Battle of Coronel — British Naval Disaster

German Admiral von Spee's East Asiatic Squadron defeated a British naval force under Admiral Cradock off Coronel, Chile, sinking HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth with all hands (1,600 dead). It was the Royal Navy's first defeat in over a century. Britain responded by dispatching two battlecruisers; at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on December 8, von Spee's squadron was destroyed and Spee himself killed, ending the threat to Allied trade in the South Atlantic.