Several German cruisers were amazingly active in distant waters early
in the war. Among these were the Goeben, Breslau, Emden, Karlsruhe, and
Leipzig, which captured or sank a number of vessels of the enemy. The
German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau also operated in the Pacific,
bombarding the French colony of Papeete, on the island of Tahiti, and
inflicting much damage, including the sinking of two vessels.

On August 26 the big converted German liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,
while cruising on the northwest coast of Africa, was sunk by the British
cruiser Highflyer.

The German cruiser Dresden was reported sunk by British cruisers in
South American waters in the second week of September. The Emden,
operating under the German flag in the Indian Ocean, sank several
British steamers. Several Austrian vessels succumbed to mines off the
coast of Dalmatia and in the Baltic there were a number of casualties
in which both Russian and German cruisers suffered. The Russian armored
cruiser Bayan was sunk in a fight near the entrance to the Gulf of
Finland.

On September 20 the German protected cruiser Koenigsberg attacked the
British light cruiser Pegasus in the harbor of Zanzibar and disabled
her. Off the east coast of South America the British auxiliary cruiser
Carmania, a former Cunard liner, destroyed a German merchant cruiser
mounting eight four-inch guns. About the same time the German cruiser
Hela was sunk in the North Sea by the British submarine E-9. The
Kronprinz Wilhelm, a former German liner, which had been supplying coal
to German cruisers in the Atlantic, was also sunk by the British.

GERMAN COLONY OCCUPIED

The British Admiralty announced on September 12 that the Australian
fleet had occupied Herbertshoehe, on Blanche Bay, the seat of government
of the German Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands.

The Bismarck Archipelago, with an area of 18,000 square miles and a
population of 200,000, is off the north coast of Australia and southwest
of the Philippine Islands. The group was assigned to the German sphere
of influence by an agreement with Great Britain in 1885. German New
Guinea was included in the jurisdiction.

GERMANS SINK RUSS CRUISER

On October 11 German submarines in the Baltic torpedoed and sank the
Russian armored cruiser Pallada with all its crew, numbering 568 men.
The Pallada had a displacement of 7,775 tons and was a sister ship of
the Admiral Makarov and Bayan. She was launch