While the Kent was disposing of the Nürnberg, the Glasgow and afterwards the Cornwall tackled the Leipzig. "We continued to fight the Leipzig," writes one[99] of the Glasgows," and the Cornwall was now coming up to help us, so she hauled off again, and we followed. We soon got close enough to open fire again, and this time we had begun to make good shooting though it was at a long range. She had then turned slightly towards us, and we began to get her range; but she was altering her course so much that it made it extremely difficult to hit her. We got one shell through our control and the splinters killed one man and injured several others. This was the only shell that did much damage. We were getting much closer now and our shells were hitting her as her fire slackened, but we had to be careful owing to the enemy throwing mines over the side. As we got closer . . . our fire became even more effective, she turned to port and we had to cease fire for a while. Then the other battery had a chance and they made some very good shooting. By this time she had altered course again and this allowed the Cornwall to open fire on her, but it looked to us as if her fire was going very short. The Leipzig now fired at the Cornwall and we got up fairly close and poured in a heavy fire. She then took fire on her stern, and her mast and funnel went over the side. Then she was smoking amidships and a shell knocked away the upper half of her second funnel. She was now beaten but she refused to answer our signal to surrender, and after a while we opened fire on her again, and, as it was by this time quite dusk, we could see the shells strike and burst. She was lying quite helpless now and burning fiercely from amidships to the after end. The smoke which came from her in dense clouds, came across us and we could smell the faint burning.
"Then she fired one of her guns, and this was a signal for a fresh outburst from us. We kept steaming round near the burning ship, and then we saw them fire a white rocket. We and the Cornwall then lowered boats and went nearer to the now sinking ship." "When we went right close to", says another eyewitness, "she looked just like a night-watchman's bucket—all holes and fire. She was a mass of white heat. You would not think an iron ship would blaze like that." To continue to quote the previous narrator: "Our boats had just arrived near the ship, when she rolled gently over and then sank. Our boats picked up ten of them and the Cornwall's four. . . . Everyone seemed overjoyed to think we had avenged the loss of the Good Hope and Monmouth, and especially so later on when we heard that the Kent had sunk the Nürnberg!"
The Glasgow, which had fought and escaped at Coronel, and participated in the signal revenge taken upon Von Spee and his squadron off the Falklands, was lucky enough to assist in the final act of retribution when the Dresden, which had got away for a time, was caught and sunk off Juan Fernandez—Robinson Crusoe's island. The Glasgow and Orama came up from the south-west, and presently the Kent appeared hurrying up from the south-east. After the exchange of some shots the Dresden appeared to be on fire and hoisted a very large white flag, while many of her crew jumped overboard and made for her boats, which were in the water at a little distance off. "As soon as it was clear she did not intend to fight again, we lowered boats and sent medical aid, and several of the wounded were brought alongside the ship for treatment." Eventually the magazine seems to have been blown up—possibly intentionally by her officers, as just previously the German ensign was re-hoisted, and she sank with it and the white flag of surrender both flying.
With the sinking of the Dresden the German Navy disappeared from the ocean. Not a man-of-war of German nationality floated in the "Seven Seas", and only in the security of their own fortified harbours and in the mine-defended area of the Baltic dared the "black, white, and red flag" show itself.
CHAPTER XX
German Raids and their Signal Punishment
"I saw a mast abaft the light
In the tail of the offshore breeze,
A beacon flared on Dover Head,
A lean hull slipped the quays;
And out of the mist beyond the Fore,
Hell howled across the seas.
"Sudden and terrible, in one night,
A fleet had sprung to grips;
Nor' and nor'-east the signal sped
To the scattered scouts and the ships;
And racking the Channel fog the war
Roared in apocalypse."
Lewis Hastings in the Navy.
Early in November, 1914, a German squadron of considerable force made what the Germans proudly termed a "hussar stroke", a number of big ships approaching the English coast, driving off the Halcyon, an antiquated gunboat, and firing a few futile shots at long range at Yarmouth. Suddenly they turned tail and made off. They strewed mines behind them, one of which blew up the submarine D5; but the so-called raid was a case of "much cry, little wool", and finally ended by the Yorck, a very big cruiser, running into a German mine defending the entrance to the Jahde and being blown up with great loss of life.