THE DOGGER BANK II
There are several matters of technical and general interest to be
noted about this action. In the two torpedo attacks by destroyers on
Sir David Beatty’s fleet, we see the first employment of this weapon
for purely defensive purposes in a fleet action. It is defensive, not
because the torpedo is certain to hit, and therefore to remove one
of the pursuing enemy, but because if shoals of torpedoes are fired
at a squadron, it will almost certainly be considered so serious a
threat as to make a change of course compulsory. This is of double
value to the weaker and retreating force. By compelling the firing
ships to manœuvre, the efficiency of the fire control of their guns
may be seriously upset, and hence their fire lose all accuracy and
effect. To impose a manœuvre, then, is to secure a respite from the
pursuers’ fire. But it does something more. By driving the pursuer
off his course he is thrown back in the race, and his guns therefore
kept at a greater distance. If the pursuer has then to start finding
the range, and perhaps a new course and speed of the enemy, all over
again, an appreciable period of time must elapse before his fire once
more becomes accurate. And if he is prevented closing, the increase
of accuracy, which shorter range would give, is denied him. Apart
altogether, then, from quite good chances of a torpedo hitting, the
evolution is of the utmost moment to the inferior force. It was
employed in this action for the first time.
Again, for the first time we find the destroyers getting between the
pursuing ships and the chase, and creating a smoke screen to embarrass
the pursuers’ aiming and fire control. Finally, we find that Von
Hipper has directed his flight to a prearranged point, where certainly
submarines had been gathered and possibly mine-fields had been laid.
This of course was a contingency that had always been foreseen. In an
article published in the _Westminster Gazette_ a week or two before the
action, I dealt with Von Tirpitz’s remark, that “the German Fleet were
perfectly willing to fight the English, if England would give them the
opportunity,” and interpreted this to mean, that the Germans would be
willing to fight if they had such a choice of ground and position as
would give them some equivalent for their inferior numbers. And writing
at that time, I naturally set out what may be called the general view
of North Sea strategy. No good purpose would have been served by
questioning it--even if such questioning had been permitted. Nor, in
view of the very narrow margin of superiority that we possessed in
capital ships, had I any wish to question it.
I began with the supposition that the enemy might attempt, on a
big scale, exactly what, on a much smaller scale, we ourselves had
attempted in the Bight of Heligoland five months before.
“Assuming,” I said, “that it is a professed German object to draw
a portion of the English Fleet into a situation where it can be
advantageously engaged, what would be the natural course for them
to pursue? The first and perhaps the simplest form of ruse would be
to dangle a squadron before the English Fleet, so that our fastest
units should be drawn away from their supports, and enticed within
reach of a superior German force. If we suppose the Scarborough raid
to be carried out by a squadron used for this purpose, we must look
upon that episode not merely as an example of Germany practising its
much-loved frightfulness, but as an exercise in wiliness as well. That
the Admiralty had taken every step it could think of to catch and
destroy this squadron, we may safely infer from the character of the
communications made to us. The measures adopted were, we also know,
frustrated by the thick weather, so that no engagement actually took
place. Is it not highly probable that the Germans, not knowing the
character of the English counter-stroke, may have concluded that our
failure to bring their squadron to action was brought about quite as
much by prudence as by ill-luck? At any rate, it is rather a curious
phenomenon that the German papers during the last two weeks have been
filled with the most furious articles descanting upon the pusillanimity
of the British Fleet. To our eyes such charges, of course, seem absurd,
nor when we know how welcome the appearance of the German Fleet in
force would be to Admiral Jellicoe and his gallant comrades can we
conceive any sane man using such language; but if we interpret this as
the expression of disappointed hopes, as evidence of the failure of a
plan to catch a portion of our Fleet, a reasonable explanation of what
is otherwise merely nonsense is afforded.
“The average layman probably supposes that a fleet action between the
English Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet would be fought
through on the lines of previous engagements in this war, and of the
two naval battles of the Russo-Japanese war. They would expect the
contest to be an artillery fight in which superior skill in the use of
guns, if such superiority existed on either side, would be decisive;
and if equality of skill existed, that victory would go to the side
possessing a superior number of guns of superior power. But other
naval weapons have advanced enormously in the last eight years. We not
only have torpedoes that can run five and six miles with far greater
accuracy and certainty than the old torpedo could go a third of this
distance, but we know that Germany--almost alone amongst nations--has
carried the art and practice of sowing mines to a point hitherto
not dreamt of. When the first raid was made on Yarmouth, it will be
remembered that the German ships retreated from a British submarine,
and that the submarine ran into and was blown up and sunk by a mine
left by the German ship in its wake. Again, after the North-Eastern
raid, many ships--some authorities say over a dozen--were blown up by
running into German mines left in the waters which the raiders had been
through. The German naval leaders are perfectly aware that in modern
capital ships they have an inferiority of numbers, and that gun for gun
their artillery force is inferior to ours in an even greater degree.
