In the destruction of Koenigsberg the main interest is the solution of a gunnery problem in itself not very intricate, if once the means of carrying it out exist and the right method of procedure is recognized. But in the actual operations the men on the spot had to do an immense number of things before the problem could be tackled at all, and in the solution of the gunnery problem they had to learn from the beginning and so discover, from their failure at the first attempt, the method which was so brilliantly successful on the second. In this respect the story isolates a single and, as I have said, a simple problem in gunnery and illustrates what is meant by right technique. Apart from this, the story is full of human interest and exhibits the exceptional advantages which naval training gives to those who have to extemporize methods of dealing with circumstances and difficulties without the guidance of experience.
In the Sydney-Emden engagement we have a very good example of the modern single ship action. Not the least of its points of interest is that Sydney seems to have lost her rangefinder a very few minutes after the action began. At first sight it would seem to be an absolutely disabling loss. In some quarters more emphasis has been laid on the value of a good rangefinder to fire control than to any other element of that highly debated branch of naval science. But in this engagement, as in that of Koenigsberg, the enemy was destroyed by a ship that did not use a rangefinder at all. The action thus not only shows the place which the observation of fire takes in the art of sea fighting, but illustrates in the highest degree the value of long practice in gunnery. Since 1905 every commissioned ship in the fleet has worked assiduously on this problem, and, whether the methods in use have been good, bad, or indifferent, this practice produced a race of officers extraordinarily well equipped for dealing with fire control as a practical problem. It is highly probable, if the methods and instruments they have been given have not always been of the best, that this fact, by throwing them on their own resources, did much to stimulate that singular capacity for extemporization which we shall see illustrated in the Koenigsberg business. Moreover, this is a faculty in which our officers seem to excel the Germans greatly. In this fight, as in so many others, it was the enemy who first opened fire, and it was his opening salvoes that were the most accurate. But the enemy has seldom kept this initial advantage, whereas we shall generally find the British personnel improving as the action proceeds. It would appear, then, that as the material suffers the Germans, who are most dependent on it, have on the whole shown less resource than our own officers.
In the action off Coronel the heroic self-sacrifice of the British force overlays the technical interest. In one respect it is altogether unique, for it is the only action in this war in which the weaker and faster squadron sought action with one of incalculably greater fighting power but of inferior speed. Neither side seems to have manœuvred in a way that would have added to the difficulties of fire control, but as, apart from manœuvring, the shooting conditions were extraordinarily difficult, one is forced to the conclusion that the deciding factor was less the great superiority of the enemy’s force, as measured by the weight of his broadsides, than the still more marked superiority that arose from his having a more modern and more homogeneous armament.
At the Falkland Islands the all-big-gun ship appeared for the first time in a sea action and, although opposed by vessels whose armament was no match for such heavy metal, it was actually employed according to the tactics officially set out as the basis of the Dreadnought idea in design; the tactics, that is to say, of keeping away from an enemy, so as to maintain a range favourable to the more powerfully gunned ship. The battle resolved itself into three separate actions, and it was on this principle that Sir Doveton Sturdee fought the Graf von Spee and his two battle-cruisers, and that the Captain of the Cornwall engaged Leipzig. But, curiously enough, in the engagement between Kent and Nürnberg a different principle is seen at work. Captain Allen pursued at full speed until he had crippled the enemy’s engines, and then, as his speed fell off, continued to close till he was able to silence him altogether at a range of 3,000 yards. Thus on a single day two diametrically opposed tactical doctrines were exemplified by officers under a single command.
In each of these four actions the tactics of the gun escaped complication by the distractions and difficulties which torpedo attack imposes on long-range gunnery. In our next action, the affair off Heligoland, the torpedo figures largely, because visibility was limited to about 6,000 yards. The affair off Heligoland cannot be described as an engagement. It was primarily a reconnaissance in force developed into a series of skirmishes and single ship actions, which began at seven in the morning and ended at mid-day. Submarines, destroyers, cruisers of several types and, finally, battle-cruisers, were employed on the British side. There were sharp artillery engagements between destroyers, there were torpedo attacks made by destroyers on light cruisers and by submarines on battle-cruisers. But they were not massed attacks on ships in formation, but isolated efforts at marksmanship, and they were all of them unsuccessful. This failure of the torpedo as a weapon of precision is of considerable technical interest. The light thrown on gunnery problems by the events of the day is less easy to define. The chief interest of this raid into the Bight lies in the strategical idea which prompted it and in its moral effects on the British and German naval forces. That Sir David Beatty, in command of four battle-cruisers, should coolly have challenged the German Fleet to fight and that this challenge was not accepted, was extremely significant. It was of special value to our side, for it showed the British Navy to possess a naval leader who knew how to combine dash and caution and marked by a talent for leadership as conspicuous as the personal bravery which had won him his early promotions.
These qualities were still better displayed in the engagement off the Dogger Bank. This action is remarkable in several respects. For the first time destroyers were here employed to make massed torpedo attacks on a squadron of capital ships. The particular defensive functions of such torpedo attacks will be discussed in the proper place. Suffice it to say here that no torpedo hit, but that the British were robbed of victory by a chance shot which disabled Sir David Beatty’s flagship, and deprived the squadron of its leader when bold leadership was most needed. Why the action was broken off by Rear-Admiral Moore, who succeeded to the command, has never been explained, and the unfortunate wording of an Admiralty communiqué gave the world for some time an impression that Sir David Beatty—of all people—had retreated from the threat of German submarines.
The battle of Jutland eclipses in technical interest all the other engagements put together. It presents, of course on a far larger scale, all the problems hitherto met separately. We are still far too imperfectly informed as to many of the incidents of this battle for it to be possible to attempt any complete analysis of its tactics, or to indicate the line on which judgment will ultimately declare itself. We are, for example, entirely without information either about the method of deployment prescribed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet at six o’clock, or of the theory on which the night attack by the destroyer on the retreating German Fleet was ordered. We do not know how it was that a misunderstanding[A] arose between the battle-cruiser fleet and the battle fleet as to the time and place of junction, nor the arrangements which resulted in contact with the German Fleet being lost after the action was over. It is, therefore, only possible to discuss those points on which light has been thrown by the despatch, and the principles of action which the Commander-in-Chief has set out in various speeches delivered after he had ceased to command at sea.
[A] The positions of the two fleets at six o’clock had been estimated by dead reckoning, both in Lion and in Iron Duke. The two reckonings did not agree, and the Commander-in-Chief said in the despatch that such a discrepancy was inevitable. The word “misunderstanding” in the text must not be taken to mean that the calculation in either fleet was avoidable, still less reprehensibly, wrong.
In the engagement off the Falkland Islands, it will be remembered that there was a marked contrast between the tactical methods followed in the pursuit of Von Spee and those adopted by Captain Allen in his pursuit of Nürnberg. In the battle of Jutland we shall find a still more marked contrast between the strategic conceptions of the two leaders of the British forces.
Admiral Beatty seems to have acted throughout as if the enemy should be brought to battle and destroyed, almost regardless of risk. The Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet seems to have been willing to engage only if he could do so without jeopardizing the forces under his command. The one was bent on victory, the other seemed satisfied—so long as the enemy were thwarted in any ulterior purpose—if only the British Fleet were saved from losses.