CHAPTER XVIII The Dogger Bank II

There are several matters of technical and general interest to be noted about this action. In the two torpedo attacks by destroyers on Sir David Beatty’s fleet, we see the first employment of this weapon for purely defensive purposes in a fleet action. It is defensive, not because the torpedo is certain to hit, and therefore to remove one of the pursuing enemy, but because if shoals of torpedoes are fired at a squadron, it will almost certainly be considered so serious a threat as to make a change of course compulsory. This is of double value to the weaker and retreating force. By compelling the firing ships to man?uvre, the efficiency of the fire control of their guns may be seriously upset, and hence their fire lose all accuracy and effect. To impose a man?uvre, then, is to secure a respite from the pursuers’ fire. But it does something more. By driving the pursuer off his course he is thrown back in the race, and his guns therefore kept at a greater distance. If the pursuer has then to start finding the range, and perhaps a new course and speed of the enemy, all over again, an appreciable period of time must elapse before his fire once more becomes accurate. And if he is prevented closing, the increase of accuracy, which shorter range would give, is denied him. Apart altogether, then, from quite good chances of a torpedo hitting, the evolution is of the utmost moment to the inferior force. It was employed in this action for the first time.

252 Again, for the first time we find the destroyers getting between the pursuing ships and the chase, and creating a smoke screen to embarrass the pursuers’ aiming and fire control. Finally, we find that Von Hipper has directed his flight to a prearranged point, where certainly submarines had been gathered and possibly mine-fields had been laid. This of course was a contingency that had always been foreseen. In an article published in the Westminster Gazette a week or two before the action, I dealt with Von Tirpitz’s remark, that “the German Fleet were perfectly willing to fight the English, if England would give them the opportunity,” and interpreted this to mean, that the Germans would be willing to fight if they had such a choice of ground and position as would give them some equivalent for their inferior numbers. And writing at that time, I naturally set out what may be called the general view of North Sea strategy. No good purpose would have been served by questioning it—even if such questioning had been permitted. Nor, in view of the very narrow margin of superiority that we possessed in capital ships, had I any wish to question it.

I began with the supposition that the enemy might attempt, on a big scale, exactly what, on a much smaller scale, we ourselves had attempted in the Bight of Heligoland five months before.

“Assuming,” I said, “that it is a professed German object to draw a portion of the English Fleet into a situation where it can be advantageously engaged, what would be the natural course for them to pursue? The first and perhaps the simplest form of ruse would be to dangle a squadron before the English Fleet, so that our fastest units should be drawn away from their supports, and enticed within reach of a superior German force.253 If we suppose the Scarborough raid to be carried out by a squadron used for this purpose, we must look upon that episode not merely as an example of Germany practising its much-loved frightfulness, but as an exercise in wiliness as well. That the Admiralty had taken every step it could think of to catch and destroy this squadron, we may safely infer from the character of the communications made to us. The measures adopted were, we also know, frustrated by the thick weather, so that no engagement actually took place. Is it not highly probable that the Germans, not knowing the character of the English counter-stroke, may have concluded that our failure to bring their squadron to action was brought about quite as much by prudence as by ill-luck? At any rate, it is rather a curious phenomenon that the German papers during the last two weeks have been filled with the most furious articles descanting upon the pusillanimity of the British Fleet. To our eyes such charges, of course, seem absurd, nor when we know how welcome the appearance of the German Fleet in force would be to Admiral Jellicoe and his gallant comrades can we conceive any sane man using such language; but if we interpret this as the expression of disappointed hopes, as evidence of the failure of a plan to catch a portion of our Fleet, a reasonable explanation of what is otherwise merely nonsense is afforded.

