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In the early twentieth century, a naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany intensified.

The UK, being an island nation with an economy integrated with its vast empire, required a large navy. To ensure it could not be outgunned, the fleet was maintained at a size at least as large as the next two largest navies of other countries, be they friend or foe. This way, no two nations could form a navy by treaty that could match the Royal Navy. This was known as Britain’s Two-Power Standard.

Imperial Germany, amassing a smaller empire of its own, started building a modern, powerful navy. Kaiser Wilhelm the second, who admired the Royal Navy, wanted his navy to be as strong.

Given Britain’s Two-Power Standard, a naval arms race ensued that was inevitable and untenable. This arms race itself was a factor in starting the Great War.

The war at sea during World War One never produced a decisive battle, victory or defeat for either side. The warfare was innovative, savage, and centered on mercantile trade and blockade.

After the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, for the first time in four years a peaceful winter blanketed Europe and the seas. The entire Imperial German High Seas Fleet set sail for internment, in what would become its final voyage. Seventy-four warships with minimum crews, no ammunition, and guns disabled were met by a much larger combined Allied navy and escorted to a port to be watched over while final peace terms were negotiated. While compliance with this term of the Armistice lifted the choking blockade of Germany, it led to the greatest act of naval suicide in history.

Interned during the tiresome winter in Scapa Flow, Orkney, north of the Scottish mainland, the German officers of the fleet waited for the peace treaty being negotiated in Versailles. Upon learning that their fleet would be surrendered as war prizes to the Allies or seized by force upon a rejection of the negotiation, they set about to scuttle their mighty warships. In June 1919, they scuttled all seventy-four ships of the Imperial German High Seas Fleet. One of the greatest feats of maritime salvage followed through the next decades, leaving behind only seven major warship wrecks and many wreckage sites.

What remains of these shipwrecks is a unique concentration of Dreadnought era naval warfare technology and the subject of The Guns and Armour of Scapa Flow.

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