Armistice
Allan George depicts the final naval engagements of the Great War.
When The Guns Fell Silent November 1918
One hundred years ago, on Thursday 21 November 1918, three lines of warships, the centre one bedraggled, the outer ones smart, sharp and at action stations, steamed into the Firth of Forth. The outer lines were the ships of Britain’s Grand Fleet, the inner line the German High Seas Fleet on its way to internment and eventual surrender.
That day in November was the end of the fleet built by Alfred von Tirpitz. It was also the conclusion of the naval arms race in which Britain’s Sir John Fisher out-built the Germans two to one, and throughout was the technological pace-setter.
At the outbreak of war in 1914, the German naval staff knew they couldn’t realistically challenge the Grand Fleet and have any hope of victory, and so adopted a policy of trying to whittle away its vast superiority by tempting battleships and cruisers into skirmishes while submarines waited in ambush, or attempting to draw them into minefields. None of this worked and the High Seas Fleet for most of the war was effectively blockaded in its bases at Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, not daring to venture out in force.
Jutland
The …
