Battle of the Falkland Islands

Part of World War I

A painting; Battle of the Falkland Islands.

Date

8 December 1914

Location

South Atlantic, near the Falkland Islands

Result

British victory

Destruction of the German East Asia Squadron

Belligerents

United Kingdom

German Empire

Commanders and leaders

Strength

2 battlecruisers
3 armoured cruisers
2 light cruisers and
1 grounded pre-dreadnought

2 armoured cruisers
3 light cruisers
3 transports

Casualties and losses

10 killed
19 wounded

1,871 killed
215 captured
2 armoured cruisers sunk
2 light cruisers sunk
2 transports captured and subsequently scuttled

British victory

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a decisive British naval victory over the Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914, during the First World War in the South Atlantic. The British, after a defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sent a large force to track down and destroy the victorious German cruiser squadron.

Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee—commanding the German squadron of two armoured cruisers, SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the light cruisers SMS Nürnberg (1906), Dresden and Leipzig, and three auxiliaries—attempted to raid the British supply base at Stanley in the Falkland Islands. A larger British squadron—consisting of the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and Inflexible, the armoured cruisers HMS Carnarvon, Cornwall and Kent, the armed merchant cruiser HMS Macedonia and the light cruisers HMS Bristol and Glasgow—had arrived in the port the day before.

Visibility was at its maximum, the sea was placid with a gentle breeze from the northwest, and the day was bright and sunny. The advanced cruisers of the German squadron were detected early. By nine o'clock that morning the British battlecruisers and cruisers were in hot pursuit of the five German vessels, these having taken flight in line abreast to the southeast. All except the auxiliary Seydlitz were hunted down and sunk.

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