Britain calls in a naval attache as Graf Spee reaches Montevideo

On 14 December 1939, Captain McCall was called in as Graf Spee entered Montevideo harbor. British budgets in the 1930s did not cover naval representatives in every port where they might be needed, so the crisis required a naval attache to be dispatched. Eugen Millington-Drake's diplomatic preparations may have begun before the ship anchored. The apparent speed and organisation of the response are the basis for that inference.