THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND
We have seen Admiral Cradock, fighting against odds, sunk in the
Southern Pacific; Admiral Sturdee victorious in the battle of the
Falkland Islands; Admiral Beatty chasing the German raiders back to
their minefields over the Dogger Bank; Admirals Carden and de Robeck
battering the Turkish forts from the Ægean and the Dardanelles; British
lieutenants harrying the enemy in the recesses of the Baltic and the
Sea of Marmora; British yachtsmen patrolling the home coasts in search
of German submarines; British fishermen in steam trawlers sweeping the
fairways for enemy mines; and British liners, guarded by cruisers and
destroyers, gathering up troops from the ends of the earth. If we have
not seen, we have been conscious behind these of a host of craft of
every description--bringing sheep from Australia, horses from Uruguay,
and grain from the Argentine and American prairies; of Tyne-side
colliers battling through the Bay with coal for France and Italy, so
woefully short of it; of munition ships, laden to their utmost
capacity, crossing daily to the French ports; of letters and parcels by
the thousand million always afloat on every sea. We have seen that
admiralty alone, and the sons of {168} admiralty, were the guarantee of
that stupendous traffic; and we have seen that the bedrock upon which
the whole rested, and with it the dearest ideals of human freedom, was
the Grand Fleet, based on its northern harbours, standing sentinel over
Germany's navy. Upon its integrity all depended. Any disaster to it
would have been irreparable. And when it is remembered that there were
many days when its margin of effective superiority was small--when some
ships were absent being refitted and others were suffering from
mechanical defects--it becomes clear that no British admiral was ever
in a parallel position to that of its commander.
At the Battle of Trafalgar, for instance, Nelson was in command of but
one section of the British Fleet, and the forces vanquished by him were
far from representing the whole sea-power of the enemy. Had Nelson
been defeated or even annihilated, the command of the sea would not
necessarily have passed from us. Other squadrons would have been
speedily collected and the enemy again challenged. But now, for the
first time, practically all our battle units of real fighting value had
been placed and were assembled under the command of a single
leader--and with them our empire, the world's liberty, and the fate of
every army then fighting for it.
That must have been, then, the root fact in the mind of its
Commander-in-Chief--the "Hell-fire Jack" of earlier years--and in no
operation could he allow himself to forget it. Ashore it was
different. Here a key position, a province, even an army might be
lost--might at any rate be gambled with {169} justifiably--and the
ultimate victory still not be compromised. But at sea it was not so.
Nor was the German navy in any sense comparably placed. Its capital
ships might be sunk or destroyed without the empire behind them falling
to the ground. It could therefore afford to take chances denied to the
British, and it was to find them doing so that the Grand Fleet yearned.
For this its outposts probed the Ems and the Weser, and the Grand Fleet
itself swept the seas. But it was a long vigil, though not so long as
Nelson's, watching the Toulon Fleet for over two years; for the Jutland
Battle, as decisive at sea, though not at once so demonstrably so, as
that of Trafalgar, was fought within twenty-two months of the outbreak
of the war. During that time, as we have seen, a continual marine
struggle had been in progress; there had been a few collisions of
capital ships; and the Grand Fleet had been constantly on patrol. But
there had been no pitched battle on a grand scale; and it had even
begun to seem that there never would be. Time after time, for its
exercises, the Fleet would vanish silently from its berths. There was
hardly a day when some fraction of it, large or small, would not be
away at sea--sailing so unobtrusively, even to those most intimate with
it, the wives and families of its men and officers, that they would not
be aware of its departure till the empty berths told them the secret.
That was the position then, when, on May 30, 1916, the Grand Fleet left
its harbours--a fleet that covered when cruising, and this must always
be remembered in considering the events that followed, {170} an area
somewhat larger than the County of London. It was a lovely afternoon
of almost summer warmth, with a clear sky ashore and a promise of
settled weather; and, as usual, the Fleet put to sea in two main
divisions. Of these the southernmost and faster, consisting of the
First and Second Battle-Cruiser Squadrons, had left the Firth of Forth
under Vice-Admiral Beatty--the former being composed of the four famous
"Cats," as they had been christened, the _Lion_, the _Tiger_, the
_Princess Royal_, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral O. de B. Brock, and
the _Queen Mary_; and the latter containing the _New Zealand_, under
Rear-Admiral W. C. Pakenham, and the _Indefatigible_. Besides these,
Admiral Beatty had four of the latest battleships of the _Queen
Elizabeth_ class--the _Barham_, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral
Evan-Thomas, the _Valiant_, _Warspite_, and _Malaya_. With him were
also the First, Second, and Third Light Cruiser Squadrons and the
First, Ninth, Tenth, and Thirteenth Destroyer Flotillas. Under Admiral
Jellicoe to the north there had issued out from Scapa Flow the main
body of British sea strength--Admiral Jellicoe's flagship, the _Iron
Duke_, sailing with the Fourth Battle Squadron, and the other divisions
of the Fleet being under the command of Vice-Admirals Sir Cecil Burney,
second-in-command, Sir Thomas Jerram, and Sir Doveton Sturdee, and
Rear-Admirals Alexander Duff, Arthur Leveson, and Ernest Gaunt.
