a torpedo against the hull of the
Turkish battleship _Messudiyeh_. The _B-ll_ slowly came to the
surface to see what had been the result of her exploit, and her
commander, through the periscope saw her going down by the stern.
It was claimed later by the British that she had sunk, a claim
which was officially denied by the Turks. Her loss to Turkey, if
it did occur, was not serious, for she was too old to move about,
and her only service was to guard the mine fields. The _B-ll_ after
being pursued by destroyers again submerged for nine hours and
came successfully from the scene of the exploit.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVIII

WAR ON GERMAN TRADE AND POSSESSIONS

With the exceptions of the deeds done by the German sea raiders
the remaining naval history of the first six months of the war had
to do for the most part with British victories. When Von Spee's
squadron, with the exception of the light cruiser _Dresden_, which
was afterward sunk at the Island of Juan Fernandez, was dispersed
off the Falkland Islands there was no more possibility of there
being a pitched fight between German and British fleets other than
in the North Sea.

England began then to hit at the outlying parts of the German Empire
with her navy. The cruiser _Pegasus_, before being destroyed by
the _Koenigsberg_ at Zanzibar on September 20, 1914, had destroyed
a floating dock and the wireless station at Dar-es-Salaam, and
the _Yarmouth_, before she went on her unsuccessful hunt for the
_Emden_, captured three German merchantmen.

As far back as the middle of August, 1914, the capture of German
Samoa had been planned and directed from New Zealand. On the 15th
of that month an expedition sailed from Wellington, and in order
to escape the _Gneisenau_ and _Scharnhorst_, went first to French
New Caledonia, where the British cruisers _Psyche, Philomel_, and
_Pyramus_ were met with. On the 23d of the month, this force, which
was augmented by the French cruiser _Montcalm_ and the Australian
battleships _Australia_ and _Melbourne_, sailed first for the Fiji
Islands and then to Apia on Upolu Island off Samoa. They reached
there on the 30th. There was, of course, no force on the island
to withstand that of the enemy, and arrangements for surrender
of the place were made by signal. Marines were sent ashore; the
public buildings were occupied, the telegraph and telephone wires
cut, the wireless station destroyed and the German f