This account covers the opening skirmishes of the First World War which occurred far away from 'Flanders Fields' and those 'lions led by donkeys'. This story, often neglected by major chroniclers, comprises the attempts of the German High Sea Fleet to wrestle control of the North Sea from a larger blockading English Navy. It was supported in the air by initially unopposed Zeppelin attacks, which visited several coastal towns, dropping bombs from a great height on a populace watching in awe of these leviathans. Along with this came the use of submarine and the rise of the U-Boat. This form of warfare was looked on as devious, very un-English, but typical of 'johnny foreigner'. Several east coast towns became unwilling participants in this struggle, as innocent victims, but Hartlepool, with its permanent Heugh Battery, (pronounced Huff) became the only town in England to score a direct hit on a German warship in the struggle, and lost the first military casualty of the Great War.
Unsatisfactory skirmishes by both fleets eventually led to the 'grand battle' off Jutland, which, apart from its appalling casualty count and ships lost on both sides, was again unsatisfactory, with both sides claiming victory. The personalities of the British admirals came under much scrutiny, the rational caution of Jellicoe being contrasted unfavourably with the aggression of Beatty. In the end, the German nation collapsed under the continuing naval blockade. With the entry of America into the fray, her Navy imploded under the influence of soviet style revolutionaries and, after surrender at Scapa Flow, scuttled itself under the excited gaze of a party of visiting school children, who thought the 'event' had been staged for their benefit. The final act in the drama was the recovery of the scuttled German vessels by the entrepreneurial scrap merchant Ernest Cox.