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.
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