The affair was in every respect well conceived and brilliantly carried out. The two essential matters were to begin by employing a force sufficiently weak to tempt the enemy to come out, and yet not so small nor so slow a force as to risk being overwhelmed. If something like a general action amongst the small craft could be brought about, the plan was to creep up with a more powerful squadron in readiness to rescue the van, if rescue were necessary, at any rate to secure the final and immediate destruction of as many of the enemy’s ships as possible. But there was no squadron fighting at all. Goodenough’s light cruisers, and Beatty’s battle-cruisers did, no doubt, keep in formation, but they found no formed enemy. There were no obvious tactical lessons.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the business is to be found not in what did happen, but in what did not. The German Commander-in-Chief must have known long before eight o’clock in the morning that fighting was going forward within five-and-twenty or thirty miles of him. He could have got to the scene with his whole force before ten o’clock. But beyond sending in a few more light cruisers and U-boats, he appears to have done nothing either to rescue his own ships or to attempt to cut off and sink ours. It is more than probable that he suspected the trap that was indeed laid for him. But the opportunity had been given of appearing in the North Sea in force, and the opportunity was not taken. It seemed very clear to most observers after this that the German Fleet would not willingly seek a general action, or even risk a partial action in the North Sea, except under conditions entirely of their own choosing. It seemed obvious that if such action was not sought in the early days of the war, it certainly would not be sought later, when the balance of naval power would be turning increasingly against them.
The battle-cruisers in this action had some exciting adventures with submarines. They had, for instance, to wait for some hours before the moment came for their intervention, and while at the rendezvous they were repeatedly attacked by them. From the Vice-Admiral’s despatch, it would appear that this attack was frustrated partly by rapid manœuvring, partly by sending destroyers to drive the U-boats off. Later in the day, when the squadron was engaged in sinking Köln and Ariadne, it was once more attacked by submarines, and Queen Mary (Captain W. R. Hall) turned his ship, not to avoid the submarine, but its torpedo, which was seen approaching. We got very early warning, therefore, of the truth of the prophecy that the first result of the employment of the torpedo in fleet actions would be compulsory movements of the attacked ships. It was a prompt reminder that if manœuvring meant loss of artillery efficiency, that the enemy had it in his power, by submarine and destroyer onslaughts, to extinguish our gunfire from time to time.
Alone of the actions which have taken place in this war, the firing was all within comparatively short range. Six thousand yards was the limit of visibility. There are not sufficient data to judge whether the British gunnery was greatly superior to the German. But Commodore Tyrwhitt draws attention to a fact, already familiar to us, viz. that a German cruiser can send salvo after salvo, all within a few yards of the target, without securing a hit. It proved later to be a feature common to all engagements.
The action off Heligoland. The course of the battle-cruisers
THE NORTH SEA
The engagement off Heligoland had no successor until the spring of 1916, when the attack on the island of Sylt took place. A second sweep some days after the first was made in the same waters, but nothing of the enemy was seen. Whether such sweeps were repeatedly made in 1915 without the public being informed, we do not know. By this I do not imply that no incursions into German waters were made—I mean only that we heard of none, and presumably that, if any were made, there was no result.