British submarine flotilla in the Baltic

in The Sound in 1915 before being attacked by German torpedo boats E class The E-class submarines entered the Baltic Sea through the Danish Straits through waters only deep. On 19 August 1915, was stranded in The Sound near Saltholm. In a breach of Danish neutrality, she was destroyed by German torpedo boat G132, with a loss of 15 of her crew. The other subs managed to enter the Baltic without being intercepted by the Germans. and made the passage to Reval safely in September 1915. • —commanded by Max Horton—intercepted four German steamers on 18–19 October 1915. • was lost in the Baltic Sea in May 1916 while operating out of Reval. Examination of the wreck, discovered off Hiiumaa, Estonia, in 2009, suggests that it struck a mine while sailing on the surface. • —commanded by Francis Cromie—intercepted four German steamers on 10–11 October 1915. She also sank the German Gazelle-class warship . The last four E-class submarines—, , , and —were scuttled outside Helsinki, south of the Harmaja Light, in 1918 to prevent capture by German troops who had landed nearby. C class Four C-class submarines were sent there in September 1915 by a tortuous route—towed around the North Cape to Arkhangelsk and taken by barge to Kronstadt, , , and reached Saint Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland on 9 September 1916, but due to difficulties with the batteries became fully operational only in the 1917 sealing season. • stranded on a mudbank near Pärnu on the north-eastern side of the Gulf of Riga on 24 October 1917 while trying to prevent Operation Albion, the German operation in October to invade the Estonian islands of Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Muhu. Three of these boats—, , and —were also scuttled outside Helsinki in 1918. ==Aftermath==

The crews of the scuttled submarines were evacuated by Soviet ships to Petrograd and by rail to Murmansk, to join with the Allied intervention forces in North Russia, only weeks before hostilities cut railway lines to Murmansk. Among the officers were future admirals and commanders of the British Submarine Service, Sir Noel Laurence and Sir Max Horton and Vice Admiral Leslie Ashmore. Admiral Aksel Berg also served as Liaison Officer from the Imperial Russian Navy, before going on to become the Deputy Minister of Defence for the Soviet Union (1953–57). In 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) concluded between Britain and Germany, allowed Germany to increase the size of its navy to one-third the size of the Royal Navy, which would have had the effect of allowing the Kriegsmarine to dominate the Baltic. Some Finns raised some parts of the scuttled British submarines before World War II but recognized that they were beyond feasible repair and returned them back into the sea. It is believed that the remains were raised in 1953 by the German company Beckedorf Gebryder and used as scrap metal. ==See also==