Jutland_The Unfinished Battle

by Nicholas Jellicoe

  Did Jellicoe’s GFBOs leave too little room for disagreement, or was his position that a concerted, unified action was always better than continued debate, discord and possible open disunity in the command structure? Maybe there is a bigger issue at stake here: Jellicoe’s command style. Unlike Hipper (and Scheer), he did not like to have his orders questioned or even to discuss the evolution of his orders with subordinates. I would hazard a guess that Beatty was not so far from Jellicoe’s mindset here. Jellicoe was, in fact, far from rigid. He was nervous of divergence, because it could fatally weaken the concerted power of the Grand Fleet in action. He actually constantly revised his tactics, based on experience and action, and this showed an intellectual flexibility not rigidity.

  The problem, of course, with dissecting documents such as the GFBOs and the GFBIs is that behaviour in action is always different. On the day, things are always different – ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’ as von Moltke expressed it – and many say that the best commanders think that their plans should be considered obsolete once the first shot is fired. In this respect, Jellicoe was different. He maintained the principles he had set out when he had the luxury of calm reflection.

  Throughout the war it had been our policy to cause our battle-cruisers, with their attendant light cruisers, to occupy when at sea an advanced position, often at a considerable distance from the Battle Fleet. Battle-cruisers were designed and built in order that they might keep in touch with the enemy and report his movements when he had been found; hence the heavy guns which they carried.34

  On reconnaissance and reporting, I would hold that Beatty failed in this primary role for his Battle Cruiser Fleet. But where the responsibility for that lies is a different matter. I would say that this is just as much Jellicoe’s fault, for not only failing to make this absolutely clear, but also for failing to practise these separate roles for the two fleets whenever they could. It is easier said than done, maybe, when waters are potentially mined or patrolled by enemy submarines

  On the day, Jellicoe was woefully ill-informed by subordinates of battle conditions out of his direct line of sight. It remains extraordinary that what Scheer had been informed of by Hipper at 20:00 on 31 May (the losses of Indefatigable and Queen Mary), Jellicoe was only told the following day. There were many other examples of poor communications, such as the sightings of German capital ships that were never reported to Jellicoe, or even acted upon by the commander on the spot. Commanders such as Goodenough were exceptional, but they were just that: exceptions. And if that was not enough, at the top there were intelligence failures from Room 40.

  So how did the GFBOs change after Jutland? Committees were set up to collect evidence on the experiences of both officers and men, the first one on 4 June. Dreyer headed possibly the most important, on gunnery and shell for the battleships. Chatfield headed up the equivalent committee for the battle-cruisers. There were also committees on battleship protection (Rear Admiral Arthur Leveson), cruiser protection (Captain John Dumaresq), and others ‘on torpedo, wireless, anti-flame and gas, signals, searchlights, engineering’.35

  ‘In the light of the lessons learned at the Battle of Jutland,’ Jellicoe reissued the pre-Jutland GFBOs on 11 September 1916, and on 15 September the Admiralty brought out a revised signals book.36 An important change was the introduction of a new signal: ‘MP’. This was to be applied when weather conditions made it ‘very difficult to control the movements of the whole battle fleet’. Flag officers were now permitted to ‘manoeuvre their squadrons independently while acting in support of the squadron or division to which the fleet flagship is attached. It is in no way intended to imply that such a de-centralisation is not to take place unless the signal “MP” is made. If made it merely points out that decentralisation has become essential for the time being.’37 Given Jellicoe’s considerable baggage after the Tryon affair (when Camperdown had rammed Victoria off the coast of Tripoli in 1893 and Jellicoe, sick below decks, had nearly been drowned), Gordon calls this the admiral taking ‘an uncertain step into doctrinal schizophrenia’.38

  How did the GFBOs change under the new regime of David Beatty? His were issued as ‘instructions’, suggesting that they were more guides to action than orders that had to be obeyed. The GFBIs were about half the length of Jellicoe’s GFBOs; more importantly, they were to the point and they were readable. All the minutiae of the GFBOs was relegated to a less familiar volume called the Grand Fleet Manoeuvring Orders (GFMOs) on which little is ever said, and which seems to have largely disappeared from the discussion on the GFBOs.39 Beatty made it quite clear what the fleet’s role was. He encouraged independent action and he encouraged communicating battlefield intelligence.

