'THE GREAT WAR', 'THE WAR TO END WAR', 'WORLD WAR 1'
'What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.'
from 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'
by Wilfred Owen
31st MAY - 1st JUNE 1916
THE NAVAL SEA BATTLE
OF JUTLAND
Transcript from: 'More Sea Fights of the Great War'
by W.L. Wyllie, C. Owen & W.D. Kirkpatrick
pub. 1919
CHAPTER VIII Official information issued in February, 1919, gives the number of German casualties in the battle as only three thousand and seventy- six. The flagship of the battle-cruiser fleet, Lützow, received forty direct hits and was twice torpedoed, being finally abandoned before she sank with four hundred casualties. The old battleship Pommern was also torpedoed and sunk. The battleship König was hit fifteen times and lost sixty-five of her crew. Grosser Kurfürst was hit by four heavy shells and one torpedo. Her casualties were thirty-three. Markgraf was hit by a torpedo and badly damaged. Oldenburg was hit by a shell which killed eleven and wounded twelve - mostly officers on the bridge. Rheinland was hit twice and lost eight killed and fifteen wounded. The battle-cruiser Seydlitz, hit by twenty-eight shells and one torpedo, was towed home in a sinking condition and beached. Among the battle-cruisers Derfflinger was hit seven times, with serious damage to turrets, casemates and armoured belt. Moltke had three hits by big shells and six smaller. Von der Tann took six weeks to repair. Casualties were very heavy among the German light cruisers. Wiesbaden, after being wrecked by gunfire, was torpedoed and sunk; twenty-two men got away on a raft but only one survived. Frauenlöb was torpedoed and sunk with only eight survivors. Rostock was sunk by torpedo and gunfire, and Elbing run down by a German battleship after an attack by Castor and two destroyers. Five German destroyers are known to have been sunk, and many others were so damaged that they were not worth repair when towed home. It must be admitted that the German casualties were nothing like so heavy as those on the British side. The fact that their ships were much better protected is no doubt the reason. We lost five big ships with practically all hands (roughly, between four and five thousand men), whereas the German casualties were more evenly distributed. |
On the other hand, although a large number of the German battleships were damaged, only one of our main Battle Fleet was hit by gunfire and one by torpedo. The enemy gunfire at the beginning of the action appears to have been wonderfully accurate, but it became very wild at the close. We may conclude that the German sailors became demoralised when our heavy shells began to burst amongst them. The British, on the contrary, we know, continued to fight their guns in spite of dreadful losses to the very end. They were cool and collected and made many hits. It appears to be the fashion for a certain class of journalist to point out what a glorious victory Sir John Jellicoe might have won and how profoundly the whole European situation would have been altered had he acted differently. It would be a good thing if these newspaper sailors would realise what the situation might be now had Sir John risked the Battle Fleet and by ill-luck lost, say, half a dozen super-Dreadnoughts and with them his superiority over the enemy. The full effect of the so-called inconclusive Jutland battle was only fully seen in the mutiny of the sailors at Kiel and Hamburg and the surrender of the High Sea Fleet on November 21, 1918. In conclusion, the authors of this book would say that through the obvious disconnectedness of its narrative there shines one lesson to an island people and those sprung from them. Sea power is and always has been to the Anglo-Saxon race the one and only key to land power, to self-preservation and the protection of that form of civilisation which for centuries has been their unchallengeable inspiration. Inspiration and destiny are spiritually one. "No spot in Britain can be so sacred," says Green in his imperishable prose, "as that which first felt the tread of English feet." He was speaking of that far distant past, when the Anglo-Saxon first landed from his long-ship, bringing not only sea power, but the seed of that greatness of spirit and endeavour which has once again saved Europe from an intolerable military despotism; just as that greatness of spirit saved her from Spain and from Napoleon. |
Wilhelm of Germany personified a nation in arms. His failure was national, not personal. Britain on each occasion has saved Europe by the sea. The sea, by which she won her destiny, has proved her sure defence. It has kept her shores inviolate against a world in arms. Our power, which came with Hengist and his followers across the sea, abides by the sea. If it be said that this war has not produced a Nelson or a Napoleon, one may ask, how would the great Emperor have dealt with a triple line of trenches stretching from the Flemish coast to Switzerland; or how would Nelson have fought a decisive action with a battle-line fifteen miles long, guns throwing shell far beyond the horizon, and torpedoes capable of sinking an enemy at seven thousand yards?
Never in her later history has Britain been more open to attempted conquest, but never has she been more difficult to conquer. The readers of these pages will realise the perils by which their country was threatened in the first months of the war. Every thoughtful man will understand Sir John Jellicoe's supreme difficulties. The parsimony of successive Governments had allowed our forces to shrink until they were not adequate to our needs. The British Navy was not strong enough for the work it had to do. A few more errors of judgment like that which sent the gallant Admiral Cradock with more than a thousand officers and men to their deaths, and the rival fleets would have been so nearly equal that our initiative would have been snatched from us and our blockade broken. Britain at the outbreak of war was obliged to spread her forces over oceans encircling the whole earth. A heart beating with high courage urged her to fight to the death on every sea in order to protect unbroken the arteries of her communications. Her far-flung flag flew over free men of her own race. In offence and defence she was alike glorious. |
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