Irrespective of von Spee's conception of his mission his East Asia Squadron was the only credible force at sea challenging British naval superiority. Inevitably forced to respond, the Royal Navy and her allies tied up several multiples of von Spee's displacement countering him; as pre-war commerce raiding theory had claimed.

Nonetheless von Spee and the Admiralstab were planning only for prompt and evasive passage home for his distant and isolated squadron; to seal themselves in port, one assumes, seemingly heedless of the relief it would afford Britain.

The Royal Navy's desperate hunt for the elusive von Spee brings only bitter defeat to both. At Coronel, in their first battle of a century, the outgunned Royal Navy suffers a stunning and tragic loss. Soon after, at Falkland Islands, von Spee's squadron is annihilated in similar circumstances.