  The instructions’ first page clearly laid out quite a number of intentions: to gain a position between the enemy and its harbour; to concentrate fire on weaker elements at least to annihilate some elements of the enemy fleet; and to seek an engagement from the van at no less than 16,000yds, allowing the longer-range ships further down the line to be engaged at around the same time. Independence of action would be, just as Jellicoe believed, curtailed in the approach but then given from the deployment and after; that is a slight change.

  Further differences were notable: ‘The commander of a wing column under these conditions has full authority to act without waiting for orders. He should decide and turn as necessary … When action is joined the flag officers commanding battle squadrons have full discretionary power to manoeuvre their squadrons independently whilst conforming generally to the movements of the Commander-in-Chief.’ This was not a question of only under certain circumstances, such as fog.

  However, when it came to the actual conduct of the fleet throughout the rest of the war it was, it turned out, very similar to Jellicoe’s. ‘Aside from this important change in tactics, Beatty’s overall North Sea strategy became almost more cautious than Jellicoe’s.’40 Not very long after Jellicoe had been dismissed, Beatty attended a conference at the Admiralty: ‘On January 2nd 1918, when the general situation in the North Sea was discussed … Sir David Beatty informed the conference that it was, in his opinion, no longer desirable to provoke a fleet action even if the opportunity should occur.’ This was surprising, given that Beatty’s numerical advantages over his adversary had swung heavily in his favour.

  Commenting on volumes IV and V of Naval Operations, Jellicoe said that in 1918 he:

  should never have accepted this view had I been at the Admiralty, for the following reasons: (1) The greatly increased strength of the Grand Fleet since Jutland. In addition to the reinforcement of four battleships from the United States, two British battleships have been added, bringing the Grand Fleet strength up to thirty-four as against twenty-eight at the time of Jutland. Twenty-five light cruisers were available as against twenty-three, and at least one hundred destroyers as against a total of about seventy at the time of Jutland. As regards battle-cruisers, even if the Mackensen and Hindenberg were added to the High Seas Fleet, the disparity in force was not very serious, nor was it so important in a fleet action, no doubt adding somewhat to our scouting difficulties. (2) Even if Beatty detached a complete battle squadron (which he never did) to protect the convoy, there was no reason whatever why this squadron should not join the Grand Fleet if it went to sea. The squadron would obviously have plenty of fuel, and it could reach a point, say, in Lat. 56° 30′ N, Long. 5° E. at least as soon as the Grand Fleet from Rosyth could do so, the distance in each case being about the same and the squadron on convoy duty having the advantage of having steam ready. The only disadvantage would be a slight shortage of fuel on the part of the escorting destroyers, but this shortage could not be very serious unless the battle squadron had been on escort work for two or three days. It is obvious if the High Seas Fleet was expected by the Admiralty to move, there was no danger to the convoy in withdrawing the protecting battle squadron and the C-in-C Grand Fleet would not be ‘seeking action’ unless the High Seas Fleet was on the move.41

&nbs
p; Already, nine months before, in March 1917 Beatty had thirty-one dreadnoughts (including the three new 15in Resolution class) against Scheer’s twenty-one, while the battle-cruiser ratio was seven to four (after replacing the three that were lost by the British at Jutland with one).

