In response, the Royal Navy fitted out two more battle cruisers, HMS Inflexible and HMS Invincible, and sent them steaming down to the South Atlantic to regain ground. A month later, the German Vice-Admiral Von Spee, who had given the order to sink the Monmouth at Coronel, faced another standoff, not far from the Falkland Islands, but this time, as the best war stories say, the British were ready for the enemy…