Jutland_The Unfinished Battle

by Nicholas Jellicoe

  By 09:50 Scheers position was estimated to be 150 miles off the British coast. The British had guessed that Sunderland was the target. Jellicoe turned his ships back south as he learned that it had not been a minefield that had caused the Nottingham’s sinking, rather a submarine attack. Meanwhile, Commodore Tyrwhitt raced north to join him. By noon Scheer closed in to around seventy miles. Beatty was close by, only thirty miles from Scheer at 12:15, while Jellicoe was sixty miles away.

  Then an extraordinary twist of fate saved the German forces from the closing trap. A report came in from one of Scheer’s Zeppelins, L.13. They had mistaken Tyrwhitt’s forces coming from the south to be major fleet elements and, what is more, including dreadnoughts. Immediately, Scheer turned his fleet around and headed south. Meanwhile, Tyrwhitt had done the very same, since he had not seen any German forces. What could have been the closing round of the battle of Jutland had been narrowly lost for the most unpredictable of causes.

  Scheer found out from reports from one of his submarines, U.53, and two other Zeppelin reports that the Grand Fleet was in fact to his north. Now he knew that he had nearly been outwitted and that his radio transmissions had been intercepted. At 16:00 Jellicoe turned the Grand Fleet around. He had just received news from the Admiralty that Scheer had escaped south: first to the southeast and then east through the minefields to the safety of Wilhelmshaven. Tyrwhitt did manage to spot the Germans at around 17:00 and tried to outrun them, but Jellicoe, knowing that he could not give any support, ordered him back to Harwich.

  Mutiny

  Back in the monotonous safety of Wilhelmshaven, but confined throughout the long greywinter months with no apparent purpose, crews became restless. Morale plummeted and the officers were soon openly ignored and increasingly felt under threat. The extreme danger of the submarine service was the only way out of the monotony of shore barrack life for those sailors who still yearned for action. For most, it was a dangerously Faustian deal.

  The daily diet on ships was abysmal: turnips and herb tea, potato bread and hardly any meat.6 In fact, the quality and quantity of the food was so poor that it became a dangerous source of tension. Richard Stumpf described one typical item, a concoction that was derisively called ‘Drahtverhau’ or (translated literally) ‘chopped barbed wire’: 75 per cent water, 10 per cent Oldenburger sausage, 3 per cent potatoes, 2 per cent peas, 1 per cent yellow turnips, 0.5 per cent beef, 0.5 per cent vinegar, 0.25 per cent fat and that little ‘je ne sais quoi’ that nobody could describe.7 Horn noted that German battleships had three galleys. In one vivid picture, that symbolised the rigid social divisions: one galley for staff officers, one for deck officers and one for the men. It was small wonder that the men and officers who messed together on torpedo boats had far higher morale and officers were almost never challenged.

  By December 1916 the food was already so bad that Kapitän Schramm, the liaison officer with the war food production department, complained that the calorific intake could not be cut any further – and this was even before the so-called ‘turnip winter’ that followed. Few officers looked after their men, but one who did was Kapitän Langemak, the commander of Thüringen, who realised that there was a close connection between the quality of food and the morale of his men.

  Throughout 1917 conditions deteriorated and by 1918, after months of inaction, the disgruntlement turned to open insurrection. In June the first hunger strike occurred and a sailors’ union was created in the fleet. Each ship had a sailors’ council, a kind of soviet. The chairman of the fleet council was a petty stoker on Friedrich der Große, known by sailors as ‘Big Fritz’.

