At the beginning of hostilities the strategic position in the Pacific and Indian oceans should have been one that could have caused no possible naval anxiety to the Allies. Japan had at once thrown in her lot with us, and as we had squadrons in the China Seas, in the Indian Ocean, and in Australasia there was, when the forces of our eastern allies are added to them, a total naval strength incalculably greater than that at the disposal of the enemy. But this fact notwithstanding, there was for some months extraordinary uncertainty, and the arrangements adopted by the Admiralty permitted a serious attack to be made on our shipping and involved a tragic disaster to a British squadron. The facts of the case are far from being completely known, but the main features of the original situation and its development make it possible to draw certain broad inferences, which are probably correct. In the summer of 1914 the German sea forces at Tsing-Tau consisted of two armoured cruisers, two light cruisers, certain destroyers and gun-boats. Leaving the destroyers and gun-boats behind, Von Spee in the month of June abandoned his base at Tsing-Tau, and, after calling at Nagasaki, made for the German possessions in the Caroline Islands. His flag flew in _Scharnhorst_, and this ship with her sister vessel _Gneisenau_ constituted his main strength. He had the two light cruisers, _Leipzig_ and _Emden_, in his company, and on July 20, when the situation was becoming acute, he ordered _Nürnberg_, which was at San Francisco, and _Dresden_, which was at Vera Cruz, at the other side of the American continent, to join him. _Nürnberg_ reached him in a couple of weeks; _Dresden_ not till the end of October. By mid-August, then, his force consisted of two armoured cruisers, each with a broadside of six 8-inch and three 6-inch guns, and three light cruisers armed only with 4-inch. Of the light cruisers _Emden_ and _Nürnberg_ had a speed of between 25 and 26 knots; _Leipzig_ of about 23 or 24. The fighting value of the armoured cruisers was approximately equal to that of _Minotaur_ and _Defence_ and probably superior to that of the _Warrior_ class. The German 8-inch guns fired a projectile only slightly lighter than the British 9.2, so that, gun for gun, there should have been little to choose between them; while from the point of view of the control of fire, the broadside of six homogeneous guns could probably be used quite as effectively as a mixed armament of four 9.2’s and five 7.5’s, and more so than one of four 9.2’s and two 7.5’s. To engage such a squadron with the certainty of success, therefore, at least three British armoured cruisers of the latest type would have been required.