The dreadnought Satsuma also came in 1910—­a vessel displacing 19,400 tons, but making a speed of only 18.2 knots, and with an extraordinarily heavy main battery consisting of four 12-inch guns and twelve 10-inch guns.  The Aki, launched in 1911, was 400 tons heavier than the Satsuma, and was more than 2 knots faster, and her main battery was equally strong.  The dreadnoughts Settsu and Kawachi, completed in 1913 and 1912 respectively, displaced 21,420 tons, but were able to make not more than 20 knots.  At this time the Japanese admiralty, perhaps on account of lessons learned in the war with Russia, was building dreadnoughts with less speed than those in the other navies, but with much heavier main batteries.  These two vessels carried a unique main battery of twelve 12-inch guns, along with others of smaller measurement.  What the dreadnoughts lacked in speed was made up in that of four battle cruisers launched after 1912.  These were the Kirishima, Kongo, Hi-Yei, and Haruna, with the good speed of 28 knots.  Their displacement was 27,500 tons, and they carried in their primary batteries eight 14-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns.

At the time Japan entered the war she had in building four superdreadnoughts with the tremendous displacement of 30,600 tons.  These vessels, the Mitsubishi, Yukosaka, Kure, and Kawasaki, had been designed to carry a main battery of the strength of the U. S. S. Pennsylvania, and to have a speed of 22.5 knots.

The first move of the Japanese navy in the Great War was to cooperate with the army in besieging the German town of Kiaochaw on the Shantung Peninsula in China, but the operation was soon more military than naval.  Japanese warships captured Bonham Island in the group known as the Marshall Islands, and, having cleared eastern waters of German warships, scoured the Pacific in such a manner as to chase those which escaped into the regions patrolled by the British navy.

The German vessels which made their escape were among the eleven which were separated from the rest of Germany’s navy in the North Sea at the outbreak of hostilities.  They were, with the exception of the Dresden, the Leipzig, Nuernberg, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau.  It was weeks before they were first reported—­on September 22 at the harbor of Papeete, where they destroyed the French gunboat Zelie, and after putting again to sea their location was once more a mystery.

On the evening of November 1 a British squadron consisting of the vessels Good Hope, Otranto, Glasgow, and Monmouth, all except the Good Hope coming through the straits, sighted the enemy.  The British ships lined up abreast and proceeded in a northeasterly direction.  The Germans took up the same alignment eight miles to the westward of the British ships and proceeded southward at full speed.  Both forces opened fire at a distance of 12,000 yards