JUTLAND
(1916)
At four o'clock in the morning of the 4th of August, 1914, Lord
Jellicoe opened the secret orders appointing him Commander-in-chief of
the Grand Fleet, which was then ready waiting in Scapa Flow, the great
war harbour in the Orkney Islands off the far north coast of Scotland.
Twenty-two months later, off the Jutland Bank of Denmark, he fought
that battle of the giant navies for which the Germans had so long
prepared. Of course the Germans did not want Jutland at the time it
came. For, as we have seen already, they wished to have two quite
separate wars, the first against the French and Russians, the second
against the British; and, if the British had only kept out for as many
months as the Americans did years, the Germans and their allies would
certainly have won this first war, besides gaining an immensely better
chance of winning the second war as well. Even as it was, they were
not only very strong on land but also very strong at sea. They were
easily the second sea-power in the world, in regard to both their navy
and their merchant shipping. Moreover, they had many advantages, even
over the British. This is so little known, and it is so important for
a proper understanding of what took place at Jutland, that we must
begin by looking a little more closely into the strong and weak points
of the two great rival navies.
[Illustration: JELLICOE.]
So far as fitness for battle depended on the officers and men of the
Navy itself the Grand Fleet was as nearly perfect as anything could be.
Sprung from the finest race of seamen in the world, trained for a
longer time than any foreigners, and belonging to what everyone for
centuries has known to be the first of all the navies, the British
bluejackets formed the handiest crews you could have found in any age
or country. Their officers knew how to handle men, ships, and fleets
alike; and every one had been long "tuned up" for instant action. The
gunnery stood every test, as the Germans know to their cost; and it
actually got better as the fight grew worse, partly because the British
keep so cool, and partly because length of expert training tells more
and more as the storm and stress increase. It was the same in the
engine room, the same in everything, right up to the supreme art of
handling a fleet at racing speed in the midst of a battle on which the
fate of freedom hung.
But when we come to those things that depended on the Government there
is a very different tale to tell, because no government can get money
for the Navy without votes in Parliament, and men cannot become Members
of Parliament without the votes of the People, and most people will not
spend enough money to get ready for even a life-or-death war unless
they see the danger very close at hand, right in among the other things
that press hard upon their notice. Looking after the country's safety
needs so much time, so much knowledge, and so much thinking out that it
has to be left, like all other kinds of public service, to the
Government, which consists of a few leaders acting as the agents of
Parliament, which, in its turn, consists of a few hundred members
elected by the People in their millions. Whatever government is in
power for the time being can, as the trusted agent of the People's
chosen Parliament, do whatever it likes with the Army and Navy. The
great soldiers and sailors, who know most about war, can only tell the
Government what they think. The Government can then follow this expert
advice or not, just as it pleases. Now, even in time of approaching
danger, the trouble is that governments are always tempted to say and
do what costs the least money and gives the least cause for alarm,
because they think the People like that best. This was the case with
the British governments in power during the fourteen years before the
war, when Germany was straining every nerve to get the better of the
British Navy. They were warned again and again. But they saw that
most of the People, who were not watching the coming German storm,
wanted most of the money spent on other things. So they did not like
to hear the expert truth; they feared to tell the People; and they
hoped the worst would never happen. But it did happen; and it found
many a weak spot due to the Government; though not one that was due to
the Navy itself. "Well, it's all going just as we expected," said Sir
Charles Madden to Lord Jellicoe in the conning tower of the _Iron Duke_
in the middle of the Jutland battle. So it did. Everything that
really mattered was foreseen by the real naval experts. You never
catch the Navy napping.
But you do catch governments, parliaments, and people napping very
often. Yet here we should not be unjust either to governments in
general or to those of our Mother Country in particular. Governments
of free countries depend upon the People; so we must all take our share
of the blame for what our own elected agents do wrong or fail to do
right. And as for the Mother Country; well, with all her faults, she
did the best of any. We cannot fairly compare her with the
self-governing Dominions, like Canada and Australia, because she had so
very much more to do. Her war work was more than twice as hard as
theirs, even in proportion to her strength; and she led the whole
Empire in making the greatest efforts and by far the greatest
sacrifices. But we can compare her with our Allies; and, if we do, we
shall find her stand the test. For if her Government made mistakes
before the war, so did that French Government whose Prime Minister,
Caillaux, had to be tried as a traitor during the war. So, too, did
that party in Italy which favoured the Germans against the true Italian
patriots. And how about the Peace Party in the United States that kept
the Americans out of all but the end of the war, gaining a whole world
of money and almost losing the nation's soul?
Great Britain gave the Navy what most voters think are needed for a
war, especially such things as the papers talked of most, like
dreadnoughts, guns, and torpedoes. But there was a lack of light
cruisers and destroyers to fight off the same kind of German craft,
guard the seaways, and kill the sneaking submarines. The docks in
which ships are built and mended make little show for the money spent
on them; so the Government never asked Parliament for enough till the
war broke out, which meant that some dreadnoughts had to be more or
less cramped so as to fit into the old-fashioned docks. The decks of
the battle cruisers were not strong enough to keep out armour-piercing
shells; so two of them were sunk at Jutland that might have otherwise
been saved. The means of guarding the big ships against mines and
submarines wore not nearly good enough at the start. There were
fishing craft enough, and fishermen who were as good sailors as the
world has ever seen, and dockyard hands enough to build new boats to
fish for the deadly mines and spread the nets for nosing submarines.
