Before a description of the fighting can be given it is necessary to understand the plan of the fight as a whole.  Assuming that the page on which these words are printed represents a map of the North Sea and that the points of the compass are as they would be on an ordinary chart, we have the island of Helgoland, half an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, situated in the lower right-hand corner of this page, with about half an inch separating its eastern side from the right edge of the page and the same distance separating it from the bottom.  The lower edge of the page may represent the adjoining coasts of Germany and Holland, and the right-hand edge may represent the coast of the German province of Schleswig and the coast of Denmark.

At seven o’clock on the morning of August 28 the positions of the fighting forces were as follows:  The decoy British submarines were making a track from Helgoland to the northwest, pursued by a flotilla of German submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats, and a fleet of light cruisers.  On the west—­the left edge of the page, halfway up—­there were the British cruisers Arethusa and Fearless accompanied by flotillas, and steaming eastward at a rate that brought them to the rear of the German squadron of light cruisers, thus cutting off the latter from the fortress.  In the southwest—­the lower left-hand corner of the page—­there was stationed a squadron of British, cruisers, ready to close in when needed; in the northwest—­the upper left-hand corner of the page—­there were stationed a squadron of British light cruisers and another of battle cruisers, and it was toward these last two units that the decoys were leading the German fleets.

The Arethusa and Fearless felt the first shock of battle, on the side of the British.  The German cruiser Ariadne closed with the former, while the latter soon found itself very busy with the German cruiser Strassburg.  For thirty-five minutes—­before the Fearless drew the fire of the Strassburg—­the two German vessels poured a telling fire into the Arethusa, and the latter was soon in bad condition, but she managed to hold out till succored by the Fearless, and then planted a shell against the Ariadne which carried away her forebridge and killed her captain.  The scouting which had been done by the smaller craft of the German fleets showed their commanders that there were other British ships in the neighborhood besides the two they had first engaged, and it was thought wiser to withdraw in face of possible reenforcement of the British, consequently the Strassburg and Ariadne turned eastward to seek the protection of the fortress.  The Arethusa, a boat that had been in commission but a week when the battle was fought, was in a bad way; all but one of her guns were out of action, her water tank had been punctured and fire was raging on her main deck amidships.  The Fearless passed her a cable at nine o’clock and towed her westward, away from the scene of action, while her crew made what repairs they could.