Thomas G. Frothingham's "Review of the Battle of Jutland" in THE NEW
YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE is a valuable account of the events
of the engagement. It would not have been possible within the limits of
his article to have related every incident, but he has made a judicious
selection of those which he does bring forward. He had, of course, to
depend on his sources; and on some important points these contained
little or no information. Anything like a full account from the German
side was virtually nonexistent. It would have been instructive to have
put the German naval authorities into the witness box and to have
subjected them to that species of cross-examination which consists
in a comparison of some of their statements with others and with the
statements of their opponents. It would be here that a writer with the
true instinct of a historian, which Mr. Frothingham evidently does
possess, could render valuable service had the necessary materials been
at his disposal.
A writer who draws inferences from data by no means full and perhaps
open to dispute can hardly expect to carry conviction to every
reader. It might be sufficient to deal with Mr. Frothingham's general
conclusion concerning the battle of Jutland; but it will be well before
doing so to notice also one or two minor but still important inferences
which he draws from the events of the battle.