But they were not used in time.
Now look at the Germans. Their officers knew their navy had no chance
in a fair stand-up fight with Jellicoe's Grand Fleet. But even these
officers hoped that their mines and submarines, with a streak of good
luck, might make the odds more even. Apart from their naval experts
the Germans had no doubt at all. Their bluejackets and the German
people as a whole thought everything German the best in the world; and
long before the war the million members of the German Navy League had
been persuading the people to vote most of the money the Kaiser wanted
for his fleet. The Kiel Canal let the German High Sea Fleet play
hide-and-seek between the North Sea and the Baltic without the
slightest risk on the way. The British, on the other hand, could only
get into the Baltic by going round between Denmark and Sweden, both
being neutrals whose territories could not be touched. The way through
is so narrow that the water is all "territorial," that is, it belongs
to the countries beside it, and was, therefore, as neutral as they
were. But even if Denmark and Sweden had let the Grand Fleet go
through, it would have gone to certain defeat; for a weaker navy inside
the Baltic could have crushed the British as they came through one by
one--the only possible way.
Now look at the North Sea, which was the real battleground. The area
is about a hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles. But the
average distance you can see clearly, taking one day with another all
the year round, is only five miles. This was very nice for lurking
mines, sneaking submarines, and sudden cruiser raids against the
British coasts. The coastline of the British Isles is more than twenty
times as long as the North Sea coast of Germany, much easier to
navigate and very much harder to defend--another advantage for the
Germans. The Grand Fleet could not attack the German coast, which has
only three good seaways into it, which has a string of islands off it,
and which, difficult for foreign ships in time of peace, is impossible
in time of war. The whole of the shore and off-shore islands were full
of big guns in strong forts--and remember that you can sink a fleet,
though you can't sink a coast--while the waters were full of mines and
submarines.
Moreover, in destroyers, which are as dangerous out at sea as they are
round a base, the German "High Sea Fleet" began with no less than
eighty-eight against the forty-two in the British "Grand Fleet." The
British had so many narrow seaways to defend that they could not spare
Jellicoe nearly enough light cruisers or destroyers. It was only after
Jutland that the Grand Fleet became so very much stronger than the High
Sea Fleet. Before Jutland the odds in favour of the British battle
squadrons were only about four to three; and the Germans had special
advantages in searchlights that showed up everything except the
position of the ships that carried them, in wonderfully bright and
bewildering star-shells, in the gear for bringing all the quick-firing
guns of the big ships to bear at once on light craft trying to torpedo
them, and in very cleverly made delay-shells, which could go through
all but the thickest armour and then burst inside the vitals of a ship.
It was one of these shells that blew up the _Queen Mary_, the finest of
all the British battle cruisers.
Then, as we have seen already, another German advantage, and a very
great advantage, was that, while most British men-of-war had to be
built for general service all round the world, the German High Sea
Fleet (which meant nine-tenths of all the German Navy) could be built
specially for one great battle close at home. Not nearly so much room
was needed for the men to live in, because they were always near the
naval barracks at Wilhelmshaven; and not nearly so much space was
required for fuel. The weight and space saved in these two ways could
all be used for extra shells, thicker armour, and other kinds of
special strength. Thus the Germans were even stronger than the number
of their men-of-war would lead you to think; and they were strongest of
all for battles at night or in misty weather near their own base. The
battle of Jutland seemed to have been made on purpose to suit them.
In 1914 the Germans had been very much encouraged by the sinking of the
three British cruisers, _Hague_, _Cressy_, and _Aboukir_ in the North
Sea, by the _Emden's_ famous raid in the Indian Ocean, by von Spee's
victory at Coronel in the Pacific, and by the way the Kaiser and all
the German papers boasted. In 1915 they were encouraged by the French
and British failure against the Turks and Germans at the Dardanelles.
In 1916, however, they began to feel the pinch of the British blockade
so badly that they were eager for a sea-fight that would ease it off.
If they had the finest navy in the world, why didn't it wipe the Grand
Fleet off the North Sea altogether? At the same time the British
public and the Allies wanted to know why the Grand Fleet didn't wipe
the Germans off.
We have just seen why the Grand Fleet could not force on a battle round
the German base. But the reason why the Germans could not try to
snatch a victory out of some lucky chance at the beginning of the war,
when the odds were least against them, was of quite a different kind.
The fact was that thousands of their trained seamen were hopelessly cut
off from Germany by the British Navy. Nearly every German merchant
ship outside of the North Sea or the Baltic was either taken by the
British or chased into some neutral port from which it never got out.
The crews were mostly reservists in the German Navy. They were ready
for the call to arms. But they could not answer it. So new men had to
be trained. Meanwhile the one good chance slipped away; for by the
time these recruits had been trained the Grand Fleet had grown much
stronger than before.
