At chapel as usual Got on very well at Sunday School. Rather stormy and didn’t get for walks. Mr Chadwick preaching. Received news last thing of the battle in the North Sea. Battle in North Sea1. The German ship Bluecher2 sunk by our battle cruisers in the North Sea. The Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand and Indomitable with light cruisers and destroyers.
This was the Battle of the Dogger Bank; the German High Seas Fleet (under Admiral Hipper) was to raid the British fishing fleet, but the British discovered this on 23 January, and (especially after the public outrage caused by the raid on Scarborough etc.) the British Grand Fleet (under Admiral Beatty) had to intercept them. The Germans were lucky that their flagship, Seydlitz, did not blow up due to fire; the loss of the Blücher is said to have caused the Kaiser to order that his High Seas Fleet remain in port thereafter – which it largely did, except for Jutland at the end of May 1916. The British flagship, Lion, was badly damaged but not lost. ↩
SMS Blücher was the last armoured cruiser built by the German Empire. She was designed to match what German intelligence incorrectly believed to be the specifications of the British Invincible-class battlecruisers. ↩