I would love to hear a justification for this statement; it was the German High Seas Fleet that spent the rest of the Great War safely bottled up in harbour until finally, when tasked to sortie in October 1918,
The Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht (Battle of the Skagerrak); Danish: Søslaget ved Jylland / Søslaget om Skagerrak) was the largest naval battle of World War I and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. It is also, by certain criteria, the largest naval battle in history. It was fought on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland, the northward-pointing peninsular mainland of Denmark.
First Ostend Raid
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First Ostend Raid
Part of North Sea Operations, First World War
Brilliant
Wreckage of HMS Brilliant at Ostend
Date 23–24 April 1918
Location Ostend, Belgium
Result German defences drove off British attackers.
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North Sea 1914-1918
1st Heligoland Bight – Live Bait Squadron – Dogger Bank – Jutland – 2nd Heligoland Bight – Zeebrugge – 1st Ostend – 2nd Ostend
The First Ostend Raid (part of Operation ZO) was the first of two attacks by the Royal Navy on the German-held port of Ostend during the late spring of 1918 during the First World War. Ostend was attacked in conjunction with the neighbouring harbour of Zeebrugge on 23 April in order to block the vital strategic port of Bruges, situated six miles (10 km) inland and ideally sited to conduct raiding operations on the British coastline and shipping lanes. Bruges and its satellite ports were a vital part of the German plans in the battle of the Atlantic because Bruges was in close proximity to the troopship lanes across the English Channel and allowed much quicker access to the Western Approaches for the U-boat fleet than their bases in Germany.
The plan of attack was for the British raiding force to sink two obsolete cruisers in the canal mouth at Ostend and three at Zeebrugge, thus preventing raiding ships leaving Bruges. The Ostend canal was the smaller and narrower of the two channels giving access to Bruges and so was considered a secondary target behind the Zeebrugge Raid. Consequently fewer resources were provided to the force assaulting Ostend. While the attack at Zeebrugge garnered some limited success, the assault on Ostend was a complete failure. The German marines who defended the port had taken careful preparations and drove the British assault ships astray, forcing the abortion of the operation at the final stage.
Three weeks after the failure of the operation, a second attack was launched which proved more successful in sinking a blockship at the entrance to the canal but ultimately did not close off Bruges completely. Further plans to attack Ostend came to nothing during the summer of 1918 and the threat from Bruges would not be finally stopped until the last days of the war when the town was liberated by Allied land forces.
Did the RN have enough naval gunfire in support of the Eastend and Zeebruge raids?