Now to appreciate the significance both of these two main divisions and
the composition of Beatty's command--the swiftest and most
heavily-gunned {171} vessels that had ever flown the White
Ensign--there are two further considerations that must always be borne
in mind. Placed as it was, the German navy could scarcely be brought
to action against its own will, and the deployment in line of battle of
so great a fleet in the North Sea--notably in its restricted southern
area--would have been a matter of the greatest difficulty even on a
clear day. It was Beatty's task, therefore, to lure the enemy, should
he be encountered, into the arms of the Battle Fleet; and, for that
reason, he had to be strong enough to engage considerable hostile
forces, and yet not so strong as to scare them home again. He had to
be swift enough to chase, but also swift enough to run away; and, in
order that his mission might be fulfilled, it was essential that
Jellicoe with his battleships should at once be not too distant and yet
far enough away to escape the wide vision of the German aircraft. In a
word, Beatty's squadron, cruising in accordance with the orders of the
Commander-in-Chief, had been made both strong enough and swift enough
to deal with any probable development. Remembering all this then, and
to perceive more clearly the general trend of the approaching conflict,
let us forget for a moment about Jellicoe's giants, and follow the
fortunes of his junior.
Throughout the afternoon and evening of May 30th nothing had been seen
of the enemy, and, though he had put to sea in full force on the
morning of May 31st, steaming northward parallel to the Jutland coast,
Beatty had not come into touch with him by noon. About that time,
therefore, he turned {172} north again on his way to rejoin the Battle
Fleet, with his light cruisers ahead of him, forming an extended
screen, and the four super-dreadnoughts--the vessels of the _Queen
Elizabeth_ type--bringing up the rear. The weather was still fine, but
the sea was hazy, and clouds had begun to overspread the sky. By this
time, unseen by Beatty, the German Fleet, also in two divisions, was
bearing to the northwest--Admiral von Hipper, with his five
battle-cruisers, the _Derfflinger_, the _Seydlitz_, the _Moltke_, the
_von der Tann_, and the _Lutzow_, being well in advance of the main
force under the command of Admiral von Scheer--as far in advance
indeed, at that moment, as Beatty was in advance of Jellicoe. Thus a
bird's-eye view, taken just before two o'clock, would have shown the
Jutland coast stretching north and south, a hundred-mile strip of more
or less empty sea, lying almost unrippled to the east of it; then the
thin line of the German Fleet steaming north and a little west, the
dark smoke from its funnels lazily rolling in the same direction; then
another strip of empty sea, from fifteen to twenty miles wide; and
finally Beatty's squadron, with its light cruisers ahead, also steaming
to the north--the two fleets drawing together on gently converging
lines.
Twenty minutes later, from the light cruiser _Galatea_, flying the
broad pennant of Commander E. S. Alexander-Sinclair, a message was
received by Admiral Beatty in the _Lion_ that enemy forces had been
sighted to the eastward; and the order was at once given to alter
course to the south-southeast to cut them off from their base. Five
minutes {173} afterward, the _Galatea_ signalled that the enemy was
present in considerable strength--a signal also received by Admiral
Jellicoe on board his flagship the _Iron Duke_--and, within ten
minutes, a drift of smoke, far to the east, became visible to the
_Lion_. Admiral Beatty now ordered the _Engadine_, the seaplane
carrier attached to his fleet, to send up a seaplane on reconnaissance,
and this was most promptly and gallantly carried out. Unable to fly,
owing to the clouds, more than 900 feet high, she came under a fierce
fire from the enemy cruisers, but brought back very valuable
information.
The presence of enemy battle-cruisers ahead was now accurately known,
and the course had been changed again to the northeast, the First and
Third Light Cruiser Squadrons having spread themselves to the eastward
to form a screen for the battle-cruisers. At half-past three the
report from the seaplane was received, and, a minute later, enemy ships
were sighted by the _Lion_, Admiral Beatty then forming into line of
battle, and again changing his course, this time to east-southeast.
All three Light Cruiser Squadrons were now ahead of the "Cats," these
being followed up by the _New Zealand_, and the _Indefatigable_, the
_Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_, and _Malaya_ bringing up the rear a
few miles behind. Von Hipper, with his five cruisers and accompanying
mosquito-craft, had also turned to the southeast, and the two forces
were again steaming parallel, and again slowly drawing together. For
the moment, the Germans were considerably outnumbered, at any rate in
capital ships, and Beatty had the advantage, {175} both tactically, in
that the sun was in his favour, not low enough to silhouette him, and
illuminating the enemy, and strategically, in that he was upon a course
cutting off von Hipper from his base. On the other hand, he was, at
the moment, and in accordance with a correct appreciation of his duty,
drawing further away from Admiral Jellicoe and the Battle Fleet to the
north; while von Hipper was aware that the whole German High Seas Fleet
was hurrying to meet him from the south. For the German rear-admiral
it was a race against time, and it cannot be denied that for the fifty
minutes in which he was thus outweighted, his gunnery was as excellent
as it had always been assumed that, in the first stages of a fight, it
would be. It was only under the ordeal of casualties, both in men and
machinery, that his accuracy began to waver and that of the British to
increase; and it was while he was at his strongest, as it chanced, that
Beatty's losses were most severe.
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{174}
[Illustration: PLAN SHOWING THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE BATTLE FLEET]
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Joining battle about ten minutes to four, at a range of ten and a half
miles, both sides pressed the attack with the utmost vigour, and it was
within a few minutes of the opening of the engagement that the
_Indefatigible_, struck on a turret over a well-filled magazine, was
sunk, thus equalizing the numbers of the opposing battle-cruisers.
Meanwhile the 15-inch guns of the great _Queen Elizabeth_ had begun to
speak at a range of fourteen miles, and, at the same time, submarines
were reported on both sides of the line of battle. These were driven
off by the destroyers _Lydiard_ and _Landrail_ and the Light Cruiser
_Nottingham_, and, a few minutes later, a concerted {176}
destroyer-attack was launched upon the enemy cruisers. This was
conducted by the _Nestor_, _Nomad_, _Nicator_, _Narborough_, and
_Nerissa_, the _Pelican_, _Petard_, _Obdurate_, _Moorsom_, and
_Morris_, and the _Turbulent_ and _Termagant_; and, almost
simultaneously, a like attack was observed to be in formation on the
part of the enemy, fifteen of his destroyers and a light cruiser being
thus intercepted and engaged at close quarters.
