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SMS Blücher sinking
On January 24, 1915, British and German naval forces confronted one another at Dogger Bank, a shallow area of the North Sea some sixty miles off the English coast. During the battle, the German armored cruiser Blücher was sunk with the loss of 792 men. Another 159 German naval personnel were killed in the battle along with 11 from the English forces.
In 1914 the British navy was the largest in the world and a mainstay of Britain’s military power. In earlier wars the British navy used its strength to create a close blockade of enemy ports, but Germany had invested heavily in coastal defenses and was known to be using both mines and submarines to defend its coastal waters. The British blockade of Germany was conducted at a distance by patrolling the North Sea. From its base at Scapa Flow, the British navy was able to restrict the travel of German and neutral vessels.
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