British home army in the First World War bridge between Tilbury and Gravesend. There were fears that a German fleet protected by mines and submarines could land a 100,000-strong force before the British Grand Fleet could steam the south from its base at Scapa Flow. To counter this threat, the Admiralty redeployed pre-dreadnought battleships and submarines closer to vulnerable ports, expanded the coastwatch and increased patrolling of the North Sea. In October, Churchill responded to Kitchener's call for the Royal Navy to take more specific precautions against invasion by insisting that the role of the Grand Fleet was to eliminate an invader's covering fleet rather than defeat the
Battle of the Java Sea the Dutch East Indies progressed at a rapid pace as they advanced from their Palau Islands colony and captured bases in Sarawak and the southern Philippines. They seized bases in eastern Borneo and in northern Celebes while troop convoys, screened by destroyers and cruisers with air support provided by swarms of fighters operating from captured bases, steamed southward through the Makassar Strait and into the Molucca Sea. To oppose these invading forces was a small force, consisting of Dutch, American, British and Australian warships—many of them of World War I vintage—initially under the command of Admiral Thomas C. Hart. On