HalcyonDaze
Contributor
How much and how it came to be there. In October 1918 the German naval command was aware that the proposed Armistice terms would include surrendering most of their fleet, which they considered a humiliation as they had never been "beaten" in battle (never mind the reason for that was they were badly outnumbered and outgunned by the Royal Navy and thus skedaddled away when faced with the full Grand Fleet). On October 24 Admiral Scheer issued orders for the High Seas Fleet to put to sea and seek battle with the Grand Fleet, with the intention of basically doing as much damage as possible and improving the German negotiating position at the expense of potentially losing the entire fleet. Very much a "death before dishonor" gesture.
As it happened, over two years of mostly being confined to port and Germany's worsening situation had resulted in extremely low morale among the High Seas Fleet crewmen; when the news spread that they had been ordered to sortie the fleet's capital ships were wracked by mutinies and desertions. Admiral Hipper, the fleet commander, was forced to call off the operation as even the crewmen on his flagship refused to obey orders. This state of affairs would persist into the internment of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow, until the more troublesome elements could be repatriated.
Two years ago the "what-if" scenario where the High Seas Fleet actually sailed out to battle 102 years ago was wargamed and recapped here; I can't say I fault those German sailors for refusing to sail.
