Great Yarmouth gave the assembled British fleet useful options toward the Netherlands, the Baltic, or the Channel, while the selected second and third rates left first rates on more critical duties. The potential combined fleet shaped British planning even if the largest estimate of 123 ships of the line was a worst-case scenario. A much smaller Baltic concentration of forty or fifty ships could still become dangerous if it joined Dutch forces or acted while Franco-Spanish fleets pressed from the south. London feared losing control of the Channel under simultaneous pressure. Britain also wanted to act before French or Russian troops reinforced Denmark. Striking the league while its fleets and armies remained divided was therefore the operational logic behind the race against the thaw.
Chapter · 26:08-29:35
The race before the Baltic thaw
Britain had to act before ice released Russian ships that could combine with Swedish and Danish forces into a formidable Baltic fleet.