The Battle of Heligoland Bight was the first naval battle of World War I between the fleets of Germany and the United Kingdom. The battle resulted in a diminished German naval presence in the North Sea.

After the German invasion of Belgium, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. Troops from the British Expeditionary Force lent their manpower and materiel to French forces fighting on the Continent, in a series of land battles known as the Battle of the Frontiers. Meanwhile, the German High Seas Fleet was prowling in waters off the northern coast of France and Holland, looking to break out into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

A stepping stone to reaching that goal was taking control of the Heligoland Bight, to the north of the western coastline of Germany. U.K. ships patrolled the area, but those patrols were distant, nothing like a blockade. German ships regularly sailed in clusters in and out of area harbors. The Royal Navy decided to attack, using a number of submarines as bait to draw the German destroyers and cruisers out further into the open seas, where a large number of U.K. heavy boats waited. That force, under Vice Admiral David Beatty and Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, numbered 54 ships, including 33 destroyers and five battlecruisers. The German force was much smaller, boasting at the strongest only six light cruisers and 41 ships overall.

Royal navy Commodore Roger Keyes' submarines did their part, and then the heavier ships had at it. The devastation was heavy on the German side: more than 700 sailors dead, more than 500 injured, more than 300 taken prisoners. Three of the German cruisers sank, and the other three were damaged. Losses in life were considerably less on the U.K. side: three dozen killed, nearly five dozen injured. Losses in ships were low, with none sank and a handful damaged.

As a result, the German high command ordered its fleet to stay close by their home ports. They did so for several months before venturing further out again.