Jutland_The Unfinished Battle

by Nicholas Jellicoe

  in preference to a scheme of continuous stream of traffic, i.e. assembling groups of ships to be convoyed rather than trying to protect sea lanes. In the first month of operation, May, the rate of loss was dramatically cut to 0.24 per cent of the April figure, a rate that was very close to that of the French Coal trade’s 0.19 per cent the same month.

  To further underline the impact on the Grand Fleet’s destroyers, Jellicoe was obliged to ‘postulate the laying-up of one of his [Beatty’s] battle squadrons in order to obtain destroyers for the work’.56

  Jellicoe spent much of a Cabinet meeting of 25 April, during which the subject of convoy was discussed, writing a letter to a friend. It was not wise, though understandable maybe, to so overtly show his frustration. The signal that he conveyed by this type of behaviour did not help his standing with many of his colleagues. In truth, he hated the frequency of the meetings when he felt he should be on the job with his staff at the Admiralty. Then, at a War Council meeting on the 27th, he launched into what can only be described as a tirade on the submarine issue. Goodenough said that Jellicoe was not good at presenting his case and this presentation is, perhaps, a good example of his sounding too negative:

  In my opinion, the War Council fails entirely to realise the position, in spite of the repeated efforts I have made to explain its gravity … The only result has been the appointment of committees to investigate various features … but I must point out with all the force at my command that all this is only playing with the situation … It is now almost too late, but it is not quite too late … we are carrying on in this war … as if we had the absolute command of the sea. We have not … and have not had for many months … If we do not recognise this fact and shape our policy accordingly, it is my firm conviction that we shall lose the war by the starvation of our country.57

  Jellicoe’s pessimism was stark. To Lloyd George in particular, his words smacked of something worse: defeatism. Jellicoe’s lack of strong, immediate and optimistic backing of the convoy system left him open to Lloyd George portraying him, along with the ‘old men’ of the Admiralty, as being in opposition to the idea. In truth, he was not.

  The month of April was a turning point of the naval war. Even if the news of America’s entry was good news, the last two weeks of the month were catastrophic and became known as the ‘black fortnight’. Almost one million tons of shipping was sunk or damaged (in The Naval Flank, Karau’s figures show that with the latter consideration the total figure is 964,000 tons). Sims wrote about Jellicoe’s intent on this trial: ‘The Admiralty had not definitely decided that the Convoy system should be adopted but that there was every intention of giving it a thorough and fair trial’.58 In the meeting of 26 April Duff presented his findings. They were ‘detailed, and contained so many considered points and tabulated conclusions, that it suggested that Duff, or somebody, must have been working on it for some time beforehand’.59 Winton would say that ‘it is difficult to believe that Duff was the sole author of the memorandum, the views expressed in it are so at variance to his previous statements’, but if he knew that Jellicoe wanted to keep his mind open to the possibilities, this must have had an impact.60 Jellicoe’s key point was that he had to postpone convoy until more destroyers could be found. That was now the case.

  Duff more than likely changed his position and, therefore, his recommendations to Jellicoe on the convoy system were based on two important considerations: America’s entry to the war with the immediate (by 4 May) supply of the first additional destroyers, and the appalling figures of the last weeks of April. He proposed a large-scale test based on a Gibraltar sailing on 10 May. Jellicoe agreed and signed off. For these reasons, I think it is going too far to suggest that Duff was an officer ‘who shared his [Jellicoe’s] scepticism’.61 Jellicoe was not sceptical, just very cautious, an approach which Lloyd George told his biographer that he understood.† At the beginning, Jellicoe certainly did not appear to have been an overt supporter of the system: ‘Differences of speed, loss of the safety afforded by zigzagging, and the inevitable tendency of merchant ships to straggle at night are some of the reasons against an organised system of convoy’.

