January 24th, 1915

- At dawn the battlecruisers under Admiral Hipper are at Dogger Bank, steaming northwestward at fifteen knots.  The accompanying light cruisers and destroyers are spread out in order to search for British fishing vessels.  Just after 7am, the light cruiser Koblenz sights the British light cruiser Aurora, part of Commodore Tyrwhitt's force coming north to meet Beatty's battlecruiser.  In an exchange of fire Aurora is hit three times before turning away, while Koblenz reports the encounter to Hipper.  The German admiral is initially pleased at the report - perhaps a small number of light warships are at sea that his battlecruisers can mop up - and he orders his battlecruisers to steer for Koblenz.  In the minutes that follow, however, there are additional reports of sightings - Koblenz later reports seeing additional smoke to the south, and the light cruiser Stralsund, a few miles in front of Hipper's main force, reports seeing thick clouds of smoke to the northwest.  Another message comes in from the armoured cruiser Blücher stating that it can see seven enemy light cruisers and twenty destroyers in the distance ahead.  The latter report in particular is concerning to Hipper - such a large force of light warships is almost certainly a screen for dreadnoughts or battlecruisers just behind them.  Hipper knows he has promised Ingenohl not to take risks, and that the High Seas Fleet is still at anchor, unable to assist him.  Unsure of whether he is sailing into a trap, at 735am Hipper orders his warships to turn for home.

The reality, of course, is that Hipper's concern are fully justified.  The first reports from Aurora, augmented by subsequent sightings, indicate to Beatty's great satisfaction that the intelligence of the German raid was accurate - the Germans are out, and he is ideally positioned to intercept them.  He orders his warships to pursue the now-fleeing Germans, and by 8am a straightforward stern chase is on.  Hipper's battlecruisers have 150 miles to go to reach safety off the German coast, and have a fourteen mile head start on the pursuing British.  The ships in both squadrons now strain for maximum speed, the stokers in the furnaces below shoveling coal as fast as humanly possible.  Here the decisive factor is Blücher - it is the most recent and powerful armoured cruiser ever built in Germany, which is another way of saying that it is completely outclassed by the battlecruisers on both sides.  Crucially its maximum speed is 23 knots, which limits the speed of Hipper's squadron as a whole despite the ability of his battlecruisers to go even faster.  On the British side, Beatty's five warships are all battlecruisers, and the oldest - Indomitable - is still capable of 25 knots.  The brutal reality of the math for the Germans is that minute-by-minute, the British are slowly but surely gaining on them.  It is now simply a matter of when the lead British warship will close within firing range of the last German warship - Beatty takes advantage of the wait to go below for breakfast.

The Battle of Dogger Bank, January 24th, 1915.

As the minutes tick by, the gunnery officer aboard Lion, the lead British battlecruiser and Beatty's flagship, counts out the range to Blücher, the rear German warship.  When the distance reaches 20 000 yards, approval is given to open fire.  The first ranging shot from Lion roars out at 852am, while the second British battlecruiser - Tiger - fires its own ranging shot at 9am.  At 905 Beatty signals to his warships to open fire, and Lion and Tiger launch full salvos at the enemy.  Lion scores its first hit on Blücher at 909, and when Princess Royal is close enough to commence firing, Beatty's flagship shifts fire to the third German warship in line.  As the British continued to gradually close the gap, the salvos of the lead warships shifted to the farthest in range, with the objective of each British battlecruiser bringing its German counterpart in line under fire.  Lion's shells are soon straddling Seydlitz, Hipper's flagship, and at 945, a shell pierces the aftermost turret of the German battlecruiser.  In an instant the powder charges are ignited, and a flash fire roars down from the turret to the magazine, whose crew, to escape incineration, attempt to open the doors to the adjacent turret.  All this accomplishes is to spread the flash fire to the adjacent turret.  Both turrets are destroyed, shooting giant columns of flames into the air.  Seydlitz is saved from annihilation only by the bravery of three crewmen, who fight through the flames to reach and turn the valves to flood the magazine, preventing a catastrophic explosion that would have destroyed the entire ship.  Instead, though the two aft turrets are ruined, it is able to remain in the fight, its three fore turrets firing as if nothing had happened.

