THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND (_Continued_)
V. THE THREE OBJECTIVES
The issue of the day would now depend upon how the commanders of the
three separate forces appreciated the tasks set to them; the principles
that governed the plans for their execution; the efficiency of their
command in getting those principles applied; the resolution and skill
with which the several units executed each its share in the operations.
It was easy enough to define the task of each leader. Sir David Beatty
had so far completely justified what seemed the general strategic plan
of the British forces. He had driven the German fast divisions back to
their main fleet, he had held that fleet for an hour and a half, and
had brought it within striking distance of the overwhelmingly superior
main forces of his own side. He had lost two capital ships and three
destroyers to achieve his end to this point. He had the sacrifice of
some thousands of his gallant companions to justify. Neither a parade
nor a “gladiatorial display,” only the utter rout and destruction of
the enemy’s fleet, could pay that debt. His task was not, therefore,
complete. He had to help the Grand Fleet to deliver its blow with the
concentration and rapidity that would render it decisive.
It was already obvious that rapidity would be vital. The weather
conditions had been growing more and more unfavourable to the gunnery
on which the British Fleet would rely for victory. Everything pointed
to the conditions growing steadily worse. It was a case of seizing
victory quickly or missing it altogether. Had there been no shifting
mists there would have been two and a half or three hours of daylight
on which to count. But with lowering clouds and heavy vapours, clear
seeing at 10,000 or even 5,000 yards might be as impossible two hours
before as two hours after sunset. Everything pointed, therefore, to
this: the British attack would have to be instant--or it might not
materialize at all. The Vice-Admiral commanding the Battle-Cruiser
Fleet saw his duty clearly and simply. But to decide exactly what
action he should take was a different thing altogether.
No less clear was the task of the British Commander-in-Chief. Twelve
miles away from him was the whole naval strength of the enemy, 150
miles from his mine-fields, more than 200 from his fleet bases. Against
sixteen modern battleships, he himself commanded twenty-four--a
superiority of three to two. His gun-power, measured by the weight
and striking energy of his broadsides, must have been nearly twice
that of the enemy; measured by the striking energy and the destructive
power of its heavier shells, it was greater still. Opposed to the
enemy’s five battle-cruisers, there were four under the command of
Sir David Beatty and three led by Rear-Admiral Hood. Against the six
18-knot pre-Dreadnoughts that formed the rear of the German Fleet,
with their twenty-four 11-inch guns firing a 700-pound shell, there
were Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas’s four 25-knot ships of the Fifth Battle
Squadron, carrying thirty-two 15-inch guns, whose shells were three
times as heavy and must have been nine times as destructive. This
force, vastly superior if it could be concentrated for its purpose, had
to be deployed for a blow which, if simultaneously delivered at a range
at which the guns would hit, must be final in a very brief period.
The German Admiral could never have had the least doubt as to his task.
His business was to save his fleet from the annihilation with which
it was manifestly menaced. So far fortune had been kind. The British
Battle-Cruiser Fleet had done what the Germans had expected it to do.
It had engaged promptly and determinedly and its losses, surprisingly
enough, had been suffered, not while it was holding a force greatly
superior to itself, but while engaging Von Hipper, whose ships were
less numerous and more lightly armed. Though Scheer did not expect an
encounter with the Grand Fleet, he was very far from being unprepared,
should it come. Accordingly, when at six o’clock he realized that the
supreme moment had arrived, he was probably as little in doubt as to
his method of executing his task, as to the character of the task
itself.
THE TACTICAL PLANS
_Admiral Scheer’s tactics_
The tactics of Admiral Scheer were a development and an extension
of those of Von Hipper on January 24 of the previous year. If his
task was to break off action as soon as possible and to keep out of
action until darkness made fleet fighting impossible, means must be
found of thwarting or neutralizing the attack of the British Fleet
while it lasted, of evading that attack at the earliest moment, and
of preventing its resumption. He could only neutralize the attack in
so far as he could thwart the fire-control and aiming of the enemy
by the constant or intermittent concealment of his ships by smoke. He
could only evade attack by preventing the overwhelming force against
him being brought within striking distance. Recall for a moment the
lessons of the Dogger Bank. In his retreat Von Hipper had put his
flotillas to a double task. For the first two hours of that engagement
he had checked the speed of his battle cruisers to cover _Bluecher_.
