If additional proof of the decision of the Germans to bring about this war, whatever the cost, were required, it is to be found in the testimony of a captured German reservist, who has already been mentioned in this book. He was German interpreter to the Law Courts at Sydney. This man told a naval surgeon who was examining him after he had been rescued, when he was still in a very shaken condition and could have had no object in lying, that he had been called up by the German Admiralty on June 26th. In company with several other reservists, therefore, he took passage in a sailing ship bound for Valparaiso, where he ultimately joined the Leipzig. This tale is corroborated by the fact that von Spee put into Valparaiso to pick up naval reservists in accordance with instructions from Germany, which perhaps may have been the cause of his delay in coming round the Horn after defeating Admiral Cradock. Other prisoners informed us that they had been cruising up and down the Chilean coast in order to meet a storeship from Valparaiso with these reservists on board, so as to avoid being reported. The latter, however, never turned up, so the Germans were obliged to put in there a second time.
The murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria and of his wife, the alleged cause of this war, took place at Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, two days after this man was called up by German Admiralty orders, namely, on Sunday, June 28th, 1914.
A German newspaper, in speaking of the success of Admiral von Spee at Coronel, also admirably sums up the issue of the battle of the Falkland Islands: "The superiority of our fleet in no way detracts from the glory of our victory, for the very essence of the business of a strategist is the marshalling of a superior fleet at the right place and at the right moment."
"Not unto us,"
Cried Drake, "not unto us—but unto Him
Who made the sea, belongs our England now!
Pray God that heart and mind and soul we prove
Worthy among the nations of this hour
And this great victory, whose ocean fame
Shall wash the world with thunder till that day