World War I
At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the East Asia Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Count Spee was at sea, and outnumbered by Allied navies in the region. Spee was especially wary of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Royal Australian Navy — in fact he described the latter's flagship, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia as being superior to his entire force by itself. The German squadron, consisting of the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the light cruisers Nürnberg, Leipzig and Dresden headed towards the eastern Pacific; the light cruiser Emden was to engage in a raiding campaign in the Indian Ocean.
Read more about this topic: German East Asia Squadron
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