The Royal Navy's response to Coronel

Coronel was treated as Britain's first major naval defeat in a century and the destruction of its first squadron since 1810, prompting both an immediate search for blame and a belated concentration of superior ships. Invincible and Inflexible were sent south with Sturdee even though battlecruisers had been designed precisely to hunt armored cruisers on distant stations. Carnarvon, Cornwall, Kent, Defence, and additional light cruisers were also gathered into forces that outmatched Von Spee rather than merely equaling him. Canopus demonstrated her actual utility by suffering further control problems and then serving as a stationary defensive battery at Stanley. The Royal Navy possessed the ships needed to prevent Coronel, but it did not organize them around the threat until after the defeat.