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 possible for a fleet to leave Cuxhaven early in the evening and to be
at