“The average layman probably supposes that a fleet action between the English Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet would be fought through on the lines of previous engagements in this war, and of the two naval battles of the Russo-Japanese war. They would expect the contest to be an artillery fight in which superior skill in the use of guns, if such superiority existed on either254 side, would be decisive; and if equality of skill existed, that victory would go to the side possessing a superior number of guns of superior power. But other naval weapons have advanced enormously in the last eight years. We not only have torpedoes that can run five and six miles with far greater accuracy and certainty than the old torpedo could go a third of this distance, but we know that Germany—almost alone amongst nations—has carried the art and practice of sowing mines to a point hitherto not dreamt of. When the first raid was made on Yarmouth, it will be remembered that the German ships retreated from a British submarine, and that the submarine ran into and was blown up and sunk by a mine left by the German ship in its wake. Again, after the North-Eastern raid, many ships—some authorities say over a dozen—were blown up by running into German mines left in the waters which the raiders had been through. The German naval leaders are perfectly aware that in modern capital ships they have an inferiority of numbers, and that gun for gun their artillery force is inferior to ours in an even greater degree. It is certain, therefore, that in thinking out the conditions in which they would have to fight an English fleet they are fully determined to use all other means that can possibly turn the scale of superiority to their side. Just as they have relied on the torpedo and the mine to diminish the general strength of the English Fleet, while it was engaged in the watch and ward of the North Sea, so as to redress the balance before the time for a naval action arrived; so, too, they have counted, when actually in action, on crippling and destroying English ships by mines and torpedoes, so that the artillery preponderance may finally be theirs. If we suppose that the German admirals have255 really thought out this problem, and we must suppose this, it is not difficult to see that with a fast advance battle-cruiser squadron engaged in mine laying, the problem of so handling a fleet as to pursue and cut off this squadron without crossing its wake must be extremely intricate and difficult. If further we imagine that this fast squadron has drawn the hostile squadron towards its own waters, where mine-fields unknown to us have been laid, we have not only the problem of the mines left in the wake of the enemy, but the further difficulty of there being prepared traps, so to speak, lying across the path which the attacking squadron would most naturally take. If we imagine the problem still further complicated by an attack on a battleship line by flotillas of fast destroyers firing high-speed, long-range torpedoes, to intersect the course that that squadron is taking, we have the third element of confusion. It does not need much imagination then to see that with mines actually dropped during the man?uvres that lead up to or form part of the battle, with mine-fields scattered over the chosen battlefield, and with the possibility of a battle fleet being rendered liable at the shortest notice to a massed attack of long-range torpedo fire, a naval battle will be a totally different affair from the comparatively simple operations that took place in the engagement of August 10, or at the battle of Tsushima.

“Such conditions as these demand extraordinary sagacity on the part not only of the Commander-in-chief, but of all the squadron commanders under him. It requires insistent vigilance; but then, for that matter, such vigilance is the daily routine of the Navy always. Finally, it makes demands on the art of gunnery of which we have hitherto had no practical experience at all. For256 reasons that hardly need discussion, all practice gunnery is carried out in conditions almost ludicrously unlike war, and quite absurdly unlike the kind of naval engagement that seems to me probable. The principal difference between the two is that it is impossible to practise with the big guns at a fast target. There is no way of man?uvring and running a target at high speed unless it is propelled by its own power, and that power is kept supplied and is got by human agents, and obviously you cannot fire at a ship which is full of people. And when you fire at a towed target the differences are, first, that no target can be towed beyond perhaps a third of a battleship’s speed, and next, that it cannot be man?uvred as a ship can. Lastly, the firing ship, so far as I am aware, is never called upon to fire while executing the kind of man?uvres, or subject to the kind of limitations, that would be incident to a modern battle.

“To sum up my argument. The present indications are that Germany, carrying out its previously expressed intentions, has made a first, and is now aiming at getting the information for a second, attempt to draw the English Fleet into fighting on ground which she can mine before we are drawn on to it, and to fight in conditions in which she can use a fast advance squadron to compel our ships to adopt certain man?uvres, and to turn that advance squadron into mine-layers, so as to limit our movements or make them exceedingly perilous. She will try to make the battlefields as close as she can to her own ports, both so as to facilitate the preliminary preparation by mines and to surprise us with unexpected torpedo attacks. I interpret the fulminations of Captain Persius and others as expressions of their anger at the failure of their first257 attempt, and I interpret the air raids as attempts to get information for making a second.

“We can, I am sure, rely upon Sir John Jellicoe being at no point inferior to his enemy, either in wiliness or in resources. It is to be remembered that, so far as we are concerned, much as we should like to have all anxiety settled by hearing of the definite destruction of the German Fleet, its continued existence is nevertheless perfectly innocuous, so long as it is unable to affect the transporting of our troops or the conduct of our trade.”