At 1018am, two shells strike the side of Lion almost simultaneously, opening several breaches in the armour plates below the water line.  Though the flooding is contained, it reduces the speed of the battlecruiser, and subsequent hits over the next forty minutes slow it further.  At 1054, as the other British battlecruisers passed Lion, Beatty on his bridged believed that he spotted the periscope of a submarine, and ordered a turn to port to avoid a potential torpedo attack.  No one else saw anything, and the few minutes it took to turn to port cost precious minutes and yards.  Beatty, realizing this, orders the turn to be cut short with the signal 'Course North East' at 1102.  As this signal flies from the mast of Lion, Beatty orders another signal: 'Attack the rear of the enemy,' wanting his other battlecruisers to pursue the remaining German battlecruisers.  Beatty's flag lieutenant, however, botches the signals, flying them from adjacent halyards and lowering them simultaneously, which gives the impression not of two separate signals, but one: 'Attack the rear of the enemy course northeast.'  At this moment, less than 8000 yards to the northeast is Blücher, already heavily damaged and falling behind.  To the second in command of the British Battlecruiser Squadron, Rear Admiral Sir Archibald Moore aboard New Zealand, it appears that Beatty is signaling to abandon the chase of the German battlecruisers and instead concentrate all fire on Blücher.  Logically the order makes no sense - Blücher is already effectively out of the fight while the enemy battlecruisers are making their escape.  Moore, however, concludes that Beatty must know something he does not, such as a newly-discovered minefield ahead.  Moore decides that it is his duty to obey a signal from his superior officer, and so at 1109am Tiger, Princess Royal, and New Zealand turn away from the German battlecruisers and concentrate their fire on Blücher.

The British battlecruiser Lion.

Beatty for his part is apoplectic when he sees the rest of his command turn away from the Germans.  He orders that Nelson's signal, 'Engage the enemy more closely', be flown, only to be informed that it had been removed from the signal book.  Soon distance and smoke prevent Beatty from signalling the rest of his squadron.  Thus the four British battlecruisers believe themselves to be obeying Beatty's orders in circling Blücher in an obvious case of overkill, firing dozens of 12-inch and 13.5-inch shells into it.  The armoured cruiser is quickly reduced to a burning wreck, incapable of returning fire.  At 1207pm Blücher rolls over on its side, and a few minutes later plunges beneath the waves.  Of the 1200 German sailors in the water, only 234 are saved.

One of the most famous picture of the war at sea, the German armoured cruiser Blücher capsizes as dozens of German
sailors scramble down the side.

Beatty meanwhile is eager to return to the fight, and at 1150am boards the destroyer Attack which had sailed alongside Lion.  It steams off and catches up to Princess Royal, which Beatty boards at 1233pm.  Here he is informed of the consequences of the misinterpreted signal.  He is enraged and wants to immediately resume the chase, but quickly realizes that forty minutes and possibly 30 000 yards have been lost; it is now impossible to catch the remainder of Hipper's squadron before it reaches safety.  At 1245pm, with extreme reluctance, he orders his warships to turn for home.  The wounded Lion, both engines now shut down, is taken in tow by Indomitable while the others return to port.

On the German side the surviving warships rendezvous with the High Seas Fleet, belatedly sent to sea when Hipper signalled his predicament.  For the German admiral it had been a terrible decision to leave Blücher behind, but he well understood that if he turned his remaining three battlecruisers around he might have lost them all.  Here the loss of his weakest ship is the lesser of two evils, and this evening the battlecruisers anchor in the mouth of the Jade River

The Battle of Dogger Bank is a clear British victory - Blücher sunk, Seydlitz badly damaged, and more than 1200 German sailors dead, wounded, or taken prisoner.  For the British, though Lion had taken a battering, only Tiger had even been hit by heavy shells.  After the uncertain start to the war at sea, Dogger Bank is seen as a reaffirmation of the superiority of the Royal Navy.  Among the naval leadership, however, the view is decidedly different, where disappointment reigns.  What appeared to be a golden opportunity to destroy multiple German battlecruisers has been lost through misinterpretations and bad luck.  Predictably Fisher is outraged, arguing in reference to Moore that 'Any fool can obey orders!', while Beatty believes he never even sent the signal that Moore supposedly followed.  No official recrimination occurs, but Moore will shortly be reassigned to command a cruiser squadron off the Canary Islands, the implicit censure ringing loud and clear.

- In South Africa the Boer rebel commando under Maritz attacks Upington on the frontier with German South-West Africa.  The attack is spread out over a eight kilometre front, and with inadequate artillery support miscarries.

