abaul on 21 July, Spee received word of further unrest in China, which prompted his return to the Wusong roadstead outside Shanghai by 30 July. After the situation calmed, Spee was able to take his ships on a short cruise to Japan, which began on 11 November. Scharnhorst and the rest of the squadron returned to Shanghai on 29 November, before she departed for another trip to Southwest Asia. Spee met with Chulalongkorn, the King of Siam, and also visited Sumatra, North Borneo, and Manila. Scharnhorst returned to Tsingtao on 19 March 1914. In early May, Spee, by now promoted to Vizeadmiral, took Scharnhorst and the torpedo boat SMS S90 on a visit to Port Arthur and then to Tianjin; Spee continued on to Beijing, where he met with Yuan Shikai, the first President of the Republic of China. He came back aboard Scharnhorst on 11 May and the ship returned to Tsingtao. Spee thereafter began preparations for a cruise to German New Guinea; Scharnhorst departed on 20 June, leaving only Emden behind in Tsingtao.
Gneisenau rendezvoused with Scharnhorst in Nagasaki, Japan, where they received a full supply of coal. They then sailed south, arriving in Truk in early July where they would restock their coal supplies. While en route, they received news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. On 17 July, the East Asia Squadron arrived in Ponape in the Caroline Islands. Spee now had access to the German radio network and he learned of the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia and the Russian mobilization against Austria-Hungary and possibly Germany. On 31 July, word came that the German ultimatum that Russia demobilize its armies was set to expire. Spee ordered his ships be stripped for war.[c] On 2 August, Wilhelm II ordered German mobilization against Russia and its ally, France.
World War I
When the First World War broke out, the East Asia Squadron consisted of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Emden, Nürnberg, and Leipzig. At the time, Nürnberg was returning from the west coast of the United States, where Leipzig had just replaced her, and Emden was still in Tsingtao. On 6 August 1914, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, the supply ship Titania, and the Japanese collier Fukoku Maru were still in Ponape. Von Spee had issued orders to recall the light cruisers, which had been dispersed on cruises around the Pacific. Nürnberg joined von Spee that day, after which Spee moved his ships to Pagan Island in the Northern Mariana Islands, a German possession in the central Pacific.
All available colliers, supply ships, and passenger liners were ordered to meet the East Asia Squadron in Pagan and Emden joined the squadron there on 12 August. The auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich joined Spee's ships there as well. The four cruisers, accompanied by Prinz Eitel Friedrich and several colliers, then departed the central Pacific, bound for Chile. On 13 August, Commodore Karl von Müller, captain of the Emden, persuaded Spee to detach his ship as a commerce raider. On 14 August, the East Asia Squadron departed Pagan for Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, with Scharnhorst in the lead. The ships again coaled after their arrival on 20 August.
To keep the German high command informed, on 8 September von Spee detached Nürnberg to Honolulu to send word through neutral countries. Nürnberg returned with news of the Allied capture of German Samoa, which had taken place on 29 August. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sailed to Apia to investigate the situation. Spee had hoped to catch a British or Australian warship by surprise, but upon his arrival on 14 September, he found no warships in the harbor. On 22 September, Scharnhorst and the rest of the East Asia Squadron arrived at the French colony of Papeete. The Germans attacked the colony, and in the ensuing Battle of Papeete, they sank the French gunboat Zélée. The ships came under fire from French shore batteries but were undamaged. Fear of mines in the harbor prevented von Spee from seizing the coal in the harbor.
By 12 October, Scharnhorst and the rest of the squadron had r