The foregoing article, I think, fairly represents what the Spectator, in referring to it, called the case for “naval patience.” But it did not mean, nor was it intended to mean, that it would be improper in any circumstances for a British ship to face any risks from torpedoes and mines, nor that to fight the Germans in their own waters was necessarily the same thing as fighting them on their own terms. It is indeed clear that I expected the British commanders to be more their equal to circumventing the enemy’s ingenuity. But no resource can rob war of risk—and if it were made a working principle that risks from torpedoes and mines were never to be faced, then the clearing of the British Fleet out of the North Sea would be a very simple process. It would only be necessary for the enemy to send out a score or so of submarines to advance in line abreast when, ex hypothesi, the Fleet would have no choice but incontinent flight.

My object was first to show the public that the problem of the naval engagement was far more complicated than was generally supposed, and that the ingenuity, resource, and vigilance of the Admiral in command would be taxed. It seemed to me important that a sympathetic understanding of these anxieties should be created in the public mind.258 Next, however, it was not less important to discount any extravagant expectation in the matter of naval gunnery. We had not at that time any full accounts of the Battle of the Falkland Islands; but it seemed clear that, in this respect, the performance of the two battle-cruisers had been disappointing. If in the North Sea an action was to be fought in poor light, with the ships made to man?uvre by torpedo attack and the enemy from time to time veiled in smoke screens, it seemed quite certain that a task would be set to the service fire-control with which it would be quite unable to deal.

And if these were the weaknesses of our fire-control, it was further highly desirable to keep before our eyes the certainty that, if the opportunity arose and a fleet action, intended to be decisive and pushed to a decision, took place, we were almost bound to lose ships by torpedoes and mines. At any rate, it seemed as if such a risk must be run if our own gunfire was to be made effective. And for such losses the public should be prepared.

This being the situation, it seems to me most unfortunate that the Admiralty followed the course they did in communicating their various accounts of this action to us. For there were three accounts given, and no two of the three agreed as to the reason why the pursuit was broken off! For two days we were not told that Lion was injured, and for four days were ignorant of the fact that the control of the British Fleet had passed out of Sir David Beatty’s hands some time before the action was ended. It was not till March 3—that is, five weeks after the action—that we were told the name of the officer on whom command had devolved when Lion fell out of line! This suppression was really extraordinary. To be mentioned in despatches259 had always been an acknowledged honour. To be ignored was a new form of distinction. How was the public to take so singular an omission? Had it ever happened before that an officer had been in command of a fleet at so grave a crisis and the fact of his being in command suppressed in announcing the fact of the engagement? No one quite knew how to take it. The discrepancies in the communiqués are worth noting. In the first, of January 25, was this curiously worded paragraph:

“A well-contested running fight ensued. Shortly after one o’clock Bluecher, which had previously fallen out of the line, capsized and sank. Admiral Beatty reports that two other German battle-cruisers were seriously damaged. They were, however, able to continue their flight, and reached an area where dangers from German submarines and mines prevented further pursuit.”

Did whoever drafted this statement suppose that the Bluecher was a battle-cruiser? We are now, however, more concerned with the reasons given for breaking off the action. An area was reached where “dangers from German submarines and mines prevented further pursuit.” The communiqué of January 27 was silent on this point. On the 28th was published what purported to be “a preliminary telegraphic report received from the Vice-Admiral.” The paragraph dealing with this matter is as follows:

“Through the damage to Lion’s feed-tank by an unfortunate chance shot, we were undoubtedly deprived of a greater victory. The presence of the enemy’s submarines subsequently necessitated the action being broken off.”

In this statement the excuse of mines is dropped.260 In the despatch published on March 3 the end of the action is treated by the Vice-Admiral as follows:

“At 11:20 I called the Attack alongside, shifted my flag to her at about 11:35. I proceeded at the utmost speed to rejoin the squadron, and met them at noon retiring north-northwest. I boarded and hoisted my flag in Princess Royal at about 12:20, when Captain Brock acquainted me with what had occurred since Lion fell out of line, namely, that Bluecher had sunk, and that the enemy battle-cruisers had continued their course to eastward in a considerably damaged condition.”