On the 31st of May, 1916, Jellicoe's whole force was making one of its
regular "drives" across the North Sea in two huge but handy fleets.
The Battle Cruiser Fleet under Beatty was fifty miles south of the
Battle Fleet, which was under Jellicoe himself. Jellicoe and Beatty,
the chosen leaders of the greatest fleet of the greatest navy in the
greatest war in the world, had long been marked men. They were old
friends, having fought side by side against the Boxer rebellion in
China in 1900, the year the German Navy Bill was passed by the German
Parliament on purpose to endanger the "mightiest" of foreign
navies--that is, the British. They had both been wonderfully keen
students of every branch of naval warfare, from the handling of a
single gun or ship to the supreme art of handling this "mightiest" of
fleets; and both they and Sir Charles Madden, the Chief of Staff, were
looked upon as being the very fittest of the fit.
But even the best of men and ships will not make the best fleet unless
trained and "tuned up" to act together; and here, in its combined
manuoeuvres, lay the crowning glory of the vast Grand Fleet. One day a
visitor was watching it fight a sham battle against an enemy firing big
guns at long range, when up came a real enemy, in the form of a German
submarine, much closer than the sham. Of course the visitor turned his
glasses on the "sub" and on the destroyers racing after it, like
greyhounds slipped from the leash. But when, a few minutes later, he
looked round at the fleet, he could hardly believe his eyes; for there
it was, moving, mile upon mile of it, in a completely new formation,
after a sort of magic "general post" that had made light craft and
battle-line entirely change places, over an area of a hundred square
miles, without a moment's slackening of speed. Hundreds of vessels had
been in the best formation to fight each other on the surface. Now
they were in the best formation to fight submarines. Then came four of
those "sea-quakes" that make you feel as if your own ship had been
torpedoed, but which really were depth-charges dropped round the
submarine. Then an anxious pause, quickly followed by "all clear," and
that by another fleet order which changed the whole formation back
again as easily as if the lines of wheeling ships had been a single
piece of clockwork and their two million tons of steel had simply
answered to the touching of a single spring.
_First Round of the Great Fight: 2.30 to 4.38 P.M. Beatty and Hipper
with their Battle Cruisers._
At noon on the fateful 31st the Grand Fleet turned north and the German
Fleet turned south, each having come to the end of its "drive," and
neither knowing that the other one was there. The weather had been
very warm and fine; but the North Sea mists had risen in time to veil
the fleets from Zeppelins and other aircraft. Jellicoe's Battle Fleet
was going north within a hundred miles of southern Norway, and von
Scheer's Battle Fleet was going south within a hundred miles of the
Jutland coast of Denmark, when the two Battle Cruiser Fleets under
Beatty and von Hipper suddenly saw each other's smoke, half way between
Jellicoe and Scheer, and a hundred miles west of the Skager Rack.
Jellicoe and Scheer were then more than a hundred miles apart. But the
_Galatea's_ wireless report to Beatty, that there was smoke to the
eastward, was caught by the wireless receivers aboard the _Iron Duke_,
Jellicoe's flagship; whereupon Jellicoe ordered steam to be raised for
full speed.
Beatty at once turned east and made straight for Hipper, to cut him off
from his base, force him to fight, and lure Scheer back to save him.
This would give Jellicoe time to come up and get in the knock-out blow
for which he prepared by ordering the Battle Fleet to clear for action
at 3.10. At 3.30 a British seaplane, sent up by Beatty, and flying
within two miles of the nearest German craft, reported five battle
cruisers steaming south. At the same moment Jellicoe thrilled his own
command by signalling that a battle was expected. Hipper was hurrying
to join Scheer's battle fleet, which now was racing north as Jellicoe's
was racing south. Beatty then formed his six battle cruisers in
line-ahead ("follow-my-leader") while his four fast _Queen Elisabeth_
battleships followed as hard as they could. He thus had ten
dreadnoughts to fight Hipper's five. But he and Hipper were racing
south toward Scheer and away from Jellicoe. Yet that could not be
helped. Hipper must not be allowed to escape; and Scheer must first be
found and then lured on toward Jellicoe.
At twelve minutes to four both sides began firing at a range of eight
miles and a speed of nearly thirty (land) miles an hour. Jutland was a
gunner's battle, just as the naval experts had foretold; though
torpedoes played their part. It was much too fast and furious for
submarines; and the thickening mist made aircraft useless. Hipper's
five ships hit hard at Beatty's six; and one big German shell reached
the vitals of the _Indefatigable_, which blew up like a mine. There
was a shattering crash, an enormous spurt of flame, a horrid "flurry"
on the water; and ship and crew went down. That left five all. But,
after the battle cruisers had been at it for twenty minutes, the four
_Queen Elizabeths_ (that is, battleships of the same kind as the
"Q.E.") began heaving shells from eleven miles astern. Ten minutes
later the central German dreadnought turned out of line a mass of
seething fire. But, after five minutes more, the magnificent _Queen
Mary_, Beatty's champion shooting battle cruiser, was simply torn in
two by the explosion of her magazine. This left four all in battle
cruisers, with the four fast British battleships straining their last
turn of speed to come up.