By half-past four, therefore, the Battle of Jutland had already
developed into the biggest of the war. Racing southward at thirty
miles an hour were fourteen of the most powerful vessels in the world,
belching half-ton shells in giant parabolas covering eight to a dozen
miles of sea; while, in between them, and under the arch of their fire,
were some thirty of the latest destroyers fighting a separate battle,
as it were, at close quarters and with the greatest ferocity. On our
own side, an 18,000-ton battle-cruiser had already been lost with most
of her crew, while the enemy's third of the line was seen to be on fire
in the mists now beginning to gather in the northeast. Two enemy
destroyers were also sunk in the mêlée of the mosquito-craft; but,
while they were driven back in disorder, our own torpedo-attack had
been compromised, the destroyers, owing to this fight, having fallen
some way behind the big battle-cruisers that were their objectives.
They were thus at a distinct disadvantage, but nevertheless, having
disposed of the enemy counter-attack, the three destroyers, _Nestor_,
_Nomad_, and _Nicator_, proceeded on their original errand--where, for
the moment, we may leave them chasing the enemy {177} battle-cruisers
and being themselves heavily bombarded.
It was now twenty minutes to five, and a message from the
_Southampton_, scouting ahead to the south, had suddenly transformed
not only the immediate situation, but the entire future outlook of the
action. Just below the horizon, but soon to be above it, was the whole
of the German Battle Fleet--such were the tidings rapped out to his
chief by Commodore Goodenough of the _Southampton_. So far Admiral
Beatty's problem had been a comparatively simple one, and the forces at
his disposal ample for its solution. But now he was to be thrown, for
an indefinite period, into a position of almost crushing inferiority,
yet with the possibility in front of him, if the enemy could be tempted
to the point of rashness, of leading up to a victory of the first
magnitude.
For another four minutes he held his course, and then, having sighted
the German Battle Fleet to the southeast, he recalled his destroyers,
and headed for the northwest, determining to take full advantage of his
superior speed. Before doing so, however, he had sustained, at about
half-past four, yet another and most serious loss in the sinking of the
_Queen Mary_, after a violent explosion, caused by an enemy salvo.
With the _Queen Mary_ we are already familiar, owing to her presence at
the Battle of the Bight; and, to her three fellow-members of the First
Battle-Cruiser Squadron, her loss was irreparable. Between these
splendid cruisers, the _Lion_, the _Tiger_, the _Princess Royal_, and
the _Queen Mary_, there had grown {178} to be a bond of deep and
justifiable pride--a sort of consciousness of each other's aristocracy,
nonchalantly concealed, but not lightly to be challenged; while, apart
from this, the _Queen Mary_ was one of the finest gunnery ships in the
Fleet. Something of the ordeal that she went through may best be
gathered, perhaps, from the account afterward given by one of her
rescued midshipmen.
"A salvo of German shells," he said, "hit the quarterdeck, setting the
whole of that part on fire. A few minutes afterward a terrific
explosion occurred in the second magazine. Both our guns were then
right back on their slides and out of action. The general opinion was
that the whole turret had been unseated by the German salvo. The
officer of the turret told me that the ship was sinking rapidly and
that I was to get the turret crew out as quickly as possible, which I
did. The officer then told me to carry out the usual routine: 'Every
man for himself.' I left the turret through the hatch on the top and
found the ship was lying on her side. She was broken amidship, with
the stern and bows both sticking out of the water at an acute angle. I
sat on the turret for a few moments, and while there I thought I saw
several men fall into the water. The stern was on fire and red hot.
Then an explosion blew the whole bow right out of the water, causing
the after part of the ship to give a tremendous lurch, and throwing me
off the turret into the water. Just before I struck the water, I heard
another terrific explosion above my head, as apparently the after
magazine exploded. When I came to the surface {179} of the water,
nothing of the _Queen Mary_ was to be seen, except a lot of wreckage,
spars, and that sort of thing. The _Tiger_ was steaming behind us
during the action, and probably passed right over the spot where the
_Queen Mary_ had gone down. The _Queen Mary_ took only about a minute
to sink. I remained in the water a long time, clinging to a spar, and
saw a destroyer come up, and saw her turn round and make off again. A
few minutes afterward, the Fifth Battle Squadron (comprising the _Queen
Elizabeth_ type of ship) steamed past at about 23 knots, firing
continually. The enemy shots were mostly falling short. One enemy
shell exploded in the water close to where I was, and the concussion
knocked me off my spar, causing me to lose consciousness. The next
thing I remember was finding myself, about four hours later, in the
forecastle of a destroyer. I was told that I had been picked up by
their whaler about thirty-five minutes after the _Queen Mary_ had been
blown up. I was found on a large hatch which was floating in the
water."
With the battle-cruisers swinging round to the north, the destroyers
having been recalled, let us return for a moment to the _Nomad_,
_Nestor_, and _Nicator_. Proceeding with their attack, the destroyer
_Nomad_ had soon been put out of action, but the _Nestor_, most
spiritedly led by Commander the Hon. E. B. B. Bingham, had fired her
third torpedo at the second of the enemy cruisers from a distance of
less than two miles. Before being able to fire her fourth, she too had
become crippled; while the _Nicator_, having to turn inside her in
order to avoid a collision, {180} had been unable to fire her last
torpedo, but had succeeded in escaping and rejoining her flotilla.
