The battle of the Falkland Islands was an event of enormous importance and interest, and I propose to discuss a few of its more obvious bearings. Let us first consider its immediate direct and indirect effects upon the course of the war. The overseas naval situation at the end of October, while not in the larger sense at all threatening or dangerous, afforded nevertheless grounds for very great anxiety. _Emden_ had made a series of sensational captures in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. _Karlsruhe_ was working havoc with the British trade off the northeast corner of South America. The German China squadron had evaded the Japanese and British and Allied fleets in the East, and _Australia_ and her consorts had obtained no news of its whereabouts when cruising between the Antipodes and the German islands. A few British ships had been taken by _Dresden_ on her passage down to the Straits of Magellan, and the public was entirely without information which led them to suppose that either Von Spee or any of the raiding cruisers were the subject of any effective pursuit. Though the loss of ships by hostile cruisers was absurdly smaller than experts had anticipated, it was quite large enough to disconcert and alarm the public, who knew, after all, very little about the character of those anticipations. Suddenly in the first week of November came two thunderclaps. Admiral Cradock, with a preposterously weak force, had been engaged and been defeated by the lost Von Spee. Of the four ships composing his squadron, the armed liner _Otranto_ and the light cruiser _Glasgow_ had escaped, but _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ had gone down, lost with all hands. Then on November 3rd came the bombardment of Lowestoft by certain German cruisers. It was the first attack of any kind on the people of these islands, and it was hastily explained to us by the Admiralty--and quite rightly--that the thing was without a military objective or military importance, and as if to forestall naval criticism, we were further told that it would not be allowed to disturb any previously made Admiralty plans. We were asked to believe that it was a mere piece of frightfulness.