[Illustration: BEATTY.]
Meanwhile fifteen German and twelve British destroyers charged out
together to try their torpedoes, met in the middle, and had a fierce
fight. Two Germans went down; but the British formation was broken,
and only three closed the German battle cruisers, which received them
with a perfect hurricane of shells from their quick-firing guns,
sinking one, disabling another, and forcing the third to retire.
Commander Bingham, who won the V.C. by leading this skilful and gallant
attack, had his destroyer, the _Nestor_, sunk under him. But he was
saved, as if by a miracle, and taken prisoner aboard a German
man-of-war.
_Second Round: Beatty luring Scheer and Hipper on towards Jellicoe:
4.38 to 5.50 P.M._
Commodore Goodenough's splendid light cruisers went scouting ahead till
they met Scheer racing north. Then they turned north themselves, under
a tremendous outburst of fire, to rejoin Beatty, who now, changing from
pursuer to pursued, also turned north to join Jellicoe. The Germans,
with their twenty-two dreadnoughts, now hoped _Der Tag_ had really come
for Beatty's eight. But Beatty hit hard and drove a German battle
cruiser out of the line very badly mauled. Shortly afterwards the
destroyer _Moresby_ fired a torpedo which hit a German battleship.
There was a tremendous burst of steam and smoke; and, when this had
cleared off, the German was seen to be on fire. But Beatty's strong
point was speed. His battle cruisers and four fast _Queen Elizabeth_
battleships could do a good bit more than the slowest Germans; and as
the Germans now had to keep together, in case Jellicoe came up, their
whole line could go no faster than its slowest ship. Starting with a
lead and putting on a spurt Beatty turned gradually more to the
eastward, that is, toward the German line, which then had to turn and
keep parallel or else let him cross its T. If you will separate the
crosspiece from the upright of a T--for big ships fight some miles
apart--you will see quite plainly that ships in a line like the upright
of the T have no chance at all against ships in a line like the
crosspiece of the T. The crosspiece line can converge all its
broadsides on the leading ship of the upright, smash it utterly, and
then do the same to the next, and the next. So the Germans, having to
keep together and having to keep parallel to Beatty, were gradually
forced eastwards, which would give Jellicoe the best chance to come
into line against them.
_The Third and Greatest Round: Jellicoe forms his Victorious Line of
Battle: 5.50 to 6.38 P.M._
For three hours and a half Jellicoe, with his twenty-four dreadnought
battleships, had been racing south to reach the scene of action. He
had gained at first, when Beatty was going east to find von Hipper. He
had lost when Hipper and Beatty were racing south to meet von Scheer.
But now the whole battle was coming north to meet him. As the
battlefield kept shifting about, and the fortunes of the fight kept
changing, he shaped his course accordingly. But he never slackened
speed, racing along under every pound of steam the straining ships
could carry, thanks to the skill of those quiet heroes of the
engine-room, who, seeing nothing of either friend or foe, never know
anything of either defeat or victory, life or death, till all is over
either with the battle or themselves.
As the great Battle Fleet came rushing from the north every eye was
strained to catch the first sight of Beatty and the Germans. The
thunder of a thousand guns rolled far across that summer sea. It was
heard along the coast of Jutland a hundred miles away; and the main
body of the Grand Fleet knew _The Day_ had come long before they
reached the battlefield. Presently the flashes began sparkling into
view; and then the ships themselves loomed up, dimly made out through
mist and smoke.
Jellicoe did not yet know exactly where the Germans were, and Beatty
could not tell what they would do now Jellicoe had come. But Beatty
turned sharp east immediately he sighted Jellicoe, and the Germans soon
turned too, fearing to have him cross their T while Jellicoe was
rounding on them. They wanted to escape, seeing the fight was
hopeless. But they could not take the quickest way, that of turning
all together--each ship turning right round where she was and making
off as hard as she could--because this would have changed the places of
the admirals and put the battle cruisers in the rear as well. Nor
could they safely turn right back on their course, while keeping the
same line-ahead, because some ships would then be masking the fire of
others till the whole line had been reversed; and they sorely needed
every gun they had. So the only way left was to keep parallel with
Beatty till a chance came to turn sharply enough to get away, but not
sharply enough to mask any of their own fire.
Imagine the whole enormous battlefield as something like a target, with
the Germans circling round the bull's-eye, Beatty round the inner, and
Jellicoe just coming into the outer. From Beatty's reports and his own
observation Jellicoe could not know even that before six. So he sent
out his own battle cruiser squadron under Admiral Hood to lengthen
Beatty's line and overlap the Germans. Hood then sent one of his light
cruisers, the _Chester_, speeding ahead to scout. But three German
light cruisers held her up in a furious fight of twenty minutes. The
_Chester_ fought desperately, losing more than half her men, but
getting her scout work done in spite of the fearful odds against her.
