History of the North Sea intense diplomatic crisis. The crisis was defused when Russia was defeated by the Japanese and agreed to pay compensation to the fishermen. During the First World War, Great Britain's Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow and Germany's Kaiserliche Marine faced each other across the North Sea. Due to its numerical advantage in dreadnoughts, the Grand Fleet obtained Naval superiority and was able to establish a sea blockade of Germany's coast. The goal of the blockade was to deny Germany access to maritime trade including war materials and to guarantee the undisturbed ferrying of British troops. Because of the strong defensive
Romanian Black Sea Fleet during World War I sea-going gunboat "Grivița" and the Romanian Navy's sole proper minelayer, "Alexandru cel Bun". The Black Sea Fleet was neglected for a long-time by the Romanian Command. Its warships were all built between 1880 and 1888, while the Romanian Danube Flotilla was equipped with modern vessels built as late as 1908. The protected cruiser "Elsiabeta" was converted to an anti-aircraft cruiser after the start of the war, her four 120 mm main guns being landed and her four 75 mm secondary guns being modified for anti-aircraft fire. She was also armed with four machine guns and four 356 mm (12 inch)