It is certain, therefore, that in thinking out the conditions in which
they would have to fight an English fleet they are fully determined to
use all other means that can possibly turn the scale of superiority
to their side. Just as they have relied on the torpedo and the mine
to diminish the general strength of the English Fleet, while it was
engaged in the watch and ward of the North Sea, so as to redress the
balance before the time for a naval action arrived; so, too, they have
counted, when actually in action, on crippling and destroying English
ships by mines and torpedoes, so that the artillery preponderance may
finally be theirs. If we suppose that the German admirals have really
thought out this problem, and we must suppose this, it is not difficult
to see that with a fast advance battle-cruiser squadron engaged in mine
laying, the problem of so handling a fleet as to pursue and cut off
this squadron without crossing its wake must be extremely intricate
and difficult. If further we imagine that this fast squadron has drawn
the hostile squadron towards its own waters, where mine-fields unknown
to us have been laid, we have not only the problem of the mines left
in the wake of the enemy, but the further difficulty of there being
prepared traps, so to speak, lying across the path which the attacking
squadron would most naturally take. If we imagine the problem still
further complicated by an attack on a battleship line by flotillas of
fast destroyers firing high-speed, long-range torpedoes, to intersect
the course that that squadron is taking, we have the third element
of confusion. It does not need much imagination then to see that
with mines actually dropped during the manœuvres that lead up to or
form part of the battle, with mine-fields scattered over the chosen
battlefield, and with the possibility of a battle fleet being rendered
liable at the shortest notice to a massed attack of long-range torpedo
fire, a naval battle will be a totally different affair from the
comparatively simple operations that took place in the engagement of
August 10, or at the battle of Tsushima.
“Such conditions as these demand extraordinary sagacity on the part
not only of the Commander-in-chief, but of all the squadron commanders
under him. It requires insistent vigilance; but then, for that matter,
such vigilance is the daily routine of the Navy always. Finally, it
makes demands on the art of gunnery of which we have hitherto had no
practical experience at all. For reasons that hardly need discussion,
all practice gunnery is carried out in conditions almost ludicrously
unlike war, and quite absurdly unlike the kind of naval engagement that
seems to me probable. The principal difference between the two is that
it is impossible to practise with the big guns at a fast target. There
is no way of manœuvring and running a target at high speed unless it
is propelled by its own power, and that power is kept supplied and is
got by human agents, and obviously you cannot fire at a ship which is
full of people. And when you fire at a towed target the differences
are, first, that no target can be towed beyond perhaps a third of a
battleship’s speed, and next, that it cannot be manœuvred as a ship
can. Lastly, the firing ship, so far as I am aware, is never called
upon to fire while executing the kind of manœuvres, or subject to the
kind of limitations, that would be incident to a modern battle.
“To sum up my argument. The present indications are that Germany,
carrying out its previously expressed intentions, has made a first, and
is now aiming at getting the information for a second, attempt to draw
the English Fleet into fighting on ground which she can mine before we
are drawn on to it, and to fight in conditions in which she can use a
fast advance squadron to compel our ships to adopt certain manœuvres,
and to turn that advance squadron into mine-layers, so as to limit
our movements or make them exceedingly perilous. She will try to make
the battlefields as close as she can to her own ports, both so as to
facilitate the preliminary preparation by mines and to surprise us with
unexpected torpedo attacks. I interpret the fulminations of Captain
Persius and others as expressions of their anger at the failure of
their first attempt, and I interpret the air raids as attempts to get
information for making a second.
“We can, I am sure, rely upon Sir John Jellicoe being at no point
inferior to his enemy, either in wiliness or in resources. It is to be
remembered that, so far as we are concerned, much as we should like
to have all anxiety settled by hearing of the definite destruction of
the German Fleet, its continued existence is nevertheless perfectly
innocuous, _so long as it is unable to affect the transporting of our
troops or the conduct of our trade_.”
