CHAPTER XXIII The Battle of Jutland (Continued)

V. THE THREE OBJECTIVES

The issue of the day would now depend upon how the commanders of the three separate forces appreciated the tasks set to them; the principles that governed the plans for their execution; the efficiency of their command in getting those principles applied; the resolution and skill with which the several units executed each its share in the operations. It was easy enough to define the task of each leader. Sir David Beatty had so far completely justified what seemed the general strategic plan of the British forces. He had driven the German fast divisions back to their main fleet, he had held that fleet for an hour and a half, and had brought it within striking distance of the overwhelmingly superior main forces of his own side. He had lost two capital ships and three destroyers to achieve his end to this point. He had the sacrifice of some thousands of his gallant companions to justify. Neither a parade nor a “gladiatorial display,” only the utter rout and destruction of the enemy’s fleet, could pay that debt. His task was not, therefore, complete. He had to help the Grand Fleet to deliver its blow with the concentration and rapidity that would render it decisive.

It was already obvious that rapidity would be vital. The weather conditions had been growing more and more unfavourable to the gunnery on which the British Fleet316 would rely for victory. Everything pointed to the conditions growing steadily worse. It was a case of seizing victory quickly or missing it altogether. Had there been no shifting mists there would have been two and a half or three hours of daylight on which to count. But with lowering clouds and heavy vapours, clear seeing at 10,000 or even 5,000 yards might be as impossible two hours before as two hours after sunset. Everything pointed, therefore, to this: the British attack would have to be instant—or it might not materialize at all. The Vice-Admiral commanding the Battle-Cruiser Fleet saw his duty clearly and simply. But to decide exactly what action he should take was a different thing altogether.

No less clear was the task of the British Commander-in-Chief. Twelve miles away from him was the whole naval strength of the enemy, 150 miles from his mine-fields, more than 200 from his fleet bases. Against sixteen modern battleships, he himself commanded twenty-four—a superiority of three to two. His gun-power, measured by the weight and striking energy of his broadsides, must have been nearly twice that of the enemy; measured by the striking energy and the destructive power of its heavier shells, it was greater still. Opposed to the enemy’s five battle-cruisers, there were four under the command of Sir David Beatty and three led by Rear-Admiral Hood. Against the six 18-knot pre-Dreadnoughts that formed the rear of the German Fleet, with their twenty-four 11-inch guns firing a 700-pound shell, there were Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas’s four 25-knot ships of the Fifth Battle Squadron, carrying thirty-two 15-inch guns, whose shells were three times as heavy and must have been nine times as destructive. This317 force, vastly superior if it could be concentrated for its purpose, had to be deployed for a blow which, if simultaneously delivered at a range at which the guns would hit, must be final in a very brief period.

The German Admiral could never have had the least doubt as to his task. His business was to save his fleet from the annihilation with which it was manifestly menaced. So far fortune had been kind. The British Battle-Cruiser Fleet had done what the Germans had expected it to do. It had engaged promptly and determinedly and its losses, surprisingly enough, had been suffered, not while it was holding a force greatly superior to itself, but while engaging Von Hipper, whose ships were less numerous and more lightly armed. Though Scheer did not expect an encounter with the Grand Fleet, he was very far from being unprepared, should it come. Accordingly, when at six o’clock he realized that the supreme moment had arrived, he was probably as little in doubt as to his method of executing his task, as to the character of the task itself.
THE TACTICAL PLANS
Admiral Scheer’s tactics