January 23rd, 1915

- In line with the decisions of the 21st, today Falkenhayn issues orders for the deployment of the new German 10th Army, which is to be sent to the Eastern Front and consists of XXXVIII, XXXIX, and XXXX Reserve Corps as well as XXI Corps drawn from the Western Front (the latter replaced by XXXXI Reserve Corps).

- Admiral Hipper, commander of the battlecruisers of the High Seas Fleet, has been badgering Admiral Ingenohl to approve a sortie of his force to Dogger Bank in the North Sea.  The propensity of the Grand Fleet to appear out of the blue precisely where it needed to be to intercept prior German raids has not gone unnoticed, but as the German navy remains supremely confident in the security of its wireless codes, Hipper has concluded that fishing trawlers around Dogger Bank have been signalling the British navy whenever German warships are at sea.  Hipper's plan is to take his battlecruisers to Dogger Bank at night, intercept any British light forces encountered at dawn, rigourously investigage each fishing trawler, and return the following evening.  Ingenohl yields today to Hipper's pressure, signalling at 1025am that the proposed sortie to Dogger Bank is approved.  The commander of the High Seas Fleet is clear, however, that no assistance from the dreadnoughts will be forthcoming - in addition to the Kaiser's edict, the 3rd Battle Squadron, composed of the newest dreadnoughts, is in the Baltic Sea undertaking gunnery practice.  Hipper promises that he will turn for home at the first sight of any significant British force.  At 545pm Hipper departs the Jade with the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, and Derfflinger (Von der Tann is in drydock for routine maintenance), the armoured cruiser Blücher, four light cruisers, and nineteen destroyers.

Unfortunately for Hipper, Room 40 has once again woven its magic, and the British Admiralty knows of the German sortie hours before the German warships have even left port.  By 1pm telegrams warning of the German raid are sent to Jellicoe, Beatty, and Tyrwhitt, and orders issued for Beatty's battlecruisers and Tyrwhitt's light warships to rendezvous at Dogger Bank at 7am tomorrow morning.  Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet, meanwhile, was instructed to put to sea and patrol 150 miles to the northwest, in case the High Seas Fleet made an appearance.  At 6pm, just fifteen minutes after Hipper's warships leave the Jade, Beatty's battlecruisers depart Rosyth and begin the voyage overnight to Dogger Bank.

Dogger Bank and the North Sea.

- The Austo-Hungarian offensive in Galicia begins today, constituting the first phase of the Winter Battles of the Carpathians.  In 3rd Army's sector small gains are recoded by elements under the command of General Szurmay, which seize the heights around Uszok Pass, and the 44th Landwehr Division reaches the Chrewt area.  To the east Südarmee is also on the move, with Corps Hofmann, commanded by General Peter Hofmann and consisting of a German infantry division and three Austro-Hungarian infantry brigades, advancing on the roads to Tucholka and Tuchla.

The greatest challenges faced by the attackers is not overcoming Russian resistance, however, but dealing with the weather and terrain.  Infantry find themselves attempting to fight through heavy snow on icy slopes, with no prospect of either prolonged periods of rest or shelter from the elements.  Indeed, many of the soldiers were already exhausted before they even reached the Russian defences, while the weather foiled efforts to evacuate the sick and wounded.  Artillery support was also almost nonexistant - while efforts had been made to supply the 3rd Army and Südarmee with additional shells, it proved practically impossible to move artillery pieces through the deep snow to support advancing infantry.  Most of the infantry in the Austro-Hungarian army had no familiarity with the mountains or how to survive in them, and their formations had already been decimated by the fighting of 1914.  In most cases the soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army were simply no longer capable of executing the operations dreamt up by Conrad and his subordinates.

December 16th, 1914

- In a message to Grand Duke Nicholas today, Joffre outlines the two major objectives of the French offensives that begin tomorrow:

The objective of these actions is twofold: (1) hold the enemy in front of us in order to facilitate the general action of allied forces; (2) make a breach in one or more points on the front, then exploit this success with reserve troops by taking the enemy in the rear and forcing him to retreat.

The first point is designed to alleviate the Russian commander's concerns regarding French inaction on the Western Front allowing the Germans to redeploy further units eastwards, while the second illustrates that Joffre saw the battle as a relatively-straightforward attack designed to achieve a breakthrough, from which would ensue a return to mobile warfare.  Joffre, though, did recognize that the present circumstances on the Western Front required different tools to achieve the breakthrough, weapons akin to thus utilized in siege warfare.  As he noted to the Grand Duke, should the attacks fail it would be because they were launched 'with still insufficient means.'

