Battle of Jutland

“ We must then, I think, in considering the Battle of Jutland, start with the assumption that the German Fleet came out in obedience both to policy and to its own desire. But we should be wrong if we supposed that they came out with any hopes of achieving final and decisive victory. It has never been a characteristic of German military thought to build on the possibilities of an inferior force defeating its superior. ”

“ This controversy as to the Battle of Jutland has been carried on with bitterness in Great Britain, and volumes of matter have been written that will be utterly useless, so far as a true story of the action is concerned. Partisans have made the mistake of putting on record arguments that have been founded on phases of the British operations—48with imaginary corresponding situations of the enemy, which never existed in actual fact. ”

“ If the Battle of Jutland receives the stamp of approval as the best that could have been done, then the British or the American officer of the future will know that he is expected primarily to ”play safe. ”

“ In the great naval battle of Jutland they served no useful purpose, and the war has proved them instruments of murder, safe only in darkness and undefended areas. And in saying that Germany alone has built them in fleets, one says that Germany alone has pinned faith to terrorism and a policy of murder, which is steadily winning its just reward. ”

“ There was much destroyer-work in the Battle of Jutland. The actual battle field may not have been more than twenty thousand square miles, but the incidental patrols, from first to last, must have covered many times that area. Doubtless the next generation will comb out every detail of it. ”

“ The result of the battle of May 31st was that Britain was more confirmed than ever in her mastery of the ocean. Its effect on the campaign at large was at once apparent. Russia was established in her control of the Eastern Baltic, and Germany's grandiose scheme for aiding her Eastern campaign by sea perished in the smoke of the Jutland battle. ”

“ The brute is usually a coward at heart. The sinking of unarmed merchant ships and of hospital ships by the German U-boats, the bombing of undefended towns and hospitals, and the firing upon Red Cross workers were acts of brutes and cowards. So it is not strange that the great German fleet which all through the war, except at the battle of Jutland, had hidden in security behind the guns of Heligoland and the defenses of the Kiel Canal lost its soul when, as a last hope, it was ordered out to fight the Allied fleet. ”

“ If in the World War I we had had two battleships and two cruisers more, and if the battle of Jutland had begun in the morning, the British fleet would have been defeated and England brought to her knees. ”

“ With the great improvements in the type, it is probable that in many conditions the U-boat will be a factor in battles of fleets, and such contingencies should be safeguarded in advance.
The destroyer came to its own in the battle of Jutland as an auxiliary of the battle fleet, both for offense and defense. The whole course of the action proved that a screen of destroyers was absolutely necessary. For offense, it might be argued truthfully that, of the great number of torpedoes used, very few hit anything. ”

“ The naval operations suggested and described in the following chapters are the surprise attack that Germany did not deliver, the destruction of Koenigsberg, the capture of Emden, Cradock’s heroic self-sacrifice off Coronel, the destruction of Von Spee’s squadron off the Falkland Islands, the affair of the Heligoland Bight, the pursuit of Von Hipper across the Dogger Bank, the battle of Jutland, and finally, the operations carried out against Zeebrügge and Ostend in the fourth year of the war. ”

“ It will take a great deal of time, because it involves a very long future, a very great change of direction, and the most important victory for which man has ever hoped.
The Battle of Jutland Debatable Phases of the Great Naval Conflict Reviewed by Eminent British Experts By ADMIRAL SIR CYPRIAN BRIDGE, G. C. B.
In the May number of Current History Magazine appeared a general review of the battle of Jutland by Mr. Thomas G. Frothingham, with a footnote and diagrams by Professor Westcott of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. ”

“ To bring the enemy to action risks must be run, and the strength of a fleet is a more brittle and less replaceable thing than the strength of an army. New levies can be called for on land, and tolerable infantry turned out in a few months, but it takes six years to make a junior naval officer, it takes two years to build a cruiser, and three years to replace a battleship. The German hope was by attrition or some happy accident to wear down the superior British strength to an equality with their own. ”

“ It is of the nature of a naval action that it gives ample scope for fiction. There are no spectators. Victory and defeat are not followed, as in a land battle, by a gain or loss of ground. A well-disciplined country with a strict censorship can frame any tale it pleases, and stick to it for months without fear of detection at home. Therefore Germany claimed at once a decisive success. According to her press the death blow had been given to Britain's command of the sea. ”

“ The whole fleet now formed one fighting unit, but it will be clearer if we take the work of the battle cruisers and the battleships separately.
Beatty had succeeded in crumpling up the head of the German line, and its battleships were now targets for the majority of his battle cruisers. The visibility was becoming greatly reduced. The mist no longer merely veiled the targets, but often shut them out altogether. This not only made gunnery extraordinarily difficult, but prevented the British from keeping proper contact with the enemy. ”

“ At this moment a message was handed to Captain Raleigh from the wireless room.
"Change in orders," said the commander briefly, after scanning the piece of paper. "We are to engage the enemy at long range and seek to draw him farther into the North Sea. Orders have been sent to the three ships off Jutland to fall back before the approach of the enemy until we can join them, if they sight the enemy before we arrive. If not, we are all to retire slowly. The Invincible, three cruisers and half a dozen torpedo boats will join us soon after dawn. ”

“ And, to hear them talk of it when they get together, that is the spirit in which they affect to regard a phase of the Jutland battle which wiped out some scores of their mates and two or three of the destroyers of their flotilla. Talking with one of them alone, he will occasionally condescend to speak of the serious side [Pg 7] of the show, but their joint reminiscences, in the constant by-play of banter, are more suggestive of tumultuous ‘nights of gladness’ on the beach at Port Said or Rio than the most murderous spasm of night fighting in the whose course of naval history. ”