How well she fought may be found out from the story of Jack Cornwell;
for he was only one of her many heroes. Ship's boy, first class, and
sixteen years of age, Jack Cornwell would have been the youngest V.C.
in the world had he lived to wear it. With every man in the gun's crew
round him dead or dying, and with the gun-shield shot away, he stood
there, under a terrific fire, mortally wounded, with the receivers at
his ears, reporting exactly what had happened to everyone except
himself, and calmly waiting for orders how to carry on.
When the battered _Chester_ told Hood he was too far south-east he
turned back north-west till he sighted Beatty coming toward him at full
speed. On Beatty's orders he then carried out Jellicoe's plan by
turning back so as to lengthen Beatty's line of battle cruisers at the
forward end, thus overlapping the Germans. This splendidly skilful and
most daring move so alarmed the Germans that they trained every gun
they could on him in a furious effort to wipe out the deadly overlap.
He led the gallant line, "bringing his squadron into action ahead in a
most inspiring manner, worthy of his great naval ancestors." (He was
the great-great-grandson of the Lord Hood whom Nelson always called the
best of naval officers.) His flagship, the _Invincible_, hit back with
all her might, helped by the ships astern. "Keep it up," called Hood
to his gunnery officer, Commander Dannreuther, one of the six
survivors, "every shot is hitting them." But the converging fire of a
hundred giant guns simply smashed the _Invincible_ from stem to stern.
At last a huge shell reached her magazine, and she blew up like a
volcano; sheets of flame leaping higher than her masts, boats and loose
gear whirling higher still, like leaves in an autumn gale, and then one
sickening belch of steamy smoke to tell that all was over. After this
Hood's two remaining battle cruisers took station astern of Beatty's
four.
[Illustration: LIGHT CRUISER.]
Meanwhile another light cruiser of Hood's, the _Canterbury_, was trying
to protect three destroyers, led by the _Shark_, that were fighting
German light cruisers and destroyers. Hipper and Scheer were doing
their very utmost to keep Beatty and Jellicoe at arm's length till they
could complete the German turn round the bull's-eye and make an effort
to get off the deadly target altogether. For if Jellicoe could range
round the inner, at higher speed and with an overlap, they would
certainly be rounded up and crushed to death. The German light
cruisers and destroyers therefore attacked the British light craft with
the greatest fury, hoping to destroy the screen behind which Jellicoe
would form his line of battle in safety from torpedoes. As the _Shark_
charged down at the head of her line she suddenly found two lines of
German destroyers charging towards her. Nothing daunted, she went
straight on, her pulsing engines making her quiver with the thrilling
race for life or death between them. Once abreast of them she fired
her guns and torpedoes right and left, sinking two German destroyers,
one on each side, and giving the rest as good as she got, till, hit by
torpedoes on both sides together, she sank like a stone. Her
commander, Loftus Jones, was awarded the second posthumous V.C. for the
wonderfully gallant way he fought her till she went down with colours
flying. Her last torpedo, when just on the point of being fired, was
hit by a German shell and exploded, killing and wounding everybody
near. Then another shell took Jones's leg off. But he still fought
the one gun left in action, firing its last round as the waters closed
above him.
About the same time the destroyer _Onslow_ made for a German light
cruiser that was trying to torpedo Beatty's flagship, _Lion_. Hitting
the light cruiser with every gun at short range she then passed on to
try her own torpedoes on the German battle cruisers, when a big shell
scooped out most of her midships above the water-line. Retiring slowly
she again met the light cruiser and this time finished her with a
torpedo. Finding he had two torpedoes left Commander Tovey then made
for the German battle line with the last ounce of steam the _Onslow's_
engines could work off. He fired them both, and probably hit the
dreadnought that was seen to reel out of line about three minutes
later. The _Defender_, though herself half wrecked by several hits,
then limped up and took the _Onslow_ in tow till one o'clock the next
afternoon, when tugs had come to the rescue.
[Illustration: H.M.S. _Monmouth_, Armoured Cruiser. Sunk at Coronel,
November 1st, 1914.]
The strongest of all the lighter ships that cleared the way for
Jellicoe's battle fleet were the armoured cruisers, which are about
half way between the light and battle cruisers. Sir Robert Arbuthnot's
First Armoured Cruiser Squadron, speeding ahead of Jellicoe, swooped
down on the German light cruisers in grand style, sank one, lamed two,
and was driving the rest before it, helter-skelter, when, without a
moment's warning, the huge hulls of the German battle line loomed out
of the mist at almost point-blank range! In his eagerness to make
short work of all the German light craft in the way Sir Robert had lost
his bearings in the baffling mist and run right in between the two
great battle lines. Quick as a flash he fought the German giants with
every gun that he could bring to bear while turning back to take his
proper station on the flank. But he was doomed and knew it. Yet, even
at that fatal moment, his first thought was for the men whom, through
no fault of his own, he had led into this appalling death-trap; and
besides the order to turn back he signalled the noble apology to all
hands under his command: "I beg your pardon." The end came soon. A
perfect tornado of gigantic shells had struck his flagship, the
_Defence_, at the very first salvo. She reeled under the terrific
shock and had hardly begun to right herself before her sides were
smashed in by another. At the third she crumpled up and sank with
every soul aboard of her. Her next astern and second, the _Black
Prince_, and the _Warrior_, managed to crawl away under cover of the
mist. But both went down; though the battered _Black Prince_ survived
to be sunk by German battleships during the night.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIP FIRING A BROADSIDE.]