The position was now as follows--the Light Cruiser _Southampton_,
obeying orders to reconnoitre, was still steaming south; the British
battle-cruisers, led by the _Lion_, were steaming north, parallel to
von Hipper; and the four 24-knot battleships, led by Admiral
Evan-Thomas, were still on their original course, not having yet made
the turn. This brought them, for a few minutes, into closer range of
von Hipper's battle-cruisers, and it was at this stage that the German
_Lutzow_ was severely damaged, subsequently to be lost. This was von
Hipper's flagship, and, leaving her in a destroyer, under the heaviest
British fire, the German admiral, later in the action, transferred his
flag to the Battle-Cruiser _Derfflinger_. A quarter of an hour
afterward, the four _Queen Elizabeths_ swung round astern of Beatty;
and it was now upon these vessels that the fire of von Scheer's
approaching battleships began to be concentrated.
There had thus begun the second stage of this great battle, in which
Beatty, confronted by odds that he could not face, was now heading to
the north, and drawing the whole hungry German Fleet toward Admiral
Jellicoe, some fifty miles away. Ahead of the _Lion_ was the Light
Cruiser _Fearless_, another memorable figure in the Battle of the
Bight, and the destroyers of the First Flotilla; also ahead and to
starboard were the First and Third Light Cruiser Squadrons; while,
behind and to port, was the Second Light Cruiser Squadron--the Light
Cruiser _Champion_, {181} with the rest of the destroyers, remaining in
touch with Admiral Evan-Thomas.
It was now past five o'clock and the weather conditions were becoming
rapidly more unfavourable. Against the clearer sky to the west, the
British vessels were far more clearly defined than the German, the
latter passing in and out of the patches of mist, thus making the task
of the British gunners one of the extremest difficulty. Nevertheless
it was now that the British fire was definitely beginning to assert its
superiority, while the shooting of the Germans, under their heavy
punishment, was becoming increasingly more wild--the main brunt of
their fire, during this northward race, being borne, as we have said,
by the _Queen Elizabeths_. For some time, indeed, it would scarcely
have been an exaggeration to say that the four of them were engaged
with the whole High Seas Fleet; while some of them at least had the
narrowest of escapes from being torpedoed by submarines. Thanks to
their admirable handling, however, they came through unscathed, one of
the enemy's submarines being certainly sunk.
By his rapid appreciation of the new position, his instant decision,
and the course that he had taken, Admiral Beatty was now ahead of the
long parallel German line and slowly bending it toward the north-east,
keeping within an eight-mile range of the leading cruisers. To von
Hipper and von Scheer--the latter newly in command of the German High
Seas Fleet--he must have seemed, for a few minutes, but a retreating
and easy prey; but, a little to the north-west, the British Battle
Fleet was hurrying at full {182} speed to his assistance--the space
between them diminishing at the rate of forty-five miles an hour.
The most crucial moments of the whole engagement were now irrevocably
approaching--moments that were to test, as they had scarcely been
tested before, perhaps, the initiative and tactical skill of the
commanding admirals. Already there was in progress a naval action
extending over many miles of sea, and being fought under conditions of
mist and fog of the most complex and baffling nature. It was an action
that even then, involving every device of modern offensive warfare, had
assumed proportions more titanic than that of any sea-fight ever
fought; and there was now to be committed to it--and so committed to it
that not a moment was to be lost--the mightiest battle fleet in the
world and the one vital safeguard of the Allies. When it is further
remembered that the situation, however accurately signalled by the
engaged squadrons, was changing with lightning-like rapidity from
moment to moment; and that the deployment--the dove-tailing, as it
were--of the six parallel columns of twenty-four dreadnoughts into the
line of battle-cruisers already formed would, under any circumstances,
have been an operation of the most delicate nature, something may be
conceived of the sort of task that Admiral Jellicoe had to undertake.
By no other hand could this stupendous manoeuvre have been more ably
carried out, and, as a commander at sea, by the sternest of all tests,
he proved himself among the finest that Britain has produced. Nor were
his admirals unworthy of him either in their divination {183} of the
movements demanded by their relative positions, or in the seamanship
and machine-like precision with which such movements were carried out.
Let us follow these, as far as possible, in the order in which they
occurred.
Steaming in advance of the main fleet under Admiral Jellicoe, was the
Third Battle-Cruiser Squadron, under Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace A. L.
Hood; and this had received orders from the Commander-in-Chief to find
and support Beatty at the earliest possible moment. Led by the
flagship _Invincible_, formerly Sturdee's flagship at the Battle of the
Falkland Islands, the first sign of fighting was seen by them in the
southwest about half-past five. Necessarily uncertain as to the exact
position of affairs, Admiral Hood sent one of his light cruisers to
reconnoitre--the _Chester_, which soon found herself fiercely engaged
with three or four of the enemy's light cruisers. For nearly twenty
minutes she fought single-handed, suffering a large number of
casualties; but, thanks to the skill of her commander, Captain R. N.
Lawson, and the devotion of all on board, she escaped comparatively
unscathed, though with some honourable scars. It was during this
action that John Travers Cornwell, a first-class boy, just over
sixteen, though mortally wounded and with every member of his gun's
crew lying disabled about him, remained alone, in a most exposed
position, till the end of the action, awaiting orders--exemplifying a
devotion to duty for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
It was now clear to Admiral Hood that he was too {184} far to the east,
and, at the same time, Beatty had sighted the first of the reinforcing
cruisers. Six minutes later, and five miles to the north, he caught a
glimpse of the leading British battleships; and it was then that he
judged the moment to have come to try and work between the enemy and
his bases. To decide was to act, and, just before six, therefore,
working up his engines to their highest capacity, Beatty altered the
course of his ships to the direct east, closing the range. Some time
before this, the destroyer _Moresby_ had torpedoed the enemy sixth of
the line, and, ten minutes after changing course, her fellow-destroyer
_Onslow_ torpedoed an enemy light cruiser.