Here observe no mention was made of submarines necessitating the action being broken off, nor of an area being reached where dangers from submarines and mines prevented further pursuit. The whole incident is passed by the Vice-Admiral without comment, unless indeed the phrase about the accident to the Lion, in the telegraphic report, is a comment. Did the Vice-Admiral imply that had he remained in command he would have seen to it that his specific orders—viz. that Indomitable should settle Bluecher and the other ships pursue the battle-cruisers—were carried out?

A very unfortunate situation resulted from these reticences and contradictions. Naval writers in America were naturally enough amazed by the statement attributed to Admiral Beatty in the telegraphic report, for, if the presence of submarines could stop pursuit, could not submarines drive the British Fleet off the sea? These authors naturally expressed extreme astonishment that an admiral capable of breaking off action in these conditions, and publicly acknowledging so egregious a blunder, was not at once brought to court-martial. No one in his senses could have supposed that Sir David Beatty, who261 dealt with submarines without the least concern in the affair of Heligoland and earlier in the day on January 28, could possibly have accepted the dictum that the presence of a German submarine would justify pursuit having been broken off. It was then quite evident that the quotation from the Vice-Admiral’s telegraphic report could not have represented the Vice-Admiral’s opinion on a point of warlike doctrine. What the actual facts of the case were, we do not to this day know. Rear-Admiral Moore did not continue long in Sir David Beatty’s squadron after this, but there was no court-martial nor any public expression of the Admiralty’s opinion by way of approval or disapproval of his proceedings. In a speech made a month after the action in the House of Commons, Mr. Churchill passed over the fact that the action had not been fought out, as if such a thing was of no exceptional importance or interest whatever. Soon afterward it became known that the Rear-Admiral in question had got another and very important command elsewhere, so that it became plain that his conduct had not met with their Lordships’ reprobation.

War in modern conditions undoubtedly makes it exceedingly important to keep the enemy as far as possible in ignorance of a great many things. It imposes too a continuous strain upon practically the whole personnel of the Navy, and these two things taken together have been quoted to explain why the old rule of holding a public court-martial on the captain of every ship that was lost, or on every individual officer whose action in battle gave rise to uncertainty or question, has virtually been abrogated. But it is doubtful whether the Navy has not lost more by the abandonment of this wholesome practice than the enemy could have gained by its Spartan application.

262 This point came in for a good deal of public discussion at the beginning of 1915, and I venture to quote a contribution to it. Looking back upon this controversy, it is easy enough to see now wherein lay the chief disadvantage of the suppression of courts-martial. There was no general staff at the Admiralty, representative of the best Service opinion, and, deprived of court-martial, the Navy had no means of expressing a corporate judgment on the vital issues as they arose. The doctrine with regard to torpedo risk, which seems to have been acted on at the close of this action, was evidently one which either the Admiralty had laid down, or at least accepted as correct. Could it have been referred to the corporate judgment of the Service and had that judgment not endorsed it, the history of the war might have been altogether different.