The foregoing article, I think, fairly represents what the _Spectator_,
in referring to it, called the case for “naval patience.” But it did
not mean, nor was it intended to mean, that it would be improper
in _any_ circumstances for a British ship to face _any_ risks from
torpedoes and mines, nor that to fight the Germans in their own waters
was necessarily the same thing as fighting them on their own terms. It
is indeed clear that I expected the British commanders to be more their
equal to circumventing the enemy’s ingenuity. But no resource can rob
war of risk--and if it were made a working principle that risks from
torpedoes and mines were _never_ to be faced, then the clearing of the
British Fleet out of the North Sea would be a very simple process. It
would only be necessary for the enemy to send out a score or so of
submarines to advance in line abreast when, _ex hypothesi_, the Fleet
would have no choice but incontinent flight.
My object was first to show the public that the problem of the naval
engagement was far more complicated than was generally supposed,
and that the ingenuity, resource, and vigilance of the Admiral in
command would be taxed. It seemed to me important that a sympathetic
understanding of these anxieties should be created in the public mind.
Next, however, it was not less important to discount any extravagant
expectation in the matter of naval gunnery. We had not at that time
any full accounts of the Battle of the Falkland Islands; but it seemed
clear that, in this respect, the performance of the two battle-cruisers
had been disappointing. If in the North Sea an action was to be fought
in poor light, with the ships made to manœuvre by torpedo attack and
the enemy from time to time veiled in smoke screens, it seemed quite
certain that a task would be set to the service fire-control with which
it would be quite unable to deal.
And if these were the weaknesses of our fire-control, it was further
highly desirable to keep before our eyes the certainty that, if the
opportunity arose and a fleet action, intended to be decisive and
pushed to a decision, took place, we were almost bound to lose ships by
torpedoes and mines. At any rate, it seemed as if such a risk _must_ be
run if our own gunfire was to be made effective. And for such losses
the public should be prepared.
This being the situation, it seems to me most unfortunate that the
Admiralty followed the course they did in communicating their various
accounts of this action to us. For there were three accounts given, and
no two of the three agreed as to the reason why the pursuit was broken
off! For two days we were not told that _Lion_ was injured, and for
four days were ignorant of the fact that the control of the British
Fleet had passed out of Sir David Beatty’s hands some time before the
action was ended. It was not till March 3--that is, five weeks after
the action--that we were told the name of the officer on whom command
had devolved when _Lion_ fell out of line! This suppression was really
extraordinary. To be mentioned in despatches had always been an
acknowledged honour. To be ignored was a new form of distinction. How
was the public to take so singular an omission? Had it ever happened
before that an officer had been in command of a fleet at so grave a
crisis and the fact of his being in command suppressed in announcing
the fact of the engagement? No one quite knew how to take it. The
discrepancies in the _communiqués_ are worth noting. In the first, of
January 25, was this curiously worded paragraph:
“A well-contested running fight ensued. Shortly after one o’clock
_Bluecher_, which had previously fallen out of the line, capsized and
sank. Admiral Beatty reports that two other German _battle-cruisers_
were seriously damaged. They were, however, able to continue their
flight, and reached an area where dangers from German submarines and
mines prevented further pursuit.”
Did whoever drafted this statement suppose that the _Bluecher_ was a
battle-cruiser? We are now, however, more concerned with the reasons
given for breaking off the action. An area was reached where “dangers
from German submarines and mines prevented further pursuit.” The
_communiqué_ of January 27 was silent on this point. On the 28th was
published what purported to be “a preliminary telegraphic report
received from the Vice-Admiral.” The paragraph dealing with this matter
is as follows:
“Through the damage to _Lion’s_ feed-tank by an unfortunate chance
shot, we were undoubtedly deprived of a greater victory. The presence
of the enemy’s submarines subsequently necessitated the action being
broken off.”
In this statement the excuse of mines is dropped. In the despatch
published on March 3 the end of the action is treated by the
Vice-Admiral as follows:
“At 11:20 I called the _Attack_ alongside, shifted my flag to her at
about 11:35. I proceeded at the utmost speed to rejoin the squadron,
and met them at noon retiring north-northwest. I boarded and hoisted my
flag in _Princess Royal_ at about 12:20, when Captain Brock acquainted
me with what had occurred since _Lion_ fell out of line, namely, that
_Bluecher_ had sunk, and that the enemy battle-cruisers had continued
their course to eastward in a considerably damaged condition.”
