f safely before
she sank.

Once more the Germans were to attempt a raid on the coast cities
of England. The date of this third attempt was January 24, 1915.
This time the British were a bit better prepared, for a squadron
of battle cruisers, consisting of the _Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal,
New Zealand_, and _Indomitable_, put out from a port in the north
of England at about the same time that the Germans left their base.
All of these ships, with the exception of the last named, were
quite fast, having speeds of from 25 to 28.5 knots; they were at
the same time carrying heavy armament--13.5-inch guns in the main
batteries. In company with them went four cruisers of what is known in
England as the "town class"; these were the _Nottingham, Birmingham,
Lowestoft_, and _Southampton_, together with the three light cruisers
_Arethusa, Aurora_, and _Undaunted_, and a squadron of destroyers.
The German fleet which was engaged in this raid consisted of the
_Seydlitz, Moltke, Derfflinger_, and _Bluecher_, in company with
a fleet of destroyers. The German ships were not quite as fast
as the English ships, nor did they carry guns of such range or
destructive power as their British opponents.

Early in the first hours of January 24, these two forces, unknown
to each other were steaming head on, the Germans taking a course
leading northwest and the English a course leading southeast. At
twenty minutes past seven in the morning the _Aurora_ first sighted
the enemy and engaged him immediately with her two 6-inch guns,
sending at the same time word of her discovery to Admiral Beatty.
Admiral Hipper, the German commander, as soon as he knew the enemy
had sighted him, turned about and started to steam in a southeasterly
direction.

In view of the results of this battle, it is best to go into the matter
of the tactics involved. Tactics may be of two kinds--spontaneous or
premeditated. When two hostile fleets meet on the high sea far from
the base of either, the object of each is the complete destruction of
the other, and the tactics employed are spontaneous. Such an action
was that off Coronel. But on a closed sea such as the North Sea
spontaneous tactics can rarely be used, for the reason that naval
bases are too near, and from these there may slyly come reenforcements
to one or the other or to both of the fighting fleets, making the
arrangement of traps an easy matter. This is particularly true
of the North Sea, on which it is possibl