The destroyers sent out to attack the enemy got several opportunities for using their torpedoes, three of which were probably successful, and a fourth attack resulted in the blowing up of a ship. The despatch does not say, however, whether the destroyers were able to keep in wireless communication with the main fleet, whether any were instructed to keep contact with the enemy and just hang on to him till daylight; whether, in fact, either the Commander-in-Chief or Sir David Beatty had any authentic information at daylight as to the enemy’s formation or movements. Champion’s encounter with four destroyers at 3:30 is the only occurrence we hear of after daybreak, until the engagement of a Zeppelin at 4:0 A.M. All we are told is to be gathered from these words of Lord Jellicoe’s:
“At daylight, June 1, the Battle Fleet, being then to the southward and westward of the Horn Reef, turned to the northward in search of enemy vessels and for the purpose of collecting our own cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers.... The visibility early on June 1 (three to four miles) was less than on May 31, and the torpedo-boat destroyers, being out of visual touch, did not rejoin until 9 A.M. The British Fleet remained in the proximity of the battlefield and near the line of approach to German ports until 11 A.M. on June 1, in spite of the disadvantage of long distances from fleet bases and the danger incurred in waters adjacent to enemy coasts from submarines and torpedo craft. The enemy, however, made no sign, and I was reluctantly compelled to the conclusion that the High Sea Fleet had returned into port. Subsequent events proved this assumption to have been correct. Our position must have been known to the enemy, as at 4 A.M. the fleet engaged a Zeppelin for about five minutes, during which time she had ample time to note and subsequently report the position and course of the British Fleet. The waters from the latitude of the Horn Reef to the scene of the action were thoroughly searched.... A large amount of wreckage was seen, but no enemy ships, and at 1:15 P.M., it being evident that the German Fleet had succeeded in returning to port, course was shaped for our bases, which were reached without further incident on Friday, June 2.”
At this time of year and in this latitude, it will be daylight some time before 3:30. The fleet, therefore, made for the scene of the action at this hour—principally, it would seem, to pick up the cruisers and destroyers—and remained in its proximity until 11 A.M., when the waters between the Battle Fleet and the Horn Reef were searched. The Commander-in-Chief does not tell us of any search made for the enemy at all. But from the fact that he had gone northward to look for his own destroyers and cruisers, it is evident that, whatever information he had got during the night, pointed to the probability of the enemy having retreated from the battlefield not south or west, but east and northwards. At 8:40 on the previous evening he was last reported at a point 120 miles from the Horn Reef lightship, bearing almost exactly northwest from it. It is highly probable that at least ten of the German ships had been struck by torpedoes, in addition to the one sunk. And though Lützow was the only ship sunk by gunfire, many others had suffered very severely. If the fleet’s maximum speed before the action was eighteen knots, it is highly improbable that after the action it exceeded fifteen. At fifteen knots it would have taken the Germans eight hours to reach the Horn Reef lightship, had they started for that point directly after contact with the British main squadrons was lost. Having suffered so severely and escaped so miraculously, it was not only obvious that Scheer’s one idea on June 1 would be to make the most of his luck and get safely home, it was also to the last degree probable that he would shape a course for home which would bring him soonest under the protection of whatever defences the German coast could offer. He would not, that is to say, attempt to regain Heligoland by trying to get round the British Fleet to the south and west, and then turn sharply east to Heligoland; he would probably try to creep down the Danish and Schleswig coasts, where wounded ships might, if necessary, be beached, and the islands might supply some form of refuge if the situation became desperate. It was on this route also that the submarines sent out to cover the retreat could be stationed. The best chance of bringing the Germans once more to action on the morning of June 1 would then appear to have been a sweeping movement towards the Horn Reef. The German fleet could not possibly have reached this point before half-past four, and probably not before half-past six. The fast, light forces and the battle-cruisers could have got across to the Schleswig coast in two and a half hours and the battleships before seven o’clock.
If the despatch tells us all that was done, one is rather driven to the conclusion that the Commander-in-Chief assumed that it was not our business, but the Germans’ business, to resume the action. Why else should he say that “the enemy made no sign”? or exult in the fact that he knew from his Zeppelin at four o’clock where the British fleet was if he liked to look for it? Why should the enemy make a sign? Was it not obvious after the events of the preceding day that he could have but one idea and that was safety? Scheer and Von Hipper had certainly done enough for honour. They had inflicted heavier losses than they had suffered. If they could get home they had anything but a discreditable story to tell. If the Commander-in-Chief really thought it was not his first duty to find and bring the enemy to action again; if the risk of approaching the Jutland coast seemed too great; if the frustration of any ulterior object the enemy might have contemplated the day before seemed cheaply purchased by the losses the Battle Cruiser Fleet had suffered, so long as our main strength at sea was not impaired, then the proceedings on June 1, as communicated to us, are perfectly intelligible.
Yet there must have been many among his officers and under his command who took a diametrically different view. After engaging for the last time at 8:40 on the previous evening, Sir David Beatty says: “In view of the gathering darkness, and of the fact that our strategical position was such as to make it appear certain that we should locate the enemy at daylight under most favourable circumstances, I did not consider it desirable or proper to close the enemy battle fleet during the dark hours. I therefore concluded that I should be carrying out your wishes by turning to the course of the fleet, reporting to you that I had done so.”
On the events of June 1 Sir David Beatty’s despatch is silent, but it is obvious that it was not his opinion overnight that the morrow should be spent in waiting for the enemy to give a sign, but that, on the contrary, it was certain that he could and should be found and brought to action.
CHAPTER XXV
Zeebrügge and Ostend
In the course of the night April 22–23, an attack was made on the two Flemish bases, Ostend and Zeebrügge, with a view to blocking the entrances of both by the familiar method of sinking old cement-filled ships in the narrow fairway. At Ostend the block-ships were grounded slightly off their course, and a few days later a second attempt was made. The Zeebrügge block-ships got into their chosen billets and are safely grounded there. The latter port, in spite of official denials, was for many months made almost useless to the enemy, and it is probably safe to assume that the value of Ostend, where Vindictive lies across the fairway, is considerably diminished. Material results, therefore, of high importance were achieved by this enterprise.