Before and After Jutland
The Truth about Jutland. By J. E. T. Harper. (John Murray. 5s. net.)
TIIERE are fundamental differences between war by land and war by sea which, though we be a maritime people, we lose sight of. The general thinks in terms of territory " reduced into possession " as a result of battles fought and won. The admiral has no interest in owning the fields of tide. The utmost that his strategy requires is a control or, more tech- nically, a command of given waters ; and he knows that command can be secured by two different means, by successful battle—if his enemy will grant encounter—by blockade if he will not.
Between the Great War and the struggle with Napoleonic France, from 1803 onwards, there are helpful parallels. Keith from the Downs, Cornwallis from home ports, Nelson from Sardinia blockaded all the European littoral from the Rhine to the Rhone. England assumed command and began to exercise it ; negatively, to avoid the swoop of the Grande Armco at Boulogne, and, positively, to send expeditions abroad and throttle French commerce. At last, in 1805, Villeneuve, at Toulon, eluded Nelson (who, for temperamental reasons, could never be. trusted to blockade closely), dashed for the West Indies and set afoot the series of moves that ended with Villeneuve's gamble and Nelson's supreme opportunity—Trafalgar. Trafalgar was a famous victory ; but it affected the fact of command not one iota. The camp at Boulogne was struck before ever the battle was joined. All that can be said is that, after the battle, there were less Spanish and French forces to be blockaded.
From August, 1914, onwards, Admiral Jellicoe (for whom the lessons of Naval History, reflected, it seems, through the teaching of the late Sir Julian Corbett, held high significance) blockaded the German Fleet. Rosyth and Invergordon and Scapa, the final bases, were relatively nearer to Kid than the Downs to the Texel, Portsmouth to Brest, or Sardinia to Toulon. England assumed command, primarily over the Atlantic, secondarily over the far seas, subject to the hunting down of stray enemy units. She began at once to exercise her command ; negatively, by frustrating invasion and guarding her trade, positively, by collecting and sending expeditions abroad and strangling enemy commerce. The Expeditionary Force was poured into France ; to Gallipoli and Egypt and Mesopotamia soldiers were sent. At last, in 1916, out came the Germans, with some show of determina- tion, fought with Beatty, Jellicoe's subordinate, with pre- liminary success, but fled before the main fleet. Unlike Trafalgar, Jutland was not completely gratifying ; Jellicoe would certainly have been glad to have fought it earlier— only those who have studied a chart of the cruises of the Grand Fleet or its squadrons in the North Sea can judge how often, to use a land metaphor, Jellicoe " trailed his coat." The fact of command was not affected one iota by the Battle of Jutland. But it is quite arguable that our exercise of command in protecting our traders from submarines was made far more difficult by our defeat of the Germans, inasmuch as the Germans resorted to mere commerce destruction, to the guerre de Course, once they gave up all hope of breaking,
some time or other, our command of the sea. The battle decision beloved of landsmen is not always an unmixed blessing !
The first guidance to offer concerning the Jutland con. troversy is this : We must not confuse a retrospectively insignificant incident, the Battle of Jutland, with the great whole, the blockade, of which it was part.
In the second place it is necessary for the layman to recognize that, in the nature of the case, he will never be able to form any opinion of value about the tactics adopted at Jutland. How well every naval man understands Admiral Harper's strictures on the publicists and his rebuke of Mr. Churchill for praising a naval officer because he viewed questions of strategy not like " an average naval officer but " much as a soldier would " ! Admiral Harper reminds us that
`` at the Battle of Trafalgar there was a total of 71 ships engaged— at Jutland 260. At Trafalgar the main fleet were in sight of one another for several hours before the light wind enabled them to close to effective range. At Jutland the fleets were closing at some 40 miles an hour . . "
He tells a plain and entirely readable story. But which of us, not a naval officer with actual experience of manoeuvring of fleets, is prepared to pronounce on what the author shows
are the really arguable points about the battle, viz., Beatty's first stationing of his forces, his battle-cruisers' defective gunnery, Jellicoe's deployment, Jellicoe's method of turning from the torpedo attacks, Beatty's signals to Jellicoe, the absence of the signals to the ' Iron Duke ' from the Valiant' and Malaya' which were in contact with the retreating Germans during the night, the rightness of Jellicoe's general disposition during the night relative to the Horn's Reef Passage, by which the Germans, working to Jellicoe's rear, regained safety ? One thing, however, the layman is quite able to appreciate. Admiral Harper says that, about 9 in the evening, during his desperate retreat, Scheer " asked for a reconnaissance near Horn's Reef at daylight " and that the Admiralty intercepted that message. He remarks that Jellicoe could have known it by 9.30, but that, at 10.41, the Admiralty wirelessed Jellicoe the substance of three interceptions leaving out all mention of Horn's Reef. As
far as Jutland was incomplete the fault, our author holds, rests with the Admiralty. There is no doubt at all that Admiral Harper is right. The Horn's Reef signal was inter- cepted. Its essential revelation was not flashed on.
The war by sea was an epic to which not even the pen of Thomas Hardy could do justice. Not less an epic was the bitter conflict by land. Yet the latter depended wholly upon the former ; a fortnight's loss of control of the streak of Strait would probably have ended the War. On the shoulders of Admiral Jellicoe rested a load of consequences greater perhaps than any other commander has ever borne. lie kept civilization. He blockaded, fought, and blockaded again. His able subordinate, Admiral Beatty, though a man of utterly different temperament, in taking over his duties quitl followed his policy. Can we not hold them both in honour and thank England for her living sons ?
EDWARD B. POWLLY.
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