  Jellicoe had, in fact, indicated soon after his appointment that some form of convoy might become necessary for the North American trade routes. According to the official British historian, Sir Julian Corbett, ‘even after Admiral Jellicoe had read [Chief of Staff] Admiral Oliver’s catalogue of difficulties, he minuted the paper with the remark that the whole question must be borne in mind and be brought up again later if needs be. That is, he still withheld judgement.’62 The success of the surface raider Möwe had left a very strong impression on Jellicoe.

  It is most probable that this memorandum was not the result of hearing that Lloyd George would visit the Admiralty on the 30th. Jellicoe maintained that for most of the first part of 1917 the Admiralty had already been actively weighing the pros and cons. Following the declaration of war by America on 6 April, the first American destroyers arrived on 4 May, so given this timing, ‘It was, then, the approach of the American destroyers in Queenstown (Ireland) rather than the approach of Mr Lloyd George to Whitehall that “galvanised” the Admiralty’.63 By July, there were a further twenty-seven American destroyers in British waters.64

  At the meeting with Lloyd George at the Admiralty on 30 April, Jellicoe, much to the prime minister’s surprise, announced that the Admiralty had changed its opinion and was now ready to test convoy on a large scale. The two had a very pleasant lunch during which, apparently, Lloyd George doted on Jellicoe’s youngest daughter (my Aunt Prudie).

  The meeting was productive, in Terraine’s eyes, because ‘a set of useful agreements’ was ‘cordially arrived at between the two men’, including the appointment of Sir Eric Geddes as Controller. His move into the Admiralty was speedy and he took up his post on 9 May.65 Lloyd George liked to boast later that he had ‘beat compliance’ out of the Admiralty, but ‘It is good stuff for the port and brandy or the gossip columns, but for nothing else. The decisions were already taken three days before.’66 On the issue of whether the Admiralty or he had been strongly influenced by Lloyd George’s position or by his intention to come to the Admiralty, Jellicoe was equally clear. He said that Lloyd George’s visit had nothing to do with Duff’s recommendation, approved four days earlier. Even Hankey put a diary entry on the day before, 29 April, saying that the Admiralty’s ideas on convoy had, at this point, been developed ‘on their own initiative’.67 Earlier, on 30 March he noted that he was finding it difficult to get convoy onto Lloyd George’s agenda till late April: ‘I have so many ideas on the matter, but cannot get at LI. George in regard to it, as he is so full of politics’. The minutes themselves are neutral. They merely say the visit was made ‘with a view to investigating all the means at present in use in regard to anti-submarine warfare’.

  On 10 May a large convoy left Gibraltar. It was to be used as a test case and its success led to the decision to implement the system more widely. It arrived in Britain on the 20th without casualties. Two weeks later, on 24 May the first transatlantic convoy from America left Hampton Roads, arriving in Britain on 7 June.68

  Jellicoe was never against convoy. Rather, he knew that in order to make the convoy system work the most important thing he needed was sufficient destroyers. Jellicoe worried that – whatever the merits of the convoy system – Britain did not have available the required levels of escort vessels; this was one of the first, essential issues to solve. To that end, in the War Council he argued for the reduction of the number of routes, trade or military, that the Navy was being asked to cover, saying, for example, that land campaigns – such as one then being undertaken in Salonika – should be considered ‘sideshows’ and as a consequence no longer be supported; there should be a strict reduction in the amount imported into Great Britain by restricting luxuries or inessentials; and whenever troops were transported, foodstuffs and munitions should be carried on the same vessels. ‘In the light of the amended figur
es, the position with regard to destroyers now became that between 20 and 30 of the 70 or more needed for a really comprehensive convoy system could be found immediately.’69 The newly arrived American destroyers helped.

