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
Piracy in the British Virgin Islands fact that pirate vessels would have used the Virgin Islands as a place to hide and recuperate after their activities at sea. The mass of islands and inlets that make up the physical terrain of the Virgin Islands would have been perfect for avoiding detection and would have given the pirates a chance to refit their ships, ready for their next voyage 'on the account.' The names of places in the British Virgin Islands indicates that this would have been the case. "Freebooters Point" on Anegada leaves little to the imagination and on an old sea chart of the Territory,