The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12): The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12): The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne
World War, 1914-1918
Great was the surprise of those watching events from the shore
when they saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the
visitor and in its place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters
were just about reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this
surprise came, and it was augmented when, with the protection of
the guns of the vessel, the men in these cutters showed themselves
to be a hostile landing party.
Her presence was not reported to the rest of the world for the
good reason that she cut all cables leading from the island. All
the British men there were put under guard, and after damaging
all cable instruments she could find, the _Nuernberg_, accompanied
by a collier that had come with her, again took to the high seas.
She next turned up at the island of St. Felix, 300 miles west of
the Chilean coast, but did not come to the harbor. During the night
of October 14 the inhabitants of that island saw the flash and heard
the roar of an explosion miles out to sea, and for a number of
days later they picked up on their beach the wreckage of what must
have been a collier. As has been related in preceding paragraphs,
the _Nuernberg_ took part in that fight. The end of her career came
in the battle off the Falkland Islands, which will be dealt with
later.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXXV
THE GERMAN SEA RAIDERS
While British men-o'-war were capturing German merchant-men and
taking them to British ports, the German raiders which were abroad
were earning terrifying reputations for themselves because the
enemy merchantmen with which they came upon had to be destroyed
on the high seas, for there were no ports to which they could be
taken. Prominent among these was the _Koenigsberg_, a third-class
cruiser. When the war came she was in Asiatic waters and immediately
made the east coast of Africa her "beat." While patrolling it she
came upon two British merchant ships, and after taking from their
stores such supplies as were needed she sent them to the bottom.
On September 20, 1914, she made a dash into the harbor of Zanzibar
and found there the British cruiser _Pegasus_, which on account of
her age was undergoing a complete overhauling. She was easy prey
for the German ship, for besides the fact that she was stationary her
guns were of shorter range than those of her adversary. Shell after
shell tore into her till she was battered beyond all resemblance to
a fighting craft. But her flag flew till the end, for though it
was shot down from the masthead, two marines held it aloft, one
of them losing his life. And when the _Koenigsberg_, her task of
destruction complete, sailed off, the lone marine still held up
the Union Jack. The British ships in those waters made a systematic
hunt for her and located her at last, on the 30th of October. She was
hiding in her favorite rendezvous, some miles up the Rufigi River
in German East Africa. The ship which found her was the _Chatham_, a
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