There can be few if any battles fought on land, at sea or latterly in the air which have produced so much controversy and have been re-fought so often on paper as that which took place in the North Sea on the last day of May 1916. Though it is not intended in this chapter to produce a detailed account rivalling or complementing that of Professor Arthur Marder,1 Beatty’s part in the battle was so important that it is essential to describe his actions; and that would be incomprehensible without reference to the actions of his Commander-in-Chief and of the enemy.
The German C-in-C since January 1916 Admiral Reinhard Scheer planned to improve the strength of his fleet relative to Admiral Jellicoe’s by making a sortie to the north of the Skagerrak with Admiral Hipper’s battle cruisers and light forces and his own battle squadrons in support of them. Submarines were stationed off the British bases and at other strategic points to catch Jellicoe’s ships as they came out, and Scheer hoped also to cut off and destroy detached squadrons of the Grand Fleet. Hipper sailed from the Jade at 1.0 a.m. on 31st May and Scheer from the Jade and Elbe two and a half hours later.* Hipper’s force consisted of the Lützow (flagship) and four other battle cruisers (1st Scouting Group), and four light cruisers (2nd Scouting Group). The destroyers were divided into two groups (1st and 2nd Torpedo Boat Forces) each of which had a light cruiser as Leader. Scheer himself flew his flag in the Friedrich der Grosse, which was not attached to any group, and had with him 15 other Dreadnought battleships (1st and 3rd Squadrons), six pre-Dreadnoughts (2nd Squadron) and five light cruisers (4th Scouting Group). The submarine trap was laid by stationing 18 boats off the Orkneys, the Moray Firth, the Firth of Forth and in other favourable positions; but as they accomplished nothing and lost one of their number we need take no further account of their actions.
At noon on 30th the Admiralty, forewarned by Room 40, ordered Jellicoe and Beatty to prepare for sea, and at 5.40 p.m. told the former to concentrate his forces in the Long Forties (about 100 miles east of Aberdeen). The result was that the 1st and 4th Battle Squadrons (Admirals Burney and Sturdee), the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron (Admiral Hood), the 2nd Cruiser Squadron (Admiral Heath), the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron (Admiral Le Mesurier) and two and half flotillas of destroyers had sailed from Scapa for the rendezvous by 10.30 p.m. From the Moray Firth came the 2nd Battle Squadron (Admiral Jerram), the 1st Cruiser Squadron (Admiral Arbuthnot) and a half flotilla of destroyers to join Jellicoe shortly before noon on 31st May. At 11.0 p.m. on 30th Beatty sailed from the Firth of Forth with the 1st and 2nd Battle Cruiser Squadrons (Admirals Brock and Pakenham) and the four available ships of the Queen Elizabeth class forming the fast and powerful 5th Battle Squadron under Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, which Jellicoe had recently detached to Rosyth in replacement of Admiral Hood’s three Invincibles, which had just been sent to Scapa to carry out routine gunnery practices. Beatty thus fortuitously received the accession of strength for which he had vainly asked in the previous February – though at too short notice to integrate it fully with his other forces. Accompanying Beatty’s heavy ships were the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Light Cruiser Squadrons (Admirals Alexander-Sinclair, Goodenough and Napier respectively), one seaplane carrier and 27 destroyers. As to the strength of the High Seas Fleet, the Intelligence given by the Admiralty to Jellicoe had led him to expect it to consist of 27 or 28 battleships, possibly including the new Bayern armed with 15-inch guns and the ex-Greek Salamis, as well as six battle cruisers including the new Hindenburg.2 In fact this was a big over-estimate of the ships actually available on 31st May. The misleading Intelligence given to Jellicoe arose through the staggeringly bad co-operation of the Admiralty’s War Staff with Room 40. W. F. Clarke, a former barrister who worked for 30 years in our cryptographic organisation, wrote (almost certainly to Admiral Chalmers when he was engaged on his biography of Beatty) that ‘In Room 40 we knew the exact composition and state of readiness of the German fleet from day to day, but J. R. J. [Jellicoe] was not given this information and it was only after Jutland, when he raised the question, that we were allowed to tell him . . . we had up till then no means of communicating with the C-in-C, nor did we know what he was being told.’3 The two sides’ relative strengths were in fact as follows, though neither Jellicoe nor Beatty was aware of the extent of the numerical superiority they enjoyed. It is possible that, as Jellicoe later suggested, the faulty intelligence given to him affected his tactics during the battle:4
Battleships – 28 British to 22 German (including 6 pre-Dreadnoughts)
Battle cruisers – 9 British to 5 German
Armoured and light cruisers – 34 British to 11
German
Destroyers – 78 British to 61 German.
When Jellicoe’s forces from Scapa and Cromarty had concentrated he steered for the position off the Skagerrak which he had arranged with Beatty for 2.30 p.m.*
Unfortunately for the British a number of things went wrong in the early stages. The first mistake arose through another case of bad co-operation between the Operations Division and Room 40. An officer from the former went to the latter and asked where our Direction-Finding stations placed the German call sign DK – which was that of the flagship of the High Seas Fleet. He was told, quite correctly, that it was in Wilhelmshaven. In fact the Germans had shifted to a shore station both the call sign and the wireless operator who generally worked on Scheer’s wavelength – in order to prevent any change of ‘touch’ being noticed at our listening stations.5 Room 40 was well aware of this practice, but was not consulted when the Admiralty – to the later fury of the cryptographic team – signalled to Jellicoe at 12.30 p.m. that the German flagship was still in harbour. When later in the war Clarke visited Beatty’s flagship and was summoned quite unexpectedly to dine with the Admiral he waved a copy of the criminally stupid signal at him and said ‘What am I to think of O.D. [Operations Division] when I get that telegram and in three hours’ time meet the whole German Fleet well out at sea?’5 This was the first that Clarke had heard of the signal sent without Room 40’s knowledge by Rear-Admiral T. Jackson, the Director of the Operations Division. His horrified reaction can well be understood.* One effect of this blunder was to deprive Jellicoe of a sense of urgency. He proceeded at only 15 knots and delayed to examine various merchant ships encountered on the way to the rendezvous with Beatty, which he therefore reached one hour late. Secondly the Admiralty was anxious about a possible lunge at the cross-Channel shipping routes, and therefore held the 3rd Battle Squadron and 3rd Cruiser Squadron in the Thames estuary, and also kept Tyrwhitt’s fine Harwich Force in harbour. Thirdly, through a series of accidents, the seaplane carrier which should have accompanied Jellicoe, and whose aircraft might have been useful for reconnaissance purposes, got left behind and never caught up with the Grand Fleet. Fourthly the Admiralty, perhaps remembering the consequences of their having arranged the rendezvous with Beatty prior to the Dogger Bank action,† left it to Jellicoe this time; and he gave Beatty a position 69 miles SSE of his own expected position for 2.30 p.m. on 31st. Although it is true that in earlier sorties Jellicoe had ordered Beatty to take up a position at least as far ahead of him without unfortunate results it is none the less a fact that the separation between the BCF and the Grand Fleet was too great. Furthermore the errors in the two forces’ Dead Reckoning (DR) positions, which were to produce difficulties later, would probably have been eliminated had their light forces been in visual touch with each other. Lastly, Beatty stationed Evan-Thomas’s 5th Battle Squadron (four Queen Elizabeth class) 5 miles to the north-west of his battle cruisers – which meant they were not in close support of him in the first phase of the battle. The reader will recall Beatty’s disappointment over narrowly failing to catch Hipper’s 1st Scouting Group in the Scarborough Raid operations of December 1914, and his fury over the same enemy’s escape from his clutches in the Dogger Bank action* Though it can hardly be proved with documentary certainty I am convinced that Beatty regarded Hipper as his particular quarry, and on 31st May he was determined that this time he would ‘bag the lot’ – as he considered his force should have done at Dogger Bank. A clue to Beatty’s possible feelings on this matter is provided by a remark made by his intimate friend Walter Cowan of the Princess Royal, which has, surprisingly, not been given any weight, and in many cases has not even been noticed by writers on Jutland. Cowan wrote that during the approach to battle he had at first feared that the ‘damned 5th Battle Squadron is going to take the bread out of our mouths’.6 I find it much more reasonable to extend Cowan’s thinking to the Admiral whom he so fervently admired than to accept Professor Marder’s justification for Beatty’s handling of Evan-Thomas’s ships.7 Though it is true that the 5th Battle Squadron had never worked with the Battle Cruiser Fleet before, that its ships’ full speed was some three knots slower, and that Evan-Thomas was not a particularly imaginative leader who would sense his senior officer’s needs and intentions intuitively, it none the less leaves a sense of unease in my mind that Beatty ignored Nelson’s dictum that ‘only numbers can annihilate’ – despite the fact that he was fond of quoting the national hero’s obiter dicta when they fitted in with any case he wanted to make.