  Jellicoe could be criticised for many things but his GFBOs, while not in the least easy to read and clearly over-detailed, did try to tackle the most important issues in a thoroughly professional and unemotional manner. They displayed a cold, pragmatic approach to assessing an opponent’s strength and weaknesses, and a disregard for the role that luck would or might play in the frantic, disorganised turmoil of battle. Jellicoe’s lack of Nelsonian charisma should not lessen the importance of what he did accomplish. Again, while there is a tendency to see black and white between the two commanders, for Beatty ‘there was no question of overthrowing, with one stroke of the pen, the ideas of his predecessors’.42

  Jutland was an extremely complex battle fought under very difficult conditions for both navies. Gibson and Harper’s conclusion on the ebb and flow of the battle is as fair and balanced a judgement as any that I know of:

  The initial meeting between Hipper and Beatty had been a decided German victory – so had the brief engagement between Lützow, Derfflinger and Invincible and the night contact between the High Seas Fleet and the destroyer formation led by Lydiard … There had been a number of equally decisive British victories – in particular the second, third and fourth meetings between Beatty and the German battle-cruisers; the 5th Battle Squadron’s run to the north in the face of a much superior enemy concentration; the actual contacts between the main fleets; and the day and night torpedo attacks which sank Pommern and Frauenlob, torpedoed Seydlitz and Rostock, and caused the ramming of Elbing… The crux of the battle had been the actual meetings between the fleets – very brief, but both finding Jellicoe ready with every bit of his power concentrated and brought to bear, while Scheer, numerically inferior to begin with, was employing his ships in such a manner that only a fraction of his gun-power could be directed at the enemy.43

  Should not the conclusion of the battle over Jutland be a little more straightforward than it has become after the hundred years or so of occasionally vitriolic debate? ‘The issue at stake had been sea power – sea power which one of the contestants exercised and wished to keep, which the other lacked and wished to wrest – and command of the seas within and beyond the war area, and of the arteries of maritime traffic and commerce vital to the destinies of both nations – the maritime highways which meant national life or death to both peoples.’44

  In the short term the battle might still be seen as a German tactical victory, though the British were ready for action again within four hours of reaching port. Hipper’s leadership had been brilliant, Scheer’s escape remarkable. In the medium term, however, the British maintained the blockade. The irony remains that Jutland persuaded Scheer to alter strategy to the very successful U-boat campaign against which only the convoy system would in time prevail. Jellicoe’s success at Jutland, or at least his maintenance of the status quo during the battle, unfortunately sowed the seeds of his demise two years later.

  Jellicoe’s reforms before Beatty took over

  Before Jellicoe handed command of his beloved Grand Fleet to Sir David Beatty on 29 November 1916, important changes began to be made in the way that the Navy did battle.

  One important area was in gunnery efficiency. ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the average time to find the gun range of the enemy with these new methods was about one half of that previously required.’45 Dreyer explained: the time to get ‘on target’ was ‘by “laddering up and down”, when our shots were in line with the target for direction. We introduced the firing of rapid double salvos in the ladders. These were incorporated in new standardised spotting rules.’46

  The range-finders at Jutland were mostly 9ft-long Barr and Stroud models with the 15ft version available in only ‘the most modern ships’. In fact, when war was declared, ‘the overwhelming majority of units composing the battle line’ only had two 9ft units. During the next twelve months there was a concerted effort to install further (9ft) units. But the chosen tactics and equipment were at odds. For longer range gunnery only the 15ft Barr and Stroud was accurate enough for distances of up to 15,000yds. According to Sumida, only around forty-five of the 15ft versions had been delivered to the fleet by August 1916,47 it generally being the 15in-gunned Queen Elizabeths and the battle-cruisers that received them. By 1917 range-finder lengths were increasing to 25ft, and even 30ft.48

  At the outbreak of war only one 12in-gunned dreadnought in the Grand Fleet had a Dreyer table. While the table was installed on more ships over the next two years, the Dreyer Mark I was found to be superior in combination with Arthur Pollen’s Argo clock (the Mark II used a Vickers clock that was found to be inferior). In May 1916 one-third of the battleships and half of its battle-cruisers were using the inferior combination (for details of British fire-control systems, go to Jutland1916.com). In August 1914 only eight British dreadnoughts were equipped with directors.49 Shore bombardment units were receiving more than the fleet at sea, but by December 1915 twenty-four dreadnoughts were equipped with directors.

