The Great War by John Terraine

Author:John Terraine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1966-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

10

The Year of Killing: Naval Gambit

I should assume that the intention was to lead us over mines and submarines, and should decline to be so drawn… This may be deemed a refusal of battle and, indeed, might possibly result in failure to bring the enemy to action as soon as expected and hoped…. I feel that such tactics, if not understood, may bring odium on me.…

ADMIRAL JELLICOE TO THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY, OCTOBER 1914

The failure at Gallipoli marked the beginning of the end of British naval supremacy, exercised over two centuries; but this was a result that only very slowly became apparent—indeed, not until the Second World War had run some part of its course. Two factors helped to disguise the truth at the time: the completeness of British command of the world’s waters and the majestic roll call of the Grand Fleet. Beside this vast array of Dreadnoughts and battle cruisers with their attendant small craft concentrated in their North Sea bases, all misgivings died away: ‘Only numbers can annihilate,’ Nelson had said; and here, under Sir John Jellicoe’s command, were numbers and power such as Nelson had never dreamed of. When the Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet clashed at Jutland on May 31, 1916, they provided ‘the culminating manifestation of naval force in the history of the world.’1 Two hundred and fifty-nine warships were deployed at once in deadly grapple. On the British side there were 37 capital ships, 31 cruisers, and 85 destroyers. The failure of this mighty armament to produce a Nelsonian annihilation sent a wave of shock and dismay through the whole British Empire.

This, also, was part of the general failure of comprehension that surrounded the events of the First World War; for as Jellicoe’s paper quoted at the opening of this chapter shows, he at least had foreseen the probable stalemate which was as likely to ensue at sea as on land. Indeed, this impasse was written into the whole conception of German sea power, clearly stated in the preamble to the German Navy Act of 1898: ‘… Even if he should succeed in meeting us with considerable superiority of strength, the defeat of a strong German fleet would so substantially weaken the enemy that, in spite of a victory he might have obtained, his own position in the world would no longer be secured by an adequate fleet.’

This was a doctrine that could be interpreted in two ways: aggressively, as Grand Admiral von Tirpitz wished; defensively, as the Kaiser insisted after the Heligoland and Dogger Bank affairs. Either way, underwater weapons—torpedoes and mines—whether delivered by underwater or by surface craft, could be expected materially to assist the German intention. Tirpitz would have preferred to seek his ends in a great fleet action which, whatever happened to the Germans, would cripple the Royal Navy; Vice-Admiral Scheer, who assumed command of the High Seas Fleet in January 1916, hoped to trap and destroy a part of the British fleet in isolation. With this in mind, he resumed the policy of raiding the British coast.

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