About this time, just after six, the fight was at its very fiercest,
especially between the opposing light craft. It was a question of life
or death for the Germans to keep the British light craft away and use
their own to the utmost while their battle line was turning toward the
west in a desperate effort to keep ahead of Jellicoe. This was not
cowardice, but a desire to save the German fleet from utter ruin once
victory was seen to be impossible. Not all the brave deeds were on one
side. How much the Grand Fleet's honour would be dimmed if its
opponents had been cowards or if its own commander had failed to give
the enemy his due! "The enemy," said Jellicoe in his dispatch, "fought
with the gallantry that was expected of him, and showed humanity in
rescuing officers and men from the water. I particularly admired the
conduct of those on board a disabled German light cruiser which passed
down the British line under a heavy fire that was returned by the only
gun still left in action." But of course this was well matched by many
a vessel on the British side, in a fight so fierce and a turmoil so
appalling that only men of iron training and steel nerves could face
it. Light craft of all kinds were darting to and fro, attacking,
defending, firing guns and torpedoes, smashing and being smashed,
sinking and being sunk, and trying to help or hinder the mighty lines
of battle whose own gigantic guns flashed and thundered without a
moment's pause.
As Jellicoe closed in to get the strangle-hold his mighty battle fleet
had, in very truth, to go through fire and water: the racing ships,
their slashing bows and seething wakes; the pall of smoke, stabbed by
ten thousand points of fire, together making the devil's
colours--yellow, red, and black; the leaping waterspouts thrown up by
shells that missed; the awful crashings when the shells struck home;
the vessels reeling under well-aimed, relentless salvoes; the ships on
fire beyond the reach of human aid; the weirdness of the mist that
veiled these dreadful horrors, or made them ghastlier still, or
suddenly brought friend and foe together either to sink or swim; the
summer sea torn into the maddest storm by ships and shells; while,
through and round the whole of this inferno, there swelled and
thundered the stunning roar of such a giant fight as other navies had
never seen or even dreamt of. So deafening was this roar, and so
absorbing were the changes of the fight, that when a ton-weight shell
swept overboard every atom of the bridge aboard the leading ship of a
flotilla--with compass, chart-house, engine-room-telegraph, steering
wheel, and every soul on duty there--the men on "monkey's island," just
above the bridge, never knew their ship was even hit till she began to
run amuck and rammed another British vessel!
This was the battle into which Jellicoe had to fit his own vast force
of twenty-four dreadnoughts without checking Beatty, without letting
the Germans get a clear run home, and without risking the loss of his
own best battleships by making one false move. At four minutes to six
Jellicoe sighted Beatty. Five minutes later he asked him for the
position of the German line. Nine minutes later he asked again. The
smoke and mist were so bad at first that it was not till 6.14 that
Beatty could say exactly. At 6.16--just two minutes later--Jellicoe's
plan was made and his orders had gone out. There, in the conning tower
of the _Iron Duke_, within those two short minutes, he had calmly
thought out every chance and change and way of going into action under
conditions which could not have been worse for him or better for the
Germans.
His twenty-four battleships were in six divisions, side by side, each
division in line ahead, and all numbered off from port (left) to
starboard (right). The leading ship of the 1st, or port wing, division
was the _King George V_. The leading ship of the 6th, or starboard
wing division, was the _Marlborough_. His own flagship, the _Iron
Duke_, led the 3rd division.
[Illustration: Jellicoe's Battle Fleet in Columns of Divisions. 6.14
P.M.]
The supreme moment had now arrived. There was not a second to lose;
for the fleets were covering more miles in an hour than armies do in a
whole day. But if he formed line on the starboard wing, the nearer to
the Germans, he would have had to wait some time till Beatty's battle
cruisers had drawn clear. During this dangerous pause, while his own
fire would have to be blanketed by Beatty, the German battle line would
have had a double British target to make hits on, and the German light
craft would have had the best chance of catching him with their
torpedoes while he was in the act of forming line. Moreover, the
German line might have concentrated on the starboard wing before the
port had taken station, and might have overlapped the whole line
afterwards. Jellicoe therefore decided to form on the port wing,
giving his own line the chances of the overlap, and then fit in astern
of Beatty. But, being ready by the time Beatty's battle cruisers were
drawing ahead, he fitted in his own line between these and the four
fast _Queen Elizabeths_ that formed the rear of Beatty's line. Thus,
in the very worst of this gigantic battle, the twelve miles of the
final British line were formed. Three battle cruisers had been sunk:
the _Indefatigable_, _Invincible_, and _Queen Mary_. One fast
battleship, the _Warspite_, had fallen astern with a damaged helm. But
six battle cruisers still led the van. Twenty-four fresh battleships
followed. And three fast _Queen Elizabeths_ brought up the rear.
