[1] Raiding British coastal towns might force the Royal Navy to alter the disposition of its ships to protect them.

[2] The Yarmouth raid was carried out by the German battlecruiser squadron (Admiral Franz von Hipper) with the battlecruisers SMS Seydlitz, Von der Tann and Moltke, the slightly smaller armoured cruiser Blücher and the light cruisers SMS Strassburg, Graudenz, Kolberg and Stralsund.

By 06:30 on 3 November, the patrol sighted a marker buoy at "Smith's Knoll Watch", allowing them to determine their exact position and close in to Yarmouth.

Arthur Pollen wrote that Private letters speak of salvoes falling short and over in the most disconcerting manner, and of the ship being so drenched with water as to be in danger of foundering.

German shooting was less accurate than it might have been because all the battlecruisers fired upon her at once, making it harder for each ship to see their fall of shot and correct their aim.

A number of the crew survived by sitting on the wreck of the ship, which had sunk in shallow water but at least 235 men were killed (reports vary).

The lack of reaction from the British had been due partly to news that morning of a much more serious loss at the Battle of Coronel and because Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, was on a train returning to his ships at the time of the raid.

[9] According to Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the British could not believe there was nothing more to the raid than briefly shelling Yarmouth and were waiting for something else to happen.