Orkney from mainland Scotland sought refuge on Orkney and were helped on to safety in Sweden. In 1745, the Jacobite lairds on the islands ensured that Orkney remained pro-Jacobite in outlook, and was a safe place to land supplies from Spain to aid their cause. Orkney was the last place in the British Isles that held out for the Jacobites and was not retaken by the British Government until 24 May 1746, over a month after the defeat of the main Jacobite army at Culloden. Orkney was the site of a Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, which played a major
British home army in the First World War an invasion, going so far as to inform the War Office in February that the loss of so many of his troops to the field army overseas absolved him of the responsibility for home defence. Admiral John Fisher, a former First Sea Lord, was concerned about the increasing U-boat menace, and believed that the German war leader, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, would be willing to risk the High Seas Fleet in an invasion attempt. The Admiralty regarded the risk as possible rather than probable, and guaranteed to be able to disrupt an enemy fleet within 32 to 36 hours