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TSINGTAO WAS THE BASE of the East Asiatic Squadron, most units of which were in the Carolines at the time of the outbreak of war. At this time at Tsingtao were the destroyers Taku and S. 90, the gunboats Iltis and Jaguar and the Luchs and Tiger, the minelayer Rachin, and the Lozier I and Minore, which were requisitioned at the outbreak of war and seem to have been employed as harbor defense boats. In addition the German navy had the Kormoran—variously described as an old cruiser, old sloop, or gunboat— laid up at the base, and the Austro-Hungarian light cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth took refuge at the base. The Russian merchantman Riazan, captured by the Emden on 4 August and the first prize taken by any German warship or raider, was taken to Tsingtao and, with guns from the Kormoron, was fitted out as an armed merchant cruiser, the Kormoron II: it sailed from Tsingtao on 10 August, the last German warship so to do. The Iltis, Luchs, and the Tiger had their crews and guns put ashore after the Japanese had broken through the outer defensive positions in the attack of 27 September; these three gunboats were stripped and then scuttled on 28 September:1 various sources suggest that the Taku and Kaiserin Elisabeth were also scuttled on this date. The destroyer S. 90 was lost after having run aground in 35°32’ North 119°36’ East southwest of Tsingtao on 17 October, and the Taku, the Jaguar, and the Rachin, plus the Kaiserin Elisabeth, are known to have been scuttled on 6–7 November immediately before the surrender of the base. It would seem likely that the other three units were scuttled at this time. The river gunboats Otter, Tsingtau, and the Vaterland were at Nanking, Canton, and Shanghai, respectively, and these were laid up on 2 August with the Otter and Vaterland ostensibly sold in order to prevent their being interned. Whatever their ownership , these two units were seized in March 1917 when China entered the war against Germany; the Tsingtau was scuttled to prevent seizure. There are certain problems with what may be termed “other” ships. The Möwe and Planet, for example, in most sources are given as gunboats or river gunboats but also, appendix 13.1. “other” german units outside european waters 320 from sarajevo to constantinople alternatively, as survey ships, and, of course, it may well be that at different times they were employed in different roles; no less of a problem is different dates for being sunk, scuttled, or whatever. The following represent “best guesses,” and have been checked against the relevant histories: The survey ship Möwe, scuttled at Dar-es-Salaam on 14 August when British naval units arrived off the port. The gunboat Eber, which was based in German South West Africa and was at Cape Town on 30 July but then made a hurried exit; after it had transferred its guns to the Cap Trafalgar it made for Bahia, Brazil, which it reached on 4 September and where it was interned; the Eber was scuttled on 26 October 1917 after Brazil entered the war. The gunboat Soden, which had been disarmed, was captured by British forces on 27 September at the surrender of Douala and Bonaberi, in the Cameroons. The survey ship Planet, scuttled on 7 October 1914 when Japanese naval units arrived off Yap. The Komet, which was captured on 11 October 1914 by Australian troops in an anchorage on the north coast of Neu-Pommern. The gunboat Geier, which was interned at Honolulu on 7 November 1914. The gunboat Kingani, which was captured on 26 December 1915 off the Belgian town of Lukuga on Lake Tanganyika in an action with the British gunboats Mimi and Toutou; it subsequently sank but within three days was raised and, re-armed, entered British service on 15 January 1916 as the Fifi. The auxiliary gunboat Hedwig von Wissmann, which was sunk on 9 February 1916 off the Belgian town of Lukuga on Lake Tanganyika in an action with the British gunboats Fifi and Mimi and the Belgian launch Dix Tonne. Hordern, History of the Great War, Vol. 1. August 1914–September 1916, pp. 434–435, states that On the 28th July another small German craft, which in March . . . arrived in sections to replace the lost Kingani, was sunk a few miles south of Ujiji. It was also found that the steamer Graf von Götzen had been scuttled...

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