The tactics of Admiral Scheer were a development and an extension of those of Von Hipper on January 24 of the previous year. If his task was to break off action as soon as possible and to keep out of action until darkness made fleet fighting impossible, means must be found of thwarting or neutralizing the attack of the British Fleet while it lasted, of evading that attack at the earliest moment, and of preventing its resumption. He could only neutralize the attack in so far as he could thwart318 the fire-control and aiming of the enemy by the constant or intermittent concealment of his ships by smoke. He could only evade attack by preventing the overwhelming force against him being brought within striking distance. Recall for a moment the lessons of the Dogger Bank. In his retreat Von Hipper had put his flotillas to a double task. For the first two hours of that engagement he had checked the speed of his battle cruisers to cover Bluecher. When the British Fleet had so gained on him that its artillery became effective, he realized that the case of Bluecher was hopeless and that, unless prompt measures were taken, the case of the battle cruiser would be little better. Bluecher was, therefore, abandoned to her fate and Derfflinger, Seydlitz, and Moltke concealed by smoke. Simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, a veritable shoal of torpedoes was launched across the path on which Lion and her consorts were advancing. The smoke baffled the gun-layers, the changed course forced on the battle-cruisers baffled the fire-control. The Germans gained immunity from gunfire and, in the pause, changed course and got a new start in the race for home. Then the first of a succession of rendezvous for submarines placed on the pre-arranged line of the German retreat, repeated this tactic of diversion just before Lion was disabled. The intervention—an hour later—of a second protecting picket of submarines was decisive, for, on realizing their presence, the officer who had succeeded Sir David in command broke off pursuit. It was on these tactics on a greatly extended scale and developed no doubt by assiduous study and repeated rehearsal, that Scheer now had to rely.

The circumstances of the moment were exceptionally favourable for their employment. The conditions of319 atmosphere that made long-range gunnery difficult, made the establishment of smoke screens to render it more difficult still, exceptionally easy. The wind had dropped, the air was heavy and vaporous, the ships were running from one bank of light fog into another. It was a day on which smoke would stay where it was made, clinging to the surface of the sea, mingling with and permeating the water-laden atmosphere. Further, these were just the conditions in which, were a torpedo attack delivered at a fleet by the fast destroyer flotillas, the threat would have an element of surprise that would be lacking in clear vision. Such menaces, then, should they have any deterrent effect on the enemy’s closing, would be likely to have a maximum effect. The respite from gunfire, the delay in the re-formation of the fleet for pursuit, each could be the longest possible.

Two considerations must have caused Scheer the gravest possible anxiety. In the first place, smoke screens would not protect the van of his fleet. What if the British used their speed to concentrate ships there and crush it? Secondly, as destroyer attacks could only be delivered from a point in advance of the course of the squadrons it was hoped to injure or divert, the method on which he relied, first for breaking off from, and then evading, action could not be used until he had the British Fleet on his quarter or astern. Now at six o’clock the British Fleet was dead ahead of him. Its fleet’s speed must have been three, and may have been four, knots greater than his own. He had four powerful ships, six or seven knots faster still, on his port bow at a range of only 14,000 yards, supported by a 25-knot squadron only three knots slower and of enormous gun power. How was he to turn a line of twenty-one ships to get the whole of this force behind320 him, without some portion of it being overwhelmed in the process? For to turn in succession would be to leave first the centre and the rear, and then the rear entirely unsupported as the leading ships escaped. As we have seen in a previous chapter, until the enemy’s artillery was neutralized, it was out of the question to do anything but to turn on a flat arc, so that so long as it was necessary or possible, all the ships should act in mutual support. The crux of the situation was this: The Grand Fleet was but twelve miles off, a distance that could be shortened to easy gun range in ten or twelve minutes. What if the whole of this force were in a quarter of an hour brought parallel to, and well ahead of, his own? To engage it defensively by gun power would be useless for the odds were hopeless. To turn the head of the line sharply would be to purchase a precarious safety for the van by the certain immolation of the centre and the rear. Scheer must have seen that, were things to develop along this line, he would have no choice but to turn his whole fleet together, a dangerous and desperate man?uvre, but permissible because the time would have come for a sauve qui peut.

But while these considerations may have caused him some anxiety, there were other elements to reassure him. Years before the war, the Germans had discovered and grasped what seemed the fundamental strategic idea that had shaped British naval strategy. It was that the r?le of our main sea forces in war was to be primarily defensive. Our fleet was to consist of units individually more powerful than those of competing navies. As to numbers, we were aiming at possessing these on an equality with the two next largest Powers combined. It was a policy that permitted of an overwhelming concentration against321 the most powerful of our competitors, the Germans, while still maintaining substantial forces the world over. It was a presumption of this policy that the use of the sea would in war be ceded to us by our enemies, and would remain virtually undisturbed until our main forces were not only attacked but defeated. Numbers and individual power made an attack by inferior forces seem the most remote of all contingencies, and defeat impossible.