  Much of Germany’s eventual defeat could be blamed on the officer class, on its ‘bungling incompetence and abdication of responsibility’.8 The resentment between ranks – never a major issue on most British battleships – was tangible. When First Officer Korvettenkapitän Herzbruch passed a group of sailors on the deck of Prinzregent Luitpold, ‘the silence of hate followed him’.9 So it was with Kapitän zur See Thorbecke of the König Albert. Late one evening in July 1918, as he was returning from a drinking session, he was pushed overboard by sailors and drowned.10

  At the end of July things were getting out of hand: 350 crew from Prinzregent Luitpold went ashore and demonstrated on the streets of Wilhelmshaven. Already angry about the short leave and the poor quality of the food, the cancelling of a cinema show (so that infantry training could be carried on) ignited the fuelled-up fury and protest broke out. Fifty stokers went ashore. When they returned, Kapitän zur See Karl von Hornhardt arrested eleven. The revolutionary leadership that had previously been established in Friedrich der Große’s soviet was now overshadowed by the unrest on Prinzregent Luitpold. On 1 August the brimming tension overflowed. The protest did not seem to be about a major issue. It was about the rights of ordinary sailors and in particular the rights of a stoker to enjoy, like an officer, the simple pleasure of visiting a cinema, but for crews that had been so thoroughly badly treated, it was absolutely the last straw.

  For three days the fleet was in turmoil. Then Scheer stepped in decisively. The two ships were sent off to the Schillig Roads, at the North Sea entrance to the Jade basin, to isolate them so the contagion would not spread, and two of the ringleaders were executed on 5 September in Cologne. Others were imprisoned in the hope that they would give up information about revolutionary comrades in Berlin. If they did so, their death sentences would be commuted to either fifteen years’ penal servitude or to duty at the Western Front with a naval brigade.* The ‘best distraction, in Scheers opinion, was ‘active warfare’ but, under the circumstances, active war was quite out of the question.11

  Generally speaking, naval officers did not defend the honour which they had promised to defend. During the uprising, only three risked their lives: Königs Kapitän Weniger along with two staff officers, Korvettenkapitän Heinemann and Leutnant Zenker.12

  In late October 1918 Hipper decided on one last, and what looked to many like an almost suicidal, attack on the British. But when his orders for Operation Plan 19 was passed to the ships anchored off Wilhelmshaven on 29 October the sailors chose not to obey it. Some of the crews refused to raise anchor and on two ships full mutiny broke out. While the mutineers ultimately backed down and surrendered after a group of small torpedo boats threatened to sink them the next day, Operation Plan 19 was cancelled and the ships returned to Kiel. The last offensive sortie of the Imperial German navy was over.

  There a further mutiny was planned. It was to be supported by workers sympathetic to their cause and influenced by the radical Independent Socialist Democratic Party of Germany (the Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or USPD). On 3 November 1918 thousands of sailors, led by Karl Artelt and Lothar Popp, both USPD members, held a large rally. As protest banners inscribed with ‘Frieden und Brot’ (peace and bread) were raised, the crowd shouted their demands for the release of the Wilhelmshaven mutineers. When they reached the military prison where the mutineers were being held, they were met with gunfire. This provoked a further swelling of the ranks and the next day thousands of sailors joined in to take over the control of Kiel.

  The pressure on the monarchy was immense and finally, on 9 November, the Kaiser accepted the inevitable and announced his planned abdication and exile to a teary-eyed General von Hindenburg. The reins of power were handed over to Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD), and Germany was declared a republic. Three days later, on 11 November, the Armistice was signed.

  Internment at Scapa Flow

  As part of the Armistice terms, Germany’s U-boat fleet was disarmed and 200 vessels were handed over to the Allies.13 The German battle fleet was to be interned at Scapa Flow, under the guns of the Royal Navy.14 A decision on the fate of the main fleet itself – under Article XXIII – was not so easy. America suggested that while a solution was being sought the fleet should be interned in a neutral port; two proposals, one in Spain,
one in Norway, were turned down. It is doubtful that the Allies really pursued all avenues to find a neutral port solution.

  The preliminary arrangements had been made on the night of 15 November 1918, when Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer, Hipper’s representative, met Beatty on Queen Elizabeth to hear the terms (on taking command of the Grand Fleet, Beatty had moved the C-in-C’s flag to this faster and more powerful battleship, in preference to Iron Duke, declaring that there was ‘too much of Jellicoe in her’). The U-boats were to surrender to Tyrwhitt, now a rear admiral, at Harwich, while the main fleet was to sail three days later to the internment location – Scapa Flow – that had been suggested by Jellicoe’s immediate successor at the Admiralty, 1SL Sir Rosslyn Wemyss.

