In waters off Orkney a century ago, 52 German warships were sunk in one day - but this huge naval loss was not inflicted by enemy forces.

Instead the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow was a deliberate act of sabotage ordered by a commander who refused to let his ships become the spoils of war.

It was the single greatest loss of warships in history and the nine German sailors killed that day were the last to die during World War One. The final peace treaty was signed just a week later.

After the fighting in WW1 ended in November 1918, the entire German fleet was ordered to gather together in the Firth of Forth, near Edinburgh, to be "interned" by Allied forces.
Image copyright Courtesy Orkney Library and Archive
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Nine German battleships, five battlecruisers, seven light cruisers and 49 destroyers - the most modern ships of the German High Seas Fleet - were handed over to the victorious forces off the east of Scotland.

Within a week, the 70 German ships were escorted to the sheltered waters of Scapa Flow, off Orkney, where they and four other vessels were held while the details of the peace talks were worked out.

"The ships were not actually surrendered and that's why there were no British troops on board them to prevent them being scuttled," Tom Muir from Orkney Museum told BBC Radio Scotland's When the Fleet Went Down. "They were German government property and remained that throughout their time here."

The German commander, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, was not kept informed of what was happening outside of his ships.
On the morning of Sunday 21 June 1919, the British fleet took advantage of good weather to steam out of the harbour on exercise. At 10:30, von Reuter's flagship, Emden, sent out the seemingly innocuous message - "Paragraph Eleven; confirm". It was a code ordering his men to scuttle their own ships.

The "paragraph eleven" signal, using semaphore and searchlights, took a while to reach all the ships because they were positioned right across the vast flow. "They would have waited and like a wave it went through the ships from north to south," says Mr Muir.

Beneath decks, German sailors began to open seacocks - valves that allow water in - and smash pipes. Mr Muir says: "They had all been deliberately flooded from one side first so that they would turn over and sink because they believed it would make it more difficult for them to salvage them."

By 17:00, most of the German High Seas Fleet had disappeared beneath the surface of Scapa Flow. The Hindenburg, the biggest German battlecruiser, was the last to sink.

During the 1920s and '30s many of the 52 ships were lifted from the sea bed by commercial contractors and broken up.

The seven wrecks that remain are now classed as scheduled monuments, nationally important archaeological sites given protection against unauthorised change.

"The scuttling of the German fleet removed them from being a bargaining chip in peace negotiations but it was seen as a hostile act by the British," says Mr Muir. "In Germany it was seen as a way of restoring some honour. The navy had not let the ships fall into enemy hands."

A senior German officer declared at the time that this act had wiped away the "stain of surrender" from the German fleet.