Why the Dover Patrol's monitors mattered

The Lord Clive-class monitors performed their intended function well by carrying heavy guns into shallow coastal waters to support the armies in Flanders. Their work included patrol, minesweeper protection, deceptive bombardment, and methodical fire control as well as spectacular heavy-gun shoots. Bacon appears to have understood amphibious warfare, but he was less effective in the press and institutional contests surrounding his command. The battlecruisers, Harwich Force, and Grand Fleet offered dramatic images and reputations that the workmanlike monitors could not match. Even the formation's name, the Dover Patrol, understated the breadth of its army-support and coastal-control work. Public memory therefore obscured a technically demanding and strategically useful campaign because its success rarely took the form of a famous fleet action.