First blood

It is both strange and sobering to read more than 100 years after the fact, in words that sound quite fresh, of the first death and the first encounter with the enemy of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force - en route to their destination in Egypt. I can do no better than to quote directly from New Zealand Artillery in the Field 1914-1918 to relay the first unexpected loss:

Early on Monday morning, October 25th, a signal went round the fleet that a private of the New Zealand Medical Corps had died the previous night on board the Ruapehu [one of the troopships]; and the intelligence of this first death came almost as a shock to men who had thought only for that side of war that promised excitement and adventure, that stirs the blood and fires the imagination, and little for that other side on which lay its tragedy and suffering and death. In the afternoon an impressive burial service was held. At 3 p.m. the Ruapehu moved up to the centre of the two divisions, and the troops on every transport were paraded facing inwards. Five minutes later all engines were stopped, and the convoy rode motionless on the water while a brief funeral service was held on every ship, and the body was committed to the deep. The customary volleys were fired on the Ruapehu, and the Last Post sounded; the Ruapehu hauled her ensign close up, and the convoy proceded on its way. The service was very brief, but the circumstances invested it with an impressiveness that was not lost on the thousands who paid their tribute of respect to the dead.

A couple of weeks later, after the New Zealand fleet had been joined by the Australians, one of the Australian cruisers serving as an escort was called away to engage with a 'strange warship' that had entered the harbour in the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Australian cruiser Sydney took on and ultimately defeated the German raider Emden, which had been trying to disable the radio station on the Cocos.

However great the pride with which the Australians viewed the honours which had fallen to their young Navy, it was fully shared by every New Zealander, and the official congratulations of the Force were duly offered to the Sydney on the results of the Australian Navy's first engagement. The Sydney had two men killed and thirteen wounded, but the list of killed and wounded on the battered Emden ran into big figures.

According to Wikipedia, under the rather grand title of "Battle of the Cocos", the Emden lost 134 men, and had 69 wounded. More than 150 were taken captive, but the shore party of 50 commandeered a schooner and escaped ultimately to Constantinople (Istanbul).