Many years later when Beatty read Jellicoe’s paper on ‘Errors made in Jutland Battle’, which included criticism of his handling of the 5th Battle Squadron, he defended his actions vigorously, writing that ‘If I had waited for 5th BS instead of steaming to get between [the] Enemy and his bases I should never have brought them to action at all . . . and I should have been Court-Martialled for not doing my utmost to destroy the Enemy!! Since when should 6 British Battle Cruisers hesitate to bring to action 5 Enemy Battle Cruisers!!?’8 But in truth, owing to the incorrect Intelligence sent by the Admiralty mentioned earlier, it was not until about 3.30 p.m. on 31st May that Beatty realised that Hipper had only five ships instead of the six he had been led to expect; and if he expected to be only equal in number to his adversary he should surely have taken action to secure Evan-Thomas’s immediate support.
During the forenoon of 31st May Beatty and Hipper were steering courses nearly at right angles to each other – the former slightly to the north of East and the latter slightly to the west of North.* Scheer was about 50 miles astern of Hipper, with his battleships already disposed in line ahead. The sea was calm and the visibility fairly good during the early afternoon, but soon began to deteriorate. The weather had frustrated the usual German Zeppelin reconnaissance, while the few seaplanes accompanying Beatty’s force were of no use to him. Thus when Beatty reached the position where he was to turn to the north towards Jellicoe at 2.15 p.m. he and Hipper were completely unaware of each other’s presence – though the closest of their screening ships were only some 15 miles apart. Then a Danish merchant ship was sighted in between the two adversaries, both of whom sent light forces to investigate her. Thus was contact made at 2.20 p.m.
On receiving the first sighting report from the light cruiser Galatea Beatty did not, as stated in his despatch, immediately steer ‘for the sound of the guns’. For reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained he allowed 12 minutes to elapse before increasing to full speed and altering to the south-east in order to get between the enemy (whoever it might turn out to be) and his base.9 The alteration of course was first signalled to Evan-Thomas by flags which could not be read at so long a distance. Not until it was repeated by searchlight did he turn to conform; and by that time the gap between him and Beatty had opened to 10 miles. The result was that Evan-Thomas’s ships did not come into action until 20 minutes after Beatty’s – an error for which Beatty himself must carry most of the responsibility, though Seymour, his Flag Lieutenant, should have repeated the alter course signal at once by searchlight. After the war Jellicoe wrote that ‘his [Beatty’s] signal officer throughout disobeyed my Battle Instructions that when in presence of the enemy all signals were to be made by flags, searchlight and wireless. Had these instructions been carried out and the 5th Battle Squadron been closed up I think Hipper would have been annihilated’ – a criticism which certainly has much validity.10
Meanwhile Beatty had been left with only one Light Cruiser Squadron (Goodenough’s) to serve as his advanced screen, the other two squadrons having steered to the sound of the Galatea’s guns. Thus it was not until 3.30 that the officers and men straining their eyes to the north-east from the Lion’s bridge sighted Hipper’s ships some 14 miles away. Beatty at once altered to the east and increased to full speed; while Hipper, aware of his inferiority, altered 180 degrees to starboard with the object of drawing Beatty towards Scheer. Both sides opened fire at about 3.48, by which time the 5th Battle Squadron was ‘hull down on the horizon’. Both sides at first over-estimated the range, though the German error was much the smaller. Beatty believed it to be 18,000 yards when in fact it was some 2,000 yards less. Unfortunately the British fire distribution signal, made at 3.46 by flags, again led to a misunderstanding – as at Dogger Bank. The admiral meant to utilise his six to five superiority by his two leading ships (Lion and Princess Royal) concentrating on the leading enemy (Lützow, Hipper’s flagship), while each of his other ships engaged her opposite number in the German line. The concentration on the Lützow was carried out, but the Queen Mary (third in Beatty’s line) missed or misunderstood the signal and engaged Hipper’s third ship the Seydlitz. In the rear of Beatty’s line the Tiger also missed the signal, with the result that both she and the New Zealand engaged the Moltke. The Indefatigable, last in the line, correctly engaged the von der Tann; but for some 10 minutes the Derfflinger, to her Gunnery Officer’s delight, was allowed to make undisturbed target practice, chiefly at her opposite number the Queen Mary.11 The German shooting was extremely accurate, and with the British ships silhouetted against the westering sun the advantage of light and visibility was very much in the Germans’ favour.* An interesting point is that the two German ships against which a concentration of fire was effected by the British battle cruisers (Lützow and Moltke) made the best shooting in the opening phase; which supports the view that in those days concentration was unlikely to achieve much, if any benefit – chiefly because of the difficulty of distinguishing each ship’s fall of shot.
The first hits scored by the Germans were on the Princess Royal and Tiger, which had received no less than nine by 4.0 p.m. The Lion was hit at 3.51 and 3.52, one of which struck the roof of her midship turret and very nearly caused her loss. The best estimate of the results achieved in the first critical minutes is that up to 4.0 p.m. the Germans obtained 15 hits on Beatty’s ships (excluding the Queen Mary and Indefatigable), while the British battle cruisers only obtained four hits. Between 4.02 and 4.05 the Indefatigable was hit by about five heavy shells fired by the von der Tann, and blew up with the loss of 1,017 officers and men killed. At about the same moment the 5th Battle Squadron opened fire at 19,000 yards, and quickly began to make its weight felt – especially on the Moltke and von der Tann, the rear ships of the German line. In his report on the battle to his C-in-C Hipper emphasised the ineffectiveness of the British battle cruisers’ gunfire and the effectiveness of that of the 5th Battle Squadron.12
With such a heavy superiority now in his favour Beatty closed on his adversary, and from 4.15 to 4.35 there ensued what he called in his despatch a duel ‘of a very fierce and resolute character’. It was in this phase that the Queen Mary, whose shooting had been the best of Beatty’s ships, was heavily hit by the concentrated fire of the Derfflinger and Seydlitz. At 4.26 a salvo struck her amidships and she blew up – with the loss of 1,266 officers and men killed. It was this second horrifying disaster which caused Beatty to remark calmly to Chatfield ‘There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today’. Chatfield was the only person who heard the remark, and he has since confirmed its correctness.* Churchill’s attribution to Beatty of the words “Turn two points [45 degrees] to port” i.e. two points nearer the enemy’ is total fiction, as is his gloss ‘Thus the crisis of the battle was surmounted’.13
Despite the losses suffered by Beatty the position in which Hipper found himself was becoming increasingly perilous, and at 4.09 Beatty decided to press him still harder by ordering his destroyers to attack with torpedoes. About five minutes later Hipper tried to relieve the pressure by sending his own destroyers in with the same purpose. The result was that a fierce action between the two sides’ light craft developed in the waters between the big ships. Of 20 torpedoes fired by the British only two hit – one on the Seydlitz, which did no serious damage, and one on a destroyer. It is unlikely that any German torpedoes scored a hit. Both sides lost two destroyers in this fierce encounter. Hipper and Evan-Thomas both turned away from the torpedo threat, and by 4.36 the former was steering almost due east and had broken off the action. To summarise the results achieved in the ‘run to the south’ the Germans probably obtained 44 hits, including 7 on the Queen Mary, 5 on the Indefatigable and 2 on Evan-Thomas’s flagship the Barham. In return Beatty’s ships obtained 11 hits and Evan-Thomas’s 6. But as the light and visibility were markedly in the German favour too much should not be made of this disparity.*
At about 4.30 Commodore Goodenough’s Southampton sighted the High Seas Fleet, at once closed to about 6 miles in order to obtain exact information, and at 4.38 signalled to Jellicoe and Beatty ‘Have sighted enemy Battle Fleet bearing approximately SE, course of enemy N. . . .’14 It was a classic example of a light cruiser performing its traditional functions correctly. Beatty altered course to close Goodenough, and quickly sighted the masts and upper works of Scheer’s ships about 12 miles away to the SE. Then he turned 16 points (180 degrees) in succession to starboard and steered to the NW and then N so as to fall back on Jellicoe whilst drawing his quarry towards his C-in-C. Evan-Thomas was about 8 miles to the north of Beatty and still heavily engaged with Hipper when the order to turn 16 points was made executive. He did not see Beatty’s turning signal – which was again made by flags and not repeated by searchlight. As the 5th Battle Squadron approached the battle cruisers on an opposite course one of his staff asked Beatty on which side the former was to pass. He was told on the disengaged side – which in retrospect seems a pity because it was bound to cause a check in the battleships’ very effective shooting.15 At 4.48 Beatty signalled direct to Evan-Thomas to turn 16 points to starboard in succession. As Professor Marder remarks there were three things wrong with this signal.16 It should have been made executive before the 5th Battle Squadron came abreast of the Lion if the former was to give close support to the latter: it should have been an order to turn together if the maximum use was to be made of the battleships; and the turn should have been to port instead of starboard if the gap between the forces was not to be widened. As it was the gap had opened to about three miles before Evan-Thomas’s ships had completed their turns. The only compensation for these mistakes was that the 5th Battle Squadron, now well astern of Beatty, was able first to engage the leading ships of the High Seas Fleet and then take some of the weight of Hipper’s fire off Beatty during ‘the run to the north’.
