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
History of the North Sea heightened in 1904 by the Dogger Bank incident. However, the British did not face a challenge to their dominance of the North Sea until World War I broke out in 1914. During the First World War the North Sea became the main theatre of the war for surface action. The Second World War also saw action in the North Sea, though it was restricted more to submarines and smaller vessels such as minesweepers, and torpedo boats and similar vessels. After the war, the North Sea lost much of its military significance because it is bordered only by NATO member-states. However,