The Naval Staff in Berlin had realized that once war broke out it would be difficult to communicate with German warships overseas; flag officers and captains, therefore, were instructed to use their own initiative. “In event of a war against Great Britain,” read the Imperial Navy War Orders, “ships abroad are to carry on cruiser warfare unless otherwise ordered. . . . The aim . . . is to damage enemy trade; this must be effected by engaging equal or inferior enemy forces, if necessary.” To this general instruction, the kaiser had added personal advice and exhortation. From the moment war breaks out, he said, each captain “must make his own decisions. . . . Above all things, the officer must bear in mind that his chief duty is to damage the enemy as severely as possible. If he succeeds in winning an honorable place for his ship in the history of the German Fleet, I assure him of my imperial favor.” A few weeks later, when the Naval Staff in Berlin was as much in the dark as to Spee’s whereabouts as the British Admiralty in London, a German staff appreciation reasserted the independence of commanders at sea: “It is impossible to judge from here . . . it is useless to issue any orders . . . we are ignorant of the Commander-in-Chief’s [Spee’s] dispositions . . . any interference on our part might be disastrous. The Commander-in-Chief must have complete liberty of action.”
Nürnberg, arriving at Ponape from Honolulu on August 5, reported that the British China Squadron had concentrated at Hong Kong. Admiral Jerram’s squadron was by no means superior to Spee’s, but Jerram was not the only potential enemy to the west. Even before Britain’s ally Japan declared war on August 23, it was clear to Spee that, if he returned north to Tsingtao, he might have to face the Japanese fleet. Accordingly, he rejected going west, to China. He could go south to the German base at Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago, and beyond toward Australia. But somewhere to the south also was the dreadnought battle cruiser Australia carrying eight 12-inch guns, and Spee had no desire to fight this fast, powerful ship. And even if he did not meet the battle cruiser, there was little he could do in the south. Australia’s principal harbors and cities were too heavily defended to be bombarded, and to waste ammunition dueling with shore batteries would be foolish. He could fire on open towns and embarrass the Dominion and British governments, but this would produce no military results. And in the south he would be able to obtain coal only from whatever ships he might chance upon—too precarious a source for a squadron the size of his.
Another possibility was the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, where he could attack busy trade routes. He might commit slaughter on the Australian and New Zealand troop convoys moving toward the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and Europe, but he did not know their schedules or the strength of the naval forces that would be escorting them. And here, too, he would have difficulty finding coal. To supply his entire squadron from prizes would be impossible and the prospect of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau drifting helplessly, their coal bunkers empty and their boilers cold, had no appeal. Admiral von Spee ruled out going west.
The east remained. In the distant east, across the Pacific, on the coast of South America, there was British trade to be disrupted. Here, there was no Japanese fleet and no British squadron to oppose him. The coast of the Americas, North and South, presented an 8,000-mile stretch of neutral nations from the southern Canadian border down to Cape Horn. Many of these nations would sell him coal. Further, if he continued east around the Horn into the South Atlantic, the important South American trade routes to Europe lay open to attack. And once out in the Atlantic Ocean, he might even find his own way home to the North Sea.
The prospect of finding help in the coastal towns of South America was especially attractive. Chile, with its large German population, had many German businesses and commercial houses. In every Chilean port, German merchant ships were anchored, unable to leave, but fitted with wireless facilities and available for use as supply ships, colliers, or communications relay points for the German East Asia Squadron. In Chile, the German ships, business enterprises, consulates, and embassies and their network of communication facilities and intelligence operations surpassed even those of the well-organized British. Above all—and this was the overriding factor—in Chile, Spee would find it easy to obtain coal. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau each had a capacity of 2,000 tons of coal. At 10 knots, each ship burned a hundred tons a day and could steam for twenty days. At 20 knots, the figures were 500 tons a day and four days. No captain, however, wished his bunkers to get too low; it was a general rule in all navies to keep the bunkers at least half full at all times. This dictated to Spee a coaling stop every eight or nine days. He already had ruled out the Indian Ocean because, as he wrote in his war diary, “we have no coaling bases in the Indian Ocean and no agents whom we can get in touch with. If we proceed towards the American coast, we shall have both at our disposal.”