- In the early morning hours Hipper's battlecruisers and their escorts the British east coast.  The plan is to divide into two forces, the first to bombard Scarborough and Whitby, the second to strike Hartlepool just to the north.  The weather, however, is deteriorating, with rising seas and high winds.  The weather becomes sufficiently serious to pose a risk to the light cruisers and destroyers, so at 653am Hipper orders them to turn back and sail eastward towards the Dogger Bank where Ingenohl and the High Seas Fleet are to be waiting.

The German battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, and Derfflinger during the Scarborough Raid, as taken from Von der Tann.

An hour earlier, however, the situation around the Dogger Bank had changed decisively.  As the High Seas Fleet was approaching Dogger Bank, the British battlecruisers under Beatty and the dreadnoughts of Warrender's 2nd Battle Squadron were to the northwest of Dogger Bank, sailing to their patrol point to the southeast.  By a supreme coincidence the course of the two fleets brought them into close proximity to each other, neither knowing that the other was nearby.  At 515am the seven British destroyers escorting Beatty's and Warrender's force are ten miles east of the dreadnoughts when they stumble upon several German light cruisers and destroyers, the latter being the advance screen of the High Seas Fleet.  For the next forty minutes there is confused, short-range fighting between the two forces, with the British suffering the most - three of their destroyers are severely damaged.

As the fighting continued the captains involved signalled their main fleets that they were engaging the enemy.  At 523am Ingenohl, aboard his flagship Friedrich der Grosse, is informed that German destroyers are fighting their British counterparts to the east, and the flashes of gunfire are visible on the horizon.  He does not know the composition of the British force opposing him, which allows his worst fears to run wild.  What if these British destroyers are the advance screen of the entire Grand Fleet?  This would mean that the High Seas Fleet was almost certainly sailing towards its destruction.  He was ever-mindful of the Kaiser's edict: no general naval battle is to be risked.  In the dark of night, Ingenohl comes to believe that this is exactly what is about to happen.  At 530am he signals all of his squadrons to reverse course and turn southeast for home.

It was a monumental decision, even leaving aside the fact that Ingenohl's retreat left Hipper's battlecruisers abandoned without even so much as a signal indicating the fleet was returning to Wilhelmshaven.  It meant that Ingenohl was turning away from the greatest opportunity the German navy was to have in the entire war to engage an isolated portion of the Grand Fleet.  If Ingenohl had not lost his nerve, a battle between his fourteen dreadnoughts and the six dreadnoughts and four battlecruisers of Beatty's and Warrender's force would have likely occurred at dawn.  The British would certainly have dealt out serious damage, but the High Seas Fleet would have had the advantage and the most likely outcome of such a battle would have been the loss of significantly more British warships than German.  Such a victory in turn would have given the Germans parity in the North Sea - at no point before or after December 1914 would the two fleets be closer in size, and the British margin of superiority would have been erased by the losses such a battle would likely have resulted in.  Thus by turning away, Ingenohl threw away the best chance the Germans would ever have to change the course of the war at sea.  While Ingenohl bears responsibility for the order, it bears recalling that it was given in line with the instructions of the Kaiser.  Ultimately, it was the Kaiser's own unwillingness to risk defeat that ensured he never won the great naval victory he yearned for.

While Ingenohl was making his fateful decision, confusion reigned in the British force.  Admiral Warrender, who as Beatty's senior was in overall command of the operation, had been informed that several of his destroyers were engaging the enemy, but they had failed to signal positions, courses, or speeds.  Concluding that any small German warships could be swept up after Hipper's battlecruisers were dealt with, Warrender decides that instead of turning east towards the fighting, his dreadnoughts will continue southeast towards the morning rendezvous.  By 730am Warrender's dreadnoughts, Beatty's battlecruisers, and Rear-Admiral Goodenough's light cruisers had arrived at their patrol point just off the Dogger Bank.  Confused signals continued to come in from British destroyers to the east, with some being missed.  Just as Beatty decides to charge eastwards to engage the Germans, word comes that the British coast is being shelled.  Beatty abandons the chase, and the British warships at sea turn westward to intercept Hipper.