“ There was still work to be done before the hour for our great effort to crush the British fleet. However, to a certain extent we have been successful. We have managed to sow the seed of suspicion in the minds of our enemies. Prisoners, whom we have allowed to be taken, have let slip words that will lead the British to think our fleet will slip from its base and approach England from the south. We know better than that. We know that on the night of May 31—which is tomorrow—our fleet will strike the British off Jutland. ”

“ There is a lot to be learned from the Jutland Battle, though it is not for an old dog like me to draw the lessons. But what does seem to shout at one is that the way to fight a German is to close in upon him and to knock the moral stuffing out of him. The destroyers always do it and so do our submarines. I am told that the way the destroyers charged battleships by night, and rounded up the enemy’s light stuff by day, was a liberal education in naval psychology. We are at our best when the risks are greatest—it is the sporting instinct of the race that sustains us. ”

“ On April 3, the Danes opened hostilities by a bombardment of the Island of Allston. Then came the battle of Eckenfoerde, when German shore batteries blew up the Dueppel trenches stormed Danish ship of the line, "Christian VIII.," and two smaller vessels, the crews of which surrendered. On April 13, the Bavarians and Saxons stormed the intrenchments of Dueppel. One week later, the German troops, in conjunction with the volunteers of Schleswig-Holstein, under Von Bonin, occupied Jutland, and defeated the Danes at Kolding. ”

“ His change of tactics was so remarkable that his reasons should be quoted at length:
“It was still too early for a nocturnal move. If the enemy followed us, our action in retaining the direction taken after turning the line would partake of the nature of a retreat, and in the event of any damage to our ships in the rear the Fleet would be compelled to sacrifice them or else to decide on a line of action enforced by enemy pressure, and not adopted voluntarily, and would therefore be detrimental to us from the very outset. ”

“ The vessel was T.B.D. Basher, one of the inner patrol of destroyers operating between St. Abb's Head and Spurn Point. Pelting along at 20 knots in the darkness, her first intimation of the proximity of the crippled Calder was the hiss of steam from her boilers. Prepared to open fire at an instant's notice, she trained her quick-firers abeam and switched on her search-lights, only to discover that she had fortunately fallen in with a "lame duck" from the Jutland battle--a craft whose absence was beginning to give rise to considerable apprehension on the part of the British Admiralty. ”

“ The Danish army at once dispersed and the duchy of Bremen was recovered by the Swedes, who in the early autumn swarmed over Jutland and firmly established themselves in the duchies. But the fortress of Fredriksodde (Fredericia) held Charles’s little army at bay from mid-August to mid-October, while the fleet of Denmark, after a stubborn two days’ battle, compelled the Swedish fleet to abandon its projected attack on the Danish islands. The position of the Swedish king had now become critical. In July an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between Denmark and Poland. ”

“ A resounding success was a political necessity for Germany, and it is likely that she would have claimed a victory if any remnant of her fleets had reached harbour. As it was she was over-joyed at having escaped annihilation, and the magnitude of her jubilation may be taken as the measure of her fears. ”

“ We were racing along at the time, and our skipper took us at full speed right towards the enemy lines. There was a column of their small craft on each side of us, and as soon as we got abreast of them we attacked at close range, and managed to torpedo a couple of enemy destroyers, one on each beam. All the time we were getting it hot, guns were popping at us from all quarters, and we were firing back as hard as we could go, as well as using our torpedo tubes. Of course, a fight under these conditions could not last long for us. ”

“ The first phase of the battle may properly be studied as a fight between the British and German battle cruisers, in consequence of the before-stated gap separating the two parts of Admiral Beatty’s command. This interval of 10,000 yards prevented the Fifth Battle Squadron of Queen Elizabeth dreadnoughts from being a factor at the time. Vice Admiral Beatty reports that this squadron “opened fire at a range of 20,000 yards,” and he continues: “The Fifth Battle Squadron was engaging the enemy’s rear ships, unfortunately at very long range.” ”

“ These were certain and observed losses. In addition, one first-class battle ship, one battle cruiser and three destroyers were seen to be so severely hit that in all likelihood they went down before reaching harbour. It should further be remembered that many of the ships which escaped were so seriously damaged by gun fire and torpedo attack that they would not be available for many months. The German fleet returned to the Elbe bases, lacking some
of its finest ships, and with most of the remainder out of action. ”

“ Even if Germany's version of her losses had been true it is scarcely necessary to say that they were heavier than Britain's in proportion to her total strength at sea. But her version was not true; it was not half the truth. The port of Wilhelmshaven was closed to the world that no man might verify the actual casualties. It is probable that Pommern, whose loss was admitted, was not the old Pommern of that name which was believed to have been sunk by Commander Max Horton in the previous July, but a new first-class battle ship. ”

“ It is borne in upon us by hard experience that the southern part of the North Sea is not big enough and not deep enough to afford space for a first-class naval battle to be fought out to the finish. The enemy is too near his home bases, he can break off an action and get away before being overwhelmed. Yet even in the southern North Sea there is room in which to dispose great naval forces and in which to manœuvre them. Fleets are not tucked up by space as are modern armies. Jutland was a battle of encounter and manœuvre, not of heavy destructive fighting. ”

“ We can then cut off the whole of the enemy’s battle fleet.” Much has been made of this signal by ill-advised critics. In fact it will be self-evident that, at the time Beatty’s signal was sent, the German30 fleet was not in the assumed position, but had long before been extricated from its dangerous contact by the third “swing-around” (S) at 7.17, and the Germans ships were again safely proceeding on their altered course.
It is a strange comment on the battle to realize that the thrice executed German manœuvre of ships-right-about was not observed by anyone on the British fleet. ”