 In late 1917 , the High Seas Fleet began to conduct anti @-@ convoy raids with light craft in the North Sea between Britain and Norway . On 17 October , the German light cruisers Brummer and Bremse intercepted a convoy of twelve ships escorted by a pair of destroyers and destroyed it ; only three transports managed to escape . On 12 December , four German destroyers intercepted and annihilated another convoy of five ships and two escorting destroyers . This prompted Admiral David Beatty , the Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet , to detach several battleships and battlecruisers to protect the convoys in the North Sea . This presented to Admiral Scheer the opportunity for which he had been waiting the entire war : the chance to isolate and eliminate a portion of the Grand Fleet . 
