The British Navy in Battle

by Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen

Now, against surprise, the German Fleet was seemingly protected by Zeppelins. It could hardly be cornered unless, in weather in which aerial scouting was impossible, it was tempted to some great adventure—such as the despatch of a raiding force to invade—which would enable a fast British division to get between this force and its base. So that the chance of a fleet action really turned upon the Germans being willing to fight one. And they could not be expected to be anxious for this. “A war,” says Colin, “is always slow in which we know that the battle will be decisive, and it is so important as to be only accepted voluntarily.”

The state of relative strength in May, 1916, was not such as to afford the Germans the slightest hope of a decisive victory if it brought the whole British Fleet to action. Nor was the naval situation such that there was any stroke that Germany could execute if it could hold the command of some sea passage for twenty-four hours or so. There was nothing it could expect to achieve if, by defeating or at any rate standing off one section of the British Fleet, it could enjoy a brief local ascendancy.

The argument, indeed, was all the other way. The professed main naval policy of Germany, viz., the blockade of England by submarine, though for the moment in abeyance, was being held in reserve until the military and political situation made the stake worth the candle. Now, deliberately to risk the High Seas Fleet in an action on the grand scale, when the chances of decisive victory were remote and the probability of annihilation extremely high, was to jeopardize not the fleet alone but also the blockade. For, with the High Seas Fleet once out of the way, the one stroke against the submarine which could alone be perfectly effective, viz., the close under-water blockade by mines, immediately outside the German harbours, would at once become feasible. So far, then, as military considerations went, the arguments against seeking action were far stronger than those in its favour.

But in war it is not always reasons which are purely military that operate; and as this war got into its second year there were many forces, each of which contributed something towards driving the German Navy into action. First, and in all probability by far the most powerful, would be the impatience of a large body of brave and skilful seamen—in control of an enormous sea force—with the rôle of idleness and impotence that had been imposed upon them. The German apologist, when uttering his pæans of triumph over the bombardments of Lowestoft, said, on May 7:

“It must not be assumed that this adventure was a mere question of bombarding some fortified coast places. It would also be a mistake to think that it was only an expression of the spirit of enterprise in our young Navy. The spirit is indeed just as fresh as ever, and is simply thirsting for deeds, and when one sees or talks to officers and men one reads on their lips the desire ‘If only we could get out.’ The sitting still during the spring and winter may also play their part in this. Only a well-considered leadership knows when it will use this thirst for action, and employ it in undertakings which keep the great whole in view. Our Navy, thank God, does not need to pursue prestige policy; the services which it has already rendered us are too considerable and too important for that.”

There is no occasion to quarrel with a word in this passage. The German admirals and captains in command of twenty-three or twenty-four of the most powerful ships in the world must certainly have been straining at the leash. This, then, would be a predisposing cause to a battle of some kind being voluntarily sought by the weaker force.

And in May, 1916, there were other causes as well. The German Higher Command, while ignorant perhaps of the exact points at which the Allies would attack, must have been very perfectly aware that attacks of the most formidable character, and on all fronts, were impending. It also knew that the resources of the Central Empires were to this extent relatively exhausted, that all the Allied attacks, when they came, must result in a series of successes, not of course immediately decisive, but such as no counter-attacks could balance or neutralize. Austria and Germany, in short, would be shown to be on the defensive. They would have to yield ground. It may not have seemed a situation bound to lead to military defeat. For the superiority of the Allies—at least so it may have appeared to the German command—in men and ammunition and moral, would have to be overwhelming to bring this about.

But the Higher Command had made the mistake of carrying the civil population with them in the declaration and prosecution of the war, first by the promise and then by the assertion of overwhelming victory. But the victory that was claimed did not materialize in the way that is normal to great victories. There was no submission of the enemy, and no sign of a wish for an honourable peace. What was worse, the defeated enemy had shown an almost unlimited capacity to starve and hamper their conquerors. It was bad enough that they should not acknowledge themselves beaten. It was worse that the flail of hunger should fall on those who should be fattening on the fruits of victory. What would the state of mind of the German people be if, on the top of all this, the conquered Allies were to evince a capacity for winning a few battles themselves? It was manifestly a position in which, at any cost, the moral of the German people should be braced for a new trial. Given a fleet impatient to get out and a higher command anxious for news of a victory, these are surely elements enough to explain the events that led to the action of May 31.

But the most powerful motive of all was this: Not only was German moral badly in need of refreshment, it was especially that Germany’s belief in her naval power needed to be confirmed. For, in the last week in April, the Emperor and his counsellors had been compelled to submit to a peremptory ultimatum despatched by President Wilson with the endorsement of both houses of Congress behind him. Towards the end of the winter 1915–16 the German people had been led to expect a decisive stroke against England by the new U-boats which the Tirpitz building programme of the previous year was reputed to be producing in large and punctual numbers. The Grand Admiral himself, amid the vociferous applause of the Jingoes and Junkers, announced that the campaign would begin on a certain day in March. The story how more cautious counsels prevailed, how the Grand Admiral was dismissed, how an agitation was thereupon organized throughout Germany, and how, finally, the campaign was begun, though its author was out of office, are well known. The point is that the sinking of the passenger ship Sussex led America to define the position and to inflict a public humiliation, not only on the German Government but on the German Navy. On the top of all the other predisposing causes, then, here was a special reason why the sea forces of the Fatherland should vindicate their existence by some signal act of daring.

We must then, I think, in considering the Battle of Jutland, start with the assumption that the German Fleet came out in obedience both to policy and to its own desire. But we should be wrong if we supposed that they came out with any hopes of achieving final and decisive victory. It has never been a characteristic of German military thought to build on the possibilities of an inferior force defeating its superior.