Mr. Churchill’s speech in the official reports is entitled ‘British Command of the Sea: Admiralty Organization.’ It would have been as well if this description had been given out before the speech was made, for, as it happened, many thought it was intended as a survey of the first epoch of the war and were disappointed that, in so eloquent and forceful a review, there was hardly a word of tribute to the incomparable services of our officers and men. There was lavish praise of the generosity of the House of Commons; of the foresight of Lord Fisher; of the excellence of the Admiralty’s preparedness at every point; of the amazing scale and success of the provisioning with coal and supplies of a vast fleet always at sea; of the astonishing perfection of the work of the engineering branch. But there was singularly little of the work of the fighting men. The officers were dismissed simply as ‘painstaking.’ No doubt the tribute will be made at another time. Is there263 any time, however, which is not the right time for acknowledging these services? On Tuesday we learned that between 300 and 400 officers have died for us—and over 6,000 men. Is it gracious to postpone their eulogy? And the absence of eulogy was emphasized by the forceful manner in which the First Lord asked that he and his colleagues should be entrusted with the most absolute and dictatorial powers. Indeed, he excused the departure from the Service custom of holding courts-martial whenever a ship was lost on the ground that modern conditions called for instant action, with which courts-martial were incompatible. But the court-martial, as I have before pointed out, is the palladium of the Navy’s liberties. To abolish it is like suspending the Habeas Corpus. It is so extreme a measure because it ignores the great unwritten law of the Navy, which is that, in spite of the authority of Whitehall over the Navy, of an admiral over a fleet, and of a captain over a ship’s company, being necessarily and in each case absolute, yet there must always be an appeal from authority to the profession itself. If this is necessary for the protection of subordinate officers and men against arbitrary action by a captain, against arbitrary and prejudiced action by an admiral in a fleet, how much more necessary is it as a protection of naval standards and traditions against arbitrary action by the Board? For a captain is at any rate an entirely naval authority; an admiral is certainly an officer of large naval experience, acting generally with at least one other admiral. But the Board is largely a lay body. Indeed, it is now by a majority a lay body. And like all boards, it is liable to be the mouthpiece of its strongest personality. If this, as sometimes happens, is a seaman, he may be a partisan—I say it in no invidious sense—of certain policies and so264 prejudiced against brother officers who differ. If the stronger character is a layman, he may be ignorant of, or see no danger in waiving, naval traditions that are embodied in no statute or regulation, but are not embodied simply because their cogency has never been questioned. In other words, the autocracy of the Admiralty is a necessity of executive administration, but can only be exercised safely if its enforcement is continuously tested by professional opinion.

How many people, I often wonder, really appreciate how singular a body is that which is made up of admirals, captains, commanders, and lieutenants of the Royal Navy? The accomplishments that make the seaman confuse the landsman by their strangeness and intricacy. Indeed, if one wishes to express the extremity of bewilderment, he does so best by the metaphor which describes the sailor’s normal environment. When we say we are “at sea,” we do so because language expresses no greater helplessness. To master these conditions calls for forms of knowledge and proficiency that are only acquired by a lifetime’s familiarity. But these conditions are not only baffling, they are incredibly dangerous. If steam has done much to lessen the perils of the sea, speed, the product of steam, has added to them. The sailor then, even in times of peace, passes his days, and still more his nights, encompassed by the threat of irreparable disaster. An oversight that may take thirty seconds to commit—and a hundred deaths, a wrecked ship, and a shattered reputation reward thirty years of constant and unblemished devotion to duty. To face a life and responsibilities like these calls for more than great mental and physical skill, though nowhere will you find these in a higher degree or more widely diffused than in the Fleet. It calls for moral265 and spiritual qualities, for a development of character in patience, unselfishness, and courage which few landsmen have any inducement to cultivate. A life lived daily in the presence of death must be a unique life, and it is not surprising that men bred to these conditions—always as hard and ascetic as they are uncertain and unsafe—grow to be a body quite unlike other men, with standards and traditions of their own, and a corporate spirit and capacity that are unique, wonderful, and to most landsmen incomprehensible.

Their standards and traditions can only be maintained and can only be enforced by themselves. And the great peril that follows from excluding all reference to them of the accidents and failures of war is that, failing this reference, we have no security that naval action will be judged as it should be, solely by the highest naval standard.

Much was said in the House of Commons about the loss of ships. Mr. Churchill assumed that the only motive for asking for courts-martial was to find a scapegoat. Lord Charles Beresford only made clear that a court-martial was as much for clearing the character as for finding criminals. There was a significant phrase in Mr. Churchill’s speech that raises, it seems to me, a point in this connection of far greater importance. The battle of the Dogger Bank, he said, was “not fought out because the enemy made good their escape into waters infested by submarines and mines.” The officer who had to call off a fleet in these circumstances was necessarily faced by a grave and almost terrifying responsibility. To be too bold was to risk everything, to be too cautious was to throw away a victory. Can any tribunal, except the Navy, judge whether this responsibility was rightly266 exercised? When we remember that in our greatest days hardly a naval battle took place that was not followed by courts-martial, it seems to me a most perilous thing to allow these tremendous issues to go by the board because unless they are adjudicated upon by the profession itself they are not adjudicated upon at all.