German High Seas Fleet 1914-18: The Kaiser's Challenge to the Royal Navy

A superbly illustrated new account of how Germany's High Seas Fleet was built, operated and fought, as it challenged the world's most powerful navy in World War I.

Seven years before the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial German Navy rebranded its 'Home Fleet' as the Hochseeflotte ('High Seas Fleet'). This reflected a more aggressive role for it, and one that would inevitably lead to it challenging the Royal Navy. Although never large enough to match its British rival, by 1914 the High Seas Fleet was sufficiently powerful to threaten Britain's control of the North Sea. For the next four years these waters would become their battleground, as the fleets vied for naval supremacy.

Drawing on extensive research, this book offers the reader a concise, fully illustrated account of how the entire High Seas Fleet was designed and built, how it operated, and how it fought. The fleet was a modern, balanced force of dreadnought battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and torpedo boats, using Zeppelins and U-boats for reconnaissance. The ultimate test between them came in May 1916, when they clashed at Jutland.

Packed with spectacular original artwork, maps, 3D diagrams and archive photos, German High Seas Fleet 1914-18 looks not just at the ships, crews and armament, but also explores the command and doctrine of the Kaiser's new naval weapon, and show how the fleet was forged into a force capable of taking on the most powerful fleet in the world. It also examines how the High Seas Fleet performed in action, and how the Germans battled to keep it in fighting trim until the very end of the war, when the fleet sailed to captivity and self-destruction at Scapa Flow.