When the British Fleet had so gained on him that its artillery became
effective, he realized that the case of _Bluecher_ was hopeless and
that, unless prompt measures were taken, the case of the battle
cruiser would be little better. _Bluecher_ was, therefore, abandoned
to her fate and _Derfflinger_, _Seydlitz_, and _Moltke_ concealed by
smoke. Simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, a veritable shoal of
torpedoes was launched across the path on which _Lion_ and her consorts
were advancing. The smoke baffled the gun-layers, the changed course
forced on the battle-cruisers baffled the fire-control. The Germans
gained immunity from gunfire and, in the pause, changed course and
got a new start in the race for home. Then the first of a succession
of rendezvous for submarines placed on the pre-arranged line of the
German retreat, repeated this tactic of diversion just before _Lion_
was disabled. The intervention--an hour later--of a second protecting
picket of submarines was decisive, for, on realizing their presence,
the officer who had succeeded Sir David in command broke off pursuit.
It was on these tactics on a greatly extended scale and developed no
doubt by assiduous study and repeated rehearsal, that Scheer now had to
rely.
The circumstances of the moment were exceptionally favourable for their
employment. The conditions of atmosphere that made long-range gunnery
difficult, made the establishment of smoke screens to render it more
difficult still, exceptionally easy. The wind had dropped, the air
was heavy and vaporous, the ships were running from one bank of light
fog into another. It was a day on which smoke would stay where it was
made, clinging to the surface of the sea, mingling with and permeating
the water-laden atmosphere. Further, these were just the conditions in
which, were a torpedo attack delivered at a fleet by the fast destroyer
flotillas, the threat would have an element of surprise that would
be lacking in clear vision. Such menaces, then, should they have any
deterrent effect on the enemy’s closing, would be likely to have a
maximum effect. The respite from gunfire, the delay in the re-formation
of the fleet for pursuit, each could be the longest possible.
Two considerations must have caused Scheer the gravest possible
anxiety. In the first place, smoke screens would not protect the van
of his fleet. What if the British used their speed to concentrate
ships there and crush it? Secondly, as destroyer attacks could only be
delivered from a point in advance of the course of the squadrons it was
hoped to injure or divert, the method on which he relied, first for
breaking off from, and then evading, action could not be used until
he had the British Fleet on his quarter or astern. Now at six o’clock
the British Fleet was dead ahead of him. Its fleet’s speed must have
been three, and may have been four, knots greater than his own. He had
four powerful ships, six or seven knots faster still, on his port bow
at a range of only 14,000 yards, supported by a 25-knot squadron only
three knots slower and of enormous gun power. How was he to turn a
line of twenty-one ships to get the whole of this force behind him,
without some portion of it being overwhelmed in the process? For to
turn in succession would be to leave first the centre and the rear,
and then the rear entirely unsupported as the leading ships escaped.
As we have seen in a previous chapter, until the enemy’s artillery was
neutralized, it was out of the question to do anything but to turn
on a flat arc, so that so long as it was necessary or possible, all
the ships should act in mutual support. The crux of the situation was
this: The Grand Fleet was but twelve miles off, a distance that could
be shortened to easy gun range in ten or twelve minutes. What if the
whole of this force were in a quarter of an hour brought parallel to,
and well ahead of, his own? To engage it defensively by gun power
would be useless for the odds were hopeless. To turn the head of the
line sharply would be to purchase a precarious safety for the van by
the certain immolation of the centre and the rear. Scheer must have
seen that, were things to develop along this line, he would have no
choice but to turn his whole fleet together, a dangerous and desperate
manœuvre, but permissible because the time would have come for a _sauve
qui peut_.
But while these considerations may have caused him some anxiety, there
were other elements to reassure him. Years before the war, the Germans
had discovered and grasped what seemed the fundamental strategic
idea that had shaped British naval strategy. It was that the rôle of
our main sea forces in war was to be primarily defensive. Our fleet
was to consist of units individually more powerful than those of
competing navies. As to numbers, we were aiming at possessing these
on an equality with the two next largest Powers combined. It was a
policy that permitted of an overwhelming concentration against the
most powerful of our competitors, the Germans, while still maintaining
substantial forces the world over. It was a presumption of this policy
that the use of the sea would in war be ceded to us by our enemies, and
would remain virtually undisturbed until our main forces were not only
attacked but defeated. Numbers and individual power made an attack by
inferior forces seem the most remote of all contingencies, and defeat
impossible.
