It will be observed that the British Admiral was carrying on his chase on a wide front and at full speed--probably twenty-four knots. Only _Glasgow_, _Kent_, and the two battle-cruisers could maintain this, which meant that _Carnarvon_ and _Cornwall_ were falling very much behind. The Admiral therefore, after an hour, dropped his speed to twenty knots to enable his two cruisers to catch up. Why did he do this? In the first place, his burst at full speed had probably shown him that instead of having an advantage of only two knots in speed over his enemy, he could beat him by at least five knots when he chose. And he reasoned that if he drove at the five German ships with only four of his own, it was possible for the German ships to scatter and so for one or more of them to escape. It was of the essence of his tactics that the enemy should keep his fleet together as long as possible, and it was a vital matter that when the dispersion took place the pursuit of the light cruisers should be undertaken by his own light cruisers with the best possible prospects of bringing all of them to action. As we shall see by the next paragraph, this measure did not attain its desired end. “The enemy were still maintaining their distance, and I decided at 12:20 P.M. to attack with the two battle-cruisers and the _Glasgow_. “At 12:47 P.M. the signal to ‘Open fire and engage the enemy’ was made. “The _Inflexible_ opened fire at 12:55 P.M. from her fore turret at the right-hand ship of the enemy, a light cruiser; a few minutes later the _Invincible_ opened fire at the same ship. “The deliberate fire from a range of 16,500 to 15,000 yards at the right-hand light cruiser, who was dropping astern, became too threatening, and when a shell fell close alongside her at 1:20 she (the _Leipzig_) turned away, with the _Nürnberg_ and _Dresden_, to the southwest. These light cruisers were at once followed by the _Kent_, _Glasgow_, and _Cornwall_, in accordance with my instructions. “The action finally developed into three separate encounters besides the subsidiary one dealing with the threatened landing.”