We left Hipper steering a little east of south towards Scheer at 4.50 p.m. Two minutes later he started to reverse course by a turn to starboard in succession (shortly before Evan-Thomas executed his similar turn) and steered again to the north-west, thus closing the range towards Beatty – who was once again handicapped by the poor visibility to the east. Firing was now resumed for about 20 minutes, during which the 5th Battle Squadron, which was on Beatty’s port quarter, bore the chief brunt – and inflicted more damage than it received. A curious feature of the Jutland post-mortem was Beatty’s insistence that the range at this time had been 14,000 when it was certainly two or three thousand yards greater. One can only surmise that he was trying to forestall criticism of himself for not having closed the range – which in fact no one had made and which in the prevailing circumstances would have been a folly.17 Hipper was still quite unaware that he was steering towards the Grand Fleet, and leading Scheer into Jellicoe’s arms.
At 5.40 the action was renewed with the light now for the first time favouring the British, who scored heavily against Hipper, forced him to turn away to starboard (i.e. towards the north) and again order his flotillas to attack Beatty’s ships. Then the totally unexpected appearance of Hood’s 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron made Hipper believe it was the Grand Fleet; so he turned to the south-west and fell back on Scheer. At 6.10 he formed ahead of the High Seas Fleet on a north-easterly course; and the fact that he had been forced steadily away to the east and the south-east prevented him sighting Jellicoe’s advance forces. This had the effect of producing the first moment of extreme peril for Scheer – when Jellicoe deployed into battle line right across his line of advance. Meanwhile Hood had encountered the light cruisers of Admiral Boedicker’s 2nd Scouting Group, damaged two of its four ships seriously, contributed to forcing Hipper’s retreat on Scheer, and diverted his intended destroyer attack from Beatty to himself. Hood thus materially assisted the successful deployment of the Grand Fleet.
In the ‘Run to the North’ Beatty and Evan-Thomas reversed to a great extent the poor results achieved in the ‘Run to the South’. True no German ships were actually sunk to compensate for the loss of the Indefatigable and Queen Mary – a matter which will be discussed later; but as a fighting force the value of the 1st Scouting Group had been reduced by perhaps 75%, only the Moltke having escaped serious damage. Whereas the hits scored by British heavy shell in this phase were 16 on Hipper’s ships and 5 on Scheer’s – all but one of them by the 5th Battle Squadron – Beatty’s ships received only 5 hits and Evan-Thomas’s 13.
Beatty, aided by Hood’s gallant action, had certainly done very well in leading his adversaries exactly where he wanted them – namely into the hands of the Grand Fleet; but he was later criticised for not making any enemy reports during the ‘Run to the North’. Chatfield defended his silence on the grounds that the visibility was often too poor to identify the enemy (which seems a dubious argument), that the light cruisers ahead of the Lion should have done the reporting in accordance with their primary function, and that Evan-Thomas’s ships were nearer to the enemy and could see better but made no reports. None of those arguments seems entirely to justify Beatty’s silence from 4.45 to 6.0 p.m. – a matter about which Jellicoe later complained with some bitterness.18
At 5.56 the British battle cruisers gained touch with Jellicoe’s advanced forces. The moment for which the whole British Navy had been waiting for nearly two years had plainly come.
BATTLE OF JUTLAND – 31st MAY 1916 COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCES OF BRITISH AND
| Position in Line | Rounds Fired (APC, CP HE)* |
Targets & Hits Scored (in brackets) |
| I BRITISH SHIPS | ||
| Lion (Flagship) | 326 | Lützow (4), Derfflinger (1) |
| Princess Royal | 230 | Lützow (3), Derfflinger (Nil) Seydlitz (2) |
| Queen Mary | About 150 | Seydlitz (4), Derfflinger (Nil) |
| Tiger | 303 | Moltke (1), vd Tann (2), Seydlitz (Nil) |
| New Zealand | 420 | Moltke (Nil) vd Tann (Nil) Seydlitz (3) |
| Indefatigable | About 40 | vd Tann (Nil) |
| Invincible | About 110 | Lützow (8-mostly by |
| Inflexible | 88 | Invincible |
| Indomitable | 175 | Derfflinger (3) Seydlitz (1) |
| II GERMAN SHIPS | ||
| Lützow (Flagship) | About 380 | Lion (13), Invincible (?2), Others(4) |
| Derfflinger | 385 | P. Royal (6), Q. Mary (?3) Invincible (?3), Others (4) |
| Seydlitz | 376 | Q. Mary (4), Tiger (2) Others (4) |
| Moltke | 359 | Tiger (13), N. Zealand (Nil) |
| vd Tann | 170 | Indefatigable (5), N. Zealand (1) |
NOTES * APC = Armour Piercing Capped
CP = Common Pointed,
HE = High Explosive
‘OTHERS’ includes hits on battleships
GERMAN BATTLE CRUISERS’ MAIN ARMAMENTS
| Firing Ship & Hits Received (in brackets) | Casualties Suffered |
| Lützow (13) | 99 killed, 51 wounded |
| Detfflinger (6), Others (3) | 22 killed, 81 wounded |
| Seydlitz (About 4) | 1,266 killed, 6 wounded |
| Derfflinger (About 3) | 2 captured |
| Moltke (13), Seydlitz (2) | 24 killed, 46 wounded |
| vd Tann (1) | Nil |
| vd Tann (About 5) | 1,017 killed, 2 captured |
| Lützow & Derfflinger (About 5) | 1,026 killed, 1 wounded |
| ditto (Nil) | Nil |
| ?(Nil) | Nil |
| Lion (4), P. Royal (3) Invincible & Inflexible (8), Others (9) |
115 killed, 50 wounded |
| Indomitable (3), Lion (1), Others (17) |
157 killed, 26 wounded |
| Q. Mary (4), Indomitable (1), P. Royal (2), N. Zealand (3), Others (4) |
98 killed, 55 wounded |
| Tiger (1 near miss), Others (4) |
17 killed, 23 wounded |
| Tiger (2), Others (3) | 11 killed, 15 wounded |
Source: N.J.M. Campbell, Battle Cruisers: Warship Special No. 1 and personal records
Before proceeding to the next phase it will be appropriate to introduce a table compiled from the latest information available to show the comparative results achieved by the British and German battle cruisers, and to discuss the reasons why the Germans scored more hits and suffered fewer losses than the British.
