 On 16 August 1914, Lake Malawi was the scene of a brief naval battle when the British gunboat , commanded by a Captain Rhoades, heard that World War I had broken out, and he received orders from the British Empire's high command to "sink, burn, or destroy" the German Empire's only gunboat on the lake, the "Hermann von Wissmann", commanded by a Captain Berndt.Rhoades's crew found the "Hermann von Wissmann" in a bay near Sphinxhaven, in German East African territorial waters.