The battle cruiser Göben and the light cruiser Breslau alone, operating under Admiral Souchon in Mediterranean waters, accomplished ultimate results which would have easily justified the sacrifice of ten times the number of ships lost by Germany in distant seas. To hunt down these two vessels, and at the same time contain the Austrian Navy, the Entente had in the Mediterranean not only the bulk of the French fleet but also 3 battle cruisers, 4 armored cruisers, and 4 light cruisers of Great Britain. Early on August 4, as he was about to bombard the French bases of Bona and Philippeville in Algiers, Admiral Souchon received wireless orders to make for the Dardanelles. Germany and England were then on the very verge of war. Knowing the British ships to be concentrated near Malta, and actually passing the Indomitable and the Invincible in sullen silence as he turned eastward, the German commander decided to put in at Messina, Sicily.
At the end of the 24 hours granted in this port, the prospects for the German ships appeared so desperate that the officers, it is said, made their final testaments before again putting to sea. Slipping eastward through the Straits of Messina at twilight of the 6th, they were sighted by the British scout Gloucester, which stuck close at their heels all that night and until 4.40 p.m. the next day. Then, under orders to turn back, and after boldly engaging the Breslau to check the flight, Captain Kelly of the Gloucester gave up the pursuit as the enemy rounded the Morea and entered the Greek Archipelago.
The escape thus apparently so easy was the outcome of lack of coördination between French and British, slow and poor information from the British Admiralty, and questionable disposition of the British forces on the basis of information actually at hand. Prior to hostilities, it was perhaps unavoidable that the British commander, Admiral Milne, should be ignorant of French plans; but even on August 5 and 6 he still kept all his battle cruisers west and north of Sicily to protect the French troop transports, though by this time he might have felt assured that the French fleet was at sea. At the time of the escape Admiral Troubridge with 4 armored cruisers and a destroyer force barred the Adriatic; though he caught the Gloucester's calls, he was justified in not moving far from his station without orders, in view of his inferior strength and speed. Not until August 10 did British forces enter the Ægean; and at 5 p.m. that day the two German ships steamed uninvited up the Dardanelles. Since the Turkish situation was still somewhat dubious, Admiral Souchon had been ordered to delay his entrance; but on the 10th, hearing British wireless signals steadily approaching his position in the Greek islands, he took the decision into his own hands. Germany had "captured Turkey," as an Allied diplomat remarked upon seeing the ships in the Golden Horn.
In this affair the British, it is true, had many preoccupations—the hostile Austrian fleet, the doubtful neutrality of Italy, the French troop movement; the safety of Egypt and Suez. Yet the Admiralty were well aware that the German Ambassador von Wangenheim was dominant in Turkish councils and that the Turkish army was mobilized under German officers. It seems strange, therefore, that an escape into Constantinople was, in the words of the British Official History, "the only one that had not entered into our calculations." The whole affair illustrates the immense value political information may have in guiding naval strategy. The German ships, though ostensibly "sold" to the Turks, retained their German personnel. Admiral Souchon assumed command of the Turkish Navy, and by an attack on Russian ships in the Black Sea later succeeded in precipitating Turkey's entrance into the war, with its long train of evil consequences for the Western Powers.
Coronel and the Falkland Islands
In the Pacific the German cruisers were at first widely scattered, the Emden at Kiao-chau, the Leipzig on the west coast of Mexico, the Nürnberg at San Francisco, and the armored cruisers Gneisenau and Scharnhorst under Admiral von Spee in the Caroline Islands. The two ships at the latter point, after being joined by the Nürnberg, set out on a leisurely cruise for South America, where, in view of Japan's entry into the war, the German Admiral may have felt that he would secure a clearer field of operations and, with the aid of German-Americans, better facilities for supplies. After wrecking on their way the British wireless and cable station at Fanning Island, and looking into Samoa for stray British cruisers, the trio of ships were joined at Easter Island on October 14 by the Leipzig and also by the Dresden, which had fled thither from the West Indies.
The concentration thus resulting seems of doubtful wisdom, for, scattered over the trade routes, the cruisers would have brought about greater enemy dispersion and greater injury to commerce; and, as the later course of the war was to show, the loss of merchant tonnage was even more serious for the Entente than loss of fighting ships. It seems evident, however, that Admiral van Spee was not attracted by the tame task of commerce destroying, but wished to try his gunnery, highly developed in the calm waters of the Far East, against enemy men-of-war.
In its present strength and position, the German "fleet in being" constituted a serious menace, for to assemble an adequate force against it on either side of Cape Horn would mean to leave the other side dangerously exposed. It was with a keen realization of this dilemma that Admiral Cradock in the British armored cruiser Good Hope left the Falklands on October 22 to join the Monmouth, Glasgow, and auxiliary cruiser Otranto in a sweep along the west coast. The old battleship Canopus, with 12-inch guns, but only 12 knots cruising speed, was properly judged too slow to keep with the squadron. It is difficult to say whether the failure to send Cradock reënforcements at this time from either the Atlantic or the Pacific was justified by the preoccupations in those fields. Needless to say, there was no hesitation, after Coronel, in hurrying ships to the scene. On November 1, when the Admiralty Board was reorganized with Admiral Fisher in his old place as First Sea Lord, orders at once went out sending the Defense to Cradock and enjoining him not to fight without the Canopus. But these orders he never received.
The composition of the two squadrons now approaching each other off the Chilean coast was as follows:
| Name | Type | Displace- ment | Belt armor | Guns | Speed |
| Scharnhorst | Armored cruiser | 11,600 | 6-inch | 8-8.2″, 6-6″ | 23.5 |
| Gneisenau | Armored cruiser | 11,600 | 6-inch | 8-8.2″, 6-6″ | 23.5 |
| Leipzig | Protected cruiser | 3,250 | none | 10-4″ | 23 |
| Nürnberg | Light cruiser | 3,450 | none | 10-4″ | 24 |
| Dresden | Light cruiser | 3,600 | none | 10-4″ | 24 |
| Good Hope | Armored cruiser | 14,000 | 6-inch | 2-9.2″, 16-6″, 14-3″ | 24 |
| Monmouth | Armored cruiser | 9,800 | 4-inch | 14-6″, 8-3″ | 24 |
| Glasgow | Light cruiser | 4,800 | none | 2-6″, 10-4″ | 26.5 |
| Canopus (not engaged) | Coast defense | 12,950 | 6-inch | 4-35 cal. 12″, 12-6″ | 16.5 |