While this was in progress, Admiral Hood with his battle-cruisers had
come into sight, and, acting on Beatty's orders, had taken the head of
the line in a manner, as Beatty said, worthy of his great ancestors.
For a quarter of an hour, so fiercely did he attack, with the strenuous
support of Admiral Napier and the Third Light Cruiser Squadron, that
the enemy's leading ships were forced to the south and west, and the
British line was already beginning, as Beatty had designed, to insert
itself between the Germans and their coast-line. Unhappily at the
close range at which Admiral Hood was now fighting--something less than
four miles--an enemy shell found one of the _Invincible's_ turrets,
firing the magazine, and sinking her in less than two minutes.
The imminent approach of the British Battle Fleet had, of course, by
this time become known to the German commander, and, indeed, it seems
probable {185} that he mistook Admiral Hood's battle-cruisers for its
leading ships. With the head of his line definitely menaced by Admiral
Beatty's dash, he was on an easterly, becoming southeasterly, course;
Admiral Beatty and his battle-cruisers were already threatening to
intervene between him and his bases; and he now turned to starboard
again, through south to southwest, in the endeavour to escape disaster,
if that were possible. Moreover, the weather conditions that, for the
last hour or so, had been almost wholly in his favour, were now
beginning to tell against him almost as much as they were handicapping
the British. One after another, his cruisers and battleships, emerging
for a few minutes from the fog, would be instantly picked up and
remorselessly hammered by the heavy guns of the British Battle-Cruiser
Squadrons; while the leading battleships of the Grand Fleet were
already beginning to fall into line behind these.
Meanwhile the four _Queen Elizabeths_, under Admiral Evan-Thomas, now
considerably in the rear of Admiral Beatty, were still heavily engaged
with von Scheer's battleships lower down his line and not yet turned.
It had been the original idea of Admiral Evan-Thomas to follow up the
battle-cruisers ahead of the Grand Fleet; but these were so far in
front of him that it was clearly preferable--and indeed it was apparent
that this would be Admiral Jellicoe's own view--that the Grand Fleet
should deploy in the gap, Admiral Evan-Thomas himself thus bringing up
the rear. At the same time, after the loss of the _Invincible_, Beatty
had again placed himself at the head {186} of the line, the Third
Battle-Cruiser Squadron taking station behind him, between the _New
Zealand_ and the on-coming Battle Fleet.
That all this should have taken place in the deepening twilight at
great speed, and in spite of repeated torpedo-attacks, was the highest
tribute, not only to the Commander-in-Chief, but to the seamanship and
intuition of his supporting admirals--and here it must be remembered
that, to a certain extent, Admiral Jellicoe himself had been taken by
surprise. Between the position of the German Fleet, as it had been
signalled to him, and the position in which he eventually came into
contact with it, there was a difference of twelve miles--quite
understandable in view of the conditions in which courses had been
plotted, but none the less adding to the difficulties of the on-coming
Commander. Thus, at five minutes to six, he was still uncertain of the
exact whereabouts of the enemy--the utmost care was necessary in order
to distinguish between our own and hostile vessels--and he was steering
on a course, southwest by south, at a speed of 20 knots. It was
scarcely avoidable also, under such circumstances, that there should
have been a certain number of casualties; and it was while manoeuvring
in what we have called this gap that some of the cruisers ahead of the
Battle Fleet found themselves not only too close to the enemy
battleships, but, a few minutes later, between the enemy line and the
advancing _Queen Elizabeths_. It was there that the _Defence_, under
Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, was blown up and sunk, and the
_Warrior_ so severely damaged that she was {187} subsequently lost,
though not before they had disabled, between them, one of the enemy's
light cruisers.
"At 5.40," said one of the _Warrior's_ survivors, "we went to Action
Stations, and, ten minutes later, we heard the first gun fired by the
armoured cruiser _Defence_. A few minutes afterward, the _Warrior_
fired her starboard battery's big guns, and then we slewed round and
fired the port guns. We had not sent off more than a couple of salvos,
when, looking out, I saw the _Defence_ blown clean out of the water.
We were then closely engaged with three German ships--a battle-cruiser
and two light cruisers. Our first round went home. We had not been
firing many minutes before we noticed that one of the enemy light
cruisers was on fire, and big clouds of smoke were coming from her.
Gradually we got to closer range (ten thousand yards), firing all the
time; and we ourselves had been hit many times by heavy projectiles,
and almost the whole of the afterpart of the ship was on fire.
Finally, we got within 5,400 yards of the battle-cruiser, but we had
only fired one salvo with all our guns when the _Warspite_ came to our
assistance. By that time our ship was almost helpless; our
engine-rooms and stokeholds were flooded, owing to a projectile having
penetrated below the water-line, so that we could not obtain steam for
the engines. Shells or heavy armour-piercing shot had penetrated
almost everything. The ship was also making water badly, and there was
a fire in the after part of the vessel. Part of the ship's company was
all this time engaged with the hose in trying to put out the fire, and
the men not required for that were {188} set to work to construct
rafts, for the ship was gradually settling down. At 6.30 the order was
given to cease fire, for we had, by that time, lost all trace of the
German Fleet, and the _Warrior_ was regarded as being out of action.
