The lord mayor of the city of Birmingham received the
following telegram the next morning: "Birmingham will be proud to
learn that the first German submarine destroyed in the war was
sunk by H. M. S. _Birmingham_." Two shots from the British ship
had struck the German _U-15_, and she sank immediately.
The German admiralty, even before England had declared war, suspected
that the greatest use for the German navy in the months to come
would be to fight the British navy, but they ventured to show their
naval strength against Russia beforehand. Early in August they
sent the _Augsburg_ into the Baltic Sea to bombard the Russian
port of Libau, but after doing a good bit of damage the German
ship retired. It is probable that this raid was nothing more than
a feint to remind Russia that she continually faced the danger
of invasion from German troops landed on the Baltic shores under
the cover of German ships, and that she must consequently keep
a large force on her northern shores instead of sending it west
to meet the German army on the border.
Among the German ships which were separated from the main fleet
in the North Sea, and which were left without direct communication
with the German admiralty after the cutting of the cables off the
Azores by the _Drake_, were the cruisers _Goeben_ and _Breslau_.
When England declared war these two German ships were off the coast
of Algeria.
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