A School History of the Great War

by Albert E. McKinley; Charles Augustin Coulomb; Armand Jacques Gerson

England's ally, Japan, having entered the war August 23, 1914, sent an expeditionary force which captured and occupied the German islands in the North Pacific. Kiaochow (kyou´chō´), Germany's only colony in China, was captured by a combined Japanese and British force early in November.

The loss of these colonies so early in the war interfered seriously with German plans for a war on Allied commerce by fast cruisers. In the absence of German coaling stations, the only way such vessels could obtain coal during a long raiding voyage, would be by the chance capture of coal-laden vessels.

German Colonies in Africa.—During the last quarter century Germany had succeeded in getting control of considerable territory in Africa. There were few German colonists there. However, Germany hoped that the Boers, who had recently fought a war with the British, and had been defeated, would attempt to regain their independence. In this case there was also the possibility of capturing Cape Colony and Rhodesia from the British. Much to the surprise and disgust of Germany, the Boers promptly showed their loyalty to Great Britain and aided in capturing the German colonies.

The struggle for Germany's African colonies continued for more than three years. Togo, a comparatively small colony, was captured by French and British troops shortly after the outbreak of the war. Under the Boer leaders, Generals Smuts and Botha, German Southwest Africa was conquered by July of 1915. Kamerun in West Africa was freed from German forces in 1916. The final chapter in the fight for the German colonies was written in December of 1917, when an army from British South Africa, in coöperation with Belgian forces, completed the conquest of German East Africa.

Germany's Fleet.—When war was declared the German fleet, which had cost the people of Germany a billion and a half of dollars, was something less than two thirds the strength of the British fleet. Germany's task was to destroy the British fleet or to weaken it to such an extent that it could no longer protect the British trade in food and munitions from over seas, nor assure the safe transport of troops from Great Britain or her colonies to the various fronts.

The Work of the British Navy.—The British navy had two pieces of work to perform. In the first place its aim was to destroy or bottle up in port the main German fleet so that it should not be able to interfere with the British plans for the war. In the second place squadrons had to be sent out to search for and destroy German squadrons or vessels that were far from home ports at the outbreak of war or that were sent out to raid British and neutral commerce.

Coast Protection.—Both Great Britain and Germany protected their coasts by laying fields of mines in the sea so placed that they would float just under water and arranged to explode on contact with the hull of a ship. Through these mine fields carefully hidden channels gave access to the different ports. So long as ships stayed in port or inside the fields of mines they were safe from attack.

The Blockade of German Ports.—In July, 1914, the British navy had a grand review. When the review was over, the war clouds were so threatening that the vessels were not dismissed to their stations. At the beginning of the war Great Britain announced a blockade of German ports and assigned to her main fleet the task of carrying out the blockade.

The Battle of Helgoland Bight.—Hel´goland is a small island rising steeply out of the North Sea; it has an area of one fifth of a square mile. It was ceded to Germany by England about twenty years before the war. Germany had fortified it and made it a sort of German Gibraltar to protect her chief naval ports. The Bight of Helgoland is the passage about eighteen miles wide between the island and the German coast. Here a portion of the British fleet engaged in patrol or scout duty came in contact with a part of the German fleet (August 28, 1914). The arrival of four fast British battleships decided the contest. Germany lost three cruisers and two destroyers, while every British vessel returned to port, though some were badly battered.

German Commerce Raiders.—A few days before the outbreak of the war the German fleet in China slipped out of port. The cruiser "Emden" was detached for work in the Indian Ocean, and the rest of the squadron raided over the Pacific. November 1, a British squadron met the German ships near the coast of Chile. In a little over an hour two of the British ships had been sunk and the remainder fled to the south. Immediately on news of the defeat the British Admiralty sent a squadron of seven powerful ships to find and destroy the German squadron. The British vessels stopped at the Falkland Islands to coal. The next day the German ships appeared. When they saw the strength of the British squadron they vainly attempted to escape. In the battle that followed, four German vessels were sunk. Of the two that escaped one was, a few months later, interned in a United States port and about the same time the other was destroyed.