East Asia Squadron

Since 1881, Germany had maintained a squadron of cruisers in Chinese waters, to intimidate the locals and remind other European powers of Germany’s political and economic interests in the region. In August 1914, squadron commander Maximilian Graf von Spee gathered his five cruisers plus a train of colliers to begin an epic attempt at a voyage around the globe past hostile British, French and Russian squadrons.

The resulting anabasis is the theme of our Historical Study, East Asia Squadron. It’s a book about the far-flung German naval deployments at the beginning of the First World War, and the attempts by Allied squadrons to hunt them down and destroy them. Spee defeated a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel, but his own ships were ultimately sunk by a much more powerful British force at the December 1914 Battle of the Falkland Islands.

We also tell the stories of the German cruiser Königsberg, stationed in German East Africa, the cruiser Karlsruhe, caught in the Caribbean at the start of the war, and the cruiser Emden, detached by Spee to cause havoc in the Indian Ocean. And the merchant ships re-made as commerce raiders by the Imperial German Navy and sent out to attack enemy shipping.

East Asia Squadron is a companion book to our Great War at Sea: Far Side of the World game and Swan of the East scenario book. It’s filled with history and stories; it’s a standalone book and you don’t need to know anything about the game to enjoy it.

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Stock Code: APL7004

Price: $32.99

Status: Coming Soon

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