and mustered eight battleships, four armoured cruisers, twelve coastal destroyers, twenty older destroyers, and twenty submarines, besides a number of smaller and older cruisers of doubtful value.
On Tuesday evening the Admiralty ordered the Channel Armoured Cruiser Squadron to put to sea from Milford, proceed north round the coast of Scotland, picking up on its way the two armoured cruisers and torpedo flotilla off Cape Wrath, which had taken up their position at Loch Eriboll, and then to attack the German detachment at Lerwick, and clear the northern entrance to the North Sea. A large number of colliers were to accompany or follow the fleet, which was strictly ordered not to risk an engagement with the main German forces, but to retire if they appeared, falling back on the Irish Sea.
The squadron at 6 p.m. that night, with bunkers full, weighed anchor and proceeded at 18 knots. It passed rapidly up the west coast of Scotland without communicating with the shore, and shortly before midnight on Wednesday joined the Loch Eriboll detachment, which was waiting its arrival, ready to proceed with it. At Loch Eriboll it refilled its bunkers from four colliers that had been sent in advance, and soon after daybreak on Thursday steamed out from that remote Scottish haven for the scene of action, leaving four destroyers to watch the harbour. Two more colliers arrived as it left.
One of the armoured cruisers and eight ocean-going destroyers were instructed to wait till the afternoon, and then move towards the Pentland Firth. Six of the older destroyers were to follow them, and hold the waters of the Firth if the Germans were not in any great force. The other ten armoured cruisers, with four ocean-going destroyers, would make a wide sweep at full speed round the north of the Orkneys, so as to cut off any German vessels in the Pentland Firth. Strict orders were given that if the German battleships or armoured cruisers in any force were encountered a prompt retreat must be beaten, and that until the approach of the
