safely through five lines of Turkish mines and sent a torpedo
against the hull of the Turkish battleship _Messudiyeh_. The _B-11_
slowly came to the surface to see what had been the result of her
exploit, and her commander, through the periscope saw her going down by
the stern. It was claimed later by the British that she had sunk, a
claim which was officially denied by the Turks. Her loss to Turkey, if
it did occur, was not serious, for she was too old to move about, and
her only service was to guard the mine fields. The _B-11_ after being
pursued by destroyers again submerged for nine hours and came
successfully from the scene of the exploit.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

WAR ON GERMAN TRADE AND POSSESSIONS

With the exceptions of the deeds done by the German sea raiders the
remaining naval history of the first six months of the war had to do for
the most part with British victories. When Von Spee's squadron, with the
exception of the light cruiser _Dresden_, which was afterward sunk at
the Island of Juan Fernandez, was dispersed off the Falkland Islands
there was no more possibility of there being a pitched fight between
German and British fleets other than in the North Sea.

England began then to hit at the outlying parts of the German Empire
with her navy. The cruiser _Pegasus_, before being destroyed by the
_Koenigsberg_ at Zanzibar on September 20, 1914, had destroyed a floating
dock and the wireless station at Dar-es-Salaam, and the _Yarmouth_,
before she went on her unsuccessful hunt for the _Emden_, captured three
German merchantmen.

As far back as the middle of August, 1914, the capture of German Samoa
had been planned and directed from New Zealand. On the 15th of that
month an expedition sailed from Wellington, and in order to escape the
_Gneisenau_ and _Scharnhorst_, went first to French New Caledonia, where
the British cruisers _Psyche_, _Philomel_, and _Pyramus_ were met with.
On the 23d of the month, this force, which was augmented by the French
cruiser _Montcalm_ and the Australian battleships _Australia_ and
_Melbourne_, sailed first for the Fiji Islands and then to Apia on Upolu
Island off Samoa. They reached there on the 30th. There was, of course,
no force on the island to withstand that of the enemy, and arrangements
for surrender of the place were made by signal. Marines were sent
ashore; the public buildings were occupied, the telegraph and telephone
wires cut, the wireless station destroyed a