Sailing from Tsingtau on August 5th, with four colliers, the _Emden_ apparently proceeded to cruise in the neighbourhood of Vladivostock, where she captured a Russian auxiliary cruiser and one or two merchant ships, before going south to make history in the Bay of Bengal. She was eventually brought to book off the Cocos Islands on November 9th, 1914, by the Australian light cruiser _Sydney_, in a very gallant action which lasted over an hour and a half, when she ran herself ashore in a sinking condition on North Keeling Island. She sank seventeen ships all told, representing a total value of £2,211,000. The _Königsberg_, at the commencement of hostilities, was lying at Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of what was formerly German East Africa. She sank the _Pegasus_, a light cruiser only two-thirds of her size and of much inferior armament, at Zanzibar on September 20th, but only succeeded in sinking one or two steamers afterwards. She was eventually discovered hiding in the Rufiji Delta in German East Africa, towards the end of October, 1914, where she was kept blocked up by our ships for nearly nine months. Finally, on July 11th, 1915, she was destroyed by gunfire by the monitors _Severn_ and _Mersey_, who went up the river--the banks on both sides being entrenched--and reduced her to a hopeless wreck where she lay, some fourteen miles from the sea. CHAPTER II THE POLICY OF ADMIRAL COUNT VON SPEE It is clearly impossible to state with any exactitude the motives which governed von Spee's policy; but, in briefly reviewing the results, a shrewd idea of the reasons which led him to certain conclusions may be formed. Also, it will assist the reader to a conclusion on the merits and demerits of the strategy adopted, and will help him to follow more easily the reasons for some of the movements of our own ships described in the next chapter. That Admiral von Spee did not return to Tsingtau at the outbreak of hostilities appears significant, since he was by no means inferior to our squadron, and wished to mobilise his ships. He, however, sent the _Emden_ there with dispatches and instructions to the colliers about meeting him after she had escorted them to sea. Japan, it will be remembered, did not declare war till August 23rd, 1914, and therefore could scarcely have come into his earlier calculations. His action in continuing his cruise in the Southern Pacific, where he was handy and ready to strike at the French colonies[2] at the psychological moment of the outbreak of hostilities, gives the impression that he did not consider England's intervention probable.