Battle of Dogger Bank (1915)
The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval engagement during the First World War that took place on 24 January 1915 near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the Kaiserliche Marine. The British had intercepted and decoded German wireless transmissions, gaining advance knowledge that a German raiding squadron was heading for the Dogger Bank and ships of the Grand Fleet sailed to intercept the raiders.
Battle of Dogger Bank, Arthur James Wetherall Burgess
Area of the Dogger Bank
German battlecruisers (L–R) Derfflinger, Moltke and Seydlitz en route to Dogger Bank.
Painting of SMS V5 engaging HMS Lion, by Willy Stöwer
SMS Blücher was the last armored cruiser built by the German Empire. She was designed to match what German intelligence incorrectly believed to be the specifications of the British Invincible-class battlecruisers. Blücher was larger than preceding armored cruisers and carried more heavy guns, but was unable to match the size and armament of the battlecruisers which replaced armored cruisers in the British Royal Navy and German Imperial Navy. The ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher, the commander of Prussian forces at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
SMS Blücher in 1912
Sketch of Blücher underway by Oscar Parkes
The sinking Blücher rolls over on her side
Remembrance stele SMS Blücher, Nordfriedhof, Kiel, Germany