The Royal Navy did have a real plan to land troops on Germany's Baltic coast, though I will admit I was exaggerating the size of the landing for effect. The plan was the brainchild of John 'Jacky' Fisher, First Sea Lord in 1914-15, though there is evidence he was influenced by the naval strategist Julian Corbett. Fisher's plan built on an earlier plan suggested by Winston Churchill, to seize the German islands of Sylt and Borkum. Fisher and Churchill hoped that the capture of these islands would either force the German High Seas Fleet into a battle of annihilation with the Royal Navy, or bottle it up in its bases for good. This, Fisher thought, would then allow the RN unchecked access to the Baltic. There, it could achieve two major strategic goals. Firstly, it would cut the flow of iron ore from Sweden to Germany, damaging Germany's war industry, and secondly, it would allow troops to be landed on the Pomeranian coast of Germany. This would put troops about a hundred miles from Berlin, well behind the German defences on the Eastern or Western Fronts. As such, it was easily a war-winning scheme. Fisher envisaged the use of Russian troops in the operation, though there were also variants that used British troops.

To ensure that the operation went off smoothly, Fisher began a major building program. The so-called 'large light cruisers' Furious, Courageous and Glorious were ordered in early 1915. These fast, well armed and shallow-draughted ships would, in theory, make light work of any remnants of the German fleet still present in the Baltic, and were able to provide fire support to troops ashore. A large number of monitors - small ships with heavy guns, designed for shore bombardment - were ordered. Fisher also ordered a large number of landing craft, sufficient to land 50,000 men in one lift. These included 200 large barges capable of carrying 500 men, and 90 smaller ones, carrying 250 men. The larger barges, designated X-lighters, were powered with diesel engines and armoured against small-arms fire. The smaller barges were either unpowered, or had outboard engines. They were designated Y-lighters. Both types had hinged bow ramps.

The Baltic Scheme never got off the ground for a number of reasons. Most of these stem from politics within the Admiralty. The Royal Navy's Chief of Staff, Admiral Henry Oliver, believed that Fisher's support for the plan was rather insincere, and stemmed more from a desire to discredit Churchill's planned invasion of Sylt and Borkum. Admiral Jellicoe, commanding the Grand Fleet, the force that was to carry out the operation, was strongly opposed to any operation in German waters, as he believed it exposed his command to too great a risk. There were also a number of other possible operations competing with it; beyond the invasion of Sylt and Borkum, there were plans for landings on Heligoland and in Belgium, as well as a number of operations against the Ottoman Empire. Each was championed by different factions of the Admiralty - the Baltic Scheme, meanwhile, was supported only by Fisher. The Army was unwilling to release troops for operations against peripheral targets, believing that every man was needed in France. Finally, once the Dardanelles Operation began, much of the resources Fisher put in place for the Baltic Scheme were diverted to support it.