 Glasgow was assigned to the 4th Cruiser Squadron , under Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock ; as it turned out , Glasgow was joined by the armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth and the auxiliary cruiser Otranto . After discovering the entire squadron off Coronel , Spee decided to engage the British ships , but he delayed the action using his ships ' superior speed until later in the day , when the setting sun would silhouette Cradock 's ships . The German ships would meanwhile be obscured against the Chilean coast , making the task of the British gunners more difficult . At 18 : 07 , Spee issued the order to open fire , with his two armored cruisers battling Cradock 's armored cruisers and his light cruisers engaging Glasgow and Otranto . Cradock quickly detached Otranto , as she had no place in the line of battle . By 18 : 50 , Gneisenau had disabled Monmouth and so shifted fire to Good Hope ; the combined firepower of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau neutralized Good Hope by 19 : 23 . Spee then withdrew his two armored cruisers and sent in his light cruisers to finish off Monmouth and Good Hope . The British had lost both ships and suffered more than 1 @,@ 600 dead , including Cradock , though the German ships had expended around 40 percent of their ammunition supply . Spee had inflicted the first defeat on a Royal Navy squadron since the Napoleonic Wars a century earlier . 