From this theory the Germans derived a corollary. It was that, as the British ideal was concerned not primarily with victory, but in avoiding defeat, we should probably not face great risks to destroy an enemy—and obviously no enemy could be destroyed without great risks—but rather would be chiefly preoccupied with averting the destruction, not only of our whole fleet, but even of such a proportion of it as would deprive us of that pre-eminence in numbers on which we seemed chiefly to rely. Hence, in the preamble of the last Navy Bill which the Government got the Reichstag to accept before the war, it was plainly stated that the naval policy of the German Higher Command did not aim at possessing a fleet capable of defeating the strongest fleet in the world, but would be satisfied with a force that the strongest fleet could not defeat, except at a cost that would bring it so low that its world supremacy would be gone. The underlying military conception was that the group then controlling the British Navy would not fight, and the underlying political conception that, should this group be replaced by leaders of a more aggressive complexion, the price we should pay for a sea victory would be a combination of the world’s other sea forces against us, they being prompted to this by their long-felt jealousy of Great Britain’s navalism.

322 In May, 1916, the bottom had fallen out of the political argument. There was no naval Power that was the least jealous of Great Britain. The submarine campaign had disgusted all with Germany’s sea ethics, and the whole world would have rejoiced had sea victory, which was necessary before the submarine could be finally defeated, been won. But on the military argument the Germans were on surer ground. They had certain substantial reasons for believing that they had not misread the psychology of our Higher Naval Command. Indeed, if Jutland left them or the world in any doubt about the matter, their interpretation was to receive the most striking of all confirmations by a statesman who had not only been First Lord of the Admiralty, but had personally selected the Commander-in-Chief on this eventful day, and had no doubt been a party to, if he had not inspired, the strategy which the Grand Fleet was to observe. Mr. Churchill left the world in no uncertainty at all that, in his opinion—which, presumably, was that not only of the Boards over which he had presided, but of those from whom it had been inherited—the British Fleet, without a victorious battle, enjoyed all the advantages that the most crushing of victories could give us, and that it was for the Germans and not for us to attempt any alteration in the position at sea. Beyond this, however, Scheer not only had it in his favour that the British Commander-in-Chief might, under such inspiration, hesitate about the risks inseparable from seeking a rapid decision at short range; he seemed to have a definite and official confirmation of a further theory, viz., that to avoid a certain form of risk was almost an axiom of official British doctrine. Von Hipper’s escape at the Dogger Bank, unexplained it is true in Sir David Beatty’s despatch,323 had been complacently attributed by the British Admiralty to the unexpected presence of enemy submarines. The immediate abandonment of the field in the presence of this form of attack, so far from being made the subject of Admiralty disapproval, seems to have been endorsed by the continuous employment of the officer responsible. Scheer could then look forward to his torpedo attack not only as holding a menace over the British Fleet that might endanger its numerical superiority. It seemed to be a menace specifically accepted as one not in any circumstances to be encountered.

Still, for all that, there was uncertainty in the matter. The sport of bull-fighting owes its continuance solely to the fact that the instincts of each brute playmate in that cruel game are exactly identical with those of every other. However busy any bull may be with a tossed and disembowelled horse, it is a matter of mathematical certainty that a red cloak dangled before his eyes will divert him from goring the rider. The animal’s reactions to each well-known pin-prick or provocation are inevitable. The safety of every toreador, piccador, and matador depends not on their power of meeting the unexpected, but upon the rapidity, deftness, and agility with which they can first time the movements which long experience has taught them to expect, and then execute the counter-stroke or evasion which an old-established art has prescribed. Scheer, it seems to me, showed something more than rashness in relying on a German analysis of our naval mentality, and upon a single instance—and endorsement—of that mentality in action, as if it established a rule of conduct as irrevocable as instinct. But, then, it must be understood, he had no choice.

