Mr. Frothingham maintains that the German fleet came out with the
object, and no other, of engaging the British fleet, a force known
to be greatly superior in number of ships and power of ordnance. He
apparently, but not quite clearly, suggests that the Germans knew how
the British fleet would be employed and how it would be disposed. It
would be difficult to put any other construction on the words--"With
the object of engaging a fleet usually so disposed and so employed,
the Germans came out from their bases." Surely this is a pure
assumption which can only be supported by other assumptions founded on
improbability rather than on probability. There is another assumption
which is more plausible and which is supported by evidence--indirect,
it is true, but copious. The war had been going on for more than a year
and a half, and yet the German High Sea Fleet, in spite of its name,
had sedulously refrained from venturing on the high seas. This made it
the object of perpetual taunts by the enemies of Germany. There was
some not completely suppressed restlessness among the German people.
It has been an almost invariable rule in war that the fleet which keeps
on lying in port is eventually forced to put to sea by public opinion.
The tone and wording of many official German statements justify the
conclusion that the German fleet put to sea with the object, not of
meeting the British fleet, but of returning to port with the assertion
that the British fleet had kept out of the way and that the North Sea
had been "swept" for it in vain. Contrary to the probable expectation,
Sir David Beatty's force was met with and there seemed a chance of
being able to attack him with the whole strength of the German Navy.
Unforeseen opportunities of the kind have frequently occurred in naval
war, and may be expected frequently to occur again.