At 5 p.m. on the 5th Sir Berkeley Milne received the signal sent by the _Gloucester_ at 3.35 p.m. reporting the presence of the _Goeben_ at Messina. Here was certain confirmation of his belief. He was at this moment about 100 miles West of Sicily. He continued however to cruise with his two ships between Sicily and Sardinia, and as late as the evening of August 6, his orders to the _Indomitable_ were still to join him thereabouts. He did this because he considered that placing all three battle cruisers in this position was his surest way of carrying out the instructions of the Admiralty telegram of July 30 about aiding the French in the transport of their African army. That it was one method of carrying out these orders cannot be disputed, and the Admiral has set out in his book the reasons which led him to adopt it. The superior speed of the Goeben made it necessary, he states, if he were to intercept her, that he should stand a long way off and have timely notice of her approach. To place his whole force in this way between her and the French transports was, he argues, the best chance of catching the _Goeben_ if she tried to attack them. He reported his intended dispositions late on the 4th to the Admiralty, whose only comment upon them was, ‘Watch over the Adriatic should be maintained for the double purpose of preventing the Austrians from coming out or the Germans from entering.’ The exceedingly prompt manner in which the _Goeben_ had been found, although in the open sea, on the 4th had given the Admiralty the feeling that the Admiral on the spot had a grip of the situation and needed no further directions. Sir Berkeley Milne had not, however, succeeded in communicating with the French Admiral, although he had made repeated attempts by wireless and had sent the _Dublin_ to Biserta with a letter. He did not know where the French Fleet or the French transports were. He did not tell the Admiralty this. The Admiralty for their part, after the general telegram of August 4 enjoining immediate consultation with the French, assumed that the two Commanders-in-Chief in the Mediterranean were acting in concert. They did not therefore ask the French for any information, nor was any volunteered by the French Admiralty. Any inquiry addressed to Paris would have elicited the fact that the French had changed their plans and that no transports were yet at sea. All parties were on this point to some extent in fault.