The table shows that the British battle cruisers obtained 32 hits on Hipper’s ships and received 52 hits in return from them; a discrepancy which demands explanation – even though allowance must be made for the fact that the visibility and interference from smoke worked strongly in the Germans’ favour for most of the time. In the first place the German stereoscopic rangefinders certainly gave better results than the British ‘coincidence’ type instruments in such conditions. Secondly the error in the BCF’s fire distribution, mentioned earlier, brought an uncovenanted benefit to the Derfflinger in engaging the Queen Mary. Thirdly because Beatty fought almost continuously at a speed near his maximum (25 knots) while Hipper kept his speed as low as 18 knots, British fire control and observation suffered from worse vibration than the German ships experienced. Fourthly the British system of correcting salvos on to the target by ‘bracketing’ with successive salvos was slower to find the target than the German system, by which two salvos could be in the air together and if the first fell ‘Over’ or ‘Short’ correction was made without waiting for the second one to fall.* Fifthly the German ships were on the whole better protected, their propellant charges were far safer, and their magazine drill and equipment greatly superior (a benefit gained from the Seydlitz’s narrow escape in the Dogger Bank action). Sixthly, though the performance of German heavy shells was by no means perfect, it was far better than that of the British lyddite filled AP shells, which too often burst on impact with armour plate instead of penetrating well inside a ship before bursting. Seventhly mention must again be made of the inefficiency of Beatty’s signal organisation – for which the responsibility must rest chiefly with the unfortunate Ralph Seymour.
One other failure must be admitted, namely that for all Beatty’s efforts to improve the Battle Cruisers’ gunnery performance, despite the inevitable difficulties produced by his being based on Rosyth, it was (with the exception of the Queen Mary which enjoyed the great benefit of being fitted with Arthur Pollen’s ‘Argo’ fire control system) definitely inferior to that of Jellicoe’s battleships, as recorded by Professor Marder;* but direct comparison is highly misleading, since the conditions under which the two forces engaged the enemy were totally different. During the battle cruiser action, and especially during the ‘Run to the North’, the rate of change of range was constantly varying, very high and probably beyond the capacity of the Dreyer Fire Control Tables to cope with. It is noteworthy that the Tiger scored her hits when the range was temporarily constant (i.e. nil rate of change). On the other hand when Jellicoe’s battleships came into action the rate of change was either low or constant, so greatly simplifying fire control.†18a
We saw earlier how Chatfield retained overall responsibility for the gunnery efficiency of the BCF – even after Bentinck had become Beatty’s Chief of Staff. This curious arrangement, which meant in effect that the Flag Captain also acted as Fleet Gunnery Officer, resulted in Chatfield arguing fiercely against any suggestion that Evan-Thomas’s ships, or indeed any Grand Fleet battleships, had shot better than his own ships. He repeatedly insisted that all the troubles suffered by the battle cruisers derived from the inefficient shells provided to them, ignoring that the battleships of course had shells of similar design. We will revert later to Chatfield’s impassioned defence of the BCF’s gunnery.
When Jellicoe received the Galatea’s sighting report at 2.55 p.m. he increased speed and altered towards the Horns Reef. On receiving the Lion’s report of five enemy battle cruisers he increased to 20 knots – the maximum at which accurate station keeping was possible. His fleet was disposed in six columns each of four ships (a Division) with the flagship Iron Duke leading the third column from the port wing. Jellicoe urgently needed reports from which he could deduce the bearing from the Iron Duke and course of the High Seas Fleet in order that he might deploy from his cruising formation into the accepted battle formation of single line ahead; but from just before 4.0 p.m. until 4.38 he received no information except that the battle cruisers were in action. The Southampton’s report of 4.38 was the first news of Scheer’s presence received by Jellicoe, and at 4.51 he told the Admiralty that ‘Fleet action [is] imminent’. Unfortunately Beatty’s 4.45 report of sighting Scheer, passed through the Princess Royal because the Lion’s wireless had been put out of action, reached Jellicoe in such mutilated form as to suggest that 26 to 30 enemy battleships were present. Between 4.38 and 5.0 p.m. Jellicoe received five reports, three of them from the Southampton; but the value of the latter was reduced by her Dead Reckoning (DR) position being in error. A ‘second silence’ of 40 minutes followed, during which Jellicoe’s anxiety increased, since he was plainly getting uncomfortably close to the enemy with no indication of the best direction in which to deploy. Then at 5.33 came the first visual link with Beatty already mentioned. Unfortunately both he and Jellicoe were subject to errors in Dead Reckoning – Beatty actually being some 7 miles to the west of his DR position and Jellicoe 4½ miles south-east of his. Thus Jellicoe actually sighted Beatty on his starboard bow instead of right ahead as he had expected; and Jellicoe realised that the still invisible enemy was probably to the west of the Grand Fleet and some six miles nearer than anticipated. Shortly after 6 o’clock Jellicoe asked Beatty ‘Where is enemy’s Battle Fleet?’; but the reply given was merely ‘Enemy battle cruisers bearing south-east’ – which was not much help to the C-in-C. Ten minutes later Jellicoe repeated his question. Meanwhile Beatty had altered course to the east to pass across the front of the Grand Fleet. At 6.14, on sighting Hipper and Scheer’s leading ships he signalled ‘have sighted enemy’s Battle Fleet bearing SSW’ but gave no course. Jellicoe now had to deploy quickly or be caught at a serious disadvantage. After a few moments thought he decided to deploy to the eastward – that is with his port wing column (1st Division under Admiral Jerram) leading and the other divisions executing successive 90 degree turns to port and then to starboard in order to follow in Jerram’s wake.* Rivers of ink have been spilt over the question whether this was the best deployment, but nearly all students of the battle – except the brothers Captain A. C. and Vice-Admiral K. G. B. Dewar (of whom more later) and Churchill (who accepted the Dewars’ opinion too uncritically) – agree that it was by far the best manoeuvre possible; for it placed the Grand Fleet right across Scheer’s line of advance (‘crossing his T’ in tactical parlance), so enabling an immense concentration of fire to be brought to bear on the German van.
There is some evidence that Beatty expected Jellicoe to deploy on the 4th Division (Admiral Sturdee, who was in fact critical of the decision to deploy on the 1st Division). Not long after the battle Arthur Pollen visited Beatty and in course of their discussion he drew two rough sketches, the upper one showing the deployment actually ordered and the lower one the deployment he had expected.19 But the upper one is incorrect as it shows the 1st Division turning 90 degrees to port (as did all the other divisions at the start of the deployment) instead of steaming straight ahead as was actually done. The lower sketch shows Beatty himself ahead of the 4th Division (Sturdee) at 6.15, which suggests that he expected to lead Sturdee’s ships, while those to port and starboard of them circled around and took station behind them.† Two pieces of evidence lend some support to the view that at the time of deployment Beatty was further east than is shown in the plan in Jellicoe’s book The Grand Fleet. Captain Pound of the Colossus, the leading ship of the 5th Division, wrote in his report on the battle ‘6.4 p.m. First Battle Cruiser Squadron right ahead, 2 miles, firing’, and Admiral Burney in the Marlborough (commander 6th Division) recorded that ‘at about this time [probably 6.9 p.m.] the Battle Cruisers who appeared to be ahead of the leading division, turned to starboard as if to cross the enemy’s T’.20 On the other hand Sir Julian Corbett’s track charts, which are probably the most reliable as regards British ships’ movements, show the Lion ahead of the Colossus and on an easterly course at 6.08-6.09 and altering to ESE a minute or two later.21 The only possible conclusion appears therefore to be that Beatty’s memory about his position at the time of deployment cannot be firmly accepted as correct.
What is certain is that at 6.7 Beatty altered to starboard and steered to take up his ordained station in a fleet action ahead of the leading ship of the Battle Fleet. This had the unfortunate effect of his funnel smoke interfering with the battleships’ vision, and of forcing Jellicoe to reduce speed in order to allow the battle cruisers to get clear. At 6.15 the 1st Cruiser Squadron (Arbuthnot) suddenly appeared on Beatty’s port bow, dashing ahead to find and deal with the enemy’s cruisers. This forced Beatty to make a sharp alteration to port to allow them to pass ahead of him. But Arbuthnot came under concentrated fire from the leading German ships, and at 6.20 his flagship the Defence blew up with the loss of all 900 of her company. Her consort the Warrior narrowly escaped the same fate – for reasons to be explained shortly.
Meanwhile Hood’s 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron had sighted Hipper’s ships and turned to a parallel course to the south-east of the deploying Battle Fleet and ahead of Beatty. A sharp engagement ensued at about 9,000 yards range and the Invincible and Inflexible scored 8 hits (most of them from the Invincible) on the Lützow and Derfflinger. But they too came under concentrated fire, and at 6.33, the moment when Beatty reached his position ahead of the Battle Fleet, the Invincible received a number of hits (probably 5) and blew up with the loss of 1,026 of her crew, only six of whom survived.
