Flag and Fleet: How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas

by William Wood

CHAPTER XXV

JUTLAND
(1916)

At four o'clock in the morning of the 4th of August, 1914, Lord Jellicoe opened the secret orders appointing him Commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet, which was then ready waiting in Scapa Flow, the great war harbour in the Orkney Islands off the far north coast of Scotland. Twenty-two months later, off the Jutland Bank of Denmark, he fought that battle of the giant navies for which the Germans had so long prepared. Of course the Germans did not want Jutland at the time it came. For, as we have seen already, they wished to have two quite separate wars, the first against the French and Russians, the second against the British; and, if the British had only kept out for as many months as the Americans did years, the Germans and their allies would certainly have won this first war, besides gaining an immensely better chance of winning the second war as well. Even as it was, they were not only very strong on land but also very strong at sea. They were easily the second sea-power in the world, in regard to both their navy and their merchant shipping. Moreover, they had many advantages, even over the British. This is so little known, and it is so important for a proper understanding of what took place at Jutland, that we must begin by looking a little more closely into the strong and weak points of the two great rival navies.

[Illustration: JELLICOE.]

So far as fitness for battle depended on the officers and men of the Navy itself the Grand Fleet was as nearly perfect as anything could be. Sprung from the finest race of seamen in the world, trained for a longer time than any foreigners, and belonging to what everyone for centuries has known to be the first of all the navies, the British bluejackets formed the handiest crews you could have found in any age or country. Their officers knew how to handle men, ships, and fleets alike; and every one had been long "tuned up" for instant action. The gunnery stood every test, as the Germans know to their cost; and it actually got better as the fight grew worse, partly because the British keep so cool, and partly because length of expert training tells more and more as the storm and stress increase. It was the same in the engine room, the same in everything, right up to the supreme art of handling a fleet at racing speed in the midst of a battle on which the fate of freedom hung.

But when we come to those things that depended on the Government there is a very different tale to tell, because no government can get money for the Navy without votes in Parliament, and men cannot become Members of Parliament without the votes of the People, and most people will not spend enough money to get ready for even a life-or-death war unless they see the danger very close at hand, right in among the other things that press hard upon their notice. Looking after the country's safety needs so much time, so much knowledge, and so much thinking out that it has to be left, like all other kinds of public service, to the Government, which consists of a few leaders acting as the agents of Parliament, which, in its turn, consists of a few hundred members elected by the People in their millions. Whatever government is in power for the time being can, as the trusted agent of the People's chosen Parliament, do whatever it likes with the Army and Navy. The great soldiers and sailors, who know most about war, can only tell the Government what they think. The Government can then follow this expert advice or not, just as it pleases. Now, even in time of approaching danger, the trouble is that governments are always tempted to say and do what costs the least money and gives the least cause for alarm, because they think the People like that best. This was the case with the British governments in power during the fourteen years before the war, when Germany was straining every nerve to get the better of the British Navy. They were warned again and again. But they saw that most of the People, who were not watching the coming German storm, wanted most of the money spent on other things. So they did not like to hear the expert truth; they feared to tell the People; and they hoped the worst would never happen. But it did happen; and it found many a weak spot due to the Government; though not one that was due to the Navy itself. "Well, it's all going just as we expected," said Sir Charles Madden to Lord Jellicoe in the conning tower of the Iron Duke in the middle of the Jutland battle. So it did. Everything that really mattered was foreseen by the real naval experts. You never catch the Navy napping.

But you do catch governments, parliaments, and people napping very often. Yet here we should not be unjust either to governments in general or to those of our Mother Country in particular. Governments of free countries depend upon the People; so we must all take our share of the blame for what our own elected agents do wrong or fail to do right. And as for the Mother Country; well, with all her faults, she did the best of any. We cannot fairly compare her with the self-governing Dominions, like Canada and Australia, because she had so very much more to do. Her war work was more than twice as hard as theirs, even in proportion to her strength; and she led the whole Empire in making the greatest efforts and by far the greatest sacrifices. But we can compare her with our Allies; and, if we do, we shall find her stand the test. For if her Government made mistakes before the war, so did that French Government whose Prime Minister, Caillaux, had to be tried as a traitor during the war. So, too, did that party in Italy which favoured the Germans against the true Italian patriots. And how about the Peace Party in the United States that kept the Americans out of all but the end of the war, gaining a whole world of money and almost losing the nation's soul?