324
Sir David Beatty’s Tactics

At six the Grand Fleet was five miles to the north, approximately twelve miles from the enemy. It could not come into action in less than a quarter of an hour. The speed of Lion, Tiger, Princess Royal, and New Zealand was twenty-seven knots, at least eight, possibly nine or even ten knots faster than that of the enemy. The head of the enemy’s line bore southeast from the flagship. Scheer, already aware of Sir John Jellicoe’s approach, was beginning his eastward turn. Beatty realized that at full speed he could head the German Fleet, so that by the time the Grand Fleet’s deployment was complete, he would be in a commanding position on the bow of the enemy’s van. It would probably not be possible for Evan-Thomas to gain this position, too. But there was no reason why he should. Assuming Sir David’s purpose to be the realization of the most elementary of tactical axioms, viz. to strike as nearly as possible simultaneously with all the forces in the field, Evan-Thomas would be just as useful at one end of the line as the other. The twenty-four ships of the Grand Fleet, led by the battle cruisers and with the four Queen Elizabeths as a rear squadron, would outflank the enemy at both ends of his line.

The realization of the plan would depend entirely upon the pace of the Grand Fleet in getting into action. Had all the divisions of the Grand Fleet kept their course at full speed until reaching the track of Sir David Beatty’s squadron, the starboard division would have cut that line in about ten minutes and the port division in about twelve and a half to thirteen. There would have been an interval of five miles between the leading ships. Even325 at twenty-seven knots the four battle-cruisers led by Lion could hardly have got clear of the port division and, to avoid collision, all would have had to ease their speed slightly. But undoubtedly at 6:15 or, at least, 6:20, a line might have been formed exactly in Sir David Beatty’s track. Had this line followed him as he closed down after Hood at 6:25 the enemy would have been completely outflanked at both ends of his line and even surrounded at its head. There would have been half an hour between the Grand Fleet getting into action and the failure of the light. It is difficult to suppose that, at ranges of from 11,000 yards to 8,000, the guns of the Grand Fleet could not have beaten the High Seas Fleet decisively. Scheer could not have turned. His choice would have been between annihilation and a flight pêle-mêle.

Not only does it seem that some such deployment as this was manifestly possible; it looks as if it was exactly this deployment that Admiral Beatty had expected. On any other supposition his man?uvre in throwing first his own and then Hood’s battle cruisers into a short-range fight with the Germans was to run the gravest risks of disaster, without any high probability of justifying it by a final defeat of the enemy. If he expected the Grand Fleet to deploy on to his course and so come into action with its entire strength, possibly within fifteen, certainly within twenty minutes of the enemy being sighted, then to have incurred the loss, not of one but of half of his and Hood’s ships would have been amply justified.

The man?uvre he executed—judged not as a self-contained evolution but as part of a large plan—was, of course, one of the most brilliant and original in the history of the naval war. For the first time for more than two thousand years two fleets met of which a section of one326 had nearly a 50 per cent. superiority in speed over the other. This fast squadron was sent at top speed to hold and envelop the enemy’s van. It was calculated to, and it did, arrest that van by sinking the leading ship and throwing the remainder into confusion. It was not a movement that interfered with the deployment of the Grand Fleet in the least degree. It was one, on the contrary, that would have covered it most effectively, and to a great extent must have concealed its character from the enemy. But, further, being carried through at a speed which probably exceeded that which any enemy flotilla could maintain in the open sea, the man?uvre must have made it impossible for Scheer to get his destroyers into the right position for a torpedo attack, either upon the deploying ships or upon the Grand Fleet once deployed. For to attack to advantage, the flotillas must have been brought up ahead of the British battle-cruisers, a manifest impossibility. Had the Grand Fleet as a whole, then, been in action in Sir David Beatty’s wake from 6:20 on, it is almost certain that, with all his fleet in action at short range, against guns almost twice as numerous as his own and more than three times as powerful Scheer could not have ventured upon changing the course of his fleet at all. He could not have done so, that is to say, while attempting to keep his ships in line. He might, as we have seen, have turned all his ships together in undisguised flight, he could not have kept them in fighting formation while withdrawing from a fight in these circumstances.
Sir John Jellicoe’s Tactics

