December 16, 1914

One hundred years ago today the German navy attacked the coastal towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in Northeast England. At 6:35 in the morning a squadron of nine German warships approached the Northeast English coast and separated into three groups to attack these towns. At 8:00 the first German ship opened fire and by 9:30 the German ships withdrew. In that hour and a half over 1000 shells were fired at the three towns, leaving 137 dead and 592 wounded, most of which were civilians.  

The Germans did not intend, or view, this action as a terror attack. Each of these towns had a fortified harbor (and the British defenders did return fire killing eight German sailors and wounding twelve) and the intended targets of the German attack were the harbor and coastal industrial facilities. However, in the process hundreds of nearby civilian homes were destroyed.

Though the harbor and the industrial facilities were deemed legitimate military targets, there was little value in attacking them. The primary target of the raid actually had nothing to do with any of these coastal towns, but rather the British navy. The British navy greatly outnumber the German navy. The German naval command knew that it would likely lose a large scale pitch naval battle, as the British could muster more ships then they could. It was the hope of the German naval command that an attack on British soil would trigger rash response, and the British would quickly send a small force rather than take the time to assemble a larger one. The idea was that raids like this would allow the German navy to deal with the British Navy in a piecemeal fashion.

Ultimately the Germans failed in their goal as the attacks did not draw the British navy into an ambush and the cautious British response forced the Germans to withdraw, but only after extensive damage was done to these towns.  

The attack was to reverberate though the psyche of the British people. The outcry of the attacks on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby became a rallying against Germany and at the same time shook the British people's faith in their navy.

Across the Atlantic these attacks further soured the American popular opinion of Germany which was becoming increase pro British and French.