it from the bottom. The lower edge of the page may represent the adjoining coasts of Germany and Holland, and the right-hand edge may represent the coast of the German province of Schleswig and the coast of Denmark.
At seven o'clock on the morning of August 28 the positions of the fighting forces were as follows: The decoy British submarines were making a track from Helgoland to the northwest, pursued by a flotilla of German submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats, and a fleet of light cruisers. On the west—the left edge of the page, halfway up—there were the British cruisers Arethusa and Fearless accompanied by flotillas, and steaming eastward at a rate that brought them to the rear of the German squadron of light cruisers, thus cutting off the latter from the fortress. In the southwest—the lower left-hand corner of the page—there was stationed a squadron of British cruisers, ready to close in when needed; in the northwest—the upper left-hand corner of the page—there were stationed a squadron of British light cruisers and another of battle cruisers, and it was toward these last two units that the decoys were leading the German fleets.
The Arethusa and Fearless felt the first shock of battle, on the side of the British. The German cruiser Ariadne closed with the former, while the latter soon found itself very busy with the German cruiser Strassburg. For thirty-five minutes—before the Fearless drew the fire of the Strassburg—the two German vessels poured a telling fire into the Arethusa, and the latter was soon in bad condition, but she managed to hold out till succored by the Fearless, and then planted a shell against the Ariadne which carried away her forebridge and killed her captain. The scouting which had been done by the smaller craft of the German fleets showed their commanders that there were other British ships in the neighborhood besides the two they had first engaged, and it was thought wiser to withdraw in face of possible reenforcement of the British, consequently the Strassburg and Ariadne turned eastward to seek the protection of the fortress. The Arethusa, a boat that had been in commission but a week when the battle was fought, was in a bad way; all but one of her guns were out of action, her water tank had been punctured and fire was raging on her main deck amidships. The Fearless passed her a cable at nine o'clock and towed her westward, away from the scene of action, while her crew made what repairs they could.
The flotillas of both sides had meanwhile been busy. At the head of the squadron of German destroyers that came out of the waters behind Helgoland was the V-187. Without slacking speed she steamed straight for the British destroyers, her small guns spitting rapidly, but she was outnumbered by British destroyers, which poured such an amount of steel into her thin sides that she went under, her guns firing till their muzzles touched the water and her crew cheering as they went to their deaths. A few managed to keep afloat on wreckage, and during a lull in the fighting, which lasted from nine o'clock till ten, boats were lowered from the British destroyers Goshawk and Defender to pick up these stranded German sailors.
The commanders of the German fleet, perceiving these small boats from afar, thought that the British were resorting to the old principle of boarding, and the German light cruiser Mainz came out to fire upon them. Two of the British small boats had to be abandoned as their mother ships made off before the oncoming German. They were in a perilous position, right beneath the guns of the fortress. But now a daring and unique rescue took place. The commander of the British submarine E-4 had been watching the fighting through the periscope of his craft, and seeing the helpless position of the two small boats, he submerged, made toward them, and then, to the great surprise of the men in them, came up right between them and took their occupants aboard his boat.
Repairs had been made on the Arethusa which enabled her to go into action again by ten o'clock. Accompanied again by two light cruisers of ten four-inch guns and the Fearless, she turned westward in answer to calls for assistance from the destroyers Lurcher and Firedrake, which accompanied the submarines and which reported that they were being chased by fast German cruisers. Suddenly the light cruiser Strassburg again came out of the mist and bore down on the British cruisers. Her larger guns were too heavy and had too long a range for those of the British craft, and the latter immediately sent out calls which brought into action for the first time certain ships belonging to the squadron of British light cruisers, which had been stationed to the northwest—the upper left-hand corner of the page.
The vessels which answered the calls were the light cruisers Falmouth and Nottingham with eight eight-inch and nine six-inch guns respectively, but before arriving the Strassburg still had time to inflict more damage on the Arethusa. The cruisers Köln and Mainz joined the Strassburg, and the British vessels were having a bad time of it when their commander ordered the Fearless to concentrate all fire on the Strassburg. This, and a concentrated fire from the destroyers, proved too strong for her and she turned eastward, disappearing in the mist off Helgoland. The Mainz then received the attention of all available British guns, including the battle cruiser Lion, and soon fire broke out within her hold. Next her foremast, slowly tottering and then inclining more and more, crashed down upon her deck, a distorted mass. Following that came down one of her funnels. The fire which was raging aboard her was hampering her machinery, and her speed slackened; the moment to strike with a torpedo had come, and one of these "steel fishes" was sent against her hull below water. In the explosion which followed one of her boilers came out through her deck, ascended some fifty feet and dropped down near her bow; her engines stopped, and she began to settle slowly, her bow going down first.
It was now noon. From behind the veil of the surrounding mist came the Falmouth and Nottingham, which with the guns in their turrets completely finished the hapless Mainz, and their sailors openly admired the bravery of her crew, which, while she sank, maintained perfect order and sang the German national air.
There was yet the Köln with which the Arethusa had to do battle. But by now the heavy British battle cruisers Lion and Queen Mary had also come down from the northwest to take part in the fighting, and letting the Arethusa escape from the range of the light cruiser Köln, they went for the German, which, overpowered, fled toward Helgoland. While the chase was on the Ariadne again made her appearance and came to the aid of the Köln, but the light cruiser Ariadne carried no gun as effective in destructive power as the 13.5-inch guns of the Lion, and she, too, had to seek safety in flight. The British ships then finished the Köln; so badly was she hit that when the British small boats sought the spot where she quickly sank they found not a man of her crew afloat. Every man of the 370 of her crew perished.
The afternoon came, and with its advent the mist, which had kept the guns of Helgoland's forts out of action, had cleared off the calm waters of the North Sea. By the time the sun had set only floating wreckage gave evidence that here brave men had fought and died. By evening the respective forces were in their home ports, being treated for their hurts. The Germans had lost the Mainz, Köln, and Ariadne, and the Strassburg had limped home. The loss in destroyers and other small craft in addition to that of the V-187 was not known. The loss on the British side had not entailed that of a large ship, but the Arethusa when she returned to her home port was far from being in good condition, and some of the smaller boats were in the same circumstances.
Admiral von Ingenohl was committed more strongly than ever, as a result of this engagement, to the belief that the best policy for his command would be to keep his squadrons within the protection afforded by Helgoland and that the most damage could be done to the enemy by picking off her larger ships one by one. In other words, he again turned to the policy of attrition. He immediately put it into force.
On the 3d of September the British gunboat Speedy struck a mine in the North Sea and went down. It was only two days later that the light cruiser Pathfinder was made the true target of a torpedo fired by a German submarine off the British eastern coast, and she, too, went to the bottom. But the British immediately retaliated, for the submarine E-9 sighted the German light cruiser Hela weathering
