Both sides engaged in long-distance sorties with cruisers and battlecruisers, with close reconnaissance of the area of sea near the German coast—the Heligoland Bight—by destroyer.

Beatty was vaunted as a hero, although he had taken little part in the action or planning of the raid, which was led by Commodore Tyrwhitt and conceived by him and Keyes, who had persuaded the Admiralty to adopt it.

The war on land led to defeat for the French and their Allies at the Battle of the Frontiers, the German invasion of Belgium and France.

The Admiralty had realised that the advent of submarines armed with torpedoes and mines meant that operations involving capital ships near an opponent's ports would place them at great risk of surprise attack.

The HSF adopted a strategy of waiting in defended home ports for opportunities to attack parts of the larger British force.

The Germans had two alternatives to break out into the Atlantic Ocean, either by passing through the 20 mi (17 nmi; 32 km)-wide Straits of Dover, defended by British submarines, mine barrages and a large number of older and smaller warships or exit the northern end of the North Sea, running the gauntlet of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow in Orkney and the 200 mi (170 nmi; 320 km)-wide narrow point between Britain and Norway.

To keep the HSF in harbour, the Grand Fleet made occasional forays and patrolled with smaller cruiser and battlecruiser squadrons.

Keyes and Tyrwhitt proposed to send a superior force during darkness to ambush the German destroyers as they returned.

This was refused by the Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee, who instead agreed to place only lighter forces consisting of Cruiser Force K (Rear Admiral Gordon Moore) with the battlecruisers HMS New Zealand and Invincible 40 mi (35 nmi; 64 km) to the north-west and Cruiser Force C comprising the Cressy-class armoured cruisers, HMS Cressy, Aboukir, Bacchante, Hogue and Euryalus, 100 mi (87 nmi; 160 km) west.

Jellicoe dispatched Vice Admiral David Beatty with the battlecruisers HMS Lion, Queen Mary and Princess Royal; and Goodenough with the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, made up of the light cruisers HMS Southampton, Birmingham, Falmouth, Liverpool, Lowestoft and Nottingham.

Tyrwhitt did not discover the additional forces until Goodenough's ships appeared through the mist, leading to a certain apprehension because he was expecting to meet only German vessels.

G194 immediately turned towards Heligoland, radioing Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass, commander of the German destroyer squadron.

Maass informed Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper, commander of the German battlecruiser squadron and responsible for local defence.

Hipper was unaware of the scale of the attack but ordered the light cruisers SMS Stettin and Frauenlob to defend the destroyers.

When E4 resurfaced the larger ships had gone and the submarine rescued the British crewmen afloat in small boats with the German survivors.

Goodenough received the signal, abandoned his search for enemy vessels to attack and steamed to assist Keyes against his own ships, Lowestoft and Nottingham.

[12] Tyrwhitt turned to assist Keyes, on receipt of the signal that he was being chased, sighted Stettin but lost her in the mist before coming upon Fearless and her destroyer squadron.

Arethusa was badly damaged and at 10:17 Fearless came alongside and both cruisers were stopped for twenty minutes while repairs were made to the boilers.

Tyrwhitt signalled Beatty requesting reinforcements and Goodenough with the four cruisers remaining with him came to assist; the force turned west.

While the advantages of using his more powerful ships to rescue the others was clear, this had to be weighed against the possibility of mischance by torpedo or of meeting German dreadnoughts once the tide was up.

A destroyer officer wrote, There straight ahead of us in lovely procession, like elephants walking through a pack of ... dogs came Lion, Queen Mary, Princess Royal, Invincible and New Zealand ...How solid they looked, how utterly earthquaking.

She was saved from immediate sinking by the sighting of another German light cruiser, Ariadne, to which Beatty gave chase and again quickly overcame.

The German battlecruisers Moltke and Von der Tann left the Jade at 14:10 and began a cautious search for other ships.

[19] To preserve his ships the Kaiser determined that the fleet should, "hold itself back and avoid actions which can lead to greater losses".

Except for furtive movements by individual submarines and minelayers, not a dog stirred from August till November.The Germans knew nothing of our defective staff work or the risks we had run.Lieutenant Stephen King-Hall on Southampton, later wrote about the battle that As may be deduced from these extracts the staff work was almost criminally negligent and it was a near miracle that we did not sink one or more of our submarines or that one of them did not sink us.

Had he known, he could have brought his battlecruisers to sea faster and consolidated his fleet, possibly preventing German losses and instead inflicting some on the departing British ships.

The British operation took longer than anticipated and large German ships would have had sufficient high water to join the battle.

It had been the decision of Admiral Sturdee—Admiralty Chief of Staff—not to inform Jellicoe and also not to send additional larger ships which had originally been requested by Keyes.

Keyes was disappointed that the opportunity for greater success had been lost by not including the additional cruisers properly into the plan as he had originally intended.