At 08:14, "Kolberg" spotted the light cruiser and several destroyers from the Harwich Force. "Aurora" challenged "Kolberg" with a searchlight, at which point "Kolberg" attacked "Aurora" and scored two hits. "Aurora" returned fire and scored two hits on "Kolberg" in retaliation. Hipper immediately turned his battlecruisers towards the gunfire, when, almost simultaneously, "Stralsund" spotted a large amount of smoke to the northwest of her position. This was identified as a number of large British warships steaming toward Hipper's ships. Hipper later remarked:  Hipper turned south to flee, but was limited to , which was "Blücher"'s maximum speed at the time. The pursuing British battlecruisers were steaming at , and quickly caught up to the German ships. At 09:52, opened fire on "Blücher" from a range of approximately 20,000 yards (18,000 m); shortly after, and began firing as well. At 10:09, the British guns made their first hit on "Blücher". Two minutes later, the German ships began returning fire, primarily concentrating on "Lion", from a range of . At 10:28, "Lion" was struck on the waterline, which tore a hole in the side of the ship and flooded a coal bunker. At around this time, "Blücher" scored a hit with a 21 cm shell on "Lion"s forward turret. The shell failed to penetrate the armor, but had concussion effect and temporarily disabled the left gun. At 10:30, —the fourth ship in Beatty's line—came within range of "Blücher" and opened fire. By 10:35, the range had closed to , at which point the entire German line was within the effective range of the British ships. Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to engage their German counterparts. By 11:00, "Blücher" had been severely damaged after having been pounded by numerous heavy shells from the British battlecruisers. However, the three leading German battlecruisers, "Seydlitz", "Derfflinger", and "Moltke", had concentrated their fire on "Lion" and scored several hits; two of her three dynamos were disabled and the port side engine room had been flooded. At 11:48, arrived on the scene, and was directed by Beatty to destroy the battered "Blücher", which was already on fire and listing heavily to port.