  The meeting between Beatty and Meurer did not go well. Beatty was convinced that he needed to show a stern and cold exterior, and the courtesies that normally existed between officers were not extended. Quite the opposite. Guards had fixed bayonets. Lighting was purposely as bright as possible. Meurer asked for more time as he was concerned for the morale of his men – especially so, as they were still in a visibly mutinous mood. Beatty would brook no delay and at midnight the agreement was signed.

  Four days later, on the 19th, the first German fleet elements set sail for Britain, but not before the British had checked to make sure that all ammunition had been landed. On the morning of the 21st the Germans arrived off the Firth of Forth where they were met by an Allied force of 250 ships. This included the Grand Fleet, as well as an American battleship squadron and ships from other Allied navies, including from the French navy. In total, there were forty-four capital ships. By the 27th the remnants arrived at Scapa Flow, save the torpedo boat, V.30, which had strayed off course and paid for her folly, striking a mine and sinking in the open sea.

  Beatty took no chances. British and Allied guns – fore and aft – were trained on the German ships as they steamed into internment. A postcard of the time shows British sailors wearing flash-protection headgear, stating that ‘they would not trust the Hun even at the last’. At 15:57 the German flag was ordered to be hauled down. As the German ships came into the Flow they were watched by Beatty, but not by Jellicoe. Neither he nor Churchill had been invited, nor Fisher or Battenberg. Had such an invitation been extended, it would have been, in Oliver Warner’s words, a ‘gracious gesture’.15

  Months went by without any resolution amongst the victors over the division of the spoils. For Britain, the question was not an easy one, as any likely resolution was bound to upset the balance of naval power between Britain, France and America. Any additional ships being allocated to Britain’s allies would cut back her overall lead in the ratio between her Navy and those that could one day become challengers.

  For the Germans, internment was an unpleasant experience. Separated from their families, the daily routine was gruelling in its relentless monotony. Food came from Germany twice a month. Predictably, it was mediocre. There was nothing for the men to do, so they supplemented their diets with fish and seagulls. They were not allowed ashore or to visit any other ship. Each ship was a floating prison. There were doctors but not a single dentist on the ships. The British refusal to provide dental care was an unnecessary and cruel hardship. It cannot be a surprise that the mood amongst the crews became dangerous. There was no way to blow off steam. Things got so bad on Friedrich der Große that Ludwig von Reuter, the fleet’s commander, even transferred his flag in March to the cruiser Emden so that he could get some sleep. A group of sailors who called themselves ‘the red guard’ used to jump up and down on the deckhead above his cabin each night, denying the poor man any rest.

  Admiral Sir Charles Madden saw the extent of the disintegrating chain of command among the German ships’ companies: ‘All proposed orders are considered and countersigned by the men’s committee before they are executed and then they are carried out as convenient’.16 Gradually, the number of sailors was reduced as men were repatriated to Germany. By December their number had shrunk from 20,000 to just under 5,000.* The British had encouraged the reduction to allow only minimal skeleton crews on the ships: 200 for a battle-cruiser, 175 for a battleship, eighty for a light cruiser and twenty for a destroyer, leaving a nominal total of 4,565, plus 250 officers and warrant officers (although the exact figures are thought to be higher). Even this minimal complement was more than the British wanted.

  Reuter increasingly considered scuttling the fleet as the means of avoiding handing the Allies any more ready-made naval power. As early as January 1919 he was actively drawing up detailed plans with his staff on how a scuttling could actually be carried out. With the months going by and peace negotiations dragging on in Versailles, the Germans became increasingly distrustful of Allied intentions. On 18 June Reuter sent out the critical message to the close circle of officers whom he felt could be trusted: ‘It is my intention to sink the ships only if the enemy should attempt to obtain possession of them without the assent of our government. Should our government agree in the peace terms to the surrender of the ships, then the ships will be handed over, to the lasting disgrace of those who have placed us in this position.’17

