Troubles in the Caribbean, particularly a civil war in Mexico, where rebels fought to overthrow the despotic government of President Victoriano Huerta, sent Dresden there in December 1913. Remaining on station in the region through July, the cruiser spent considerable time in Veracruz protecting German citizens and commercial interests, particularly when the United States invaded it and seized the port and city to protect its interests. On July 20, when rebels toppled Huerta’s government, Dresden’s captain took the Mexican president, his family and staffaboard, then carried them to Jamaica, where the British government granted Huerta asylum.
Dresden was due back in Germany for a much-needed refit, and on July 26, rendezvoused with the new cruiser Karlsruhe to trade captains. Dresden’s new commander, Fritz Emil von Lüdecke, was to take the ship back to Germany, but when war broke out in Europe a few days later, he took Dresden to Brazil to attack British merchant ships. Dresden engaged several British ships, sinking some but letting others go because they carried cargo from countries not yet at war and, in one case, because the ship was loaded with women and children, and Lüdecke was an officer and gentleman of the old school with “incredible gallantry.”
As British forces in the region mobilized to find and destroy Dresden and Karlsruhe, Lüdecke headed for the Pacific, steaming through the Straits of Magellan at the tip of South America in early September. There, at the Chilean port of Punta Arenas, Lüdecke received new orders to link up with Germany’s East Asia Squadron.
The East Asia Squadron, under the command of Reichsgraf Maximilian von Spec, was Germany’s only fleet in the Pacific. Based in Tsingtao, China, von Spec’s ships included the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the light cruisers Emden, Leipzig and Nürnberg. When the war began, von Spec ordered his squadron out to sea, realizing that the allied forces outnumbered and outgunned his ships, particularly after Japan entered the war on Britain’s side.
Von Spec’s squadron rendezvoused with Dresden at Easter Island in early October. Then they all then steamed for Chile and the island of Mas a Tierra. There, von Spec learned that a pursuing British squadron, under the command of Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, had followed Dresden into the Pacific. Spec and his captains decided to head to the Chilean mainland port of Coronel, in the hope of finding and destroying HMS Glasgow, which was coaling there. Instead, they ran into most of the British squadron.
The two forces met in battle on the afternoon of November 1, 1914. The fight started with the Germans in a better position — the British were firing into the setting sun and could not see as well. Within a few hours, von Spec’s ships had devastated Cradock’s. Cradock’s own ship, Good Hope, on fire and hit many times, exploded and sank with no survivors. HMS Monmouth also sank after a point-blank pounding from the German cruiser Nürnberg which fired seventy-five rounds into the burning ship to finish it off; there were no survivors. The Battle of Coronel was the Royal Navy’s first defeat at sea in over a century, and it filled the British with a strong desire for retribution.
After Coronel, von Spec kept his squadron in the Pacific to hunt the enemy, despite orders to return to Germany. When von Spec finally decided to move into the Atlantic, his procrastination had allowed the British enough time to create a new battle force, this one under the command of Vice-Admiral Frederick Sturdee. When von Spec and his ships arrived at the Falkland Islands to raid them, Sturdee and his fleet were waiting in ambush. The British cruisers could outrun and outgun the German ships, and in an unequal battle, Sturdee chased down and sank all but one of von Spec’s fleet. The first to die was Scharnhorst, with von Spec aboard; there were no survivors. Gneisenau sank next after a hard fight; the British pulled only 190 of the 765 crew from the water, and many of the badly wounded Germans died after being rescued. The smaller cruisers— Leipzig, Dresden and Nürnberg—ran for it, but soon Leipzig, out of ammunition, her mainmast and two funnels shot away, and sinking, stopped dead in the water. There were only eighteen survivors. Nürnberg fought until two of her boilers exploded and British shells sank her, leaving only twelve survivors.
Of all of von Spec’s squadron, only Dresden escaped the carnage, outrunning the pursuing British by sailing through bad weather that provided cover. The crew of Dresden ran with the bitter knowledge that they could do nothing to help the other German ships and that they had to try to escape to fight another day.
After returning to Punta Arenas for coal, Dresden steamed into the narrow channels of Tierra del Fuego, near Cape Horn, to hide from the British. For the next two months, British and other allied ships searched in vain for Dresden. But in early March, harassed by bad weather and with his crew restless, Lüdecke decided to return to the Pacific. He felt that they could not safely make it home by running across the Atlantic with so many ships hunting for them. His concerns were underscored on March 2, when the British cruisers Kent and Glasgow discovered Dresden in the channels of the Straits of Magellan and chased her at high speed for hours until Lüdecke outpaced them and escaped.
With only 80 tons of coal left, which was not enough to go anywhere, Dresden arrived at Mas a Tierra on March 8 with a rust-streaked hull and worn-out machinery. Lüdecke argued with Chilean authorities for more than the legal limit of twenty-four hours for a combatant to remain in a neutral port, claiming that his coal situation and the ship’s condition required more time. He also radioed passing ships in vain, seeking more coal to help them escape. But he also knew that as a last resort he could land his crew and intern them with the ship for the duration of the war.
The British intercepted one of Dresden’s radio calls for coal on March 13 and raced for Mas a Tierra. At 8:40 the next morning, Kent and Glasgow, along with the auxiliary cruiser (Drama, sighted Dresden at anchor in Cumberland Bay and opened fire, despite the fact that they were violating Chile’s neutrality and breaking international law. Less than three hours later, Dresden, shattered and burning, sank. Most of the crew had made it ashore and survived the final battle. They remained in Chile until 1919 as unwilling guests of the Chileans, interned in accord with the international agreements that the British had ignored. Some of the German officers escaped and made their way home to fight again in a war that would continue for three more years. But the sinking of Dresden, following the earlier destruction of Emden in the Indian Ocean, brought an end to the naval war in the Pacific. The last of the proud East Asia Squadron of the Reichsgraf von Spec lay rusting in the deep, a legacy for the future when explorers and archeologists would venture into the sea to reconstruct her final hours.