Picturesque as this incident was it was of no importance as compared with the great British blockade of Germany which began on the 4th of August. German merchantmen in every country of the empire were seized, and hundreds of ships were captured on the high seas. Those who escaped to neutral ports were at once interned. In a week German commerce had ceased to exist. A few German cruisers were still at large but it was not long before they had been captured, or driven into neutral ports. Among the most picturesque of these raiders were the Emden and the Koenigsburg. The Emden, in particular, interested the world with her romantic adventures. Her story is best told in the words of Lieutenant-Captain von Mücke, and Lieutenant Gyssing, whose return to Germany with forty-four men, four officers and one surgeon, after the destruction of the ship, was a veritable Odyssey. “We on the Emden had no idea where we were going, as, on August 11, 1914, we separated from the cruiser squadron, escorted only by the coaler Markomannia. Under way the Emden picked up three officers from German steamers. That was a piece of luck, for afterward we needed many officers for the capturing and sinking of steamers, or manning them when we took them with us. On September 10th, the first boat came in sight. We stopped her; she proved to be a Greek tramp returning from England. On the next day we met the Indus, bound for Bombay, all fitted up as a troop transport, but still without troops. That was the first one we sunk. The crew we took aboard the Markomannia. Then we sank the Lovat, a troop transport ship, and took the Kambinga along with us. One gets used quickly to new forms of activity. After a few days, capturing ships became a habit. Of the twenty-three which we captured most of them stopped after our first signal; when they didn’t we fired a blank shot. Then they all stopped. Only one, the Clan Matteson, waited for a real shot across the bow before giving up its many automobiles and locomotives to the seas. “The officers were mostly very polite, and let down rope ladders for us. After a few hours they would be on board with us. We ourselves never set foot in their cabins, nor took charge of them. The officers often acted on their own initiative, and signaled to us the nature of their cargo. Then the commandant decided as to whether to sink the ship or take it with us. Of the cargo we always took everything we could use, particularly provisions. Many of the English officers and sailors made good use of the hours of transfer to drink up the supply of whisky instead of sacrificing it to the waves. I heard that one captain was lying in tears at the enforced separation from his beloved ship, but on investigation found that he was merely dead drunk. The captain on one ship once called out cheerily ‘Thank God, I’ve been captured.’ He had received expense money for the trip to Australia, and was now saved half the journey.”