  By September Jellicoe was starting to feel some of the extreme pressure of the first three months dissipate. Ten German submarines had been sunk in the month and the losses were moving in the right direction. But Jellicoe wrote to Beatty about the continuing political problems that he was facing: ‘I have got myself much disliked by the Prime Minister and others. I fancy there is a scheme afoot to get rid of me. The way they are doing it is to say that I am too pessimistic … I expect it will be done by first discrediting me with the press.’70 He was right. Beatty’s response was described by Massie as not just ‘ambivalent’ but, maybe unfairly, as ‘hypocritical’71 – Beatty urged Jellicoe to hang on: ‘And you must stick at all intentions to your not volunteering to go, that would be fatal. Do not be goaded into any step of the kind no matter what the press or anybody else says.’72

  Lady Beatty was another matter. She appeared to hold Jellicoe almost personally responsible for her husband not receiving the level of national accolade that she would have liked him to have after Jutland, and was openly antagonistic. She was meeting as many people as she could to stir things up – naval inventor turned journalist Arthur Pollen, Rear Admiral Sims, and others within government and naval circles.73 Her dislike of Jellicoe was deep and vehement. It is difficult to see Gwen Cayzer and Ethel Beatty as wives who would have much in common. In July 1916 Ethel wrote that all she could do, now that the battle was over, was ‘curse Jellicoe’, saying that she thought the real truth was that ‘he was in a deadly funk and of course it makes one perfectly sick with the Admiralty trying to make out he is a great man … He failed hopelessly and not only that but he does not tell the truth in his dispatch’.74 She tried to, but did not convince Sims. The American had a great deal of respect for John Jellicoe, with whom he had served in China during the Boxer Rebellion. He was to write in 1939 of his old friend: ‘The admiration which I had then conceived for the Admiral’s intelligence and character I have never lost… Simplicity and directness were his two most outstanding points … success had only made him more quiet, soft-spoken and unostentatiously dignified’.* Pollen, who had been quite close to Jellicoe at one point, was maybe an easier target now that Dreyer’s director system had been chosen over his. He was angry at Jellicoe for not giving him continued access after Dreyer’s system became the front-runner.

  The introduction of convoy did not immediately dramatically shift the numbers. Tonnage sunk did not suddenly, magically, decline. Till the end of 1917, the average monthly total remained around 300,000 tons. It took till May 1918 for the average to fall below the 200,000 mark. But what was seen as a decline was as much due to reduced submarine activity as to the British ‘winning’ the battle.

  ‘Sinking submarines is a bonus, not a necessity’: what Marder meant by this dictum was that what counted was whether the food and war materiel was getting through in the required quantities.75 And while the number of German submarines sunk doubled from the first to the second half of 1917, from twenty-one to forty-two, the Germans had added huge capacity with new submarines becoming operational at an ever-increasing rate. But the privations of war, although very tough, were never for the British as severe or on such a wide scale as they became for German families.

  British commanders were most uncomfortable with the Flanders harbour triangle and, increasingly, Jellicoe felt that destroyers from these ports would pose an even larger threat than that of the submarine if the Germans were to use these forward Belgian bases to support larger naval activity in the Channel.76 He had unsuccessfully lobbied for the capture or destruction of the ports since 1915 when the army had, against the Navy’s advice, not demolished the facilities when retreating. But the proposed operations were repeatedly opposed and delayed by the French, who only concurred when British participation in the Somme offensive was agreed upon.77 A major result of the success of the early operations was, as both Holtzendorf and Schröder had predicted, an increasing concentration of British naval assets in the south.

  Holtzendorf had promised victory in six months: ‘Victory before the harvest,’ he had proclaimed. The first three months had delivered results beyond expectations, especially April, and even more when one took into consideration damage as well as actual sinkings. But by July there was absolutely no sign that the British were about to throw in the towel and what the German naval staff already knew, the politicians were beginning to suspect – that the claim was not going to be delivered and that, in fact, slowly but surely the tide was starting to turn. Matthias Erzberger, the leader of the Catholic Centre party, openly challenged the navy’s continued public optimism. The debate which it triggered ended with the Peace Resolution of 19 July and Bethmann-Hollweg’s replacement as chancellor by the exceedingly weak Georg Michaelis. The change effectively put the army in control. Then August saw unrest in the fleet and the execution of five sailors. The rocky road to the German revolution was open.

