 Good afternoon everyone. I am John Maurer for those of you who don't know me and Today I'm going to talk about the Battle of Jutland because today May 31st and into the evening of June 1st It's the hundredth anniversary of the largest naval engagement of the First World War a celebrated engagement even though the outcome disappointed both sides in this battle and what I'm going to do today is Give you a strategic appraisal about the battle I want to put it in a larger strategic context as well as talk about the battle itself The battle has many controversies that surround it And so I want to address some of the most important controversies about the battle Including who won who lost and what effects Strategic effects both more short-term and long-term grew out of the engagement and then have some takeaways Well Jutland has to be seen in the context of the long tide of history Looking back on British naval dominance going back to the time of the Napoleonic wars The wars in which Alfred Thayer Mahan lectured on over at our war college over in the museum What is now the museum and wrote about in his three big volumes on the influence of seapower upon history and on October 21st 1805 was the great battle of Trafalgar in which the Royal Navy won a major victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets and this battle sent something of a Well a benchmark of what a decisive naval engagement should look like About two-thirds of the Frank Franco Spanish fleet Was captured or destroyed in the battle The commander of the British fleet Admiral Lord Nelson became a big hero, of course died while fighting the battle in fact His legacy for the Royal Navy in Britain. He is seen as the savior of his country and Indeed his last words are celebrated in much the same way that people would look at Christ's last words So here's someone who has become a great hero Become savior of the country by giving of his life to win this big battle over the French and Spanish Well the battle of Trafalgar is seen as conferring on Britain conferring on Britain a mastery of the maritime commons for the next hundred years in One of the books that's widely read now about the Battle of Jutland and the Royal Navy in this time by Andrew Gordon rules of the game that in 1897 at the time of Queen Victoria's great jubilee it looked like Britain was still on top of the world That the Royal Navy with three hundred and sixty fighting ships was equal to the next five navies combined Boy that sounds a lot like today when people compare defense budgets and say oh The US defense budget or tonnage of the US fleet is equal to the next three or four countries and the rest it looks Like a presence a strength that is something that is unassailable Again the tradition of Trafalgar stretching down to this period of time Well, of course that unassailable supremacy was soon to be challenged in the very next year There is the first big fleet building law passed by the German Reichstag German government led by Kaiser Wilhelm has decided to embark on a major naval building program This is a very famous speech that the Kaiser gave at the end of the 19th century Where he said that the strong fleet is an urgent were sometimes translated as a bitter need for us for the German people The Kaiser put all of his prestige Behind building up this fleet the German historian famous German historian Fridrich Meinica said that the Kaiser was the fleet Kaiser He led the German people who are very much Continental and focused land power led them to understand how important it was for Germany to become a sea power Germany was becoming a great industrial state technological state trading state and Company those great achievements in industry and commerce You also Germany also needed a powerful fleet So the Kaiser is very much behind building up this fleet To understand Jutland the battle of Jutland you have to go back at least 20 years in other words a generation To see this build-up that's taking place With the German fleet that is challenging that unassailable supremacy Now the Kaiser knew very much what he was doing one of his top political leaders Man who becomes Chancellor in 1909 and his Chancellor at the outbreak of the war Tia Bolvan Bettman Holweg This is what he is telling a friend about what the Kaiser's aim is first and foremost is That Germany is going to emerge as a world power a rival to that of Britain on the world stage Again the way it's put is they're going to break Britain's position in the world in favor of Germany The international system in which Britain is really the only superpower is Now going to be challenged the world is moving into a post British world a More multi-polar world we might say in which Germany is one of the leading states of the international system And to be able to do that Germany has to have a fleet a fleet is required for that More on this in a moment in the aftermath of Jutland and of course to have a powerful fleet a powerful battle fleet You have to be strong economically You have to have great industry and so Germany in this period of time is also industrializing from 1890 on You see a remarkable growth in German industry in the post Bismarck era and that industry Creates the wealth that enables Germany to be able to afford a fleet Again, Germany has to become rich first hence priority to industry as Bettman Holweg tells his friend but then with that wealth and that industry to build up a fleet in 1897 Admiral Turpitz who is the architect of the German naval buildup pointed by the Kaiser in 1897 lays out what's called the Turpitz Memorandum