To shift our gaze from these dramatic events ahead of the deploying battle fleet to the other end of the British line Evan-Thomas saw that it was quite impossible for him to take up his primary position on the engaged bow of the leading battleship, so steered for the alternative position laid down for him at the rear of the line; and there the most powerful of the battle squadrons remained for the rest of the day – an example of the deadening rigidity imposed by the GFBOs. While manoeuvring to take up this position the Warspite’s helm jammed and she described two complete circles, so attracting heavy German fire at the point which came to be known as ‘Windy Corner’.22 The damage suffered by the Warspite and her inability to steer properly caused Evan-Thomas to order her to return to base; but her gyrations saved the badly damaged Warrior from suffering the fate of the Defence, though she had to be sunk by our own forces next day after an effort to tow her home had failed. All her company were saved.
Although Jellicoe’s deployment, ordered at 6.15 p.m., was not complete until some 25 minutes later firing became general at a range of about 12,000 yards between 6.30 and 6.40. In this phase of the battle the British ships had the light in their favour for the first time, and the rate of change of range was small; so it is not surprising that they got the best of the encounter. They scored 23 hits on their opponents and received only 20 in return – of which no less than 13 were on the Warspite. Fourteen of the hits obtained by the British can confidently be credited to the battle cruisers – 12 of them to Hood’s squadron. But at 6.40 p.m., when firing died away only about 2½ hours of daylight remained.
When Scheer discerned the flash of heavy guns to the north and the dim shapes of many battleships barring his path he must have received a very unpleasant shock; for he had no idea that the Grand Fleet had descended on him like an avalanche. At 6.33 he ordered a ‘battle turn-away’ together of 180 degrees – a manoeuvre which he had practised in order to cope with a critical situation such as had now arisen. He also ordered his destroyers to attack the Grand Fleet with torpedoes and cover his retirement with a smoke screen. Ten minutes later he had disappeared to the south-west and firing ceased. Though some British ships did observe Scheer’s about turn none of them reported it to Jellicoe.
In a lecture on the Battle of Jutland I named the ‘timidity’ of Jellicoe in following up his initial success at this time as the second of the four chief reasons why ‘victory slipped through our fingers’.23 Professor Marder disagrees with that judgment, and I now feel that ‘timidity’ was too strong a word and would substitute ‘centralisation and caution’;24 but broadly speaking I stand by my criticism of the C-in-C. We saw earlier how in the Dogger Bank action Beatty’s intentions were frustrated by the discovery that the historic signal to ‘Engage the enemy more closely’ had been deleted from the signal book, and how it was thereafter reinstated. But there was another historic signal which had also disappeared by 1914, but which had been used to great effect in the past – notably by Anson off Cape Finisterre in 1747 and Hawke at Quiberon Bay twelve years later – namely the ‘General Chase’. Ardent pursuit of a retreating enemy is surely axiomatic if a decisive success is to be achieved in war; but such a concept was wholly foreign to the principles enshrined in the GFBOs. Though it must be admitted that a ‘General Chase’ would have been inappropriate on 31st May 1916, and might well have produced chaos on the British side, a signal ordering something like ‘Divisional Commanders act independently in pursuit of the enemy’ might surely have reaped a great reward. Sir Julian Corbett evidently considered such a possibility when writing the Official History, but concluded that ‘in the prevailing atmospheric conditions and so late in the day, co-ordination between independent squadrons would have been impossible . . . The risk of independent squadrons being overwhelmed individually by a concentrated enemy would have been very great. . . .’25 In quoting that opinion it is, however, justifiable to remark that Corbett was a personal friend of Jellicoe, who in turn greatly admired his work. To me it seems that the official historian sometimes went too far in his endeavour to shield Jellicoe from criticism – so much so that, as will be told later, his account of the battle infuriated Beatty and Chatfield.
Whatever may have been the arguments for and against an ardent pursuit the issue is academic, because Jellicoe declined any such action. Maintaining a speed of only 17 knots (4 knots less than the maximum) he placed his fleet across the enemy’s line of retreat to his bases; altering in two stages (at 6.44 and 6.55) further to the south. His Divisions were now in échelon so that they would mask each other’s fire – if contact was regained.
At 6.55 Scheer executed another 180 degree turn to the north-east, obviously with the intention of breaking through the barrier of Jellicoe’s battle fleet. At that time Beatty was about three miles ahead of the port wing column of the Grand Fleet (Jerram’s 1st Division). He has been criticised for not regaining touch after Scheer’s first turn-away; and that purpose would certainly have been a proper function for his light cruisers (the four ships of Napier’s 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron were in close touch with him). But Beatty gave no such order.
There now took place one of the oddest events of these incident packed hours. At about 7.0 p.m. Beatty unquestionably turned a complete circle to starboard – for reasons which still remain obscure. He later vigorously denied having made any such movement, insisting that his track chart should show two successive 180 degree turns to starboard and port instead of a 360 degree turn.26 Professor Marder discusses in some detail why Beatty turned a circle and why he insisted he had not done so.27 I can only offer conjectural reasons why he carried out the manoeuvre and why he refused to admit it. As to the former, he may either have wanted the Battle Fleet to catch up with his weakened force, or at least ascertain how far away it was lest he should need its support; and as to the latter he may have wished to refute any suggestion that he had at this time turned his back on the enemy, or that he was not pursuing Scheer with the utmost vigour – as he wanted Jellicoe to do.*
To digress for a moment, Beatty evidently enjoyed telling Leslie later about the lighter incidents which took place onboard the Lion that day; for he reproduced some of them in his draft biography. One told how, during a lull in the fighting Beatty overheard from the bridge a conversation between two stokers who had come up for a breath of air. Their conversation ended by one of them saying ‘I did always tell Maria not to ’ave him’; but the action was then resumed, so Beatty never learnt more about Maria’s matrimonial troubles. At another time Beatty went briefly down to his sea cabin – to find that the ship’s cat had given birth to a fine litter of kittens in his best hat! Presumably the premature accouchement was brought on by the ship’s gunfire.28
By 7.15 p.m. the leading ships of the High Seas Fleet, and especially the 1st Scouting Group (Hipper) and the 3rd Battle Squadron (Behncke) were again under heavy fire at ranges of 11-14,000 yards. Again the British shooting was the better, 23 hits being scored on Hipper’s squadron and 12 on Scheer’s battleships. In return 2 hits on the Colossus were the only German successes. The situation Scheer now found himelf in was desperate, and he ordered Hipper to carry out a suicidal charge (‘Battle cruisers, at the enemy. Give them everything!’ is Marder’s translation of the order, which can hardly be bettered).29 He also again ordered his destroyers to attack, and to screen his ships with smoke. Hipper ordered his badly battered force to carry out the charge order, but at 7.14 Scheer made a signal which in effect cancelled it. He then carried out another ‘battle turn away together’ and again disappeared. The arguments about pursuit already put forward on the occasion of his first retreat are perhaps now even more relevant. Jellicoe ordered Le Mesurier’s 4th Light Cruiser Squadron and his own destroyers to repel the German destroyer attack; while he himself turned 90 degrees away to a south-easterly course – as he had always intended to do in such circumstances, and as the Admiralty had approved. No torpedo hits were obtained. Professor Marder quotes the view of Jellicoe’s critics that the turn-away ‘came at a very unfortunate moment’ and produces five cogent defences for Jellicoe not turning towards the expected torpedoes.30 The best argument in favour of the turn-away perhaps lies, however, in the fact that it resulted in many of the torpedoes running only very slowly by the time they reached the British ships, and so being easy to avoid, whereas if a turn-towards had been made the torpedoes would have arrived at their maximum speed. On the other hand we know that Plunkett, Beatty’s Flag Commander, was ‘horrified’ at seeing the battle fleet turn away; and it is a fair conclusion that Chatfield and Beatty felt the same way.
