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
Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I There was sporadic naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I between the Central Powers' navies of Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire and the Allied navies of Italy, France, Greece, Japan, America and the British Empire. Austria-Hungary was a medium-sized naval power in 1914. It had a coastline from Trieste (in present-day Italy) to below Cattaro in Montenegro. The Austro-Hungarian Navy had nine pre-dreadnought and four dreadnought s and a number of submarines. In addition, the Germans managed to send some U-boats to the Mediterranean which operated from Austrian