‘All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out still more even when all the days are over.’
Voltaire.
Naval Intelligence—The Captured German Signal Book—Directional Wireless—Sir Arthur Wilson’s Task—His Conclusions of December 14—Orders to the Fleets—December 16: Bombardment of Scarborough and Hartlepool—Favourable Position of the British Forces—The Visibility Fails—Groping in the Mist—The German High Sea Fleet at Sea—Disappointment—A forlorn Hope—What had Happened—The Dawn Situation—A Fateful Hour—Flight of the German Fleet—The British Sweep to the West—The Brush with the Enemy’s Light Cruisers—Mischance—von Hipper dodges to the North—Escape of the German Battle Cruisers—The Admiralty Communiqué—Public Discontent.
Our Intelligence service has won and deserved world-wide fame. More than perhaps any other Power, we were successful in the war in penetrating the intentions of the enemy. Again and again the forecasts both of the military and of the naval Intelligence Staffs were vindicated to the wonder of friends and the chagrin of foes. The three successive chiefs of the Naval Intelligence Division, Captain Thomas Jackson, Rear-Admiral Oliver, and lastly Captain Reginald Hall, were all men of mark in the service, and continuously built and extended an efficient and profound organisation. There were others—a brilliant confederacy—whose names even now are better wrapt in mystery. Our information about German naval movements was principally obtained (1) from the reports of secret agents in neutral and enemy countries and particularly in Germany, (2) from the reports of our submarines, which lay far up in the Heligoland Bight in perilous vigilance, and (3) from a special study we had made of the German wireless. In this we were for a time aided by great good luck.
At the beginning of September, 1914, the German light cruiser Magdeburg was wrecked in the Baltic. The body of a drowned German under-officer was picked up by the Russians a few hours later, and clasped in his bosom by arms rigid in death, were the cypher and signal books of the German Navy and the minutely squared maps of the North Sea and Heligoland Bight. On September 6 the Russian Naval Attaché came to see me. He had received a message from Petrograd telling him what had happened, and that the Russian Admiralty with the aid of the cypher and signal books had been able to decode portions at least of the German naval messages. The Russians felt that as the leading naval Power, the British Admiralty ought to have these books and charts. If we would send a vessel to Alexandrov, the Russian officers in charge of the books would bring them to England. We lost no time in sending a ship, and late on an October afternoon Prince Louis and I received from the hands of our loyal allies these sea-stained priceless documents. We set on foot at once an organisation for the study of the German wireless and for the translating of the messages when taken in. At the head of the organisation was placed Sir Alfred Ewing the Director of Naval Education, whose services to the Admiralty in this and other matters were of the first order. The work was of great complexity, as of course the cypher is only one element in the means of preserving the secrecy of a message. But gradually during the beginning of November our officers succeeded in translating intelligible portions of various German naval messages. They were mostly of a routine character. ‘One of our torpedo boats will be running out into square 7 at 8 p.m.,’ etc. But a careful collection of these scraps provided a body of information from which the enemy’s arrangements in the Heligoland Bight could be understood with a fair degree of accuracy. The Germans, however, repeatedly changed their codes and keys and it was only occasionally and for fitful periods that we were able to penetrate them. As the war went on they became increasingly suspicious and devised measures which were completely baffling. While, however, this source of information lasted, it was obviously of the very greatest value.
The German official history shows itself at last well-informed upon this subject (p. 194): ‘Even if doubt were to exist that the British Admiralty were in possession of the whole secret cyphering system of the German Fleet, it has been cleared away by the reliable news from Petrograd, that after the stranding of the Magdeburg off Odensholm the secret papers of that ship, which had been thrown overboard, were picked up by the Russians and communicated to their Allies.’
Lastly, largely through the foresight of Admiral Oliver, we had begun setting up directional stations in August, 1914. We thus carried to an unrivalled and indeed unapproached degree of perfection our means of fixing the position and, by successive positions, the course of any enemy ship that used its wireless installation.
‘The English,’ says Scheer (p. 73) ‘received news through their “directional stations” which they already had in use, but which were only introduced by us at a much later period.... In possessing them the English had a very great advantage in the conduct of the war as they were thus able to obtain quite accurate information of the locality of the enemy as soon as any wireless signals were sent by him. In the case of a large fleet; whose separate units are stationed far apart and communication between them is essential, an absolute cessation of all wireless intercourse would be fatal to any enterprise.’
But between collecting and weighing information, and drawing the true moral therefrom, there is very often an unbridged gap. Signals have been made, the wireless note of a particular ship is heard, lights are to be shown on certain channels at certain hours, ships are in movement, sweeping vessels are active, channels are buoyed, lock-gates are opened—what does it all mean? At first sight it all appears to be only ordinary routine. Yet taking the items together may lead to a tremendous revelation. Suffice it to say that all these indications, from whatever sources they emanated, were the subject of a special study by Sir Arthur Wilson, and he had the solemn duty of advising our War Group upon them.
The silence of the North Sea remained unbroken until the afternoon of Monday, December 14. At about 7 o’clock Sir Arthur Wilson came to my room and asked for an immediate meeting with the First Sea Lord and the Chief of the Staff. It took only a few minutes to gather them. He then explained that his examination of the available intelligence about the enemy indicated the probability of an impending movement which would involve their battle-cruisers and perhaps—though of this there was no positive evidence—have an offensive character against our coasts. The German High Sea Fleet, he stated definitely, appeared not to be involved. The indications were obscure and uncertain. There were gaps in the argument. But the conclusion reached after hearing Sir Arthur Wilson was that we should act as if we knew that our assumptions and suppositions were true. It was decided not to move the whole Grand Fleet. A great deal of cruising had been imposed on the Fleet owing to the unprotected state of Scapa, and it was desirable to save wear and tear of machinery and condensers as much as possible. Moreover the risks of accident, submarine and mine, which were incurred every time that immense organisation was sent to sea, imposed a certain deterrent upon its use except when clearly necessary.