The German bombardment had begun at the town of Scarborough at 8am by the southern part of Hipper's force, consisting of the battlecruisers Derfflinger and Von der Tann, plus the light cruiser Kolberg.  Out of the morning fog bright flashes were followed by shells crashing into buildings.  For a half-hour the three warships fire, and when they depart at 830am seventeen people were dead and ninety-nine wounded - all civilians.  These three warships then sailed twenty-one miles up the coast to the fishing village of Whitby, which they bombarded for ten minutes, killed two and wounding two more.  The northern part of Hipper's force, comprised of the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, and Blücher (the latter variously classified as a battlecruiser or armoured cruiser - regardless, it was the weakest of the three), was approaching the shipbuilding and manufacturing town of Hartlepool when at 750am they encountered four elderly British destroyers patrolling offshore.  Though one manages to close sufficiently to fire a torpedo, it misses and otherwise the destroyers retreat under a hail of German shellfire.  When a light cruiser in Hartlepool attempts to put to see, it is struck by two shells and ran aground.  This was the only naval resistance the three German warships would encounter at Hartlepool, and while several shore batteries did keep up a constant fire, their 6-inch shells were unable to pierce the armour protection of the enemy battlecruisers.  The German bombardment of Hartlepool lasts from 810am to 852am, during which the three battlecruisers fire 1150 shells at the town.  Shells rained down on the shipyard and the steelworks, but also damaged more than three hundred homes.  When the Germans depart, eighty-six civilians were dead and 424 wounded.  Damage to the six warships was minimal, and only eight sailors were killed and twelve wounded.

At 930am the two parts of Hipper's force reunite and turn for home, fifty miles behind the light cruisers and destroyers he had sent home earlier in the morning.  He signals Ingenohl his course and speed, and asks for the location of the High Seas Fleet.  Ingenohl's reply is that it is returning to port.  Hipper's response is a rather colourful curse - Ingenohl's hasty retreat has abandoned the battlecruisers to their fate.

On the British side, Beatty and Warrender believe that they will soon be able to find and annihilate Hipper's force - there is a gap fifteen to twenty miles wide between two minefields on the Yorkshire coast through which Hipper must sail, and both British forces are heading for this point.  At this point the British are stricken with almost comically bad luck.  First, the weather in the North Sea deteriorates rapidly, drastically reducing visual range.  Second, at 1125am the British light cruiser Southampton, part of Goodenough's cruiser squadron, sights several enemy light cruisers and destroyers - these were the warships Hipper had sent home early due to the rough weather.  Goodenough signals Beatty that he is engaging the enemy, and orders the other three light cruisers of his own force to assemble on Southampton.  Goodenough's cruisers had been tasked with scouting ahead of Beatty's battlecruisers, a vital task in the poor weather, and Beatty, not knowing Southampton has met multiple enemy light cruisers, is dismayed to see all of his light cruisers turn away to follow Southampton.  He tells his Flag Lieutenant to signal 'that light cruiser' to resume its station ahead of the battlecruisers.  The Flag Lieutenant, uncertain which light cruiser Beatty is referring to, tells the signalman, using his searchlight, simply to order the 'light cruiser' to resume its station.  Nottingham, the light cruiser receiving the signal, believes the signal, given that it names no specific light cruiser is for the entire squadron, and passes it to Goodenough.  The latter, believing he has received a clear and direct order from a superior officer, breaks off the fight with the German warships and orders all of his light cruisers to return to the battlecruisers.  The German light cruisers and destroyers disappear in the distance, and when Beatty sees all of Goodenough's light cruisers returns he is apoplectic, believing Goodenough has allowed Hipper's screening force to escape.  In reality, the problem was down to a misunderstood signal, not the last time such a problem would bedevil Beatty.

At 1215pm the same German warships that Goodenough had allowed to escape is sighted by some of the dreadnoughts of Warrender's squadron.  However, Warrender himself cannot see them, and so never issues an order to fire.  The dreadnoughts that do see the enemy believes that Warrender must have some reason for not yet firing, so they never open fire on their own initiative.  The German light cruisers and destroyers then disappear again into the rain, a second miraculous escape.

