As a distraction from Delapgate, a little bit of an event 109 years ago that shaped the world as we know it. The Battle of Jutland.
250 ships met in the North Sea in one of the largest sea battles ever fought. The short summary attached tells a lot of the story, but not all. The objective for the Germans was to challenge and destroy the Royal Navy piecemeal as they were short on numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland
German Battlecruisers Von Der Tann, Lützow, Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke under Hipper attracted Lion, New Zealand, Queen Mary, Princess Royal, Indefatigable, Tiger commanded by David Beatty . The Germans positioned themselves better leaving the British silhouetted in the fading light, had better optics and actually better gunnery and procedures of handling charges. The shells themselves were also more destructive.
Beatty whose fleet handling I think was in general poor didn’t wait for the supporting 5 Battle Squadron superdreadnoughts Barham, Malaya, Valiant, Warspite - far superior to anything the Germans had.
Hipper’s battlecruisers got the best of it. Lion was nearly destroyed when Q turret was hit. Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey VC saved the ship by getting the magazine shielded off and flooded. Not so lucky was the Indy. Blown up by Vonn Der Tann. Next, Queen Mary was hit by Derfflinger and Seydlitz and blew up with nearly all her crew.
Beatty’s ships were being led into a trap of total destruction by the High Seas Fleet. Supported be the 5th Battle Squadron, the British Battlecruisers turned and headed north chased by the Germans.
The Germans chased right into the arms of the Grand Fleet. Despite dreadful signalling by Beatty and Goodenough in the cruiser Southampton, Admiral John Jellicoe managed to deploy the Grand Fleet in an almost unsurpassed act of seamanship.
Out of the gloom, Scheer and his fleet were greeted by battleships from one end of the horizon in to the other. They opened fire and a hail of shells fell upon the Germans. They had a choice. Be annihilated or do a 180 degree turn. Again, with astonishing seamanship they did the latter. However, by making the next right choice, Jellicoe moved the fleet between the Germans and him. He ‘crossed the T’ again.
The Germans again did a hand break turn. Jellicoe then made the most controversial of decisions. He was warned of torpedo threat so turned away, not to the Germans. They essentially escaped. Should he have turned towards? Given what he stood to lose (literally the war) he called it right.
The High Seas Fleet escaped. During the day and especially night there were a lot of confused, major and minor actions. HMS Invincible was blown up (magazine explosion), SMS Pommern, an old battleship, was torpedoed and lost with all hands. Sinking, German Battlecruiser Lutzow was scuttled. Others were also lost or damaged. 14 British ships and over 6000 men were lost to 11 German and about 2500 men.
The Germans made it home. Many of their ships were damaged, some heavily. Seydlitz, Von Der Tann and Derfflinger in particular were pretty much wrecked. So who won? The Germans claimed victory first and celebrated it right up to 1945. The British admitted their losses, unlike the Germans and the Royal Navy was vilified. That narrative holds a lot of support because of material losses to this day. But it isn’t correct.
The Royal Navy were still at sea, still in control and ready to fight. The High Seas Fleet were not and never ventured out again. It knew it couldn’t win. Germany starved. Literally. It was the biggest factor in their defeat. In 1918, the Germans sailed their fleet to Scapa Flow in surrender flanked by RN ships.
Rusting with mutinous crews, that was the true result of Jutland.
They had ‘assaulted their jailer, but were still in jail’ as a US newspaper so neatly put it. Jellicoe was unfairly maligned during and after the war. Churchill described him as the only man who could lose the war in a day. He did the opposite.
[Post edited 1 Jun 8:30]
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