From this theory the Germans derived a corollary. It was that, as
the British ideal was concerned not primarily with victory, but in
avoiding defeat, we should probably not face great risks to destroy
an enemy--and obviously no enemy could be destroyed without great
risks--but rather would be chiefly preoccupied with averting the
destruction, not only of our whole fleet, but even of such a proportion
of it as would deprive us of that pre-eminence in numbers on which we
seemed chiefly to rely. Hence, in the preamble of the last Navy Bill
which the Government got the Reichstag to accept before the war, it
was plainly stated that the naval policy of the German Higher Command
did not aim at possessing a fleet capable of defeating the strongest
fleet in the world, but would be satisfied with a force that the
strongest fleet could not defeat, except at a cost that would bring it
so low that its world supremacy would be gone. The underlying military
conception was that the group then controlling the British Navy would
not fight, and the underlying political conception that, should this
group be replaced by leaders of a more aggressive complexion, the price
we should pay for a sea victory would be a combination of the world’s
other sea forces against us, they being prompted to this by their
long-felt jealousy of Great Britain’s navalism.
In May, 1916, the bottom had fallen out of the political argument.
There was no naval Power that was the least jealous of Great Britain.
The submarine campaign had disgusted all with Germany’s sea ethics,
and the whole world would have rejoiced had sea victory, which was
necessary before the submarine could be finally defeated, been won. But
on the military argument the Germans were on surer ground. They had
certain substantial reasons for believing that they had not misread
the psychology of our Higher Naval Command. Indeed, if Jutland left
them or the world in any doubt about the matter, their interpretation
was to receive the most striking of all confirmations by a statesman
who had not only been First Lord of the Admiralty, but had personally
selected the Commander-in-Chief on this eventful day, and had no doubt
been a party to, if he had not inspired, the strategy which the Grand
Fleet was to observe. Mr. Churchill left the world in no uncertainty at
all that, in his opinion--which, presumably, was that not only of the
Boards over which he had presided, but of those from whom it had been
inherited--the British Fleet, without a victorious battle, enjoyed all
the advantages that the most crushing of victories could give us, and
that it was for the Germans and not for us to attempt any alteration
in the position at sea. Beyond this, however, Scheer not only had it
in his favour that the British Commander-in-Chief might, under such
inspiration, hesitate about the risks inseparable from seeking a rapid
decision at short range; he seemed to have a definite and official
confirmation of a further theory, viz., that to avoid a certain form
of risk was almost an axiom of official British doctrine. Von Hipper’s
escape at the Dogger Bank, unexplained it is true in Sir David Beatty’s
despatch, had been complacently attributed by the British Admiralty to
the unexpected presence of enemy submarines. The immediate abandonment
of the field in the presence of this form of attack, so far from being
made the subject of Admiralty disapproval, seems to have been endorsed
by the continuous employment of the officer responsible. Scheer could
then look forward to his torpedo attack not only as holding a menace
over the British Fleet that might endanger its numerical superiority.
It seemed to be a menace specifically accepted as one not in any
circumstances to be encountered.
Still, for all that, there was uncertainty in the matter. The sport
of bull-fighting owes its continuance solely to the fact that the
instincts of each brute playmate in that cruel game are exactly
identical with those of every other. However busy any bull may be
with a tossed and disembowelled horse, it is a matter of mathematical
certainty that a red cloak dangled before his eyes will divert him from
goring the rider. The animal’s reactions to each well-known pin-prick
or provocation are inevitable. The safety of every toreador, piccador,
and matador depends not on their power of meeting the unexpected, but
upon the rapidity, deftness, and agility with which they can first time
the movements which long experience has taught them to expect, and then
execute the counter-stroke or evasion which an old-established art has
prescribed. Scheer, it seems to me, showed something more than rashness
in relying on a German analysis of our naval mentality, and upon a
single instance--and endorsement--of that mentality in action, as if it
established a rule of conduct as irrevocable as instinct. But, then, it
must be understood, he had no choice.