August 13, 1914, was Maximilian von Spee’s fifty-third birthday. That morning, he summoned his captains on board Scharnhorst and, standing before a large map of the Pacific, told them what he planned to do. The squadron would remain together, he said. Given the likelihood of Japan’s entry into the war, it would not return to Tsingtao. Instead, they would go to the west coast of South America where, owing to German influence, they would enjoy better facilities for supply and communication with home. On the American coast, they would face no enemy warships and, if the war lasted long enough, they would have a chance from there of breaking through for home.
Typically, Admiral von Spee asked his captains for their opinions. Karl von Müller of Emden suggested an amendment to the admiral’s plan: “If coaling the whole squadron in East Asian, Australian and Indian waters presents too great difficulties, I asked might we consider the dispatch of at least one light cruiser to the Indian Ocean.” Müller proposed his own ship, Emden, the squadron’s most modern and fastest. Spee thought about it and agreed; a single light cruiser could coal from captured steamships, a squadron could not. That evening, the East Asia Squadron sailed from Pagan for the coral atoll of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. Early the next morning, with rain falling, seamen on the other ships were surprised to see Emden and one of the colliers suddenly turn out of the formation. The signal “We wish you success” ran up Scharnhorst’s halyard, and Müller replied, “I thank Your Excellency for the confidence placed in me.” Once the light cruiser had disappeared to the south, the squadron learned that Emden was bound for the Indian Ocean.
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nürnberg, the armed merchant cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich, the liner Yorck, and eight supply ships moved slowly eastward toward Eniwetok, traveling at the 7- to 10-knot speed of the supply ships. Even so, on one ship carrying livestock, the animals were so hurled about in the swell that many bones were broken and, bellowing and bleating, they were pushed into the sea. The ships held frequent battle drill, loading and reloading the guns, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau aiming at each other as targets. At the end of the day, the officers watched the sunset and then retreated to the wardroom to gather around the piano, while the men sang or smoked in the moonlight.
At noon on August 19, the German squadron approached Eniwetok, a green fringe of palms and sun-baked beach between the sky and the water. Behind lay an immense coral atoll and a vast lagoon sufficient to shelter an immense number of ships. Here Spee remained for three days, relatively secure in the knowledge, gained from intercepted wireless traffic, that the nearest enemy force, an Australian squadron, was far to the southwest. But he had no other news; on August 11, the German wireless station on Yap in the western Carolines had been destroyed by the British cruiser Minotaur. In order to maintain a tenuous contact with Berlin, Spee sent Nürnberg back to Honolulu to pick up newspapers and mail and to advise the Naval Staff by cable, “I shall proceed to Chile . . . arriving at Juan Fernández on Octo-ber 15.” Meanwhile, his caravan of ships departed Eniwetok on August 22 and continued its progress across “the seemingly limitless desert of the Pacific Ocean.” The crews were baked by the equatorial sun; the thermometer often recorded 104 degrees Fahrenheit
in the shade. The nights were worse. “In the evening,” wrote Captain Maerker of Gneisenau, “the portholes have to be closed and blacked out so that the heat becomes unbearable. Then of course there is nothing to do but think and that’s bad.”
The squadron’s next stop was Majuor, an atoll at the southeastern edge of the Marshall Islands. This was another spacious lagoon, another expanse of shallow turquoise water distinguished from the dark blue of the outside ocean, another beach of hot sand with palm trees stirring in the hot wind. Here, on August 26, Spee learned of Japan’s declaration of war. Here, too, he was joined two days later by the armed merchant cruiser Cormoran, which had escaped from Tsingtao, escorting two cargo steamers and two other store ships. In all, the admiral now had 16,593 tons of coal and 3,000 tons of water in reserve. When he sailed for Christmas Island on August 29, the German cruisers carried coal in sacks on their decks.