Here observe no mention was made of submarines necessitating the action
being broken off, nor of an area being reached where dangers from
submarines and mines prevented further pursuit. The whole incident
is passed by the Vice-Admiral without comment, unless indeed the
phrase about the accident to the _Lion_, in the telegraphic report,
is a comment. Did the Vice-Admiral imply that had he remained in
command he would have seen to it that his specific orders--viz. that
_Indomitable_ should settle _Bluecher_ and the other ships pursue the
battle-cruisers--were carried out?
A very unfortunate situation resulted from these reticences and
contradictions. Naval writers in America were naturally enough amazed
by the statement attributed to Admiral Beatty in the telegraphic
report, for, if the presence of submarines could stop pursuit, could
not submarines drive the British Fleet off the sea? These authors
naturally expressed extreme astonishment that an admiral capable of
breaking off action in these conditions, and publicly acknowledging so
egregious a blunder, was not at once brought to court-martial. No one
in his senses could have supposed that Sir David Beatty, who dealt
with submarines without the least concern in the affair of Heligoland
and earlier in the day on January 28, could possibly have accepted
the dictum that the presence of a German submarine would justify
pursuit having been broken off. It was then quite evident that the
quotation from the Vice-Admiral’s telegraphic report could not have
represented the Vice-Admiral’s opinion on a point of warlike doctrine.
What the actual facts of the case were, we do not to this day know.
Rear-Admiral Moore did not continue long in Sir David Beatty’s squadron
after this, but there was no court-martial nor any public expression
of the Admiralty’s opinion by way of approval or disapproval of his
proceedings. In a speech made a month after the action in the House of
Commons, Mr. Churchill passed over the fact that the action had not
been fought out, as if such a thing was of no exceptional importance or
interest whatever. Soon afterward it became known that the Rear-Admiral
in question had got another and very important command elsewhere, so
that it became plain that his conduct had not met with their Lordships’
reprobation.
War in modern conditions undoubtedly makes it exceedingly important to
keep the enemy as far as possible in ignorance of a great many things.
It imposes too a continuous strain upon practically the whole personnel
of the Navy, and these two things taken together have been quoted to
explain why the old rule of holding a public court-martial on the
captain of every ship that was lost, or on every individual officer
whose action in battle gave rise to uncertainty or question, has
virtually been abrogated. But it is doubtful whether the Navy has not
lost more by the abandonment of this wholesome practice than the enemy
could have gained by its Spartan application.
This point came in for a good deal of public discussion at the
beginning of 1915, and I venture to quote a contribution to it. Looking
back upon this controversy, it is easy enough to see now wherein lay
the chief disadvantage of the suppression of courts-martial. There was
no general staff at the Admiralty, representative of the best Service
opinion, and, deprived of court-martial, the Navy had no means of
expressing a corporate judgment on the vital issues as they arose. The
doctrine with regard to torpedo risk, which seems to have been acted
on at the close of this action, was evidently one which either the
Admiralty had laid down, or at least accepted as correct. Could it
have been referred to the corporate judgment of the Service and had
that judgment not endorsed it, the history of the war might have been
altogether different.
Mr. Churchill’s speech in the official reports is entitled ‘British
Command of the Sea: Admiralty Organization.’ It would have been as
well if this description had been given out before the speech was
made, for, as it happened, many thought it was intended as a survey
of the first epoch of the war and were disappointed that, in so
eloquent and forceful a review, there was hardly a word of tribute to
the incomparable services of our officers and men. There was lavish
praise of the generosity of the House of Commons; of the foresight
of Lord Fisher; of the excellence of the Admiralty’s preparedness at
every point; of the amazing scale and success of the provisioning with
coal and supplies of a vast fleet always at sea; of the astonishing
perfection of the work of the engineering branch. But there was
singularly little of the work of the fighting men. The officers were
dismissed simply as ‘painstaking.’ No doubt the tribute will be made
at another time. Is there any time, however, which is not the right
time for acknowledging these services? On Tuesday we learned that
between 300 and 400 officers have died for us--and over 6,000 men.
