have been 
10 use looking for them with single ships of greater 
power but lower speed. Of ships of equal speed and 
equal power, the British Navy could only supply the 
four Natals, Duke of Edinburgh, Black Prince, Minotaur 
and her two sister ships. And to all of these, except the 
Minotaur, highly important duties elsewhere had been 
assigned. If there were no other difficulty then, he 
could probably count on a reasonably long trip for each 
ship, and a considerable success while life lasted. 
Chilean Aid 
But it probably was not any definite weighing of the 
chances of this or that ship being sent against him 
that decided him to keep his fleet together. East 
of Australia and Singapore there are only two trade 
routes of supreme importance — the Pacific lines be- 
tween China and Japan and America, and what 
may be called the coasting lines connecting Japan 
and the Chinese ports with the Indian Ocean. By 
far the most important both in values of freights 
and in numbers of ships is the latter, and the bulk of 
tills trade has to pass across the Indian Ocean to 
the Suez Canal. In the Indian Ocean there comes not 
only this far Eastern trade, to which the Malay, Borneo 
and Dutch and Java trade must be added, but it is swelled 
by what comes from India, Ceylon and from Australasia. 
The mouth of the Red Sea, then, is the point at which all 
the Eastern trade concentrates. What was probably 
von Spec's final argument against devoting the whole of 
his force to an attack on this congeries of vital arteries 
was the difficulty of ensuring the supply of coal, provisions, 
etc., for his ships. But if he kept in the Pacific the in- 
numerable archipelagos offered him two supreme ad- 
vantages. He could in the first place hide amongst these 
islands for almost as long as he wished. He could ne.xt 
organise the German traders scattered up and down 
through Polynesia to collect and send him supplies, 
provisions, and above all news, when it was available. 
Lastly the large amount of German shipping plying on 
the West coast of South America could be organised to 
supply him with coal. In electing for the Pacific he chose 
between the chances of a formidable destruction of com- 
merce and the best chance of keeping his squadron in being. 
Immediate safety was probably not his only object in 
view. The German community in Chile was numerous, 
rich, owned a great many ships, and in many districts 
monopolised Chilean trade, so that port after port 
could be relied on to act almost as if it were German 
and not neutral. His plan seems to have been, then, 
to elude the British and Japanese by concealment 
in the islands and then gradually to work a passage across 
to Chile, and to decide when he got there what his future 
plans were to be. The details of his actual movements, 
so far as I know, are not available to the public. It is 
to be presumed that in the early stages of the war the 
China squadron, reinforced by the hastily commissioned 
Triumph, sought him at his only Eastern base of 
importance, Tsing Tau. But he had left this long 
before hostilities were imminent. He appears to have 
taken the whole of his squadron with him to some 
rendezvous in the Caroline Islands. The first news the 
world heard of his existence was his appearance off 
Samoa towards the middle of September. A fortnight 
later he was off Tahiti, and he was not heard of again 
until he met and destroyed Cradock's squadron on 
November 1st. It has since become known that 
Dresden, which before the war represented German in- 
terests at Vera Cruz, had made her way round Cape Horn, 
and joined him some ten days before Cradock was en- 
countered. It is probable that she brought the news of 
his arrival off the Chilean coast. And while Dresden 
was working round the Horn, von Spec was pursuing his 
way at low speed to Massafueras after a stop at Easter 
Island en route. From the end of July then till the ist 
November he maintained his squadron in fuel and pro- 
visions without possessing any base of any kind — an 
unprecedented achievement. 
A few days before his appearance off Samoa the world 
was startled by the resounding news of Emden's 
devastations in the Indian Ocean. She had three series 
of successes. The first began on September loth and 
before the week was out six ships were captured and most 
of them sunk. A fortnight later she took five more ships 
in three successive days. Again for a fortnight nothing 
was heard of her, and then six more fell between the loth 
and 19th of October. Emden's third disappearance 
lasted nearly three weeks. She was then brought to 
action and destroyed by Sydney in the Cocos group of 
Islands. Simultaneously with the appearance of Emden 
in the Indian Ocean Leipzic destroyed a British ship off 
lower California, but she captured onlj' two more victims, 
one on .September nth and the other December 2nd. 
Now if all these movements are examined it is not 
difficult to see a connected plan behind them, and it is 
equally clear that the plan was of old standing. In 
discussing what von Spee might have done and what he 
did I am not therefore supposing that he debated these 
points when war became certain. The fact that Dresden 
was dispatched round the Horn off the coast of Chile, 
seems to argue that it was known for certain that von 
Spee, if all went well, would reach there by the end of 
October. What was the object of these movements ? 
First there was the very important strategic object of 
keeping his enemies guessing where he might be and 
what he might be up to. While he was in being con- 
siderable forces would have to be mobiHsed, either to 
look for him or to guard against him. Trade would be 
nervous, the dispatch of troops would be full of danger, 
important units would have to be employed as convoys. 
There was next always the chance that he might encounter 
and defeat some inferior force and in this respect chance 
served him well. Although there was always the possibihty 
of an encounter which would raise the prestige of German 
arms, still, he could hardly have supposed that things 
would so shape themselves that a British Admiral with 
so inferior a force as Good Hope, Monmouth, and Glasgow 
would cross the Atlantic with orders to seek him out and 
engage him. He must then have regarded the only 
naval victory that fell to him as the most astonishing 
stroke of luck in history. There was also the possibility 
of his making his way to Africa, where, if Great Britain's 
hands were really full elsewhere, his ships might very 
materially assist in -prolonging a struggle for existence 
by one or more of the German colonies. Lastly 
there was the possibility of attacking some undefended 
British possession and, if only for 24 hours, hoisting the 
German flag over it. It was as we know his anxiety 
to bring off this coup at the Falkland Islands that led 
to his undoing. 
These points are worth rehearsing now, because it is 
obvious that, had Australia not possessed a unit of the 
power and speed of her battle cruiser, the fate intended for 
Sovtes Sbahespeananae 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE 
Empire Day . 
T/ie yearly course that brings this day about 
Shall never see it but a holiday. 
Kin< Joha III., i., 81-2. 
The Ruler of Imperial Britain. 
Wherever the bright sun, of heaven 
shall shine. 
His honour and the greatness of his name 
Shall be, and make new nations ; he shall 
flou7'ish 
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his 
branches 
To all the plains about him ; our children s 
children 
Shall see this, and bless heaven. 
Henry VIII., V.. iv.. 5*5. ' 
The Safeguard of Enarland. 
Let us be back' d with God and with the seas 
Which He hathgiven for fence ivipregnable. 
And with their helps only defend ourselves : 
In them and in ourselves our safety lies. 
3 Henry VI., IV.. i., 43-6. 
