There was yet the Köln with which the Arethusa had to do battle. But by now the heavy British battle cruisers Lion and Queen Mary had also come down from the northwest to take part in the fighting, and letting the Arethusa escape from the range of the light cruiser Köln, they went for the German, which, overpowered, fled toward Helgoland. While the chase was on the Ariadne again made her appearance and came to the aid of the Köln, but the light cruiser Ariadne carried no gun as effective in destructive power as the 13.5-inch guns of the Lion, and she, too, had to seek safety in flight. The British ships then finished the Köln; so badly was she hit that when the British small boats sought the spot where she quickly sank they found not a man of her crew afloat. Every man of the 370 of her crew perished.
The afternoon came, and with its advent the mist, which had kept the guns of Helgoland's forts out of action, had cleared off the calm waters of the North Sea. By the time the sun had set only floating wreckage gave evidence that here brave men had fought and died. By evening the respective forces were in their home ports, being treated for their hurts. The Germans had lost the Mainz, Köln, and Ariadne, and the Strassburg had limped home. The loss in destroyers and other small craft in addition to that of the V-187 was not known. The loss on the British side had not entailed that of a large ship, but the Arethusa when she returned to her home port was far from being in good condition, and some of the smaller boats were in the same circumstances.
Admiral von Ingenohl was committed more strongly than ever, as a result of this engagement, to the belief that the best policy for his command would be to keep his squadrons within the protection afforded by Helgoland and that the most damage could be done to the enemy by picking off her larger ships one by one. In other words, he again turned to the policy of attrition. He immediately put it into force.
On the 3d of September the British gunboat Speedy struck a mine in the North Sea and went down. It was only two days later that the light cruiser Pathfinder was made the true target of a torpedo fired by a German submarine off the British eastern coast, and she, too, went to the bottom. But the British immediately retaliated, for the submarine E-9 sighted the German light cruiser Hela weathering a bad storm on September 13 between Helgoland and the Frisian coast. A torpedo was launched and found its mark, and the Hela joined the Köln and Mainz. Up to this point the results of attrition were even, but the Germans scored heavily during the following week.
On September 22 the three slow British cruisers Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir were patrolling the waters off the Dutch coast, unaccompanied by small craft of any kind, when suddenly, at half past six in the morning, the Aboukir crumpled and sank, the victim of another submarine attack. But the commander of the Hogue thought she had been sunk by hitting a mine, and innocently approached the spot of the disaster to rescue such of the crew of the Aboukir as were afloat. The work of mercy was never completed, for the Hogue itself was hit by two torpedoes in the next few moments, and she joined her sister ship. The commander of the Cressy, failing to take a lesson from what he had witnessed, now approached, and his ship was also hit by two torpedoes, making the third victim of the German policy of attrition within an hour, and Captain Lieutenant von Weddigen, commander of the U-9, which had done this work, immediately became a German hero.
[CHAPTER XXXIV]
BATTLES ON THREE SEAS
So stood the score in the naval warfare in the North Sea at the end of the second month of the Great War. But while these events were taking place in the waters of Europe, others of equal import had been taking place in the waters of Asia. On August 23, 1914, Japan declared war on Germany and immediately set about scouring the East for German craft of all kinds.
Japan brought to the naval strength of the Allied powers no mean unit. Hers was the only navy in the world which had seen the ultramodern battleships in action; the Russian navy which had had the same experience was no more. Eight of her first-class battleships were, at the time of her entrance into the Great War, veterans of the war with Russia. The Fugi, Asahi, Kikasa, and Shikishima had gone into the former war as Japanese ships, and the remaining four had gone into it as Russian ships, but had been captured by the Japanese. These were the Hizen, Sagami, Suwo, and Iwami. Their value was not great, for the Fugi had been launched as far back as 1896. Nevertheless she carried 12-inch guns and displaced 12,300 tons. But her speed was only 17 knots at the most. She had been built in England as had the Asahi and Shikishima, which were launched in 1900 and 1901. They also carried 12-inch guns and had a speed of 18.5 knots. Their tonnage was 15,000. Admiral Togo's former flagship, the Mikasa, was also of the predreadnought type, having been built in 1900, and carrying a main battery of 12-inch guns. Her speed was 18.5 knots.