Is it gracious to postpone their eulogy? And the absence of eulogy
was emphasized by the forceful manner in which the First Lord asked
that he and his colleagues should be entrusted with the most absolute
and dictatorial powers. Indeed, he excused the departure from the
Service custom of holding courts-martial whenever a ship was lost on
the ground that modern conditions called for instant action, with
which courts-martial were incompatible. But the court-martial, as I
have before pointed out, is the palladium of the Navy’s liberties. To
abolish it is like suspending the Habeas Corpus. It is so extreme a
measure because it ignores the great unwritten law of the Navy, which
is that, in spite of the authority of Whitehall over the Navy, of an
admiral over a fleet, and of a captain over a ship’s company, being
necessarily and in each case absolute, yet there must always be an
appeal from authority to the profession itself. If this is necessary
for the protection of subordinate officers and men against arbitrary
action by a captain, against arbitrary and prejudiced action by an
admiral in a fleet, how much more necessary is it as a protection of
naval standards and traditions against arbitrary action by the Board?
For a captain is at any rate an entirely naval authority; an admiral
is certainly an officer of large naval experience, acting generally
with at least one other admiral. But the Board is largely a lay body.
Indeed, it is now by a majority a lay body. And like all boards, it
is liable to be the mouthpiece of its strongest personality. If this,
as sometimes happens, is a seaman, he may be a partisan--I say it in
no invidious sense--of certain policies and so prejudiced against
brother officers who differ. If the stronger character is a layman, he
may be ignorant of, or see no danger in waiving, naval traditions that
are embodied in no statute or regulation, but are not embodied simply
because their cogency has never been questioned. In other words, the
autocracy of the Admiralty is a necessity of executive administration,
but can only be exercised safely if its enforcement is continuously
tested by professional opinion.
How many people, I often wonder, really appreciate how singular a
body is that which is made up of admirals, captains, commanders, and
lieutenants of the Royal Navy? The accomplishments that make the seaman
confuse the landsman by their strangeness and intricacy. Indeed, if
one wishes to express the extremity of bewilderment, he does so best
by the metaphor which describes the sailor’s normal environment. When
we say we are “at sea,” we do so because language expresses no greater
helplessness. To master these conditions calls for forms of knowledge
and proficiency that are only acquired by a lifetime’s familiarity. But
these conditions are not only baffling, they are incredibly dangerous.
If steam has done much to lessen the perils of the sea, speed, the
product of steam, has added to them. The sailor then, even in times
of peace, passes his days, and still more his nights, encompassed
by the threat of irreparable disaster. An oversight that may take
thirty seconds to commit--and a hundred deaths, a wrecked ship, and a
shattered reputation reward thirty years of constant and unblemished
devotion to duty. To face a life and responsibilities like these calls
for more than great mental and physical skill, though nowhere will
you find these in a higher degree or more widely diffused than in the
Fleet. It calls for moral and spiritual qualities, for a development
of character in patience, unselfishness, and courage which few landsmen
have any inducement to cultivate. A life lived daily in the presence of
death must be a unique life, and it is not surprising that men bred to
these conditions--always as hard and ascetic as they are uncertain and
unsafe--grow to be a body quite unlike other men, with standards and
traditions of their own, and a corporate spirit and capacity that are
unique, wonderful, and to most landsmen incomprehensible.
Their standards and traditions can only be maintained and can only be
enforced by themselves. And the great peril that follows from excluding
all reference to them of the accidents and failures of war is that,
failing this reference, we have no security that naval action will be
judged as it should be, solely by the highest naval standard.
Much was said in the House of Commons about the loss of ships. Mr.
Churchill assumed that the only motive for asking for courts-martial
was to find a scapegoat. Lord Charles Beresford only made clear that
a court-martial was as much for clearing the character as for finding
criminals. There was a significant phrase in Mr. Churchill’s speech
that raises, it seems to me, a point in this connection of far greater
importance. The battle of the Dogger Bank, he said, was “not fought
out because the enemy made good their escape into waters infested by
submarines and mines.” The officer who had to call off a fleet in these
circumstances was necessarily faced by a grave and almost terrifying
responsibility. To be too bold was to risk everything, to be too
cautious was to throw away a victory. Can any tribunal, except the
Navy, judge whether this responsibility was rightly exercised? When
we remember that in our greatest days hardly a naval battle took place
that was not followed by courts-martial, it seems to me a most perilous
thing to allow these tremendous issues to go by the board because
unless they are adjudicated upon by the profession itself they are not
adjudicated upon at all.