The Great War (All 8 Volumes). Various Authors
The Monmouth, after the main action was over, was found and finished by the German squadron and went down. Seventy shots were fired at her when she lay sinking, on fire and helpless, and unable to fire her guns. Germany had evened the score in the second battle between fleets.
The Dresden after the Falkland action took refuge in Fiordes of Terra del Fuego and after being there for a couple of months proceeded to the head of the Island of Juan Fernandez where she was found by the Glasgow, Kent and auxiliary cruiser Orama and was destroyed.
Most remarkable had been the career of the German third-class cruiser Nürnberg, which had joined the other German ships that went to make up the German squadron which fought in this battle off Coronel. This vessel, on the day after Germany and England went to war, was lying near Yap, an island in the Pacific, that had been, until captured by the Japanese, the wireless station of most importance to the Germans in the Pacific Ocean. She immediately, after being apprised that she was part of a navy engaged in a war, set sail and was not reported again until the 7th of September, when she appeared at Fanning Island, a cable station maintained by Britain, and from which cables run to Vancouver to the east and Australia to the west. Here she hid her identity by entering the harbor flying the tricolor of France and appearing as though she was making a friendly visit. Officials on the island, happy to think they would have such a visitor, saw two cutters leave the warship.
Great was the surprise of those watching events from the shore when they saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the visitor and in its place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters were just about reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this surprise came, and it was augmented when, with the protection of the guns of the vessel, the men in these cutters showed themselves to be a hostile landing party.
Her presence was not reported to the rest of the world for the good reason that she cut all cables leading from the island. All the British men there were put under guard, and after damaging all cable instruments she could find, the Nürnberg, accompanied by a collier that had come with her, again took to the high seas.
She next turned up at the island of St. Felix, 300 miles west of the Chilean coast, but did not come to the harbor. During the night of October 14 the inhabitants of that island saw the flash and heard the roar of an explosion miles out to sea, and for a number of days later they picked up on their beach the wreckage of what must have been a collier. As has been related in preceding paragraphs, the Nürnberg took part in that fight. The end of her career came in the battle off the Falkland Islands, which will be dealt with later.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE GERMAN SEA RAIDERS
While British men-o'-war were capturing German merchantmen and taking them to British ports, the German raiders which were abroad were earning terrifying reputations for themselves because the enemy merchantmen with which they came upon had to be destroyed on the high seas, for there were no ports to which they could be taken. Prominent among these was the Königsberg, a third-class cruiser. When the war came she was in Asiatic waters and immediately made the east coast of Africa her "beat." While patrolling it she came upon two British merchant ships, and after taking from their stores such supplies as were needed she sent them to the bottom. On September 20, 1914, she made a dash into the harbor of Zanzibar and found there the British cruiser Pegasus, which on account of her age was undergoing a complete overhauling. She was easy prey for the German ship, for besides the fact that she was stationary her guns were of shorter range than those of her adversary. Shell after shell tore into her till she was battered beyond all resemblance to a fighting craft. But her flag flew till the end, for though it was shot down from the masthead, two marines held it aloft, one of them losing his life. And when the Königsberg, her task of destruction complete, sailed off, the lone marine still held up the Union Jack. The British ships in those waters made a systematic hunt for her and located her at last, on the 30th of October. She was hiding in her favorite rendezvous, some miles up the Rufigi River in German East Africa. The ship which found her was the Chatham, a second-class cruiser, with a draft much heavier than that of the Königsberg, and the difference gave the latter a good advantage, for she ran up the river and her enemy could not follow. Nor could the English ship use her guns with much effect, for the gunners could not make out the hull of the German ship through the tropical vegetation along the river banks. All that the British ship could do was to fire shells in her general direction and then guess what effect they had. But to prevent her escape, colliers were sunk at the mouth of the river. She had come to as inglorious an end as her victim, the Pegasus.
The account of another raider, the Kronprinz Wilhelm, which left New York on the evening that England declared war, with her bunkers loaded with coal and other supplies for warships, has already been related. The mystery concerning this sailing was cleared up when she was caught coaling the Karlsruhe in the Atlantic. Both ships made off in safety that time, and soon after a British cruiser reported that she had been heard in wireless communication with the Dresden. Thereafter the fate of this ship remained a mystery till she put in at Hampton Roads on April 11, 1915.
Most spectacular was the career of the Emden, a third-class cruiser, which sailed from Japanese waters at the same time as the Königsberg. Through the ability of her commander, Captain Karl von Müller, she earned the soubriquet "Terror of the East," for by using a clever system of supply ships she was able to raid eastern waters for ten weeks without making a port or otherwise running the risk of leaving a clue by which British ships might find her. Her favorite occupation was that of stopping enemy merchantmen which she sank. But her captain always allowed one—the last one—of her prizes to remain afloat, and in this he sent to the nearest port the officers, passengers, and crews of those that were destroyed. At times he used prizes as colliers, putting them under command of his petty officers.
By way of diversion, Captain von Müller steamed into the harbor of Madras in the Bay of Bengal and opened with his guns on the suburbs of the town, setting on fire two huge oil tanks there. The fort there returned the fire, but the Emden after half an hour sailed away unharmed. She had been enabled to come near the British guns on shore by flying the French flag, which she continued to display until her guns began to boom. She then left the waters of Bengal Bay, but not before she had ended the journey of $30,000,000 worth of exports to India, and had sent to the bottom of the sea some $15,000,000 worth of imports. Twenty-one steamers had been her victims, their total value having been about $3,250,000, and their cargoes were worth at least $15,000,000. Very expensive the British found her, and they were willing to go to any length to end her career. They curtailed her activities somewhat when the Yarmouth captured the converted liner Markomannia, which was one of her colliers, and recaptured the Greek freighter Pontoporos, which had been doing the same duty. This took place off the coast of Sumatra.
But Von Müller was undaunted, even though his coal problem was becoming serious. He knew that the Yarmouth had sailed from Penang near Malacca and that she was not at that base, since she was searching for his own vessel. He therefore conceived the daring exploit of making a visit to Penang while the Yarmouth was still away. He came within ten miles of the harbor on the 28th of October, and disguised his ship by erecting a false funnel made of canvas upheld by a wooden frame, much like theatrical scenery. This gave the Emden four funnels, such as the Yarmouth carried. Coming into the harbor in the twilight of the dawn, she was taken by those on shore to be the British ship, not a hostile gun ready for her.
Lying in the harbor was the Russian cruiser Jemchug and three French destroyers and a gunboat. The watch on the Russian ship questioned her, and was told by the wireless operator on the Emden that she was the Yarmouth returning to anchor. By this ruse the German ship was enabled to come within 600 yards of the Russian ship before the false funnel was discovered. Fire immediately spurted from the Russian guns, but a torpedo from the Emden struck the Jemchug's engine room and made it impossible for her crew to get ammunition to her guns. Von Müller poured steel into her from a distance of 250 yards with terrible effect. The Russian ship's list