Draft - incomplete
The build-up to the battle
What were Jellicoe and Scheer trying to achieve at Jutland?
For Admiral Jellicoe the situation was quite straightforward. The British had control of the North Sea and were conducting a "distant" blockade of Germany. The blockade was working, the British had a numerical advantage in dreadnoughts and there was no reason for the British to take any stupid risks that would imperil that position.
Of course, if the Royal Navy could get an opportunity to destroy the enemy fleet then it would be taken; after all why would anyone not want to destroy the enemy fleet and so a) give German morale a huge dent b) give the Royal Navy one less thing to worry about c) freeing up shipping to support operations elsewhere and d) seriously mess with the Kaiser's fragile state of mind when it came to his precious shiny fleet! The caveat being that Jellicoe would not take any unnecessary risks. Indeed Jellicoe, on assuming command of the Grand Fleet from Admiral Callaghan at the start of the war, had told the Admiralty exactly this
and this had been accepted by his superiors. What Jellicoe was specifically concerned about was falling foul of enemy submarines, mines and torpedo boats and Jellicoe had said that he would not go charging into such a potential trap with the Grand Fleet.
For Scheer (and his predecessors) the situation was very different. As said, the blockade was working - and was proving a problem at home. Having said no to unrestricted submarine warfare (for fear of bringing the US into the war) the Germans were not going to take the Commonwealth out of the war without victory in the field. This was not going to happen overnight - and so they had to try and end the blockade using the Kaisers surface fleet. Interestingly Norman Friedman states that the breaking of the blockade was NOT the reason for the German actions in the North Sea (and as per the criticisms of the German navy's approach voiced in the German naval history). Instead the German navy's raison d'etre was solely to break British naval superiority.... Fact is, either way, the German approach would likely have needed to be the same.
Because of the differential in size of the fleets, the Germans could not hope to win a head-on clash. What they could hope to do though was to attack isolated squadrons of the Grand Fleet if the opportunity arose and by so doing, whittle away at the British advantage.
Previous attempts to trap isolated British squadrons
Jutland was not the first time that elements of the two fleets had engaged in the North Sea since the outbreak of war in August 1914.
German operations to try and isolate units of the Royal Navy
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Yarmouth Raid (November 1914). The first offensive operation by the German surface fleet came on the 3rd November 1914. The Kaiser had set restrictions on the use of the fleet but Admiral von Ingenohl had got approval for what was ostensibly a minelaying expedition by four German light cruisers off the East Anglian coast. The operation also included a bombardment of the town of Great Yarmouth by three of Hipper's battlecruisers and the armoured cruiser Blucher (although Ingenohl was careful not to tell the Kaiser about this part of the plan). Two squadrons of battleships were to provide support for the retreating ships when the British responded.
The operation proved to be much ado about nothing. The British ordered three submarines to sea after the German ships were sighted, and one of these sank after hitting a mine. But there was no other reaction from the British. The German shells missed the town, hitting the beach instead, and the Admiralty - at that time taking in the news of the defeat at Coronel - ordered no further sorties. To compound the poor return for the Germans, the armoured cruiser Yorck, sailing in home waters, got lost in fog, struck a German mine and promptly sank.
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Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool (December 1914) This raid was a more interesting affair altogether. Not least because this month marked the high water mark for the German Navy - in terms of closeness to parity with the RN - in the entire war. The gap remained considerable of course but the reason for the Germans drawing closer was due to a number of factors: the loss from mining of the new battleship Audacious, the removal of three of Beatty's battlecruisers - Invincible, Inflexible and Princess Royal - in order to hunt down the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the South Atlantic, and no less than four of Jellicoe's battleships were in the dockyard for refits. The British had also begun reading German naval messages thanks to assistance from the Russians who obtained code books when the cruiser Magdeburg was lost in the Baltic. The codebreakers operated from Room 40 in the Admiralty building and was thus the name given to this operation (more of this when we discuss Jutland).