There now remained about 1½ hours of daylight, with visibility some 6 miles to the west but less to the east. At 7.35 and 7.40 Jellicoe made two big turns (together 180 degrees) in the supposed direction of Scheer, and at 8.00 p.m. he turned a further 90 degrees towards. He also increased speed from 16 to 17 knots ‘in order to close the enemy’ remarks Marder; which does bring out nicely how slow and cautious his earlier actions had been. Beatty’s frustration now came to a boil and at 7.47 he wirelessed to Jellicoe ‘Submit van of battleships follows battle cruisers. We can then cut off whole of enemy’s battle fleet’. A glance at the charts of the situation at this time shows very clearly how, in Marder’s words, Beatty’s idea was ‘not without substance’ – though he claims it was impossible of fulfilment.31 Jellicoe received Beatty’s signal at about 8.0 p.m. and ordered the 2nd Battle Squadron (Jerram), which was the closest to Beatty, to follow the battle cruisers. The charts show that in fact Jerram was following Beatty between 7.45 and 8.0 p.m., with their mean courses slightly converging;32 and as Jerram did not know either Beatty’s or the enemy’s position he held to the course he was already steering. Chatfield later declared that Jerram could easily have found the battle cruisers had he tried to do so; but with some 5 knots less speed than Beatty’s ships it is unlikely that he could have caught up with him – unless of course Beatty reduced speed. At any rate Jerram’s inactivity infuriated Beatty. Leslie recorded what he must have learnt from Beatty, that he asked for Jerram to be Court-Martialled, which was very rightly refused; but at their first meeting after Jutland he apparently cut him stone dead.33
The final encounter between the two main fleets soon followed on Beatty’s abortive attempt to initiate a pursuit. At 7.45 Scheer altered from a south-westerly to a southerly course, and Beatty was converging on the head of the German line. This time he ordered the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron (Napier) to scout ahead of him, and his flagship soon made contact. Scheer at once turned 90 degrees away. At about 8.23 Beatty sighted his old adversary the 1st Scouting Group again, and opened fire at a range of some 10,000 yards, inflicting still more damage on the Seydlitz and Derfflinger. Professor Marder remarks that Hipper was saved by the fortuitous appearance of the six old Deutschland class battleships of the 2nd Squadron under Admiral Mauve; but the records of the five ships of that squadron which survived the battle show that they did not fire a shot at this time, though they were certainly fired on by Beatty’s ships34 – which makes this encounter perhaps the most confusing of the whole battle. However, one cannot but regret that at this moment Jerram’s four powerful ships (King George V class) were not with Beatty, since they could probably have wiped out the Deutschlands. At 8.40 Beatty ceased fire. There is no doubt that, as Professor Marder has pointed out, several good opportunities were lost in this phase.35 The most lamentable occurred when two light cruisers scouting ahead of the 2nd BS sighted and reported three battleships – actually belonging to Admiral Schmidt’s 1st Squadron. Jerram, believing them to be Beatty’s ships, cancelled the intended torpedo attack by the light cruisers. Commodore Hawksley, who commanded the Battle Fleet’s destroyers, also sighted these enemies but forebore to attack – for what now appear to be highly inadequate reasons. Lastly these brief encounters turned Scheer away from the Horns Reef, so depriving Jellicoe of his last chance to force a decisive engagement before dark. The leading ships of the two main fleets, both of which were in single line ahead, were then only about 6 miles apart and steering converging courses. So Scheer had another narrow escape. But the tale of opportunities lost through British mistakes was by no means ended.
As Beatty and his battle cruisers played no significant part in the events of the short but portentous night of 31st May-1st June we will here pass over them rapidly. Jellicoe at once rejected the idea of seeking a battle between heavy ships at night as altogether too chancy a business, and moreover one for which the British fleet was neither trained nor equipped. He hoped and intended to renew the engagement at daylight.
One of the points on which Beatty came in later for criticism was the request signalled to the Princess Royal from the Lion just as it was getting dark asking for the Challenge and Reply for the night, which had got lost in the flagship. For a long time Beatty’s critics held that this ‘indiscretion’ gave away the British secret signals to German ships only a few miles away. We do not know what caused the loss of the secret signal data in the Lion, but even allowing for the oft-proven inefficiency of her signal department, it is reasonable to suppose that it occurred through action damage. When Jellicoe learnt about the incident he described the Lion’s action as ‘idiotic’;36 while someone on Beatty’s side (probably Chatfield) sarcastically commented that to read a signal made by shaded lamp from astern was as difficult as to see a man’s waistcoat buttons from behind.37 In any case the argument is fruitless because Professor Marder has found evidence from German sources that they knew the British recognition signals much earlier in the day – though no light is thrown on how they came by this knowledge.38
At 9.16 p.m. Beatty received Jellicoe’s signal that the course for the fleet during the night was to be south, and he decided that it would be neither ‘desirable nor proper’ to close the German battle fleet during the dark hours. He was at this time directly ahead of Jellicoe and well placed to prevent Scheer slipping home across his front. At 9.27 Jellicoe ordered his destroyers to mass astern of the battle squadrons as a rearguard and an obstacle to an escape across his stern. Though some doubt exists whether this order became known to the Germans the probability is that it did not.39
There were four possible routes by which Scheer might avoid the British minefields and return to his bases. Jellicoe rightly rejected a dash for the Kattegat, which was much the longest, and expected him to try for the route between the Friesian Islands and the southern edge of the minefields – despite it being the second longest. Jellicoe’s course covered the approach to this ‘Ems route’ effectively, but left the two possible routes by the gap in the minefields and round their northern edge by the Horns Reef and Amrun Channel uncovered.40 Shortly after 9.0 p.m. Scheer altered course direct for Horns Reef, then 85 miles away.
The clearest and most graphic description of the movements which now took place is that by Langhorne Gibson and Admiral Harper. They describe the two fleets as steaming ‘down the sides of a very long, very slender V. . . . Tiny factors and no human plans, caused Jellicoe to arrive at the bottom of the V and pass through the junction point [at 11.30 p.m.] minutes before the German ships arrived. The V became an X – the courses of the fleet crossed and . . . from the hour of midnight onward, they began to draw apart’.41
Professor Marder’s account of the seven phases into which that hectic night’s events can be divided, of the lost opportunities for torpedo attacks, of German efficiency in recognition and night fighting, of the many examples of enemies being sighted but not reported to Jellicoe cannot be bettered. His conclusion is that ‘The High Seas Fleet had passed through . . . an area occupied by scores of British destroyers without serious opposition. . . ,’42 Nor can his description of the flotilla actions as ‘disastrously ineffective’ be challenged.43 What makes the story still sadder is that Room 40 produced conclusive evidence that Scheer was making for the Horns Reef channel; but the Admiralty either failed to pass this vital information to Jellicoe or (in one case) passed it on in a form which was neither clear nor emphatic enough. What I called this ‘astonishing failure of the Admiralty’ and Marder calls ‘criminal neglect’ by them are certainly not overstatements.44 One vital message (timed 10.41 p.m.) was passed to Jellicoe fairly clearly but was ignored by him because he remembered the earlier blunder about Scheer’s flagship being still in port; while a quite recent message (timed 9.58 p.m.) had given an obviously erroneous position for the German battle fleet and so vitiated still more his confidence in the Intelligence signalled by the Admiralty. Though one must admit that the pyrotechnics which flared up repeatedly astern of the Grand Fleet, moving gradually from west to east, could have given Jellicoe a broad hint that he was covering the wrong route he did not interpret them in that manner; and I for one cannot criticise him on that score when such egregious blunders were made in Whitehall.
Professor Marder dismisses the possible effect of fatigue on the senior officers concerned in this night’s events. Though obviously impossible to quantify I am inclined to think he underrates its effects. The cumulative effects of long hours of strain, the terrific blast and concussion of ships’ gunfire, and the explosions of enemy shells must surely produce numbing shock – even on the strongest mind and body. I think it takes little account of the realities of a long drawn out battle such as we are discussing to admit ‘the extreme mental and physical exhaustion of the officers’ but to declare it ‘risky to make too much of the fatigue aspect’.45 A fresh, alert and lively mind in a fully fit body (if such a state were possible by 10.0 p.m. on 31st May) might surely have realised what was going on to the north of the Grand Fleet without any signals to prod the recipient into action.
