After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers,  sailed across

the Pacific Ocean—in the process evading the various Allied naval forces sent to intercept them—before arriving off the southern coast of South America.

On 1 November 1914, Scharnhorst and the rest of the East Asia Squadron encountered and overpowered a British squadron at the Battle of Coronel.

The stinging defeat prompted the British Admiralty to dispatch two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy von Spee's flotilla, which they accomplished

at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914.