Beatty aboard his flagship Lion believes that the German warships sighted, then lost, by Goodenough and Warrender are the immediate screening force for Hipper, and that the German battlecruisers must be just behind them.  This leads Beatty to conclude that when the light cruisers and destroyers slip past Warrender, that Hipper's battlecruisers must also be about to escape.  To prevent this, at 1230pm Beatty orders his squadron to turn to the east, believing that only his ships had the speed to cut off the Germans from their home base.  The reality, of course, is that Hipper's battlecruisers were fifty miles behind the light warships.  If Beatty had kept to his original course, he would have almost certainly ran right into Hipper.  By turning away, he opened a gap between the minefields that Hipper promptly sailed through.  By the time Beatty realized that the German battlecruisers were not in fact in front him, Hipper had slipped away to the north.  Several hours of frantic searching by Beatty and Warrender find nothing, and by late afternoon they conclude that the Germans have made their escape.

The bombardment of Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool caused outrage in Britain, compounded by the fact that the raiders had escaped.  In the Royal Navy there was immense disappointment that what had seemed like a golden opportunity to destroy the German battlecruisers had gone to waste.  There was infighting as the different admirals assigned blame to others, Beatty being particularly hard on Goodenough.  In practice luck and the weather had been against the British this day.  The muddled chase also showed the limitations of Room 40; though it had correctly detected the battlecruiser raid, they did not realize the entire German fleet was at sea, and the delay inherent in decyphering of signals also played a role - a signal by Hipper giving his position at 1245pm, when he could still have been intercepted, was intercepted but not decyphered and retransmitted to Beatty and Warrender until 250pm, by which time Hipper was long gone.

In Germany the raid was celebrated - naval honour was restored, and the hated British enemy was not quite so safe as it had thought it was behind its Channel frontier.  Within the German navy, however, the realization of the opportunity Ingenohl had let pass was a bitter pill to swallow.  Much criticism was heaped on the High Seas Fleet commander, including from the Kaiser himself, who informed Ingenohl that he had been too cautious, a case of misplaced blame.

Perhaps the most important impact of the raid, however, was on the morale of the British public.  To most in Britain, the deliberate bombardment of largely-undefended coastal towns was an atrocity.  The overall number of civilian dead - 105 - seems almost pitifully small from the vantage point of the 21st-century, where the record of the past hundred years has left us almost numb to the notion of civilian casualties in war.  From the perspective of Britain in 1914, however, the notion of deliberately targeting civilians was seen as something that no civilized nation would ever do - it was in line with the thinking, then much prevalent, that no civilized nation would torpedo merchant ships without warning.  The Scarborough Raid, as it becomes known, is quickly held up as yet another example of German barbarism and perfidy, taking its place alongside the Rape of Belgium to show why the war must be fought and why the Germans must be defeated, no matter the cost.  The episode becomes a staple of recruiting posters, which emphasize the murder of women and children at the hands of heartless German sailors, imploring the men to avenge the dead and protect those still living - another example of drawing on gender roles to support the war effort.  The memory of the Scarborough Raid live in the minds of the British public long after the physical damage had been repaired.

Two classic British recruiting posters drawing on memories of the Scarborough
Raid - whole books could be written on the gender themes implicit in them.

- In Poland the Russian 1st Army, northernmost of the Russian armies in the great bend of the Vistula River, had responded to Grand Duke Nicholas' order to retreat by fleeing as fast as possible east over the Bzura River.  To its south, the Russian 2nd and 5th Armies have only begun their retreat, meaning their northern flank has been uncovered by the hastiness of 1st Army.  General Mackensen of the German 9th Army believes an opportunity exists to envelop the Russian 2nd and 5th Armies, and while ordering his northern wing to attempt to outflank the enemy south of Sochaczew, he also requests that the Austro-Hungarian 2nd Army to send a detachment to the northeast towards Lubochnia to form the other half of the pincer movement.

- South of the Vistula River, the Austro-Hungarian pursuit of the retreating Russian armies continues to be stymied by strong rear-guard actions that limit their advance and result in hard fighting, suggesting that the Russians do not intend to withdraw a great distance.  Despite this, Conrad continues to believe that the Battle of Limanowa-Lapanow is a crushing victory, and his major concern today is how to bring the Russians to battle before they can retreat across the San River.

- Overnight the schooner Ayesha endures a violent storm that tears away all of the forward sails, leaving it at the mercy of the ocean.  In the morning, however, the storm vanishes, and Ayesha is left adrift when the wind proves too light to fill the remaining sails.  Fortunately Choising appears, and takes Ayesha in tow to the sheltered bay of a nearby island, where Emden's landing party transfers to the merchant ship.  They make Choising their new home, bringing with them all of their provisions and weapons.  The decision is made to sink Ayesha, to prevent it either falling back into British hands or from revealing their most recent position.  After cutting two holes in the hull, Ayesha is cut adrift as Choising's engine is started at 4pm.  For some time Ayesha continues on its own to follow Choising, and the Germans decide to halt to watch its final minutes.  At 458pm the Ayesha plunges out of sight, and the Germans give three cheers to honour their former ship.

