Army formation that took part in the initial landings, numbering some 23,000 soldiers with support from 142 artillery pieces. They began to land on 2 September at Lungkow, which was experiencing heavy floods at the time, and later at Lau Schan Bay on 18 September, about east of Tsingtao. China protested against the Japanese violation of her neutrality but did not interfere in the operations. The British Government and the other European great powers were concerned about Japanese intentions in the region and decided to send a small symbolic British contingent from Tientsin in an effort to allay their fears. The 1,500-man contingent was commanded by Brigadier-General Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston and consisted of 1,000 soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, The South Wales Borderers; later followed by 500 soldiers of the 36th Sikhs. Following a friendly fire incident, British troops were given Japanese raincoats to wear so they would be more easily identifiable to the Japanese. The Germans responded to the threat against Tsingtao by concentrating all of their available East Asian troops in the city. Kaiser Wilhelm II made the defense of Tsingtao a top priority, saying that "... it would shame me more to surrender Tsingtao to the Japanese than Berlin to the Russians". The German garrison, commanded by naval Captain and Governor Alfred Meyer-Waldeck, consisted of the marines of III Seebataillon, naval personnel, Chinese colonial troops, and Austro-Hungarian sailors, for a total strength of 3,625 men. He also had a modest complement of vessels, including the torpedo boat ; the decommissioned unprotected cruiser ; the auxiliary cruiser , former captured Russian steamer Ryazan manned with the crew of cruiser Cormoran; four small gunboats: the , , , and ; and the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser , whose crew was initially divided in two: half to man the ship, and half to fight with the German land forces. On 22 August of the China squadron, under the command of Lieutenant Commander F. A. Russell, while routinely monitoring the naval trade routes, encountered and was damaged in action by the German torpedo boat , the German gunboat SMS Lauting and a 4-inch shore battery off Tsingtao. She was hit twice from the retreating S90. Siege As the Japanese approached their positions, Meyer-Waldeck withdrew his forces from the two outer defensive lines and concentrated his troops on the innermost line of defense along the hills closest to the town. The Austro-Hungarian cruiser,