  Then the astonishing rate of early sinkings started to taper off, again slowly but discernibly. July’s total of 555,514 tons was reduced to 472,372 in August and 353,602 in September. While October’s figure increased again to 446,542 tons, the losses suffered by the submarine flotillas were high. The Flanders Flotilla itself lost five boats. By November the German results fell again, dramatically, to 302,599, the worst result of the year. April had been the peak of a slightly unevenly distributed bell curve which was now rapidly falling to a monthly average of 300,000 tons, which would then cut below 200,000 tons shortly into 1918.

  British and Total Allied Sinkings 1914–18

  British and Allied Merchant Shipping Loses by Torpedo 1914–18

  The increasing success of the British anti-submarine campaign prompted Holtzendorf to evolve new tactics, such as teaming up two boats against a convoy. While he was not able to implement the idea, it would be the basis of the feared submarine ‘wolf packs’ in the battle of the Atlantic twenty years later.

  As if the submarine threat were not enough, Jellicoe’s time at the Admiralty was dogged by political back-stabbing and dark-corridor politics of the most insidious nature on the part of Lloyd George, Eric Geddes (his appointee as Controller) and from the press baron, Lord Northcliffe, the prime minister’s political supporter and friend. But Jellicoe also faced opposition from a less likely quarter: from Sir Douglas Haig, with whom he had been closely allied in the War Cabinet over the need to keep resources focused on the Western Front.

  Lloyd George had most likely made up his mind to get rid of Jellicoe quite early on – earlier than the summer as he said in his diaries. He had never liked him; in the War Cabinet he found what he perceived to be his now established pessimism too much to take. So serious were losses becoming, that in June Jellicoe made the comment in the War Cabinet that it was ‘no use’ talking about plans for ‘spring next year’ if they had already lost the war by that point. The previous year in October 1916, he had already speculated that the Allies might be forced into accepting peace terms and talked about the ‘serious effect’ he anticipated ‘by early summer 1917’.78 Jellicoe accurately predicted the bleakness of Britain’s situation in the opening months of 1917.

  Jellicoe had thought about resigning several times. He was incensed at just how rudely not just he, but also other senior commanders, had been treated by Lloyd George.79 When Jellicoe was asked by the prime minister to get rid of both Oliver and Cecil Burney, he demurred, saying that if he had to he would dismiss the latter, but so far as Oliver was concerned he threatened his own resignation if it were to come about. ‘You will obey orders like any midshipman, retorted the prime minister, to which Jellicoe calmly responded: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Since the Sea Lords were civil appointments, Jellicoe added, they ‘came under no act of discipline’. This was the moment in June 1917 when the prime minister sa
id that he ‘made up his mind to effect a change at the top of the Admiralty’, and told Geddes that he would give him six months to see if he concurred.80 Lloyd George was not giving Geddes the decision, merely the time to come around to his own point of view that Jellicoe had to go.

  In John Winton’s words, the conclusion of the 1909 Naval Estimates debate was a ‘pyrrhic victory’ for Jellicoe (and Fisher). Lloyd George did not trust that Jellicoe really had secret information about accelerated German naval construction from ‘private sources’. In his own notes of a meeting in Sir Edward Grey’s office, the former Foreign Secretary, Jellicoe says that Lloyd George had made a remark about the information: ‘I think it shows extraordinary neglect on the part of the Admiralty that all this should not have been found out before. I don’t think much of any of you Admirals and I should like to see Lord Charles Beresford at the Admiralty and the sooner the better.’81 Lloyd George held that it was ‘all contractor’s gossip’.

  Neither Lloyd George nor Jellicoe had the kind of character that made it easy for them to work closely together as colleagues. Lloyd George was a man of action, the more unusual or unexpected, the better for the media-savvy politician. Jellicoe was the consummate professional, cautious, modest and analytical, but he was also a ‘results’ man. He spoke with a frank realism that was often misunderstood. Jellicoe’s War Cabinet presentations may have been purposefully pessimistic: ‘It was necessary’, he later said, ‘to be very outspoken to the War Cabinet on the subject of the Submarine danger even at the risk of being accused of pessimistic views, for it was very difficult during the first half of 1917 to get the magnitude of the danger realised’.82