Jellicoe then personally commanded a single line-ahead twelve miles
long and dreadnoughts all. Every part of every change was made as
perfectly as if at the King's review. You could not have made the line
straighter with a ruler, nor placed it better if the Germans had been
standing still. For as Beatty's overlap kept turning them from north
to east and east to south, to save their T from being crossed,
Jellicoe's whole line had now worked to the landward side of them, that
is, between them and their great home base on the German coast.
Fourth Round: Jellicoe Victorious: 6.50 to 9.00 P.M.
Driven to desperation by being overlapped and turned away from Germany,
the Germans made a supreme effort to escape toward the south-west, thus
completing their circle round the bull's-eye, as Jellicoe began to
round them up from the inner. Their destroyers spouted forth an
immense grey smoke screen; the mist helped them to hide; and the sun
went into a bank of clouds. As they ran they fired shoals of
torpedoes, which are much deadlier for the chasers, who go toward them,
than for the chased, who go from them. The battleship _Marlborough_,
flagship of Sir Cecil Burney, Jellicoe's Second-in-Command, was hit and
began to list over. But she was so strong and so well handled that
within ten minutes she was at it again. She had already fought two
battleships and a cruiser while the British line was forming. Now she
caught another German battleship with fourteen salvoes running and
drove her out of line.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND--PLAN II. Jellicoe's battle line
formed and fighting. 6:38 P.M.]
The Germans fired every torpedo they could bring to bear; and nothing
but Jellicoe's supreme skill, backed by the skill of all his captains,
saved his battleships from losing at least a third of their number.
Observers aloft watched the enemy manoeuvring to fire and then reported
to Jellicoe, who, keeping in line as long as possible for the sake of
the guns, turned the fleet end-on, away from Scheer, just in time to
prevent the torpedoes catching it broadside on, and then left each
captain free to work his own ship till that shoal of torpedoes had
passed. The torpedoes arrived at about thirty miles an hour, shoals of
them together, and showing no sign but the little line of bubbles from
their screws. But most of them were spotted and not one got home. The
_Revenge_ worked her perilous way between a couple, one just missing
her rudder and the other almost grazing her bows.
During the whole of this fourth round the fight went on by fits and
starts. Whenever any part of the enemy's line showed up through the
thickening mist the British guns turned on it with shattering salvoes.
The _Iron Duke_, whose gunnery was simply perfect, caught a big German
battleship for a few minutes only. But by the time the mist had shut
down again the German was like a furnace, seething with a mass of
flame. Meanwhile the battle cruisers were crumpling up their opposite
numbers in the German line, which thus became shorter and more
overlapped than ever. The _Lion_ and _Princess Royal_ each set their
opponent on fire, while the _New Zealand_ and _Indomitable_ drove
another clean out of line, heeling over, and burning furiously fore and
aft. (The _Indomitable_ was King George's Flagship at the Quebec
Tercentenary in 1908, and the _New Zealand_ was Jellicoe's flagship on
his tour of advice round the oversea Empire in 1919.)
At 8.20, somewhere behind the mist which then veiled the German line,
there was a volcanic roar that shook every keel for miles around.
Scheer was losing heavily, running for his life, and doing his best to
hold Jellicoe back by desperate light craft attacks with hundreds of
torpedoes. But Jellicoe countered this with his own light craft, which
sank four enemy destroyers before the night closed in.
_Fifth and Last round: The Germans in Full Flight: 9.00 P.M. 31st of
May, to 4 P.M. 1st of June, 1916._
Jellicoe now had another hard question to answer, a question, indeed,
to which there could not be a perfect answer. The Germans were broken
and flying. But they still had many light craft with hundreds of
torpedoes; they were not far from home and near a swarm of their best
submarines; and their whole coast was full of mines for many miles off
shore, while the shore itself and the string of off-shore islands were
defended by a regular chain of gigantic forts armed with enormous guns.
Following them home was therefore out of the question altogether; for
you _can_ sink a fleet, while you _can't_ sink a coast. But even
trying to run them down at night was out of the question too; for their
strongest point was night fighting, which is much fuller of risks and
chances than day battles are. Besides, there was the chance of missing
them and losing the best position between them and their base. So
Jellicoe and Beatty separated again and steamed, parallel to each
other, south-south-east to within a hundred miles of the German coast.
They could not possibly cover more than a quarter of the whole way into
the Danish and German coasts; and so most of the Germans managed to
slip in behind them, round by the north.
The night fighting was done by the light craft; and it was here that
Jellicoe had so much need of Tyrwhitt's flotillas from Harwich.