By 2.0 a.m. on 1st June the eastern sky began to lighten. An hour later Scheer reached the Horns Reef – battered and shaken and in no condition to renew the battle, but safe. The badly damaged Lützow, Hipper’s flagship, was sunk by her own escorting destroyers, after taking off 1,250 survivors, at 2.0 a.m. The sun rose at 3.09 and Beatty’s first thought was to sweep to the south-west – the direction in which he still believed the enemy to be located. Soon after 11.0 a.m. Jellicoe headed for Scapa Flow, which he reached on the afternoon of 2nd. He refuelled his ships and was soon ready for sea again. Admiral Chalmers has recorded how during the forenoon of 1st June Beatty came wearily into the Lion’s charthouse, sat down and closed his eyes. He then repeated the remark made to Chatfield when the Queen Mary blew up about there being ‘something wrong with our bloody ships’, opened his eyes and said ‘And there is something wrong with our system’.46 There was indeed, as will be discussed shortly. At 9.0 a.m. on the 2nd the Battle Cruiser Fleet entered the Firth of Forth. Jellicoe had only learnt of the loss of three battle cruisers on the morning after the battle – which shows how difficult it was for him (or anyone else) to observe what was actually happening – except in his immediate vicinity. Jellicoe was soon on the telephone to get more news from Beatty; but according to Leslie all the latter could say as each of the lost ships’ names was mentioned was ‘Sunk! Sunk! Sunk!’ He left Jellicoe, Leslie remarks, ‘to make all comment, which was perhaps contained in one word in his famous despatch – “unpalatable”.’47 Leslie also tells a curious story of how Ethel was rung up several times on 31st May by a person giving the name of Rothschild who asked questions such as ‘How is the battle going?’ and ‘How is your dear husband?’ She, however, remembered the way the first news of Waterloo was said to have reached London and refused to give any answers. What Beatty certainly did soon after reaching harbour was to write long and intimate letters about the battle to his sister ‘Trot’ Courage and to Dean Baillie, the old friend of the family mentioned earlier. When Leslie tried to recover those letters for use in his biography Mrs. Courage replied that ‘David and I were like twins and when anything went wrong with either of us we always rushed to each other’; and that was exactly what Beatty had done after Jutland. She could only remember that her brother had written of the battle in terms of ‘a famous Hunt where his 2nd horse never came up in time, and so he could not kill his fox – and if he had it would have been the most wonderful Hunt in History. He knew I would understand what he meant’.48 The metaphor needs no elucidation.
Dean Baillie wrote that Beatty’s letter to him was ‘one of the tragedies of my life’; for in it Beatty had ‘poured out his whole heart to me’, and at great length. He felt that ‘the letter was so confidential’ that he could not ‘possibly show it to anyone’, not even to his wife. So he locked it away, and did not look for it until he was appointed Dean of Windsor. Then a very thorough search was made, but it was never found. The Dean considered that it had been stolen and wondered if the Secret Service had been at work. In the same letter the Dean recalled a visit to the Lion a short time before Jutland, and how he had then met ‘a large number of Senior Officers of the fleet’, almost all of whom ‘expressed anxiety because they said that, great sailor as he was, Jellicoe had, as he grew older, become over-cautious. And they were all terrified lest David’s Fleet should catch the German Fleet and that then Jellicoe would not come up in time’. He confirmed what other sources remark – that Beatty ‘never said a word of criticism about Jellicoe’; but he had remembered and ‘read into his letter what these officers had said to me’. Baillie also told Leslie (in confidence) that he ‘disliked his [Beatty’s] wife very much’, and had indeed ‘tried to persuade him not to marry her’.49
If Beatty’s initial reaction was one of depression and of anger over missed opportunities his resilience quickly reasserted itself; for Walter Cowan wrote to Leslie that ‘when we got back to Rosyth after the Jutland fighting . . . I was struck by the high-hearted, dauntless way he took it all and was already planning for “next time” and where he could look for reinforcements . . . Lady Beatty did everything to lighten his burden and to help him on his way’.50 Though Leslie has confirmed that it was to Ethel that he first turned for consolation at this time there is no doubt that their drawing together again proved only temporary. Beatty must also have been cheered to get a congratulatory letter from Lord Fisher, though he knew well enough that the old admiral now had no influence and no future. Fisher wrote that although he knew no more than had appeared in the newspapers that was ‘sufficient to make me feel very glorious as to the magnificent courage of all concerned and that when you got them by the throat you didn’t let them go. . . .’ Beatty replied gratefully, but admitted that ‘To be so near and yet so far was gall and wormwood after the losses we had sustained. But they were not in vain and were justifiable. They suffered more than we did. . . .’ – he concluded, too optimistically.51
The story of the Admiralty’s bungling of the initial communiqué on Jutland and how Churchill had to be brought in to help draft a more realistic assessment of the results is well known and need not be repeated. The British losses of ships and men were far heavier than those of the Germans – 14 ships (111,000 tons) as against 11 (62,000 tons), and 6,784 casualties (6,097 killed) as against 3,058 (2,551 killed). Yet only 8 British capital ships suffered appreciable damage as against 10 German ships; and on 2nd June Jellicoe had 24 undamaged capital ships to Scheer’s 10. Plainly the strategic situation was unchanged and the battle confirmed British dominance in home waters – as Scheer admitted in his despatch to the Kaiser. Though the sense of disappointment was widespread in the Grand Fleet its morale had not suffered at all. The disappointment arose because the British people had been led to expect another Trafalgar, and the Royal Navy had convinced itself that it could and would win such a victory. That there was resentment in the BCF against the Battle Fleet is certainly true, though when I tackled Lord Chatfield on that issue he was evasive.52 It was not entirely eliminated until the battle squadrons moved to Rosyth; but that runs ahead of the stage now reached in our story.
Professor Marder has analysed the failures and weaknesses in the Royal Navy revealed by Jutland so fully that – with two exceptions – there is no need to go into them in detail here. Communications in the fleet, both visual and wireless, certainly left much to be desired. Admiral Cunninghame Graham has pointed out in his memoirs and lectures the tremendous pressure which the centralized British system of tactical control placed on signal officers and their departments – exemplified by the fact that one flag signal was made every 2.4 minutes in the Battle Cruiser Fleet and one every 1.7 minutes in the Grand Fleet during the daylight action; and he comments that whereas the gunnery branch never expected to get more than 4 or 5% hits the signal staff had to achieve 100% accuracy.53 Enemy reporting was extremely poor on the British side, with the outstanding exception of Commodore Goodenough; and in the night phase numerous sightings were never reported at all. That failure, together with the inefficiency of the British recognition signals, the lack of training in night fighting, the poor system of searchlight control and the shocking failure of the Admiralty to give Jellicoe all the excellent Intelligence they had, were the principal factors in bringing about Scheer’s escape.
Professor Marder comments on the fact that initiative was ‘strangely lacking’ on the part of senior officers.54 While I agree with that criticism I do not find it at all strange. As was told earlier the whole system of training junior officers in the Britannia and later at Osborne and Dartmouth Colleges was based on unquestioning discipline and absolute subordination to authority. More gold braid, we were taught, necessarily meant more wisdom; and any signs of originality were frowned on if not actively suppressed. This state of affairs lasted into my own time at the naval colleges (1917-20), and indeed until World War II. It is ironical that it was chiefly the impact of air power in that conflict which forced the navy to adopt tactical decentralization and to encourage initiative among quite junior officers. The reason was quite simple – that if officers waited for orders their ships would probably be sunk before they arrived.