As soon as the fire was got under control, we commenced to identify the
dead, who were that night buried (the funeral service being held the
next day), and to get up the wounded. That being done, all hands were
set to work at the pumps so as to keep the ship afloat, and we had to
keep them going all night. Early in the evening--at 7.50--a seaplane
depot-ship came alongside and took us in tow for ten hours. The
_Warrior_ settled down more and more all through the night. On the
following morning, the sea was very rough. Early in the forenoon, the
order was reluctantly given to abandon ship. The depot-ship again came
alongside, and our wounded were all safely transferred to her. Then
the ship's company and officers left the ship, and the last we saw of
the _Warrior_ was between nine and ten in the forenoon when she was
rapidly settling down aft. We were naturally all very sorry to see the
last of the grand old ship, but after all she came to a gallant end."
It will have been noticed that the _Warspite_ is mentioned by this
observer as coming to the _Warrior's_ rescue; and this refers to an
incident, occurring at this period, that was one of the most remarkable
of the whole battle. While emptying salvos into von Scheer's leading
battleships, the steering-gear of the _Warspite_ became jammed; and, to
the horror of her consorts in Admiral Evan-Thomas's squadron, she {189}
suddenly began to describe a great circle toward the enemy. This
immediately exposed her to the extremest, and what seemed an inevitably
fatal, disadvantage, and she disappeared from sight behind a veritable
Niagara of shell-spouts, smoke, and explosions. Presently, to
everybody's amazement, she emerged again, stricken but not disabled,
and replying vigorously, and then once more, still at full speed,
proceeded upon the same astounding course. It was just before the
_Defence_ was sunk that her steering-gear became jammed; and it was
while describing her two great circles that she drew the enemy's fire
from the _Warrior_. To the latter, as we have seen, it seemed as if
she had been deliberately doing this, and afterward her commander
boarded the _Warspite_ to tender his thanks--where Captain Phillpotts,
whose skilful handling had brought his vessel safe home to harbour,
while very pleased to have been of service, had regretfully to deny the
imputed gallantry.
Another most brilliant action was fought at this time by the Third
Light Cruiser Squadron, under Rear-Admiral Napier, the _Falmouth_ and
_Yarmouth_--the latter a distinguished member of the China Squadron
before the war--both firing torpedoes and scoring a hit on the German
battle-cruiser leading the line, the whole squadron then closing in and
engaging these much more powerful vessels with their guns. Nor were
the destroyers any less busy, though considerably outnumbered by the
Germans, and the action of the _Shark_ may be taken as typical both of
their enterprise and devotion. Unhappily she was lost with her brave
leader (also awarded the Victoria {190} Cross) Commander Loftus Jones,
but, for ten minutes, she fought a fight according to the greatest
traditions of her class.
"Right ahead of us," said one of her survivors, "and close at hand, we
saw two columns of German destroyers. We were racing along at the
time, and our skipper took us at full speed right toward the enemy
lines. There was a column of their small craft on either 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. We had been engaged about ten minutes when
two torpedoes hit fairly, one on each side of our ship, and ripped
three holes in her, so that she sank almost at once. I and some others
sprang on to a raft, where we stayed for five hours watching the
battle--and there was something to look at. Zeppelins, torpedo-craft,
submarines, and big ships were all there. Shells fell like hailstones
into the water, and we could see the small craft getting it badly. The
enemy losses in destroyers must have been very great, for whenever one
got a big shell in her she was done. Some of them I saw hit went down
like stones. Apparently there were a lot of German submarines, and
they seemed to be very busy, but my impression is that a good many of
them were done for by our ships running over them. The fire of the big
ships was enough to stun anybody {191} with the noise it made. I saw
five German battleships and battle-cruisers; they looked as though they
were all firing at one time at one of our cruisers. The Germans seemed
to be concentrating their fire upon one ship at a time as much as they
could--a lot of these big ships would all turn the whole of their guns
upon one of our cruisers, and then do the same thing to another. This
meant a tremendous battering for the ships they fired at. You can
imagine what it was to face these salvos from four or five of their
vessels pouring upon one ship at the same time. I saw one or two ships
go, but I could not give you any particulars about them, as there was
so much going on that one could not grasp details very well. When I
was picked up from the raft, I was about done, for it was very cold,
and I had not much clothing on. Toward the latter part of the time, we
had as much as we could to do keep life in ourselves. We kept our
blood circulating by jumping overboard and swimming round the raft.
All of us did this in turn, those on the raft hauling in the men who
had finished their swim, and then going for a swim round the raft
themselves. As it was, one of our men died from exposure before he
could be landed."
Meanwhile, in such circumstances and under such conditions, the
deployment of the Battle Fleet had been carried through. It was not
until fourteen minutes past six that Admiral Jellicoe received definite
confirmation from Admiral Beatty as to the position of the High Seas
Fleet; and, two minutes later, still on a course southeast by east, he
ordered the Fleet to deploy into line of battle on the port {192} wing
column, at the same time reducing speed to 14 knots in order to allow
the battle-cruisers to pass ahead. For this manoeuvre, since a
starboard deployment would have brought him more rapidly into contact
with the enemy, Admiral Jellicoe had several cogent reasons. In the
first place, the High Seas Fleet was so near that, assuming its
destroyers to be probably ahead of it, there would have been a very
great danger, under the prevailing weather conditions, of a successful
enemy destroyer-attack during deployment--and the consequent grave risk
of the whole Battle Fleet being thrown into confusion. There would
also have been the risk of the ships of the First Battle
Squadron--inferior in many respects to the German, and our own weakest
battleships--being very severely handled before our remaining divisions
could get into line. Yet a third reason for the port deployment, in
the estimated position of the German High Seas Fleet, was that the
alternative would have meant a very large turn for every deploying
division, in order to avoid the risk of being outflanked.
