This authoritative study tells the story of all sixty-nine surface naval actions fought by major warships of the German Navy against those of the Allied Navies. While focusing on the operational details of these actions, the author also paints a broad overview of the naval war to place each battle in context. The book demonstrates that the German Navy's war was far more than a U-boat war, that its surface fleet was much more than a few star-crossed battleships, and that the fleet was more successful in carrying out the tasks allocated to it than is generally acknowledged.