Admiral von Spee continued slowly east across the wide, empty ocean, his progress marked only by the long trails of black smoke pouring from his funnels. On September 1, the squadron crossed the 180th meridian, adding a calendar day, which permitted one Gneisenau officer to celebrate his birthday twice. On the seventh, they reached Christmas Island—on the equator, a British possession intermittently visited by gatherers of copra. Here, Nürnberg rejoined them, having paused at Fanning Island to cut the British cable running from the Fiji Islands to Hawaii. From Honolulu, Nürnberg brought news. She had learned that on August 30, Apia, the capital of German Samoa, had been occupied by New Zealand troops. Von Spee summoned another council of captains and proposed a surprise descent on Samoa in hopes of catching British vessels anchored in the harbor.
The squadron left Christmas Island on September 9 and crossed the equator the next day. Samoa, their destination, was a range of volcanic islands, some of the peaks rising 4,000 feet out of the sea. A strait separates the two large islands of Samoa; the eastern island was American, the western had been German. With luck, a surprise attack by Spee’s squadron might catch in the bay several steamers engaged in supplying provisions for the newly arrived New Zealand garrison. With even better luck, the battle cruiser Australia might be found at anchor; if so, Spee planned to attack her with torpedoes. But when he reached Apia before dawn on September 14, the anchorage was deserted except for a three-masted American schooner and a smaller sailing vessel. To send sailor landing parties ashore and attempt to recapture the island would have been too costly in casualties and ammunition; the Germans steamed away without firing a shot. When Spee heard the Apia wireless station, out of range of his guns, broadcasting his position, he decided on the simplest of naval ruses: he first turned and steamed to the northwest; then once out of sight of land, he again headed east. The success of this deception was to have terrible consequences for the British navy.
Admiral von Spee’s next stopping point was the isolated, British-owned Suvorov Island, 500 miles east of Samoa, but finding that a huge ocean swell prevented coaling, he continued another 700 miles to Bora-Bora, an island of the Tahiti group in the lush French Society Islands. Bora-Bora, with its volcanic mountains, dense foliage, and settled population, was a welcome change from the flat, sun-baked, deserted coral atolls they had left behind. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau anchored off Bora-Bora, displaying no national flag. The French authorities, believing the visitors were English, sent out a police officer in a boat flying the tricolor and offered to help “the British admiral.” The policeman met only German officers who spoke English or French, and the subterfuge continued as other representatives of the local government came on board to present a huge bouquet of flowers, pass along war news, and, in response to gentle questioning, describe the defenses of Papeete. The Germans paid with gold for coal, pigs, poultry, eggs, fruit, vegetables, and several oxen, slaughtered immediately. In the afternoon, as the cruisers weighed anchor, a large French flag was hoisted in a farewell salute from the shore. In reply, the Germans politely raised the German naval ensign.
From Bora-Bora, Spee continued on to Papeete, the port and capital of Tahiti. Papeete, its harbor and town lying in the shadow of 7,000-foot volcanic peaks, was known to be defended; as the German squadron approached on the morning of September 22, the cruisers prepared to lower boats for an armed landing. But the French had been warned from Bora-Bora: all navigation aids in the harbor had been removed; the town’s inhabitants had fled to the hills; all supplies of coal that Spee might use had been set afire, and a huge black cloud was spreading over the harbor. Spee fired briefly at the anchored French gunboat Zélée, which capsized and sank. From the hills, French artillery fired back, their white puffs of smoke showing amidst the trees until Spee’s gunners silenced them. Afterward, the French sent a steamer to Samoa to report the attack, but not until Septem-ber 30 did the news reach London.
From Tahiti, Spee took his squadron 850 miles farther east, to the French Marquesas. Arriving off the island of Nuku Hiva on September 26, he remained for seven days, coaling and stocking fresh provisions. The crews went ashore to bathe in fresh water and the admiral paid a courtesy visit on the Catholic mission and collected more specimens of tropical plants.