For these reasons, Admiral Jellicoe decided therefore--and it had to be
an instant decision--to deploy in the manner described. The port wing
division, therefore, stood on in a direction across the bows of the
German Battle Fleet. The other squadrons followed, thus compelling the
Germans to turn yet further to starboard to avoid being placed in a
position of disastrous tactical disadvantage. By 6.33 P. M., the
battle-cruisers were clear, and the speed of the Battle Fleet was
increased to 17 knots; and, {193} by 6.38, deployment was complete,
many of our battleships being already in action. Of these the first to
be engaged were those of the First Battle Squadron, under Vice-Admiral
Burney, his flag-ship, the _Marlborough_, especially distinguishing
herself by the rapidity and effectiveness of her fire. Between a
quarter past six and a quarter past seven, she had engaged two
battleships and a cruiser; been herself torpedoed; and then, in spite
of this, had put out of action yet another enemy battleship. Admiral
Jellicoe's own battleship, the _Iron Duke_, had begun to hit at her
third salvo; and, throughout the action, the Grand Fleet's gunnery
maintained the highest standard. As a German officer afterward
admitted, "We were utterly crushed from the moment your Battle Fleet
came into action."
With the third phase of the battle, however, that would have seen, on a
clear summer evening, the annihilation of the German Fleet, the weather
had so changed, that only with the greatest difficulty was the enemy
kept in sight at all. For a few minutes, about half-past seven, Beatty
was able to engage, setting a ship on fire; but soon the fog was
thicker than ever, and he had to send his light cruisers to locate the
enemy. Three-quarters of an hour later, the line was found again, the
_Lion_ setting the leading ship on fire, and the _Princess Royal_, _New
Zealand_, and _Indomitable_ crippling and setting fire to two others.
That, as it turned out, was the last action fought by any of our
capital ships; and it would be well, perhaps, to pause here for a brief
survey of the general position of the two fleets. Admiral Beatty,
still at {194} the head of the line, was by now far to the south and
shaping a southwesterly course, the Battle Fleet streaming behind him,
to the north, and then to the west, somewhat in the shape of a vast
hook with its shaft tilted toward the northwest. Within this hook, the
enemy's line, broken in many places, was struggling homeward--the shaft
of the hook already lying well between him and his bases. It was such
a predicament as, but for mist and darkness, must undoubtedly have
proved fatal; and it must be confessed that von Scheer showed
considerable skill in making all possible use of his respite.
Superior in destroyers, he did his utmost, by putting up smoke-screens
and ordering torpedo-attacks, to add to the difficulties of our capital
ships in bringing his own to close quarters; and, during the night,
after sustaining heavy casualties--more particularly in _personnel_--he
succeeded in rounding the shaft of the hook and bringing his shattered
forces home to port. Of that wild night, therefore, the picture
resolves itself into one of destroyers and light cruisers searching the
darkness; of flying glimpses of enemy units; of fierce but momentary
bursts of fire. Thus, at twenty minutes past ten, the Second Light
Cruiser Squadron fought a quarter of an hour's engagement with five
enemy cruisers; at half-past eleven, the _Birmingham_ sighted two
capital ships making their way southward to be lost in the night again;
an hour later, the _Petard_ and _Turbulent_, two destroyers, were
suddenly transfixed by the searchlights of a retreating battleship, the
_Turbulent_ being sunk by the enemy's secondary armament as she raced
past, {195} seeking safety. The destroyer _Tipperary_, with her
commander, Captain Wintour, the leader of the Fourth Flotilla, was also
lost, but not before the flotilla had inflicted severe casualties upon
the enemy. Another organized destroyers-attack was that of the Twelfth
Flotilla, under Captain A. J. B. Stirling, in which a large detachment
of the enemy was taken by surprise, one of his vessels being blown up
and another hit.
So the night passed, never to be forgotten by any who lived through it,
and, for only too many, slipping benumbed off rafts and wreckage into
the water, or going down in the roar of explosions, the last night of
all. "When a battleship is hit and seriously damaged," afterward wrote
the famous American, Admiral Dewey, "there is no way of knowing whether
or not she is about to sink. It may be possible that she will remain
afloat for hours, or that she may not sink at all. Her purpose is to
continue to damage the enemy to the greatest possible extent. A single
final shot fired from a sinking ship may be the blow that will turn the
tide of battle and the destiny of empires. The damaged battleship,
therefore, continues to fight. The men remain in the fire room, in the
turrets, at their guns. Every man continues that particular job which
is his in fighting the ship as long as she may strike a blow. It
therefore happens that, when a battleship goes down, there is
practically nobody on deck, and there is no man who may leave his post
in time to put on a lifebelt or launch a raft. Quite naturally, every
man dies with the ship."
{196}
In this way Admirals Hood and Arbuthnot and many a gallant sailor, long
to be remembered, went down with their ships, though, despite all
risks, when the run of the battle permitted, rescues were attempted and
often with success. A typical example of this was the action of the
destroyer _Defender_, under Lieutenant-Commander Laurence R. Palmer,
who, herself having been severely damaged by a 12-inch shell in her
foremost boiler, struggled to the assistance of the _Onslow_, under
Lieutenant-Commander J. C. Tovey, who had been rendered helpless by an
enemy shell.
