A brisk action was fought upon August 28 in the Heligoland Bight, when Admiral Beatty with his cruiser-squadron and a number of light craft visited the enemy in his own waters, sinking three German warships and sustaining no losses himself. Among the prisoners was the son of Chief Admiral Von Tirpitz. Numerous minor actions led to no {314} noteworthy result, but the power of the submarine, already prophesied before the war, speedily made itself manifest. Several small British cruisers were destroyed by these craft, and finally a considerable disaster occurred through the sinking of the three cruisers, _Hogue_, _Aboukir_, and _Cressy_, upon September 22. This dashing and cool-headed exploit was brought off by a young lieutenant named Weddigen. Much as we suffered from his action, it was recognised in Britain as having been a remarkable deed of arms upon a very different plane to those execrable murders of civilians with which the German submarine service was afterwards associated. Some months later Weddigen's submarine rose amongst the Grand Fleet whilst it was in motion, and was rammed and destroyed by the _Dreadnought_. The outbreak of war had seen a considerable number of German cruisers at large, and these would undoubtedly have been strongly reinforced had it not been for the speed with which the British Fleet took up its war-stations. As it was, the amount of damage to commerce was not serious, and by the New Year all the wanderers had been rounded up. The most successful raider was the _Emden_, under Captain Müller, which captured and destroyed numerous British merchant-ships, bombarded the Madras gas-works, and sank by a surprise attack a small Russian cruiser and a French destroyer before it was finally cornered and sunk by the Australian cruiser _Sydney_ off Cocos Island upon November 10. Captain Muller, though forced by circumstances to adopt certain measures not recognised in honourable naval warfare, behaved on the whole in the manner which one associates with the term naval officer. The {315} _Karlsruhe_ had also considerable success as a naval raider, but met her end through an unexplained explosion some little time after her consort the _Emden_. On the whole, the damage inflicted by German commerce destroyers was very much less summary. than had been anticipated.