The Battle of the Falkland Islands was fought on December 8th by a squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir F. Doveton Sturdee, K.C.B., C.V.O., C.M.G., against the German China Squadron--less _Emden_, but strengthened by the addition of the cruiser _Dresden_. Admiral Sturdee’s despatch was not published until about three months after the action, but in the meantime several accounts appeared in various newspapers, and since the despatch was published others have been printed in different magazines. Of no other action in the war have we such various or full information as about this. It will perhaps be a convenient way of dealing with this extremely instructive and important engagement to reproduce the Vice-Admiral’s despatch textually, and to supplement it by explanatory notes, and incorporate in these what is most material of the additional information which is available. The despatch begins with the tabulation of the sections into which the despatch is divided: A. Preliminary Movements. B. Action with the Armoured Cruisers. C. Action with the Light Cruisers. D. Action with the Enemy’s Transports. “The squadron, consisting of H.M. ships _Invincible_, flying my flag, Flag Captain Percy T. H. Beamish; _Inflexible_, Captain Richard F. Phillimore; _Carnarvon_ flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Archibald P. Stoddart, Flag Captain Harry L. d’E. Skipwith; _Cornwall_, Captain Walter M. Ellerton; _Kent_, Captain John D. Allen; _Glasgow_, Captain John Luce; _Bristol_, Captain Basil H. Fanshawe; and _Macedonia_, Captain Bertram S. Evans--arrived at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, at 10:30 A.M. on Monday, the 7th December, 1914. Coaling was commenced at once, in order that the ships should be ready to resume the search for the enemy’s squadron the next evening, the 8th December.”