Before speculating as to the plans or discussing the tactics of the British Commander-in-Chief, two factors327 which influenced the situation must be kept in mind. The first is, that the positions of the two fleets and of the enemy had been the subject of a forecast by dead reckoning in both flagships. It is to be supposed that Sir David Beatty kept Admiral Jellicoe informed from time to time of the position, speed, and course of his fleet and of the enemy, and that from these data the lines of approach had been calculated. Each flagship made its own calculations and, being made by dead reckoning, there was a discrepancy between the two, which the Commander-in-Chief describes as inevitable. It resulted from this that both were equally surprised when, at four minutes to six, Lion and Marlborough came within sight of each other. Whatever plan of action was adopted could not, if it was intended to meet the situation of the moment, have been the subject of long forethought or preparation.

The second factor was the difficulty of seeing anything at long range. This, in the first place, had prevented any rectification of the misunderstanding as to positions, such as might easily have been done had the scouting cruisers of the two fleets come into sight earlier. It followed, next, that the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet did not probably see a single ship in the enemy’s line until ten or twelve minutes after seeing the leading ship of the British Battle-Cruiser Fleet. His plan of deployment, then, orders for which must have been given some minutes before the deployment was complete, could not have been based upon his own judgment of the situation after seeing the enemy, but must have been dictated, either by some general principle of tactics applied to the information as to the enemy’s position, speed, and course, as given by the Vice-Admiral, or it must have been part of a plan suggested by the Vice-Admiral.328 There is nothing in the despatch to say whether Sir David Beatty communicated anything more to the Commander-in-Chief than the bearing and distance, first, of the enemy’s battle cruisers, then of his battleships. But it seems irrational to suppose that Sir David did not announce what he intended to do or failed to suggest how best he could be supported.

If the despatches are silent as to the nature of Sir David Beatty’s plan, they are equally silent about the Commander-in-Chief’s. We are told simply that he formed his six divisions into a line of battle and are left to infer the character and the direction of the deployment from internal evidence. The facts, so far as they can be gathered from the despatch seem to be as follows:

The Grand Fleet came upon the scene in six divisions on a S.E.-by-S. course. This means that the six divisions were parallel with the leading ships in line-abreast, with an interval of approximately a mile between each division. A line drawn through the leading ships and continued to the west would have cut the line of Sir David Beatty’s course after six o’clock, if that also had been similarly continued, making an angle of about 33 degrees. The division on the extreme right, led by Marlborough, flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, sighted Sir David Beatty’s squadron at six o’clock. At the same time Sir David reported the position of the enemy’s battle-cruisers, three of which were still at the head of the German line. The speed of the Grand Fleet was probably at least twenty knots, if not twenty-one. The six divisions seem to have continued their former course for ten or twelve minutes, when all the leading ships turned eight points—or a right angle—together to port, the second, third,329 and fourth ships in each division following their leaders in succession, so that, very few minutes after the leading ship had turned, the fleet would be on a line at right angles to its former course, and steering N.E. by E. If the leading ship continued on the new course, the fleet would then be heading at an angle of 56 degrees away from the enemy. A fleet so deployed would now be brought into action by the leading ship turning again, either to a course parallel with the enemy or converging towards it.

It seems probable that it was some such man?uvre as this that took place, from the fact that the starboard (or right hand) division, which became the rear division after deployment, got into action so early as 6:17, at a range of 11,000 yards, that is, a thousand yards nearer to the enemy than Sir David Beatty’s track, while the port division, now the leading, did not open fire till some time after 6:30, when, as we learn from the despatch, the British fleet was on the bow of the enemy. This means that the courses were parallel, but that the leading British divisions were well ahead of the enemy. Both fleets, in other words, were still steering to the east. The track of the Grand Fleet was, therefore, parallel, not only to that of the enemy, but to that of Sir David Beatty up to 6:25, but by some considerable amount, probably 2,000 yards farther from the High Seas Fleet. At 6:50 the leading battle squadron was 6,000 yards N.N.W. from Lion. The Grand Fleet had not formed up astern of the Battle-Cruiser Fleet. It had not come into action as a unit simultaneously. It had not deployed either on the enemy or on the British fast division.