Duels between pairs of ships took place in various seas.  The career of the raider Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, a fast converted liner, was ended by the British ship Highflyer, a cruiser, near the Cape Verde Islands, on August 27, 1914, after the former had sunk the merchantman Hyades and had stopped the mail steamer Galician.  The greater speed of the German vessel was of no advantage to her, for she had been caught in the act of coaling.  What then transpired was not a fight, for in armament the two were quite unequal.  She soon sank under the Highflyer’s fire, her crew having been rescued by her colliers.

The next duel took place between the Carmania and Cap Trafalgar, British and German converted liners, respectively.  They met on September 14, 1914, in the Atlantic off South America.  In view of the fact that at the beginning of the war these two ships had been merchantmen and had been armed and commissioned after the outbreak of hostilities, this engagement was something of the nature of those between privateersmen in the old days.  In speed, size, and armament they were about equal.  For nearly two hours they exchanged shots between 3,000 and 9,000 yards, and markmanship was to determine the victory.  The shots from the Carmania struck the hull of the other ship near the water line repeatedly, and the British commander was wise enough to present his stern and bow ends more often than the length of the Carmania’s sides.  At the end of the fight the German ship was afire and sank.  Her crew got off safely in her colliers, and the British ship made off because her wireless operator heard a German cruiser, with which the Cap Trafalgar had been in communication, signaling that she was hastening to the liner’s aid.

Only two days before this the British cruiser Berwick captured the converted liner Spreewald in the North Atlantic, where she had been trying to interrupt allied commercial vessels.

Germany kept up her policy of attrition by clever use of submarines and mines.  The British battleship Audacious, while on patrol duty off the coast of Ireland in the early days of the war, met with a disaster of some sort and was brought to her home port in a sinking condition.  The rigors of the British censorship almost kept the news of this out of the British papers and from the correspondents of foreign papers.  It was reported that she had struck a mine, that she had been torpedoed, and that she had been made the victim of either a spy or a traitor who caused an internal explosion.  The truth was never made clear.  Rumors that she had gone down were denied by the British admiralty some months later, when they reported her repaired and again doing duty, but this was counteracted by a report that one of the ships that was completed after the start of hostilities had been given the same name.

About the sinking of the Hawke there was less conjecture.  This vessel had gained notoriety in times of peace by having collided with the Olympic as the latter left port on her maiden voyage to New York.  On the 15th of October, 1914, while patrolling the northern British home waters she was made the target of the torpedo of a German submarine and went down, but the Theseus, which had been attacked at the same time, escaped.