  Dreyer complained that ‘we have many people engaged in trying to make out that our AP shell filled with Lyddite, which burst half-way through the plate, are just as good as German shell filled with Trotyl with delay-action fuse, which burst their shell way inside our ships. It seems a pity not to be willing to learn.’50 Jellicoe’s request on 25 July 1916 for a copy of the German shell was not taken on and it was only when he went to the Admiralty at the end of 1916 that serious work resumed.

  Certainly, Scheer had commented on the quality of British shell as a factor in the battle:

  It was astonishing that the ships had remained navigable in the state they were in. This was chiefly attributable to the faulty exploding charge of the English heavy calibre shells, their explosive effect being out of all proportion to their size. A number of bits of shell picked up clearly showed that powder only had been used in the charge. Many shells of 34cm and 38cm calibres had burst into such large pieces that, even when picked up, they were easily fitted together again.51

  In May 1917 new shell started to appear. Whereas the 1,920lb shell used at Jutland would break up on a 6in armour plate at 20° to the normal at about 16,000 yards, the vastly improved 15in shell (known as ‘green boys’), with a thicker head and a thicker and harder cap, and much better bursters and fuses, would carry their bursters through 10–12in plate under the above conditions and burst 20–30 ft beyond. The shame of it was that they did not arrive in quantity in the fleet until April 1918.

  Jellicoe’s instructions on which shell to use are not easy to understand. He regarded AP as near useless for ranges over 10,000yds, so it seems that he must have felt that the real gunnery duel would take place at medium range. Yet there is really room for a lot of confusion here, given what he says in his GFBOs about not wanting to fight ‘much inside 14,000 yards’. The German tactical orders, which were made available to Jellicoe and others such as Dreyer and Madden, stated that the German fleet desired range of engagement was ‘from 8,800 to 6,600 yards’.52 In April 1916, based on intelligence that he had received about new German torpedo performance, Jellicoe ordered the longer-range settings of 18,000yds at 19 to 20 knots.53 The torpedo emerged from Jutland decidedly pushed off its pedestal, only to regain its position in the submarine war years of 1917.

  Jellicoe talked of the ‘indifferent armour of our cruisers particularly as regards turret armour and deck plating’.54 The experiences of 31 May also prompted Beatty to write to the Admiralty that ‘either our methods of ship construction are seriously at fault or the nature of the ammunition we use is not sufficiently stable to ensure safety’.55 Of the nine British ships sunk by German gunfire at Jutland, six had blown up; of the fourteen enemy vessels, none.56 Maybe one of the most fundamental reforms, given the design defects of
the battle-cruiser, was the introduction of strengthened anti-flash protection. It was a ‘drastic change in the system at the stage when cordite was being passed out of the magazines’.57 Magazine doors would now operate ‘like revolving doors in a hotel entrance (except that they were horizontal), so that they were always sealed against a tongue of flame’.58

  Tirpitz always maintained that ruggedness of construction and the ability to take punishment were the primary considerations of ship construction: ‘The supreme quality of a ship is that she should remain afloat and continue to put up a good fight; in this respect the English navy was so much behind ours that the difference in quality alone might decide the issue of an engagement’.59

  Deck armour was increased. The issue was discussed at an Admiralty conference on 25 June 1916. The Director of Naval Construction, Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt, supported by the 3SL (Admiral Tudor), disputed Jellicoe’s and Beatty’s points of view, but they were eventually overruled and a weight-saving committee was established to see where it could compensate for the added armour protection. HMS Hood, laid down on the same day as the battle, received an additional 5,000 tons of armour protection (though this still did not prove adequate for its survival). And finally, in 1917, Jellicoe was able to give the fleet the star-shell that he had so lacked for night fighting.

  * Nelson’s fleet comprised twenty-seven ships of the line (of which HMS Victory was one of three First Rate ships), but if had been a catastrophic battle, a loss at Trafalgar would still have left Britain with an adequate number of ships for its strategic requirements. Not so Jutland. I am very much indebted to my cousin, Richard Latham, for his extensive knowledge of Trafalgar which he was happy to share.