In order that we may understand how the _Dresden_ was able to make her escape unscathed from her pursuers—she bolted without firing a shot in the action—I must give some few details of the position of the ships when the German light cruisers were ordered by von Spee to take themselves off as best they might. Shortly before one o’clock the _Glasgow_, a much faster ship than anything upon our side except the two battle cruisers, was two miles ahead of the flagship _Invincible_, and it was Sturdee’s intention to attack the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_—hull down on the horizon—with his speediest ships, the _Invincible_, _Inflexible_, and _Glasgow_. Our three other cruisers—_Carnarvon_, _Cornwall_, and _Kent_—were well astern of the leaders. At 1.04 the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ turned to the eastward to accept battle and to cover the retreat of their light cruisers, which were then making off towards the south-east. Admiral Sturdee, seeing at once that the light cruisers might make good their escape unless the speedy _Glasgow_ were detached in pursuit, called up the _Carnarvon_ (Rear-Admiral Stoddart) to his support, and ordered Captain Luce in the _Glasgow_ to take charge of the job of rounding up and destroying the _Leipzig_, _Nürnberg_, and _Dresden_. The _Glasgow_, therefore, began the chase at a grave disadvantage. She first had to work round the stern of the _Invincible_, pass the flagship upon her disengaged side, and then steam off from far in the rear after the _Cornwall_ and _Kent_, which had already begun the pursuit. The _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were a long way off, and the _Dresden_ was even farther. This cruiser, _Dresden_, though sister to the _Emden_, was, unlike her sister and the others of von Spee’s light cruisers, fitted with Parsons’ turbine engines. She was much the fastest of the German ships at the Falkland Islands, and beginning her flight with a start of some ten miles quickly was lost to sight beyond the horizon. The _Cornwall_ and _Kent_ had no chance at all of overtaking her, and the _Glasgow_, whose captain was the senior naval officer in command of the pursuing squadron of the three English cruisers, could not overtake a long stern chase by herself so long as the _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_ were in his course and had not been disposed of. He was obliged first to make sure of them. Steaming at twenty-four and a half knots, the _Glasgow_ drew away from the battle cruisers and began to overhaul the _Leipzig_ and _Nürnberg_. She decided to attack the _Leipzig_, which was nearest to her, and to regulate her speed so that the _Cornwall_ and _Kent_—both more powerful but much slower ships than herself—would not be left behind. As it happened the engineering staffs of these not very rapid “County” cruisers rose nobly to the emergency, the _Cornwall_ was able to catch the _Leipzig_ and to take a large part in her destruction, while the _Kent_ kept on after the _Nürnberg_ and, as it proved, was