Queen Elizabeth could add a fifth fifteen-inch battleship

Removing Goeben from the eastern Mediterranean could also remove the reason HMS Queen Elizabeth was committed to the Dardanelles. She could join the Fifth Battle Squadron or serve as Jellicoe's flagship, adding another fifteen-inch-gun capital ship to the British order of battle. That reinforcement cuts directly against the High Seas Fleet's aim of isolating and destroying a smaller British force at limited cost. The German scouting operation becomes much less attractive when the battlecruisers encounter four or five elite fast battleships with powerful guns and well-trained crews.