in June 1897 to lay out the plan for the development of the German fleet and He picks England as the most dangerous enemy. That's the benchmark He's not making as a benchmark France another continental power He's using as the benchmark the world's leading naval power. That's pretty remarkable again It's not Russia or France that he's building against it's against Britain He's setting out the most demanding scenario That you can imagine to challenge the world leader Or anyway, it's the enemy the enemy knows that Germany most needs to have a battle fleet now Again, he doesn't see it necessarily leading to war. It could also be an instrument a tool for leverage in negotiations with Britain Again, it's a way of having some force to be able to back up German demands on the world stage So that as Chancellor Bullo at this time said Germans don't like being dictated to by some foreign Jupiter That foreign Jupiter is great Britain some godlike figure up there on Olympus That sends down its dictates and everyone else has to obey Well, no with a powerful German battle fleet Jupiter won't be able to dictate any more again more on that when we get to the Kaiser's speech after the Battle of Jutland Now what type of fleet to build why you could build cruisers You could build number of types of fleet architecture But Turpitz says you have to have battleships head-to-head more of a symmetrical challenge to Britain Turpitz was a reader of Mahan thought that Mahan's Theories about seapower and building up of naval power had validity for Germany Believed that Germany to be competitive against Britain because it didn't have overseas bases coaling stations and the rest that Germany had to build up a fleet of battleships to contest with Britain in home waters in the North Sea and And The Germans very quickly start building a fleet of what we would call pre-dreadnought battleships Very powerful fleet comes into existence in a very short period of time And again Turpitz highlighted in the memorandum that this is a fleet that's going to fight in the Latorals In close to the German home waters where Germany will have not just battleships But also torpedoes mines coastal artillery Capabilities to be able to wear down and attacking British fleet because it's thought that the Royal Navy with these traditions of Trafalgar taking the offensive that the Royal Navy's battle fleet its grand fleet will launch an offensive in the German home waters That's what Mahan would predict that it would do and so the Germans Leadership Turpitz in particular being a follower of Mahan Believes that the German that the British are going to undertake an early offensive into German home waters There is where the fight will take place in the southern portions of the North Sea Well, Britain follows what we would call an offset strategy if the Germans are doing an area denial Anti-access strategy we might call it the British were also following an offset strategy and this is most closely Link to Admiral Jackie Fisher and there's a slide of him I love this portrait of him because it shows a very determined man. You can see his arms crossed there Staring at you looking you down Yes, he is known for being ruthless within the Navy, you know, it's Jackie Fisher's way or the highway He does not tolerate or Brooke opposition in that sense He's very much like Turpitz both Turpitz and Fisher are very determined opinionated men They have their views and they don't like to have people Contradict their views. They're pretty confident that they are right and they surround themselves with other people who agree with them And if you can't agree, well, then you're outside as they said the fish pond. You're not in Fisher's pond Well, he goes ahead with the dreadnaught Dreadnought very famous story well known Well, if the Germans are building pre-dreadnought ships of say 4 11 inch heavy artillery The dreadnought is going to be 10 heavy artillery pieces of 12 inch caliber In other words a battleship with more than twice the firepower also greater speed because it has turbines This ship can take on and defeat several pre-dreadnoughts Fisher also pioneers and builds a Group of capital ships known as battle cruisers They're again large ships faster than battleships less heavily armored But with a great deal of firepower as well 812 inch guns with this speed You're able to track down hunt down German armored cruisers or German big steam ships Liners ocean liners that might be converted to cruisers in wartime The Invincibles are meant to be able to destroy mop up as Fisher said German cruisers anyone that would surface ships that would be able to prey on British trade in wartime again very beautiful and powerful ships and Again here you can see the difference between a pre-dreadnought and the dreadnought again the dreadnoughts of much more powerful ship It's a revolutionary kind of surface ship Fisher said hey with the dreadnought all existing battleships even the most modern will be practically obsolete The Germans have invested in this battle fleet now what? Fisher has done is introduce a new generation of surface ships that is better than the last one all those ships The Terpets is invested in from 1898 down to 1945 They're outclassed they're outclassed it won't be a fair fight and a fight between dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts That's they're not going to win Well, what does Germany do well they have the industry and wealth to build dreadnoughts themselves Now Fisher hoped that by introducing the dreadnought that he would frustrate the designs Not only of Germany, but