This latter destroyer, having sighted a light cruiser about to attack
the _Lion_ with torpedoes, had at once assailed her with the utmost
spirit, closing to within a range of a little over a mile, and firing
no less than fifty-eight rounds at her. She had then proceeded to
attack some enemy battle-cruisers, and had already fired one of her
torpedoes, when she was struck by a shell; and her commander, thinking
his torpedoes all gone, had then ordered her retirement. Learning,
however, that he still had three torpedoes left, he again attacked and
torpedoed the light cruiser, with which he had been previously engaged,
sighted some more battleships and loosed the rest of his torpedoes,
before his vessel gave out and came to a standstill. It was while thus
drifting helplessly, and with shells plunging all about her, that the
_Defender_, whose own speed had been reduced to about ten knots, came
alongside and took her in tow. Twice during the night, owing to the
rising sea, the tow between these two heroic cripples became parted,
{197} and twice it was made good, the two journeying together till the
afternoon of the following day. Lastly must be mentioned the _Abdiel_,
which, under the command of Captain Berwick Curtis, had been ordered by
Admiral Jellicoe to lay mines behind the retreating Germans. This her
great speed--40 knots an hour--and the gallantry of all on board
enabled her to do, the flying enemy sustaining several casualties as
the result of her enterprise and skill.
So ended the Battle of Jutland, as regarded the sea, the most gigantic
that the world had known--for, when the next day dawned, June 1st, a
day already glorious in British annals, it was to find the enemy gone
and Admiral Jellicoe in unchallenged possession of the field. Breaking
through mists, well-nigh as dense as those in which it had set, the sun
rose and with it the hopes of the British admirals that the work of the
night might be completed. Those hopes, alas, remained unfulfilled,
for, when the fog cleared and the sea lay revealed, it became apparent
that the enemy had fled, broken and dispirited, under the cover of
darkness, and was in no mood to rejoin the battle that he was already
proclaiming as a German victory.
Four hundred miles from its bases--in enemy waters, close to his very
harbours--the Grand Fleet waited till eleven in the morning before
reluctantly sailing for home. And it was this fact, in itself a proof
of triumph, that was partly accountable for the immediate sequel. For
there now followed, thanks to the precipitate German flight, and the
enemy's neighbourhood to his bases; to the world's {198} unfamiliarity,
after nearly a century, with the cost and criterion of naval success;
and to the prompt and wholly unscrupulous use by the German Government
of its wireless press agencies--an almost world-wide belief that the
British Fleet had met with disaster.
With the Grand Fleet still at sea off its own coast, Germany flooded
the world with the following statement: "During an enterprise directed
toward the North, our High Seas Fleet, on Wednesday last, met a
considerably superior main portion of the British Battle Fleet. In the
course of the afternoon, between the Skager Rack and the Horn Reef, a
number of severe and, for us, successful engagements developed and
continued all night. In these engagements, as far as is at present
ascertained, we destroyed the great battleship _Warspite_, the
battle-cruisers _Queen Mary_ and _Indefatigable_, two armoured cruisers
of the _Achilles_ class, one small cruiser, and the new destroyer
leaders _Turbulent_, _Nestor_, and _Alcester_. According to
trustworthy evidence, a great number of British battleships suffered
heavy damage from the artillery of our vessels and the attacks of our
torpedo-boat flotillas, during the day battle and during the night.
Among others, the great battleship _Marlborough_ was hit by a torpedo,
as is confirmed by the statements of prisoners. A portion of the crews
of the British vessels that were sunk were picked up by our vessels.
On our side the small cruiser _Wiesbaden_ was sunk by the enemy's
artillery in the course of the day battle, and, during the night, the
_Pommern_ by a torpedo. Regarding the fate of the _Frauenlob_, which
is missing, and some torpedo-boats, which {199} have not returned up to
the present, nothing is known. The High Seas Fleet returned to its
harbour in the course of to-day."
This was the German version, by twenty-four hours the first in the
field; and a certain kind of triumph undoubtedly followed it. In every
neutral country, including America, heavily captioned newspaper
articles proclaimed a British defeat--an impression hardly dissipated
by the candour and caution of the first British official report. That
our losses were heavy could not, of course, be denied, and they were
instantly and frankly confessed. Six cruisers, including three
battle-cruisers, and eight destroyers had paid the price of admiralty;
while, on the other hand, the German losses were only grudgingly
announced as it became impossible to conceal them. How heavy they were
and how profound was the loss of moral that followed the Jutland defeat
was only later to become manifest, though a good deal might have been
guessed from the foregoing message. Further evidence, too, might have
been deduced from the hurried visit of the Kaiser to Wilhelmshaven, and
the almost hysterical exaggeration of his address to his broken fleet.
There he assured them that "the gigantic fleet of _Albion_, ruler of
the seas, which, since Trafalgar, for a hundred years, had imposed on
the whole world a bond of sea tyranny," had "come out into the field,"
and had been beaten; that "a great hammer blow" had been struck; and
that the "nimbus of British world supremacy had disappeared."
Such were the Kaiser's words, breathed into the {200} ear of the world
to conceal the result of Jutland, if this might be done; and hardly was
the armistice signed before they were openly given the lie by one of
Germany's leading authorities. After the Battle of Jutland, said
Captain Persius, so shattering had been its results for the German
navy, it had at once become clear to all thinking men that no second
engagement must be risked; and, even at the time, it soon began to be
suspected by the rest of the world that this was the truth. As for the
Grand Fleet itself it was content to wait. It knew that it had won,
and it had long learned patience. Let the Kaiser harangue. To-morrow
would come, and, with to-morrow, the truth would out. Meanwhile it
rode the seas on its accustomed ways, while, behind its shield, and
beneath its pressure, the armies of freedom poured into Europe, and the
strength of Germany continued to crumble.
{201}