The schooner Ayesha.

Aboard his new ship First Officer Mücke must decide where to sail next.  His original plan on leaving Padang was to try to reach the German colony of Tsingtao in China, but on boarding Choising they had learned of its fall over a month ago.  Sailing to German East Africa was quickly dismissed, as the arrival of fifty under-equipped and poorly-armed sailors could not possibly make a difference to the fighting there.  Joining with Königsberg was similarly ruled out.  It appeared the only option was to sail around Africa until a report in one of the newspapers aboard Choising mentioned a skirmish between British and Ottoman forces in Arabia.  Mücke thus decides that the best option is to sail to Arabia and return to Europe overland through the Ottoman Empire.  The slow speed of Choising - between four and seven knots per hour - means the voyage to Arabia will take several weeks.  In an effort to avoid suspicion, the crew disguises Choising as the Italian merchant ship Shenir, complete with an Italian flag made of a green window curtain, white bunting, a strip of red, and a painted coat of arms.

August 28th, 1914

- Joffre visits Lanrezac at the latter's headquarters at 8am, where they argue over the former's order to launch a counterattack.  When Lanrezac again insists that such a maneouvre is impossible under present circumstances, Joffre loses his temper for one of the few times in the campaign, informing the General that he must obey orders or be dismissed.  Lanrezac refuses to move without a written order, which Joffre then provides.  Later today 5th Army begins to realign itself for a westward counterattack, in preparation for the attack tomorrow morning.

- General Haig of I Corps, on his own initiative, offers to aid the French 5th Army in its coming counterattack.  Lanrezac is pleased at what he sees as an all-too-rare instance of British co-operation.

- Meanwhile the despondency of Sir John French continues to grow apace.  Fearing imminent destruction of the BEF, he orders transport wagons to discard all ammunition and carry men instead.  It is a tacit admission that French wants the BEF to flee as fast as possible, not fight.  Both Haig and Smith-Dorrien ignore the order, fearing its defeatism would crush morale, but the newly-arrived 4th Division implements it, much to the dismay of its soldiers.

- For three days the battle has raged between the French 1st and 2nd armies and the German 6th and 7th armies in Lorraine.  The French fought with a desperation born from the knowledge that defeat here would be catastrophic, and doom any effort to send additional forces to stop the German swing through Belgium.  Though the Germans are able to make minor gains, a breakthrough eludes them.  Today Rupprecht calls off the attack, in order to reconstitute his forces and rebuild his forces for a further attack.  The French victory here is a crucial moment in the Battle of the Frontiers, as it was the necessary prerequisite for Joffre to redeploy forces from Lorraine to oppose the Germans descending from the north.

- The murder, arson, and looting in Louvain comes to an end today, after three nightmarish days.  Of the population of 42 000, 209 have been executed and the rest deported.  Over a thousand buildings have been burnt to the ground, German soldiers often going door-to-door systematically to destroy entire neighbourhoods.  The university has also been destroyed, most notoriously the library, which contained 230 000 books, including priceless and irreplaceable medieval manuscripts, all lost, a tragedy to Western civilization.

Part of the ruins of Louvain.

- The first major naval battle occurs today in the Heligoland Bight, off the North Sea coast of Germany.  After patrolling for several weeks, British submarines, under the command of Commodore Roger Keyes, noticed that the Germans regularly patrolled the Bight with destroyers, supported by a couple of light cruisers.  Keyes, and Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, the latter commanding the Harwich Force of destroyers, were both aggressive commanders who wanted to take the naval war to the Germans.  They proposed a surprise attack on the German destroyers in the Bight, and retreating before the German High Seas Fleet could sortie in response.  The operation is scheduled for today, and will be supported by two forces - Commodore William Goodenough's 1st Light Cruiser Squadron and Vice-Admiral David Beatty, commanding the Battle Cruiser Squadron.  Goodenough and Beatty, who would be standing off the Bight prepared to enter the battle if requested, were part of Jellicoe's Grand Fleet, which was also at sea, though too far to support the operation.  Beatty was in many ways the opposite of Jellicoe - whereas the former was acutely aware of his burden of responsibility and was reluctant to fight the Germans unless necessary, the latter was aggressive and longed to come to grips with the foe.  Beatty's temperament matched his command - the battlecruisers were faster than Jellicoe's dreadnoughts, and seen as more glamourous by the British public.

