“H.M.S. _Macedonia_ reports that only two ships, steamships _Baden_ and _Santa Isabel_, were present; both ships were sunk after the removal of the crew.” It is not clear from this what became of the third ship. But there were persistent rumours in various South American ports that the Germans had, in the course of the autumn, collected a very considerable number of trained reservists from the different South American States and cities, and had got them on board a transport with arms, etc., so as to be ready for any military purpose the naval commander-in-chief might select. It is exceedingly probable that the reason Von Spee did not appear off the Falkland Islands till five weeks after his defeat of Admiral Cradock was that he had had to spend a considerable time in getting these reservists ready for action. It certainly is quite clear that on December 8th he arrived off the Falkland Islands intending to attack, and it is far more probable that he intended to attack, seize, and annex the colony than merely to subdue and rob it. To seize and annex he would have needed troops, and the third transport that _Macedonia_ did not find when she got _Santa Isabel_ and _Baden_ probably contained the men destined to hold the colony. That the British Admiralty expected some attack of this kind is shown from the fact that _Canopus_, after being ordered north, was told to return to the Falkland Islands and to do the best possible for the defence of the colony. The only military strength possessed by the colony was three hundred volunteers who had had very little training and practically no arms beyond rifles. _Good Hope_ had left a field-gun when passing at the beginning of October, but of other artillery there was none. The seizure of the island, then, by Von Spee’s force of five ships, supplemented by a regiment of reservists, was a perfectly feasible project. Had it succeeded and the island been left with an adequate supply of machine and field guns, to resist a landing, it would have been an extremely difficult job to have turned them out. For with guns properly emplaced, the ships’ artillery could have done very little to protect landing parties, and Admiral Sturdee’s ships carried no sufficient surplus of men for it to have been practicable to incur a heavy sacrifice of life to regain the island. So far as this adventure was concerned the whole thing miscarried through being a week too late. CHAPTER XV BATTLE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS (IV) STRATEGY--TACTICS--GUNNERY Von Spee’s mistakes we have seen in the course of my comment on the narrative. They were broadly fourfold. Three arose from an inability to realize from the very beginning the true character of the situation, the fourth from want of resolution to fight an unequal action on the only conditions in which any success was to be gained.