At twenty minutes past four the nearest ships on either side began to sight one another, and until they did so Cradock had no knowledge that he had knocked up against the whole of the German Pacific Squadron. The German concentration had been effected secretly and most successfully. When the _Scharnhorst_, von Spee’s flagship, first saw the _Glasgow_ and _Monmouth_ they were far off to the west-south-west and had to wait for more than half an hour until the _Good Hope_, which was still farther out to the west, could join hands with them. Meanwhile the German ships, which were also spread out, had concentrated on the _Scharnhorst_. They were the _Gneisenau_, _Dresden_, and _Leipzig_, for the _Nürnberg_ had not returned from her watching duties. Cradock, who saw at once that the Germans were getting between his ships and the Chilean coast, and that he would be at a grave disadvantage by being silhouetted against the western sky, tried to work in towards the land. But von Spee, grasping his enemy’s purpose, set the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_ going at twenty knots due south against a heavy sea and forced himself between Cradock and the coast. When the two light cruisers drew up, the four German ships fell into line parallel with the English cruisers and between them and the land. All these preliminary manœuvres were put through while the two squadrons were still twelve miles apart, and they determined the issue of the subsequent action. For von Spee, having thrust the English against the background of the declining sun and being able, with his greater speed, to hold them in this position and to decide absolutely the moment when the firing should begin, had effectively won the action before a shot had been fired. So long as the sun was above the horizon the German ships were lighted up and would have made admirable marks could Cradock have got within range. But von Spee had no intention of letting him get within range until the sun had actually set and had ceased to give light to Cradock’s gunners. His own men for an hour afterwards could see the English ships standing out as clearly as black paper outlines stuck upon a yellow canvas screen. “I had manœuvred,” wrote von Spee to a friend, on the day following the action, “so that the sun in the west could not disturb me. . . . When we were about five miles off I ordered the firing to commence. The battle had begun, and with a few changes, of course, I led the line quite calmly.” He might well be calm. The greater speed of his squadron had enabled him to outmanœuvre the English ships, and to wait until the sunset gave him a perfect mark and the English no mark at all. He might well be calm. Darkness everywhere, except in the western sky behind Cradock’s ships, came down very quickly, the nearly full moon was not yet up, the night was fine except for scuds of rain at intervals. Between seven and eight o’clock—between sunset and moonrise—von Spee