  Only three days after first announcing his intentions, Reuter acted. At 10.00 on 21 June the stand-by signal was given. An hour later, at 11:20, a flag signal was hoisted and repeated in semaphore and with searchlight to all ships. The scuttling plan went into action. ‘To all commanding officers and the leader of the torpedo boats. Paragraph 11 of today’s date. Acknowledge. Chief of the interned squadron.’18

  To British guards everything seemed normal. But within the ships’ hulls the crews set about their appointed tasks with a practised but ordered frenzy. Sea-cocks were opened, water pipes smashed and bulkhead doors left open. Portholes were opened, condenser covers also left open and even holes bored through compartment bulkheads to accelerate the intake of water. All the threads had been well lubricated to make sure there would be no last-minute glitch. It was only around noon, when Friedrich der Große started to take on a pronounced list, that the alarm was raised. Even then the scuttling signal had not succeeded in getting around the whole fleet and it was an hour before all ships acknowledged it.

  At 12:20 the British finally took action. But it was too late and too little. The only British warships present were the destroyers Vesper and Vega; there were also a couple of depot ships, and various trawlers and drifters. While they signalled Vice Admiral Sydney Fremantle’s 1st Battle Squadron, which returned to base at full speed, it was a lost cause. Over the course of the afternoon fifty-two German warships – including fourteen battleships – went down. It was the greatest loss of shipping that had ever occurred in a single day.

  Wemyss’s reaction to the news reflected a larger perspective. The scuttling had actually rid the British of a major challenge. ‘I look upon the sinking of the German fleet as a real blessing. It disposes, once and for all, the thorny question of the redistribution of the German ships. When the facts become known, everybody will probably think, like me, “Thank the Lord”’19 – in other words, that handing them over to either or both the American and French navies had been averted; the French, in particular, felt that they deserved a navy for their role in the war. The British managed to save a few ships from sinking – by running them aground – but by 17:00 the last major ship, Hindenburg, slowly sank beneath the cold dark waters of the Flow.

  Vice Admiral Fremantle delivered a speech to Reuter on the quarterdeck of the Revenge once the scuttling operation was concluded:

  Admiral von Reuter: I cannot permit you and your officers to leave naval custody without expressing to you my sense of the manner in which you have violated common honour and the honourable traditions of seamen of all nations. With an armistice in full operation you recommenced hostilities without notice by hoisting the German flag in the interned ships and proceeding to sink and destroy them. You have informed my interpreter that you considered the Armistice had terminated. You had no justification whatever for that assumption. You w
ould have been informed by me of the termination of the Armistice and whether the representatives of your nation had or had not signed the Treaty of Peace. Indeed, letters in readiness to send to you to that effect as soon as I had received official intimation from my Government were written and signed. Further, can you possibly suppose that my squadron would have been out of harbour at the moment of the termination of the Armistice? By your conduct you have added one more to the breaches of faith and honour of which Germany has been guilty in this war. Begun with a breach of military honour in the invasion of Belgium, it bids fair to terminate with a breach of naval honour. You have proved to the few who doubted it that the word of the New Germany is no more to be trusted than that of the old. What opinion your country will form of your action I do not know. I can only express what I believe to be the opinion of the British navy, and indeed of all seamen except those of your nation. I now transfer you to the custody of the British military authorities as prisoners of war guilty of a flagrant violation of Armistice.20

  Privately Fremantle felt very differently: ‘I could not resist feeling some sympathy for Reuter, who had preserved his dignity when placed against his will in a highly unpleasant and invidious position.21

  Most of the wrecks were salvaged by the British but seven still remain on the bed of the Flow. They include three battleships, König, Markgraf and Kronprinz Wilhelm, and the light cruisers Brummer, Köln, Dresden and Karlsruhe. Between 1924, when salvage began, and 1931, the majority of the work was carried out by the British company, Cox and Danks. Ernest Cox bought the salvage rights from the Admiralty for £40,000, raised twenty-six destroyers, one light cruiser, four battle-cruisers and two battleships.