Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee (22 June 1861 – 8 December 1914) was a German naval officer in the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine), who commanded the East Asia Squadron during World War I. Spee entered the navy in 1878 and served in a variety of roles and locations, including on a colonial gunboat in German West Africa in the 1880s, the East Africa Squadron in the late 1890s, and as commander of several warships in the main German fleet in the early 1900s. During his time in Germany in the late 1880s and early 1890s, he married his wife, Margareta, and had three children, his sons Heinrich and Otto and his daughter Huberta. By 1912, he had returned to the East Asia Squadron as its commander, and was promoted to the rank of Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) the following year.
Following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, Spee led his squadron across the Pacific to the coast of South America. There on 1 November, he defeated the British 4th Cruiser Squadron under Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock in the Battle of Coronel, sinking two of Cradock's cruisers and forcing his other two ships to retreat. A month later, Spee decided to attack the British naval base in the Falkland Islands, but a superior British force surprised him. In the ensuing Battle of the Falkland Islands, Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee's squadron, which included two powerful battlecruisers, destroyed the East Asia Squadron. Spee and his two sons, who happened to be serving on two of his ships, were all killed, along with about 2,200 other men. Spee was hailed as a hero in Germany, and several ships were named in his honor, including the heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, which was built in the 1930s and was scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate during World War II.
Spee was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 22 June 1861, though he was raised in the Rhineland in Germany, where his Spee family had an estate. He joined the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in 1878 and initially served in the main German naval base at Kiel. He was commissioned an officer at the rank of Leutnant zur See (lieutenant at sea), and was assigned to the gunboat SMS Möwe, which was sent to western Africa. During this voyage, the Germans signed treaties with local rulers in Togo and Cameroon, creating the colonies of Togoland and Kamerun, respectively. In 1887, Spee was transferred to Kamerun where he commanded the port at Duala. He contracted rheumatic fever while there, and had to be sent back to Germany to recover, though he occasionally suffered from rheumatism for the rest of his life.
After returning to Germany in 1889, he married Margareta Baroness von der Osten-Sacken. With her he had two sons—Otto, born on 10 July 1890, Heinrich, born on 24 April 1893—and one daughter, Huberta, born on 11 July 1894. By 1895, Spee had been promoted to the rank of Kapitänleutnant (captain lieutenant). From 1 May to 12 September that year, Spee commanded the ironclad gunboat Natter. In December 1897, Spee was stationed in Germany's East Asia Squadron after it seized the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory, with its port at Qingdao. Here, he served on the staff of Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Otto von Diederichs. During the Boxer Uprising in China in 1900, Spee saw action at Qingdao and on the Yangtze.
After arriving back in Germany, he was promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) and assigned as the first officer aboard the pre-dreadnought battleship Brandenburg. Between 1900 and 1908, Spee held command of several ships, including the aviso Hela, the minelayer Pelikan, and finally the pre-dreadnought Wittelsbach. During this period, he was promoted to Fregattenkapitän (Frigate Captain) on 27 January 1904 and to Kapitän zur See (Captain at Sea) exactly a year later; his command of Wittelsbach followed the latter promotion. In 1908, he was assigned as the chief of staff to the commander of the North Sea Station, and in 1910 he was promoted to the rank of Konteradmiral (KAdm–Counter Admiral). Spee was then assigned as the deputy commander for the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet.
In late 1912, Spee was given command of the East Asia Squadron, replacing KAdm Günther von Krosigk on 4 December. Spee raised his flag on the armored cruiser Scharnhorst, and departed on a tour of the southwest Pacific along with Scharnhorst's sister ship Gneisenau, during which Spee made visits to several ports, including Singapore and Batavia. Spee was promoted to Vizeadmiral the following year. Over the following year and a half, Spee met with the leaders of several East Asian countries. From 1 April to 7 May 1913, Scharnhorst took Spee to Japan to meet the Taishō Emperor. Later in the year, Spee met with Chulalongkorn, the King of Siam. In May 1914, Spee took Scharnhorst and the torpedo boat 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 Qingdao.
Spee thereafter began preparations for a cruise to German New Guinea; Scharnhorst departed on 20 June. The two armored cruisers proceeded to Nagasaki, Japan, where they coaled in preparation for their tour. While en route to Truk in the Caroline Islands, 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 Carolines, where the ships remained while tensions steadily rose in Europe. In Ponape, Spee had access to the German radio network, and he learned of the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July, followed shortly thereafter by the Russian mobilization—tantamount to a declaration of war—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' crews to prepare for war. On 2 August, Wilhelm II ordered German mobilization against Russia and its ally, France. Following Germany's violation of neutral Belgium during its invasion of France, Britain declared war on Germany.
The East Asia Squadron consisted of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the light cruisers 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 Qingdao. Spee recalled his ships to consolidate his forces; Nürnberg arrived on 6 August and the three cruisers plus their colliers moved to Pagan Island in the Marianas, at that time a German colony. Emden and the liner Prinz Eitel Friedrich, which had been converted into an auxiliary cruiser, joined the squadron there on 12 August. 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. While en route across the Pacific, Spee relaxed formalities aboard his ships, integrating the messes for officers and non-commissioned and engineering officers.
To keep the German high command informed, on 8 September 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. Spee decided against attacking the Allied troops ashore, since doing so would risk killing Samoans and damaging German property. 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 Spee from seizing the coal in the harbor. Spee then continued across the Pacific, passing through the Marquesas Islands, where his ships acquired supplies including fresh meat by barter, purchase, or confiscation. On 12 October, the squadron reached Easter Island, where it was reinforced by Leipzig, Dresden, and four more colliers. Spee's ships were off the coast of Chile by 1 November, when he learned that the British cruiser Glasgow was moored in Coronel, ostensibly alone; he decided to try to sink the ship.