_Sir David Beatty’s Tactics_
At six the Grand Fleet was five miles to the north, approximately
twelve miles from the enemy. It could not come into action in less than
a quarter of an hour. The speed of _Lion_, _Tiger_, _Princess Royal_,
and _New Zealand_ was twenty-seven knots, at least eight, possibly
nine or even ten knots faster than that of the enemy. The head of the
enemy’s line bore southeast from the flagship. Scheer, already aware
of Sir John Jellicoe’s approach, was beginning his eastward turn.
Beatty realized that at full speed he could head the German Fleet, so
that by the time the Grand Fleet’s deployment was complete, he would
be in a commanding position on the bow of the enemy’s van. It would
probably not be possible for Evan-Thomas to gain this position, too.
But there was no reason why he should. Assuming Sir David’s purpose to
be the realization of the most elementary of tactical axioms, viz. to
strike as nearly as possible simultaneously with all the forces in the
field, Evan-Thomas would be just as useful at one end of the line as
the other. The twenty-four ships of the Grand Fleet, led by the battle
cruisers and with the four _Queen Elizabeths_ as a rear squadron, would
outflank the enemy at both ends of his line.
The realization of the plan would depend entirely upon the pace of
the Grand Fleet in getting into action. Had all the divisions of the
Grand Fleet kept their course at full speed until reaching the track
of Sir David Beatty’s squadron, the starboard division would have cut
that line in about ten minutes and the port division in about twelve
and a half to thirteen. There would have been an interval of five
miles between the leading ships. Even at twenty-seven knots the four
battle-cruisers led by _Lion_ could hardly have got clear of the port
division and, to avoid collision, all would have had to ease their
speed slightly. But undoubtedly at 6:15 or, at least, 6:20, a line
might have been formed exactly in Sir David Beatty’s track. Had this
line followed him as he closed down after Hood at 6:25 the enemy would
have been completely outflanked at both ends of his line and even
surrounded at its head. There would have been half an hour between the
Grand Fleet getting into action and the failure of the light. It is
difficult to suppose that, at ranges of from 11,000 yards to 8,000,
the guns of the Grand Fleet could not have beaten the High Seas Fleet
decisively. Scheer could not have turned. His choice would have been
between annihilation and a flight _pêle-mêle_.
Not only does it seem that some such deployment as this was manifestly
possible; it looks as if it was exactly this deployment that Admiral
Beatty had expected. On any other supposition his manœuvre in throwing
first his own and then Hood’s battle cruisers into a short-range fight
with the Germans was to run the gravest risks of disaster, without any
high probability of justifying it by a final defeat of the enemy. If he
expected the Grand Fleet to deploy on to his course and so come into
action with its entire strength, possibly within fifteen, certainly
within twenty minutes of the enemy being sighted, then to have incurred
the loss, not of one but of half of his and Hood’s ships would have
been amply justified.
The manœuvre he executed--judged not as a self-contained evolution but
as part of a large plan--was, of course, one of the most brilliant and
original in the history of the naval war. For the first time for more
than two thousand years two fleets met of which a section of one had
nearly a 50 per cent. superiority in speed over the other. This fast
squadron was sent at top speed to hold and envelop the enemy’s van. It
was calculated to, and it did, arrest that van by sinking the leading
ship and throwing the remainder into confusion. It was not a movement
that interfered with the deployment of the Grand Fleet in the least
degree. It was one, on the contrary, that would have covered it most
effectively, and to a great extent must have concealed its character
from the enemy. But, further, being carried through at a speed which
probably exceeded that which any enemy flotilla could maintain in the
open sea, the manœuvre must have made it impossible for Scheer to get
his destroyers into the right position for a torpedo attack, either
upon the deploying ships or upon the Grand Fleet once deployed. For to
attack to advantage, the flotillas must have been brought up ahead of
the British battle-cruisers, a manifest impossibility. Had the Grand
Fleet as a whole, then, been in action in Sir David Beatty’s wake
from 6:20 on, it is almost certain that, with all his fleet in action
at short range, against guns almost twice as numerous as his own and
more than three times as powerful Scheer could not have ventured upon
changing the course of his fleet at all. He could not have done so,
that is to say, while attempting to keep his ships in line. He might,
as we have seen, have turned all his ships together in undisguised
flight, he could not have kept them in fighting formation while
withdrawing from a fight in these circumstances.
