By 6 o’clock therefore on the morning of August 7 the _Goeben_, already the fastest capital unit in the Mediterranean, was steaming on an unobstructed course for the Dardanelles, carrying with her for the peoples of the East and Middle East more slaughter, more misery and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship. Thus of all the British vessels which were or could have been brought within effective distance, none did anything useful excepting only the two light cruisers _Dublin_ and _Gloucester_, commanded, as it happened, by two brothers. The _Dublin_ (Captain John Kelly) as we have seen did all in her power to place herself athwart the enemy’s course and to fight him by night or day; and the _Gloucester_ (Captain W. A. Howard Kelly) hung on to the heels of the _Goeben_ till late in the afternoon, in extreme danger and with the utmost tenacity, and only relinquished the chase under the direct orders of the Commander-in-Chief. Various explanations have been offered for the failure to bring the _Goeben_ to action after the declaration of war, and every telegram sent by the Admiralty was searched to find phrases which could justify or palliate what had occurred. For instance, it was pleaded that the sentence in the Admiralty telegram to the Commander-in-Chief of July 30, ‘Do not at this stage be brought to action against superior forces except in combination with the French as part of a general battle,’ justified Admiral Troubridge in refraining from attacking the _Goeben_ with his four armoured cruisers. On this it may be observed that this sentence is clearly shown by the context to refer to the Austrian Fleet against whose battleships it was not desirable that our three battle cruisers should be engaged without battleship support. Secondly it was contained in a telegram giving the Commander-in-Chief general directions for the strategic conduct of the naval campaign in the Mediterranean. It was not intended by the Admiralty to govern tactical action. The words, however, acquired a more particular significance when they were repeated—as they were—by the Commander-in-Chief to his subordinate Admiral Troubridge. But even so it ought not to have been treated as a veto upon British ships ever engaging superior forces however needful the occasion. This was an unreasonable reading of the Admiralty instructions. On such a reading both the _Gloucester_ and the _Dublin_ were guilty of disobedience. On such a reading, pedantically construed, no individual British ship in the Mediterranean would have been allowed to fight a vessel stronger by a single gun. Nobody ever honestly supposed that such doctrines were being laid down by the Admiralty. Moreover, the self-same telegram specifically emphasised the importance of bringing the _Goeben_ to action and singled out that vessel particularly among all the hostile forces in the Mediterranean. No such conception of his duty was taken by either of the Captains Kelly. Nor