SMS Dresden ("His Majesty's Ship Dresden")[lower-alpha 1] was the lead ship of her class, built for the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine).
Dresden saw action in the Battle of Coronel in November, where she engaged the British cruiser HMS Glasgow, and at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December, where she was the only German warship to escape destruction. She eluded her British pursuers for several more months, until she put into Más a Tierra in March 1915. Her engines were worn out and she had almost no coal left for her boilers; the ship's captain contacted the local Chilean authorities to have Dresden interned. There, she was trapped by British cruisers, including her old opponent Glasgow; the British violated Chilean neutrality and opened fire on the ship. The Germans scuttled Dresden and the majority of the crew escaped to be interned in Chile for the duration of the war.
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