The operation began at 0300hrs on the morning of 15 December 1914. For this raid Vice-Admiral Hipper would have four battlecruisers - Seydlitz, Moltke, Von der Tann and Derfflinger plus the armoured cruiser Blucher. In support were four light cruisers: Strassburg, Graudenz, Stralsund and Kolberg (which carried mines) and eighteen destroyers. Later that day Admiral Von Ingenohl sailed with the main fleet to an area east of Dogger Bank to await the opportunity of catching an isolated British squadron should they take the bait.
As Hipper approached the English coast the weather remained horrendous and the smaller ships struggled to maintain position. The German admiral took the decision to send his light forces (except the mine carrying Kolberg) back to Germany by way of Ingenohl's main fleet. As it happened - and totally unknown to Hipper, Ingenohl (still fearful of falling foul of the Kaiser's order not to imperil the battlefleet) had already decided to turn for home without telling Hipper....
Hipper divided his forces; Derfflinger, Von der Tann and Kolberg headed first for Scarborough (Kolberg laid her mines off Flamborough Head) and then on to Whitby. The remaining three ships headed for Hartlepool where they discharged their ordnance. However this latter group were themselves attacked - first by four destroyers (one of whom got a torpedo away, although it missed) and also from shore batteries. All three ships were hit and nine men were killed on board Blucher. When Hipper's units had met up ready to head home at around 0930hrs, they left behind 86 dead civilians in Hartlepool and a further 29 in Scarborough and Whitby. A total of 525 civilians were wounded.
But what of Ingenohl's decision? Interestingly had he stayed around the Germans may have achieved the very thing they had hoped for in planning the operation - and proven Jellicoe right in the process....
While the codebreakers of Room 40 had successfully picked up that the battlecruisers were putting to sea, they missed out on a vital piece of intelligence; that Ingenohl was also putting to sea with his battleships. Armed with only half the story, the Admiralty decided that a force should sail south to destroy Hipper's fleet without the need for the entire Grand Fleet to sortie. Instead Jellicoe, who was far from happy at the order, was told on the evening of the 14th December to send the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (1BCS) and the 2nd Battle Squadron (2BS) to sea. Unsure of exactly where Hipper would strike, he ordered a rendezvous point about 25 miles southeast of the Dogger Bank.
1BCS: Lion (FS Beatty), Queen Mary, Tiger, New Zealand
2BS: King George V (FS Warrender), Ajax, Centurion, Orion, Monarch, Conqueror
The 1st Light Cruiser Squadron (1LCS) Southampton (FS Goodenough), Birmingham, Falmouth, Nottingham and latterly the 3LCS Devonshire (FS Packenham), Antrim, Argyll, Roxburgh were also made available.
Further south, Commodore Tyrwhitt's Harwich Force of 42 destroyers, led by two light cruisers were ordered to sea off the East Anglian coast and eight submarines (and their two controlling destroyers) were sent to the coast of Holland.
In the corridors of the Admiralty the tension, the excitement, the expectation must have been palpable... Jellicoe had chosen the rendezvous point well and the German battlecruisers were caught in a trap - all that was needed was a bit of decent weather and a bit of luck...... Meanwhile for Ingenohl, blissfully unaware of the presence of the British capital ships, all he needed to do was continue on his present course with his 14 dreadnoughts, 8 pre-dreadnoughts and assorted cruisers and destroyers and he would fall upon the equally unsuspecting smaller British force.
And so on the morning of the 16th December, Beatty's four battlecruisers were sailing roughly 5 miles ahead of Warrender's 6 battleships. The two cruiser squadrons were either side - the Goodenough's light cruisers on Beatty's right and Packenham's armoured cruisers to the left.
At around 0500hrs that morning elements of the two fleets (essentially the German cruiser and destroyer screen and the British destroyer screen) clashed in a series of sporadic engagements in which the out-numbered British destroyers came off worst - but the Germans retreated. Ingenohl's reaction to the news that British destroyers were in this part of the North Sea can only be imagined - a) he assumed that this was a destroyer screen for the Grand Fleet, b) the destroyers would no doubt attempt a massed torpedo attack on his fleet, and c) he was running the risk of endangering the Kaiser's battleships against express orders to the contrary. His response was to make an about turn and he promptly left the scene and headed home - whether he gave Hipper another thought is unknown.
