Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, during World War I. The battle unfolded in extensive manoeuvring and three main engagements from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula.[2] It was the largest naval battle and only full-scale clash of battleships of the war, and the outcome ensured that the Royal Navy denied the German surface fleet access to the North Sea and the Atlantic for the remainder of the war, as Germany avoided all fleet-to-fleet contact thereafter. Jutland was also the last major naval battle, in any war, fought primarily by battleships.[3]
This article is about the World War I naval battle. For the football rivalry, see Battle of Jutland (football).
Germany's High Seas Fleet intended to lure out, trap, and destroy a portion of the British Grand Fleet, as the German naval force was insufficient to openly engage the British fleet. This was part of a larger strategy to break the British blockade of Germany and allow German naval vessels access to the Atlantic. Britain's Royal Navy pursued a strategy of engaging and destroying the High Seas Fleet, thereby keeping German naval forces contained and away from Britain and her shipping lanes.[4] The Germans planned to use Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper's fast scouting group of five modern battlecruisers to lure Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's battlecruiser squadrons into the path of the main German fleet. They stationed submarines across the likely routes of the British ships. However, the British learned from signal intercepts that a major fleet operation was likely, so on 30 May, Jellicoe sailed with the Grand Fleet to rendezvous with Beatty, passing over the German submarine picket lines while they were unprepared. The German plan had been delayed, causing further problems for their submarines, which had reached the limit of their endurance at sea.
On the afternoon of 31 May, Beatty encountered Hipper's battlecruiser force before the Germans had expected. Hipper successfully drew the British vanguard into the path of the High Seas Fleet. By the time Beatty sighted the larger force and turned back towards the British main fleet, he had lost two battlecruisers, from a force of six battlecruisers and four battleships. Beatty's withdrawal at the sight of the High Seas Fleet, which the British had not known were in the open sea, reversed the battle by drawing the Germans towards the British Grand Fleet. Between 18:30, when the sun was lowering, back-lighting the German forces, and nightfall at 20:30, the two fleets—totalling 250 ships—directly engaged twice. Fourteen British and eleven German ships sank, with a total of 9,823 casualties. After sunset Jellicoe manoeuvred to cut the Germans off from their base, hoping to continue the battle the next morning, but under the cover of darkness Scheer broke through the British light forces forming the rearguard of the Grand Fleet and returned to port.[5]
Both sides claimed victory. The British lost more ships and twice as many sailors but succeeded in containing the German fleet. The British press criticised the Grand Fleet's failure to force a decisive outcome, while Scheer's plan of destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet failed. The British long-term strategy of denying Germany access to the United Kingdom and Atlantic succeeded.[6] The Germans' "fleet in being" continued to pose a threat, requiring the British to keep their battleships concentrated in the North Sea, but the battle reinforced the German policy of avoiding all fleet-to-fleet contact. At the end of 1916, after further unsuccessful attempts to reduce the Royal Navy's numerical advantage, the German Navy accepted its surface ships had been successfully contained, turning its resources to unrestricted submarine warfare for the second time (the first attempt of the war having ended with the controversy following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania) and destruction of Allied and neutral shipping, which—with the Zimmermann Telegram—by April 1917 triggered the United States of America's declaration of war on Germany.[7] Reviews by the Royal Navy generated disagreement between supporters of Jellicoe and Beatty, concerning their performance in battle; debate over this and the significance of the battle continues.
Background and planning[edit]
German planning[edit]
With 16 dreadnought-type battleships, compared with the Royal Navy's 28, the German High Seas Fleet stood little chance of winning a head-to-head clash. The Germans therefore adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy. They would stage raids into the North Sea and bombard the English coast, with the aim of luring out small British squadrons and pickets, which could then be destroyed by superior forces or submarines.
In January 1916, Admiral von Pohl, commander of the German fleet, fell ill. He was replaced by Scheer, who believed that the fleet had been used too defensively, had better ships and men than the British, and ought to take the war to them.[8] According to Scheer, the German naval strategy should be:
Remembrance[edit]
The Battle of Jutland was annually celebrated as a great victory by the right wing in Weimar Germany. This victory was used to repress the memory that the Kiel sailors' mutiny initiated the German Revolution of 1918–1919, as well as the memory of the defeat in World War I in general. (The celebrations of the Battle of Tannenberg played a similar role.) This is especially true for the city of Wilhelmshaven, where wreath-laying ceremonies and torch-lit parades were performed until the end of the 1960s.[207]
In 1916 Contreadmiral Friedrich von Kühlwetter (1865–1931) wrote a detailed analysis of the battle and published it in a book under the title Skagerrak (first anonymously published), which was reprinted in large numbers until after WWII and had a huge influence in keeping the battle in public memory amongst Germans as it was not tainted by the ideology of the Third Reich. Kühlwetter built the School for Naval Officers at Mürwik near Flensburg, where he is still remembered.[208]
In May 2016, the 100th-anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Jutland was held. On 29 May, a commemorative service was held at St Mary's Church, Wimbledon, where the ensign from HMS Inflexible is on permanent display. On 31 May, the main service was held at St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney, attended by the British prime minister, David Cameron, and the German president, Joachim Gauck, along with Princess Anne and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence.[209] A centennial exposition was held at the Deutsches Marinemuseum in Wilhemshaven from 29 May 2016 to 28 February 2017.[210]