"Indomitable", accompanied by , under the command of Admiral Sir Archibald Berkeley Milne encountered the German battlecruiser and the light cruiser on the morning of 4 August 1914 headed east after a cursory bombardment of the French Algerian port of Philippeville, but Britain and Germany were not yet at war so Milne turned to shadow the Germans as they headed back to Messina to recoal. All three battlecruisers had problems with their boilers, but "Goeben" and "Breslau" were able to break contact and reached Messina by the morning of the 5th. By this time war had been declared, after the German invasion of Belgium, but an Admiralty order to respect Italian neutrality and stay outside a six-mile (10 km) limit from the Italian coast precluded entrance into the passage of the Strait of Messina where they could observe the port directly. Therefore, Milne stationed "Inflexible" and "Indefatigable" at the northern exit of the Strait of Messina, still expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports, the light cruiser at the southern exit and sent "Indomitable" to recoal at Bizerte where she was better positioned to react to a German sortie into the Western Mediterranean.