_Sir John Jellicoe’s Tactics_
Before speculating as to the plans or discussing the tactics of the
British Commander-in-Chief, two factors which influenced the situation
must be kept in mind. The first is, that the positions of the two
fleets and of the enemy had been the subject of a forecast by dead
reckoning in both flagships. It is to be supposed that Sir David Beatty
kept Admiral Jellicoe informed from time to time of the position,
speed, and course of his fleet and of the enemy, and that from these
data the lines of approach had been calculated. Each flagship made
its own calculations and, being made by dead reckoning, there was a
discrepancy between the two, which the Commander-in-Chief describes
as inevitable. It resulted from this that both were equally surprised
when, at four minutes to six, _Lion_ and _Marlborough_ came within
sight of each other. Whatever plan of action was adopted could not,
if it was intended to meet the situation of the moment, have been the
subject of long forethought or preparation.
The second factor was the difficulty of seeing anything at long range.
This, in the first place, had prevented any rectification of the
misunderstanding as to positions, such as might easily have been done
had the scouting cruisers of the two fleets come into sight earlier.
It followed, next, that the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet did
not probably see a single ship in the enemy’s line until ten or twelve
minutes _after_ seeing the leading ship of the British Battle-Cruiser
Fleet. His plan of deployment, then, orders for which must have been
given some minutes before the deployment was complete, _could not have
been based upon his own judgment of the situation after seeing the
enemy, but must have been dictated, either by some general principle of
tactics applied to the information as to the enemy’s position, speed,
and course, as given by the Vice-Admiral, or it must have been part of
a plan suggested by the Vice-Admiral_. There is nothing in the despatch
to say whether Sir David Beatty communicated anything more to the
Commander-in-Chief than the bearing and distance, first, of the enemy’s
battle cruisers, then of his battleships. But it seems irrational to
suppose that Sir David did not announce what he intended to do or
failed to suggest how best he could be supported.
If the despatches are silent as to the nature of Sir David Beatty’s
plan, they are equally silent about the Commander-in-Chief’s. We are
told simply that he formed his six divisions into a line of battle and
are left to infer the character and the direction of the deployment
from internal evidence. The facts, so far as they can be gathered from
the despatch seem to be as follows:
The Grand Fleet came upon the scene in six divisions on a S.E.-by-S.
course. This means that the six divisions were parallel with the
leading ships in line-abreast, with an interval of approximately a
mile between each division. A line drawn through the leading ships and
continued to the west would have cut the line of Sir David Beatty’s
course after six o’clock, if that also had been similarly continued,
making an angle of about 33 degrees. The division on the extreme right,
led by _Marlborough_, flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Cecil Burney,
sighted Sir David Beatty’s squadron at six o’clock. At the same time
Sir David reported the position of the enemy’s battle-cruisers, three
of which were still at the head of the German line. The speed of the
Grand Fleet was probably at least twenty knots, if not twenty-one. The
six divisions seem to have continued their former course for ten or
twelve minutes, when all the leading ships turned eight points--or a
right angle--together to port, the second, third, and fourth ships
in each division following their leaders in succession, so that, very
few minutes after the leading ship had turned, the fleet would be on
a line at right angles to its former course, and steering N.E. by E.
If the leading ship continued on the new course, the fleet would then
be heading at an angle of 56 degrees _away_ from the enemy. A fleet so
deployed would now be brought into action by the leading ship turning
again, either to a course parallel with the enemy or converging towards
it.
It seems probable that it was some such manœuvre as this that took
place, from the fact that the starboard (or right hand) division, which
became the rear division after deployment, got into action so early
as 6:17, at a range of 11,000 yards, that is, a thousand yards nearer
to the enemy than Sir David Beatty’s track, while the port division,
now the leading, did not open fire till some time after 6:30, when, as
we learn from the despatch, the British fleet was on the bow of the
enemy. This means that the courses were parallel, but that the leading
British divisions were well ahead of the enemy. Both fleets, in other
words, were still steering to the east. The track of the Grand Fleet
was, therefore, parallel, not only to that of the enemy, but to that of
Sir David Beatty up to 6:25, but by some considerable amount, probably
2,000 yards farther from the High Seas Fleet. At 6:50 the leading
battle squadron was 6,000 yards N.N.W. from _Lion_. The Grand Fleet
had not formed up astern of the Battle-Cruiser Fleet. It had not come
into action as a unit simultaneously. It had not deployed either on the
enemy or on the British fast division.