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
With the exceptions of the deeds done by the German sea raiders
the remaining naval history of the first six months of the war had
to do for the most part with British victories. When Von Spee's
squadron, with the exception of the light cruiser _Dresden_, which
was afterward sunk at the Island of Juan Fernandez, was dispersed
off the Falkland Islands there was no more possibility of there
being a pitched fight between German and British fleets other than
in the North Sea.
England began then to hit at the outlying parts of the German Empire
with her navy. The cruiser _Pegasus_, before being destroyed by
the _Koenigsberg_ at Zanzibar on September 20, 1914, had destroyed
a floating dock and the wireless station at Dar-es-Salaam, and
the _Yarmouth_, before she went on her unsuccessful hunt for the
_Emden_, captured three German merchantmen.
As far back as the middle of August, 1914, the capture of German
Samoa had been planned and directed from New Zealand. On the 15th
of that month an expedition sailed from Wellington, and in order
to escape the _Gneisenau_ and _Scharnhorst_, went first to French
New Caledonia, where the British cruisers _Psyche, Philomel_, and
_Pyramus_ were met with. On the 23d of the month, this force, which
was augmented by the French cruiser _Montcalm_ and the Australian
battleships _Australia_ and _Melbourne_, sailed first for the Fiji
Islands and then to Apia on Upolu Island off Samoa. They reached
there on the 30th. There was, of course, no force on the island
to withstand that of the enemy, and arrangements for surrender
of the place were made by signal. Marines were sent ashore; the
public buildings were occupied, the telegraph and telephone wires
cut, the wireless station destroyed and the German flag hauled
down, to be replaced by the Union Jack. The Germans taken prisoners
were rewarded for the kind treatment they had accorded British
residents before the appearance of this British force, and were
sent to New Zealand.
The next German possession to be taken was that in the Bismarck
Archipelago. It was known that there was a powerful wireless station
at Herbertshoehen, the island known as New Pomerania. A small landing
party was put ashore on the island in the early morning of September
11, 1914, and made its way, without being discovered, to the town.
The surprised inhabitants were too frightened to do anything until
this party left to go further on to the wireless station. By that
time it met with some resistance, but overcame it. A few days later
another landing party had captured the members of the staff of the
governor of New Pomerania, together with the governor himself, at
Bougainville, Solomon Islands, whence they had fled. The wireless
stations on the island of Yap, in the Carolines, and on Pleasant
Island were destroyed during the following month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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