On October 2, when Spee left the Marquesas, sailing southeast, he was leaving behind the sunny climate and lush, flowering landscapes of the tropics. Now, angling down toward the coast of South America, the crews found the temperature cooler and they ceased going barefoot on deck. The length of the voyage was beginning to tell: sand mixed with soda was used instead of soap; dysentery and beriberi began to appear. Spee’s objective was Easter Island, a solitary, volcanic, treeless speck of land lying off all trade routes. On the way, Scharnhorst’s wireless room picked up a signal from the German light cruiser Dresden, 3,000 miles away. Dresden had come around the southern tip of South America from the Atlantic and now was off the west coast of Chile; she signaled that she was probably being followed into the Pacific by the British armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth. On October 4, Spee signaled Dresden to join him at Easter Island. Other ears, however, could pick up wireless signals: this message from Scharnhorst was intercepted by a British wireless station at Suva in the Fiji Islands. Passed to London, it provided the Admiralty not only with the East Asia Squadron’s position but also with its destination. Spee, unaware, believed that his long voyage was approaching a successful conclusion. On October 11, writing in his diary at sea, he noted that 5,000 tons of coal were due at Easter Island, to be brought by colliers from San Francisco escorted by the light cruiser Leipzig. “If no enemy ship approaches Easter Island,” he wrote, “we can, with fresh coal, continue [to the coast of Chile] via Juan Fernández.”
Dresden arrived at Easter Island first, during the night of October 11. Admiral von Spee’s squadron arrived the following day, anchoring in Angaroa, also known as Cook’s Bay, on the island’s deserted east coast, away from the little colony. The supply ships Yorck and Göttingen came alongside the armored cruisers, but the long, southwesterly swell rolled the ships day and night, slamming them against each other, impeding coaling and the hoisting out and launching of boats. On October 14, Leipzig rounded the northern point of the island, bringing with her three colliers from San Francisco with 3,000 additional tons of coal.
[Leipzig’s cruise had been relatively uneventful. At the beginning of August 1914, she was at Mazatlán Bay on the west coast of Mexico in company with a British sloop and an American warship. Before hostilities began, Captain Johannes Haun sailed north and ten days later was off the entrance to the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, the gateway to Vancouver and Seattle. On August 11, he coaled at San Francisco and then lay off the Golden Gate for five days, keeping Allied shipping in port. On September 3, the Naval Staff signaled Haun to “transfer cruiser warfare to southwest America and the Atlantic.” Moving south, he operated with little success between the coast of Peru and the Galápagos Islands until October 1, when he received orders from Berlin to rendezvous with Dresden. On October 3, Dresden signaled that she was on her way to Easter Island to join
Spee and, accordingly, Leipzig also steered for Easter Island.]
Spee’s reinforced squadron was now up to full strength: two armored and three light cruisers.
Easter Island, a possession of Chile, lies 2,200 miles west of South America. Seven miles across at its widest point and thirty-four miles in circumference, the island and its rough grass then supported 250 Polynesian inhabitants, 12,000 sheep, and 2,000 head of cattle. The administrator and nominal governor of the island was the manager of the sheep and cattle ranch, a British subject named Percy Edmonds. The island had no contact with the world other than that provided by a Chilean sailing vessel, which arrived twice a year to carry its beef and wool to market. Without wireless, the islanders knew nothing of the world war; Edmonds, accordingly, was happy to supply Von Spee with fresh meat and vegetables. Cattle were lassoed and slaughtered on the beach, and boatloads of beef and mutton went out to the ships. The Germans also bought livestock for the future, and Gneisenau departed Easter Island with eleven lambs and a calf penned on her steel deck. Edmonds accepted payment in checks payable by a German bank in Valparaíso, which subsequently and “vastly to his astonishment and relief” were honored.
One morning, the admiral and his elder son, Otto, from Nürnberg, went ashore to look at the mysterious statues for which Easter Island is famous. There were scores of these giant, monolithic figures, between twenty and thirty feet high and wearing conical brimmed hats. Most were lying prostrate when the two German visitors saw them, but once they stood in rows on terraces at the water’s edge. Curiously, all originally were looking, not out to sea as commonly imagined, but inland. The largest weighed up to fifty tons. How had they been transported from the mountain quarries? Whom did the faces represent? Gods whom the carvers wished to propitiate? Chiefs who wished to leave an image of themselves behind?