adrons of the two countries
somewhere between the east coast of Scotland and the Dutch shore,
nothing of the kind happened. Instead, both grand fleets ran to safety
in the landlocked harbors of their respective countries.

In was to the Mediterranean in the first week of August, 1914, that the
attention of the world was first drawn by events. Two German warships,
the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_, were off the coast of Algeria. The first
was one of the finest ships of the German navy, a superdreadnought
battleship cruiser of 23,000 tons, capable of making more than 28 knots
an hour. Her main battery consisted of ten 11-inch guns, and in addition
she mounted twelve 5.9-inch guns and twelve 21 pounders. She was capable
therefore of meeting on equal terms any enemy vessel in the
Mediterranean, and more than capable of outrunning any of the heavier
vessels of the French or British navy stationed in those waters. The
_Breslau_ was capable of a similar speed, but was a much weaker vessel,
being a light cruiser of only 4,478 tons. Both of these vessels had
enormous coal capacities, the _Breslau_, in particular, being able to
travel more than 6,000 miles without refilling her bunkers.

The speed and the coal capacity of these vessels were to prove of vital
importance in the events of the next few days. For their role was to be
one of flight, not to battle. England alone and, in an overwhelming
degree, England and France combined hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned
the two German warships in the Mediterranean. Realizing this, the German
commander, after firing a few shots into the Algerian coast towns of
Bone and Philippville, steamed northwest with the intention either of
outwitting the English and French squadron commanders, or of running
through Gibraltar and so on to the broad Atlantic to wage war upon the
British mercantile marine. The British, however, were alive to this
danger and headed off the two German warships. Whereupon they turned
northeast.

Early on the morning of Wednesday, August 5, 1914, these ships were
discovered steaming into the harbor of Messina, Italy. The English and
French fleets, close upon the heels of the enemy, immediately took up
positions at either end of the Straits of Messina, confident that they
had successfully bottled up the Germans.

Then quickly there developed one of the most dramatic incidents in the
history of naval warfare. It is described in this chapter as well as in
the narrative