Kiel in June and July. The year's autumn maneuvers were confined to the Baltic and the Kattegat. Another fleet review was held during the exercises for a visiting Austro-Hungarian delegation that included Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli. In mid-1912, due to the Agadir Crisis, the summer cruise only went into the Baltic to avoid exposing the fleet during the period of heightened tension with Britain and France. Pommern took part in several celebrations commemorating the fiftieth anniversaries of events from the Second Schleswig War. The first, on 17 March, took place at Swinemünde, on the anniversary of the Battle of Jasmund participated in ceremonies at Sonderburg on 2 May 1914 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Dybbøl. World War I In July 1914, about two weeks after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Pommern was with the High Seas Fleet during its annual summer cruise to Norway. As a result of rising international tensions, the cruise was cut short and the German fleet was back in Wilhelmshaven by 29 July. At midnight on 4 August, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany for violating Belgium's neutrality. Pommern remained with the High Seas Fleet throughout the first two years of the naval war. At the outbreak of war, the German command deployed II Squadron in the German Bight to defend Germany's coast from a major attack from the Royal Navy that the Germans presumed was imminent. Pommern and her squadron mates were stationed in the mouth of the Elbe to support the vessels on patrol duty in the Bight. Once it became clear that the British would not attack the High Seas Fleet, the Germans began a series of operations designed to lure out part of the numerically superior British Grand Fleet and destroy it. The German navy was aiming to force a decisive battle in the southern portion of the North Sea after achieving a rough equality of forces. Pommern and the rest of II Battle Squadron then rejoined the High Seas Fleet as part of the battleship support for the battlecruisers in I Scouting Group that bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914. The main fleet acted as distant support for Konteradmiral (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Franz von Hipper's battlecruiser squadron while it raided the coastal towns. On the evening of 15 December, the fleet came to within of an isolated squadron