The Battle of Heligoland Bight, Aug. 28th, 1914

The operation begins at daybreak, when three of Keyes' submarines surfaced to lure the German destroyers to Tyrwhitt's force.  There is a haze on the water today, which makes visibility inconsistent.  What follows is an often-confused running battle between British and German destroyers.  Several German light cruisers rush to the scene to save their destroyers, which leads Tyrwhitt to call in Goodenough's light cruisers.  When they appear, there is an almost disastrous miscommunication.  Keyes' submarines had never been informed that the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron would be part of the operation, so when one of his submarines sees two of Goodenough's light cruisers, they believe them to be German.  Keyes signals Beatty that his submarines are under attack by German light cruisers - Beatty's response is to signal Goodenough that Keyes is under attack.  Goodenough then orders the remaining four of his light cruisers into the Bight - in other words, Keyes has indirectly called in Goodenough's light cruisers to chase themselves.  When Keyes sights Goodenough's four remaining light cruisers, he now signals he is under attack by six German light cruisers.  The farcical episode ends at the last moment when Keyes' submarines realizes they are aiming at British light cruisers.

By 11am, British light forces have been in the Bight for several hours, and there are now more than a half dozen light cruisers milling about, appearing and disappearing in the haze.  Tyrwhitt, believing he is confronted by a superior force, calls Beatty for aid.  Beatty, for his part, knows that that the dreadnoughts of the German High Seas Fleet are not an immediate danger - remarkably, at the exit from the main German naval base is the Jade bar, which at low tide the German dreadnoughts cannot cross without getting grounded on the sand.  Low tide was at 933am, and it would be several hours before the dreadnoughts can get out into the Bight.  Beatty thus brings his battlecruisers into the Bight at full speed.  They emerge from the haze like stampeding elephants, and blow away two German light cruisers before covering the retreat of the British light forces.  By the time the Germans can get their own battlecruisers in the Bight, the British have long since disappeared.

The German light cruiser Mainz sinking during the Battle of Heligoland
Bight, Aug. 28th, 1914.

Though several British ships suffered heavy damage, they were the the clear victors - three German light cruisers and a destroyer had been sunk.  The battle made Beatty, Tyrwhitt, and Keyes into public heroes in Britain, and provided a much-needed counter to the depressing news from the Continent.  The most important consequence of the battle comes in Germany - the Kaiser, who loves the navy he has spent so much money and political capital upon, is terrified of them getting sunk.  Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, commander of the German High Seas Fleet, is informed that he cannot take his dreadnoughts to see without the prior permission of the Kaiser himself.  This completely hamstrings the High Seas Fleet, and effectively concedes to Britain control of the North Sea without a fight.

- This morning Ludendorff orders I Corps to advance to the northwest, to aid XX Corps, under heavy attack by three corps of the Russian 2nd Army.  General François, true to his manner, ignores the orders - Ludendorff is reduced to begging François to obey his order, to no effect.  General François can see the golden opportunity before 8th Army today, and drives straight east to cut behind the Russian 2nd Army.

To the east of the Russian 8th Army, XVII and I Reserve Corps advance, despite confusing orders.  I Reserve Corps captures Allenstein, and confronts the 8th Army units in the trap, while XVII Corps marches west towards I Corps.

By late today, Samsonov is becoming aware of the scope of the disaster his army is facing - he can hear I Corps' artillery fire from his headquarters.  His response is entirely in keeping with his background in the Russian cavalry - he telegraphs Zhilinskii at North-West Front and informs him that he is leaving his headquarters to go forward to the battlefront.  With seven staff officers, he gallops north into the battle.  The already-poor communications within 8th Army collapse completely - there is no contact between the corps of the army, and crucially there is no attempt to co-ordinate attacks between the corps inside the trap and the remnants outside to keep an avenue of retreat open.

- In Galicia, Conrad authorizes the temporary transfer of XIV Corps from 3rd Army to 4th Army in the north.  While he understands that 3rd Army, facing two Russian armies to the east, needs all the help it can get, he sees an opportunity to turn the left flank of the Russian 5th Army, whose western flank is already being pushed back by 4th Army.