Been doing a bit of reading on the naval aspect of WW1, and I was a little surprised to discover the British blockade of the German coast wasn't as complete as I had thought. Occasional raiders did slip through, and you had things like the shelling of Yarmouth and Scarsborough.
So clearly, the Germans did have the capacity to get a couple of capital ships out and about. What I'm wondering is what would have happened if they weren't so wedded to Mahanian doctrine, if they used the occasional opportunity to slip up north, round over Scotland, and break into the Faeroes Gap and into the northern atlantic, and just try to slash at merchant shipping, do something like the proposed Cruiserkrieg that you had proponents for in WW2.
Could they have done significant damage? Could they have forced a British redeploy away from the tight blockade of the German coast? I doubt any naval action would be completely war changing in WW1, but how much of an impact would a possibly more realistic strategic doctrine for the High Seas Fleet have had?
So clearly, the Germans did have the capacity to get a couple of capital ships out and about. What I'm wondering is what would have happened if they weren't so wedded to Mahanian doctrine, if they used the occasional opportunity to slip up north, round over Scotland, and break into the Faeroes Gap and into the northern atlantic, and just try to slash at merchant shipping, do something like the proposed Cruiserkrieg that you had proponents for in WW2.
Could they have done significant damage? Could they have forced a British redeploy away from the tight blockade of the German coast? I doubt any naval action would be completely war changing in WW1, but how much of an impact would a possibly more realistic strategic doctrine for the High Seas Fleet have had?