At around 0930hrs reports came in of Hipper's attacks on the three coastal towns. The two British Admirals headed toward home to cut off the Germans - Beatty and Goodenough about 10 miles ahead of Warrender and Packenham. There is a shallow area in the southwest of Dogger Bank that can be dangerous to shipping - Beatty sailed north of this and Warrender the south on their westerly course. The Germans meanwhile were heading east toward home with Hipper's light forces released earlier, some 60 miles ahead - straight into the path of the British.
At around 1100hrs the weather conditions changed dramatically for the worse - just as Goodenough, aboard HMS Southampton, spotted first the Stralsund and her escorting destroyers and then the other two German light cruisers that Hipper had earlier detached. Goodenough's four cruisers were fanned out ahead of Beatty and her sisters turned to assist their flagship as she and Stralsund exchanged fire. Goodenough reported the sighting of the Stralsund to Beatty - but did not make a further report upon seeing the other cruisers. This was the start of a number of errors that led, ultimately, to Hipper and his light forces getting away.
Quite what he thought one German cruiser was doing where she was is impossible to answer, but Beatty - unaware that Southampton had sighted two more cruisers - did not think that maybe Goodenough had sighted Hipper's advance screen. Instead, he got miffed that the other three light cruisers of his screening force were headed off in Southampton's direction and thus leaving Beatty's battlecruisers without a screen.
Enter Beatty's Flag Lieutenant Ralph Seymour (who we shall be hearing a lot more of......). Beatty wanted two of the light cruisers to resume station ahead of the battlecruisers. Unfortunately Seymour instructed the signalling of an ambiguous message that was interpreted as meaning all four ships of the squadron to resume station. Goodenough duly complied with the order of his senior officer and broke off the engagement with Stralsund.
The Germans ships headed south and Goodenough headed straight for a public humiliation from Beatty - although the poor man had simply followed orders. All should not have been lost however. Once the cruisers had resumed station Beatty's force continued west... at least until another report came in, this time from Warrender. Warrender was south of Beatty remember, and reported seeing what Beatty took to be the German cruisers previously seen by Goodenough. Beatty now made a decision that would prove to be Hipper's salvation. Thinking that Hipper must be close behind his screen, and fearing that they could out-run Warrender, Beatty turned his ships east to ensure he kept himself between Hipper and Germany....
We now leave Beatty and turn to Warrender and his second-in-command, Arbuthnot and another inexplicable episode, the type of which, was to be seen again at Jutland. When the men of the battleship Orion saw the German ships the gunnery officer requested permission from Arbuthnot to open fire. Arbuthnot refused. He would not open fire until given a direct order by Warrender. The German ships sailed into the distance...while Arbuthnot waited for the order. Why hadn't the order been given? When Warrender, about King George V sighted the German vessels he too did not fire. Instead he ordered his slow armoured cruisers to chase the German vessel, a chase that was never going to be won by the elderly British ships. Three German light cruisers had been in the sights of the six British battleships....and they were allowed to get away.
As for Hipper, he had been warned by the reports from Stralsund of the presence of the British capital ships and had sharply manoeuvred his ships north and then east to sail clear of the British trap.
There was plenty for the German High Command to be concerned about with their own performance, but on the other hand, the British had wasted a golden opportunity to destroy Hipper's fleet through poor communication and poor initiative, things that would come back to haunt them just over a year later....
The damage could have been worse if all the German ordnance had exploded
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Dogger Bank
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Other operations? Including early 1916
What were the German and British plans for Jutland?
Both the Germans and the British fleets were at sea on the 31st May 1916 thinking that they could catch the other in a trap.
The Germans were not meant to be at sea - at least not on this date and not in this location. They had planned for an operation earlier in the month, centred on another attack against an English East Coast city- this time Sunderland. However, for a number of reasons, one of them being the mining of the battlecruiser Seydlitz the previous month, the operation was postponed and ultimately cancelled. The cancellation - and replacement with the operation that led to Jutland - came about because of a) the U-boats, that had been placed on station in advance of the Sunderland operation, had to return to base by the start of June, and b) continued poor weather conditions meant that Zeppelin reconnaissance missions could not be flown.
As a result of the former an operation needed to be mounted by the end of May, and as a result of the latter, the Germans took the sensible decision to mount such, away from the UK.
