In 1908 war orders to the Channel Fleet were that The principal object is to bring the main German fleet to decisive action and all other operations are subsidiary to this end.Success in this object would guarantee command of the English Channel and the North Sea, secure British trade and territory and allow the Expeditionary Force to reach France.

[5] In a naval war with Germany, Britain had the great geographical advantage of obstructing German access to the Atlantic Ocean.

[8] To relieve the administrative burdens on Miller and Jellicoe, the post of the Admiral Commanding, Orkneys and Shetlands was created to oversee the defence of the islands, naval bases and shore duties.

After several full and frank exchanges of views with Churchill, de Chair was denied the command of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron that had been promised as his next appointment.

De Chair received instead the post of Admiral of the Training Service, something of a snub, which included eight ageing Edgar-class cruisers built from 1889 to 1894.

Endymion and Theseus made a delayed arrival on 6 August having chased SS Kronprinzessin Cecile, a German liner carrying precious metals, sending it into Falmouth.

[11][a] A local phenomenon, lumps, were waves which had superimposed and which, in a force 10 gale, arrived without warning, damaging ships and occasionally sinking them.

[15] During October, de Chair was ordered to patrol further to the south during a big operation to protect a convoy of 33 cruise liners transporting the Canadian Expeditionary Force to Britain.

[16] Before sailing, the captain, Hugh Williams, had visited Crescent and asked de Chair for another two days to make repairs to the engines.

As Williams left the flagship, he was reported saying ...it is pure murder sending the ship with over 500 officers and men on board to sea in this state.

On 11 November, Crescent shipped a lump over the forecastle, which carried away de Chair's sea cabin, a whaler and swamped a ventilator, dousing several boilers; Edgar lost a crewmember and a cutter swept overboard.

Admiral de Chair was replaced in March 1916 by Rear-Admiral (later vice-admiral) Reginald Tupper, who commanded the 10th Cruiser Squadron until it was disbanded on 29 November 1917.

[53] The newest of the cruisers had been built in 1921 and the rough seas of the North Atlantic imposed great wear on their hulls, engines and equipment.

Aerials were brought down by ice, ships' boats smashed, paravanes were swept into the sea, torpedo tubes and gun mountings broken and steering gear damaged.

Soon after the war began, the Denmark Strait (200 nmi (370 km; 230 mi) was added to the responsibilities of the Northern Patrol but by then the first of the AMCs were entering service, replacing the older cruisers first which were sent to less turbulent seas.

The Emergency scale consisted of ancient 6-inch guns and mountings, a light director control, wooden magazines and shell-rooms and no divided storage for anti-aircraft ammunition.

Some cabins were used by chief and petty officers but most were demolished to make way for broadside messes to avoid delays when called to action stations.

On 19 October in the Denmark Strait, Rawalpindi intercepted the German tanker Gonzenheim (4,574 GRT), which had left Buenos Aires on 14 September.

On 12 November the Seekriegsleitung (SKL, Naval Warfare Command) of the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM, high command of the navy) decided to send the ships past the British ships watching the Faroes–Iceland gap or those between Shetland and Norway, to threaten the British sea lanes in the North Atlantic.

[68] The crews of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were eligible for the Das Flottenkriegsabzeichen (High Seas Fleet Badge) for participating in the sinking of Rawalpindi.

On 3 September, QWA11 and QWA12 reported that Britain and France had declared war and that the Royal Navy would have commenced searches for German merchant ships.

The Admiralty had also floated a suggestion to Admiral Charles Forbes the commander-in-chief Home Fleet to move the Northern Patrol southwards to a line running north-west from the North Channel to watch for a German invasion of Ireland.

Forbes threw cold water on the idea since an invasion force would sail west of the patrol line and that the AMCs would be vulnerable to U-boats which passed through the area en route to the Western Approaches.

[72] Raikes was replaced by Rear-Admiral Ernest Spooner on 16 July and for the rest of the month more patrols were sailed since the German invasion of Norway and four ships were sent for examination.

On the following day, California received a distress signal from SS Llanfair and Captain Pope had to decide whether to obey standing orders to avoid a danger area or attempt a rescue.

A British aircraft was overhead of Llanfair, the sea state made another attack by a U-boat difficult and Pope decided to risk it.

Klaus Schoke (5,800 GRT) of the Hansa Line departed on 1 December for Ponta Delgada in the Azores for Vigo in Spain but was stopped by the AMC California.

[76] On the Northern Patrol, Forfar had refitted at Liverpool, sailed on 30 November escorted by a destroyer, which was ordered back near midnight on 1 December.

[76] On 21 December 1940, the Admiralty ordered that the surviving ships be transferred to the command of the Third Battle Squadron at Halifax, Nova Scotia to escort HX convoys and cover the Denmark Strait.

The Halifax Escort Force received another seven AMCs allowing the Denmark Strait permanently to be patrolled until June when the ships were withdrawn.