Harwich was very handy to the battlefield and Tyrwhitt's light craft
were as keen and ready as any one could be. But the Government were
afraid to let them go, for fear lest some Germans might raid the
English coast. There was very little chance of a raid at all. It
could not have been a bad one in any case. No mere raid can change the
course of a war. The best way to stop raids is to win the war by
destroying the enemy's means of destroying you. The best way to do
this is to smash his main force wherever it happens to be. And the
best way to smash it is to throw all your own forces against it once
you get a hold on it. But people who are scared in one place will not
think about the war as a whole, though that is the way to save these
very people as well as all the rest. So they ask for some defence they
can actually see. It was much the same as in the days of the Spanish
Armada. Drake and Jellicoe wanted to do the right thing. But Queen
Elizabeth's Council and King George's Government wanted to humour the
people concerned. The only comfort is that, with all our faults, we of
the British Empire make fewer naval mistakes than other people do.
The light craft that did reach that famous battlefield could not have
done more to guard the British battle lines and harass the flying
Germans. There was many a weird sight as scurrying cruisers and
destroyers suddenly showed up, ominously black, against the ghastly
whiteness of the searchlit sea. Hunters and hunted raced, turned, and
twisted without a moment's pause. "We couldn't tell what was
happening," said the commander of a dashing destroyer. "Every now and
then out of the silence would come _Bang! bang!! boom!!!_ as hard as it
could for ten minutes on end. The flash of the guns lit up the whole
sky for miles and miles, and the noise was far more penetrating than by
day. Then you would see a great burst of flame from some poor devil,
as the searchlights switched on and off, and then perfect silence once
more."
_Next Day_. Dawn comes early on the 1st of June at 55 degrees North.
But the mist veiled everything more than three or four miles off. At
3.30 A.M. a huge Zeppelin flew across the British battle line,
wirelessing down to any Germans still to the westward the best way to
get home. By nine the light craft had all come in after scouring the
sea for Germans. At a quarter past one it was plain that not a German
ship remained to challenge the Grand Fleet. So Jellicoe made for his
base; took in fuel, stores, and ammunition; and at half-past nine next
evening was ready for another battle.
_The News_. Very different was the plight of the flying Germans, who
lost more ships than the British (eighteen, and perhaps six more, to
fourteen British) and who left the field for good and all. But Germany
sorely needed a victory just then. So the Kaiser proclaimed one, and
all the German papers echoed his words. The German lie got two days
start of the British truth, and was eagerly repeated by every one who
hated the British or Allies. On the other hand, the British Government
simply said that there had been a battle and that fourteen British
ships were down. They shrank from proclaiming the victory, because
they thought that most people, knowing nothing of modern naval war and
making no allowance for the weather and other German advantages, would
not believe in a victory which let any of the German ships escape. And
so the lie went round the world much faster than the truth. Yet it was
only believed by those who wanted to believe it. Even some Italian
mountaineers who had never seen a ship said, "That's a lie," when
Italian traitors told them the Grand Fleet had been sunk.
After waiting a month to examine the whole case thoroughly the Board of
Admiralty, which has always been most sparing in its praise, wrote
Jellicoe an official letter, saying that "the Grand Fleet has known
both how to study the new problems and how to turn the knowledge to
account. The expectations of the country were high. They have been
well fulfilled. My Lords (the Members of the Board) desire to convey
to you their full approval of your proceedings in this action."
What Jellicoe himself thought of those who fought so well under his
inspiring leadership cannot be said better than in his own words. "The
conduct of officers and men throughout the day and night actions was
entirely beyond praise. No words of mine could do them justice. On
all sides it is reported to me that the glorious traditions of the past
were worthily upheld. Officers and men were cool and determined, with
a cheeriness that would have carried them through anything. The
heroism of the wounded was the admiration of all. I cannot express the
pride with which the spirit of the Grand Fleet filled me."
_Results_. Jutland taught the German Navy what every one should have
known before: that whenever tyrants have tried to lord it over all the
world they have always had to reckon with the British Navy first, and
that this Navy has never failed to lay them low. More things were
wrought by Jutland than the British Empire thinks, and more, far more,
than other people, for lack of knowledge, can imagine. There was a
regular, unbreakable chain of cause and effect, and Jutland was the
central link.
To conquer their bully's "place in the sun" of the white man's empire
overseas the Germans built their Navy. But the Grand Fleet blockaded
it so well that the Germans clamoured for a fight to wipe the British
off the sea and to let the German merchant ships get out. Jutland
settled that. From Jutland on to the end of the war the German
bluejackets could never again be led against the British on the surface
of the sea. So the murderous German submarine campaign was tried
instead. This forced even the American Peace Party to change their
minds and save their country's honour by joining the War Party in armed
defence both of American rights and of the freedom of the world.
After another two years the Germans failed under water as they had upon
the surface; and when, in wild despair, the Kaiser ordered the whole of
his High Sea Fleet to try another fight, the final mutiny began. This
broke out at 5 A.M. on the 3rd of November, 1918, eight days before the
Armistice. It was not the German Army, nor yet the German people, that
began the Revolution, but the German Fleet, which knew that a second
Jutland could only mean the death of every German there. In its own
turn the Revolution brought on the great surrender, a thing unheard-of
in the story of the sea.
Thus, like the immortal Battle of the Marne on land, Jutland was not
only itself a mighty feat of arms but one on which the whole war turned.