The chief point on which I take issue with Professor Marder’s ‘Comparisons and Reflections’ on Jutland lies in his treatment of the relative efficiency of the British and German ships’ armour protection, and its possible effects on the loss of three of Beatty’s battle cruisers. Marder remarks on the phenomenal ‘toughness’ of the German ships, and rightly says that their side, deck and turret armour was ‘thicker and more extensive’ than that fitted in our own ships.55 So far so good; but he goes on to declare that ‘There is at least no firm proof that the German armour was superior to British’, and castigates what he calls ‘the legend’ of our battle cruisers’ ‘indifferent armour protection’ – which ignores Beatty’s grave concern over the failure of the Lion’s 5-inch side armour against a German 11-inch shell in the Dogger Bank action, referred to earlier. Marder also considers that even if British armour was ‘indifferent to moderate’ it probably was ‘no more than a contributory factor’ to the loss of the three ships on 31st May 1916. He also mentions the claim made in 1921 by Sir Eustace Tennyson-d’Eyncourt, the Director of Naval Construction, that armour plate salved from the German battleship Baden ‘has not stood the test of the actual firing which our own armour is called upon to stand’. Apart from the fact that the evidence of the DNC, who was the official responsible for the design of our ships’ protection, can hardly be regarded as impartial, the statements quoted above do not appear to be a fair summary of the trials carried out at Shoeburyness in the early 1920s against the Baden’s armour plates. Though the manufacture and testing of armour is a complicated story all the evidence of the 1914-18 war points to the inadequacy of our ships’ protection as well as to the inefficiency of our armour-piercing shell; and the latter phenomenon reappeared in the war of 1939-45. The most recent study of the subject, by an officer who served on the Ordnance Board, concludes that it is ‘beyond doubt that we were fighting with inferior armour plate’, and that author recalls that, as regards the Baden trials, though the plate was ‘thickly coated with rust’ it proved ‘remarkably tough and consistent in its performance, and was more than a match for our new shells’.56 Thus there is at the very least a possibility that penetration of the weak and inadequate British armour caused an internal explosion (e.g. in a secondary armament magazine) which spread quickly to the highly vulnerable main armament cordite supply system, and so blew up the ships; and that may have happened in the case of the Hood in 1941 as well as at Jutland. In sum there is no doubt that Beatty was right to point to the inadequacy of his ships’ protection in 1915, and the whole question of ship design, including the manufacture and testing of armour plate, during the Fisher era at the Admiralty (e.g. his claim that ‘speed is armour’) is open to criticism.
To leave the subject of shell versus armour protection and turn to tactics Professor Marder remarks that he ‘finds it extremely difficult to evaluate fairly Beatty’s overall performance as a tactician’, but declines ‘to credit him with the highest grade of tactical excellence’ – a conclusion with which I agree. There was too much wrong with Beatty’s staff work – especially signalling – to enable posterity to include him among the greatest fleet handlers of the past.
Before leaving the question of Beatty’s tactics it is essential to quote a letter which he wrote to Admiral Evan-Thomas, the commander of the 5th Battle Squadron, in very warm terms regarding the support he had given to the hard-pressed battle cruisers – if only because, as we shall see, the movements of that force later became a subject of fierce controversy between the two admirals. ‘Just a line to thank you from the bottom of my heart’ wrote Beatty in his own hand ‘for your gallant and effective support on Wednesday. It was fine to see your squadron sail down as it did. I hope your good ships have not [been] too much knocked about . . . Your coming down in support and poor Bertie Hood’s magnificent handling of His Squadron will remain in my mind for ever. The old spirit is still alive and as bright as ever. I make out the enemy must have lost much more heavily than we are given credit for. Yours ever. . . .’57 It will be noted that Beatty said no word about the widening of the distance between his and Evan-Thomas’s forces, and the failure of the flagship to pass the signal to the Barham to alter course to the south-east by searchlight as well as by flags. After the war, when the Admiralty was preparing the various authorised accounts of Jutland Beatty took a very different line about Evan-Thomas’s handling of his squadron – as will be told in a later chapter.
As to strategy, there can be no question that, whatever view one takes of Jellicoe’s handling of the Battle Fleet on 31st May, he succeeded completely in maintaining British command of the surface waters of the North Sea; and his papers and correspondence leave no room for doubt that such was always his primary purpose. Jellicoe’s critics have taken too little account of that achievement – though the remarks in Scheer’s despatch that ‘there can be no doubt that even the most successful outcome of a Fleet action in this war will not force England to make peace’, and that ‘A victorious end to the war within a reasonable time can only be achieved through the defeat of British economic life – that is, by using the U-boats against British trade’ – surely justify the conclusion that Jellicoe’s strategy cannot be impugned.58
A recent commentator on naval policy during the 20th century has described the consequences of producing increasingly large units which seems singularly applicable to the apogee of the Dreadnought battleship and the big gun, and so to the battle of Jutland. ‘Military history and nature’, writes Admiral J. H. F. Eberle, ‘are full of examples of systems and organisations which have, through success, grown in size and power until such time as they have become so large that they have been unwieldy and vulnerable . . . If a single unit is so large and valuable that its loss would, of itself, be a major defeat then it is clearly unsound to place it at risk. Such limitation is a severe restraint on an operational commander’s freedom of action. It is likely to limit their ability to take and hold the initiative, both vital ingredients of any offensive posture’.59 One feels that the shade of John Jellicoe would whole-heartedly applaud such a view as representing the fundamental problem he was faced with on 31st May 1916.
*See Map 3, pages 150-1
*See Map 3, pages 150-1
*W. F. Clarke gave the author copies of all his papers on this incident and other matters concerned with cryptography and Jutland. Though it was highly improper of Clarke to have kept those papers historians, including Professor Marder, may be thankful that he did so; since Sir Julian Corbett was forbidden to make any mention of the work of Room 40 in Naval Operations, Vol. III. In PRO Cab. 45/269, Part IV, there is a list of the decyphers received by the Admiralty and the Out Signals sent as a result. This is a typescript draft by Jellicoe of what was evidently intended to be published as an Appendix to the Harper Report on Jutland. Admiral John Godfrey’s lectures on Jutland in the same file include the decyphers in his ‘Summary of the more important British Messages and Signals relating to the Battle of Jutland’. Copies of the Clarke papers are in Churchill College ROSK 3/6, in the Beatty papers and also in SLGF 6/14.
†See pages 109 and 115
*See pages 103-4 and 113-4
*See map 3, pages 150-1
*See Map 4, pages 158-9
*I am indebted to Captain A. B. Sainsbury for a copy of his memorandum on this famous incident in which he tells of his ‘accidental’ discovery that as long ago as 1937 Mr. D. Bonner Smith, the Admiralty Librarian, asked Chatfield if he could verify the reference for use in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. In a manuscript note dated 28th Sept. 1937 Chatfield replied that Beatty said no more than is quoted here. See N.M.M. file AGC II. Captain Sainsbury’s research should kill once and for all the many incorrect versions which have repeatedly appeared e.g. in Geoffrey Bennett’s, Battle of Jutland and Naval Battles of the First World War (Batsford, 1964 and 1968) and in John Irving’s, The Smoke Screen of Jutland (Kimber, 1966).
*See Table on pages 164-5 which gives details of hits scored by both sides in this phase.
*There is still some doubt whether at Jutland the Germans did use a ‘ladder’ system, whereby several salvos were in the air simultaneously and a correction was made as soon as one of them crossed the target. Professor Marder is confident that they did so (Dreadnought, III, 2nd Ed. p. 196 note) , and the Grand Fleet Gunnery and Torpedo Memoranda on Jutland say (p. 29) that some sort of ladder system was used by them to find the range. On the other hand John Campbell’s very thorough research into all the surviving German gunnery reports provides no supporting evidence for this. In particular the Lützow’s gunnery officer Commander Paschen wrote in the Marine Rundschau of May 1926 that he did not use a ‘ladder’ system. What is beyond doubt is that after Jutland the British, believing the German system was superior, issued new ‘Spotting Rules’ ordering its adoption. Campbell to Roskill 20th April 1979.
*The fire control systems fitted in the British battle cruisers were as follows:–
Lion and Princess Royal had ‘Argo Towers’ i.e. the gyro stabilised 9 foot Barr and Stroud rangefinder and bearing indicator mounting, and Mark III Dreyer Fire Control Tables. Queen Mary probably also had an ‘Argo Tower’ and certainly had both the Mark IV Argo Clock and Mark II Dreyer Table. Tiger had an ‘Argo Tower’ and a Mark IV Dreyer Table. New Zealand had a Mark I Dreyer Table but it is uncertain whether she had the ‘Argo Tower’. Indefatigable does not appear to have had a Dreyer Table or Argo Tower. By 1914 the Argo Clock Mark IV was also fitted in the battleships Orion, Audacious (sunk 27th Oct. 1914), Ajax, Centurion and King George V. I am indebted to Mr. Jon T. Sumida of the University of Chicago for the foregoing information.
†See Map 5, page 170
*See Map 5, page 170
†The sketch bears Beatty’s initials but unfortunately is not dated. My view is that it was produced in late July or early August 1916 (see below pages 192-3)
*See Map 6, pages 174-5