the United States and other naval challengers that other countries would find it too expensive to follow Britain's lead with dreadnoughts and this happens in most countries France the United States Russia But in Germany's case what Terpets does is say okay. We adapt the plan where we have Battleships we just have to increase the tonnage and build dreadnought battleships and so they start constructing a fleet of dreadnoughts And they're very quick to do it too Well, what's Britain's response to that? Well, if the Germans are now going to build dreadnoughts we have to build super dreadnoughts and if they build super what's super dreadnought again Heavy armament now goes from 12 inch to 13.5 inch guns displacement goes up a little bit more powerfully armored And if the Germans build super dreadnoughts because they can do that they have the industry then we build the fast battleships So the Queen Elizabeth class so what you're seeing here is part of this offset strategy is Fisher and the Royal Navy are trying to keep one generation ahead of the German challenger at this time And so what you see in a relatively short period of time of 20 years you go from Displacements of about 15,000 tons and for 12 inch heavy guns to the British were building wanted to build super hoods By the early 1920s Battleships that would displace about 50,000 tons and have 9 18 inch guns Very powerful ships again the British strategy is to keep one generation ahead of naval rivals and in particular Germany at the Battle of Jutland what you're going to see is that the Germans bring Three generations of large surface ships they bring pre dreadnoughts that had no business being there by the way Dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts the British at Jutland bring dreadnoughts super dreadnoughts and fast battleships To the fight Britain also stays ahead of Germany by building more Capital ships than Germany does on a ratio of about three to two a three to two edge superiority that the British have But the British are also pioneering in other ways under Fisher one of the things he does is develop long-range submarines Up to the early part of the 20th century submarines were used primarily for coastal defense for defensive purposes What the British are doing at this time is pioneering submarines that have greater range That now they're more offensive oriented their purpose is to go and strike at the enemy in their home waters Submarines are not now defensive to protect your own home waters It is with these more powerful submarines to take the flight into the enemy's home waters And the D-class is the first overseas submarine again This is one way you can take the offensive into the enemy's home waters without risking battleships capital ships You can put in play submarines that are seen as being well less expensive than battleships again a way of undertaking offensive operations into enemy home waters without having to risk The very expensive battleships now Fisher also in 1906 by 1906 recognizes something else It's geographic position again something that Mahan highlighted and he talks about what we would call offshore control Germany is this great trading state Great importer and exporter But Britain lies for it German sea lines of communication as Fisher says, this is a huge breakwater the British Isles Against German commerce that the commerce has to go between Scotland and Norway or through the Straits of Dover and Then Britain doesn't have to go in to the southern portion of the North Sea into German home waters to be able to destroy Most of Germany's overseas trade Germany's trade will be limited to the Baltic to Sweden by doing this offshore control and Again, it's a unique position of advantage geographic advantage here strategic advantage Germany has about a thousand merchant ships that ply the world's trade at this time What Fisher is arguing is that once this blockade goes into effect that about 800 German merchant steamers In other words, 80% of it is out in the world's ocean. They'll be cut off They'll be cut off at that point and so they'll be either in turn to neutral ports or the British will be able to take them Again because of this geographic advantage in fact to Fisher What will be the impact of this on the German economy? Well, it'll be worth Paris In other words, the Germans through a land campaign can take Paris beat the French But German trade and finance will be so damaged so damaged by This blockade that it'll be a major blow to Germany on par with them The type of damage they're going to inflict upon France. So again, he sees this as being a Important element in an Anglo-German war of being able to hurt Germany by waging this economic warfare Well war occurs In 1914 the summer of 1914 the Grand Fleet Was on a big exercise maneuvers It is sent to its war stations German battle fleet at the time also goes to its war stations at the time the German planners thought They ought to try to launch a surprise attack on the British fleet if they can they wanted to do to the British fleet what the Japanese had done in 1904 and the Russo-Japanese war a Sneak attack on the British fleet and like Japan would do at Pearl Harbor in 1941 But they didn't have good intelligence on the whereabouts of the British fleet And so they couldn't carry out that attack at the beginning of the of the war So what do you have at the beginning of the war? Both fleets are taking up war stations away from each other And what you have is a stalemate that sets in on the North Sea front This is the major naval front of the First World War where the two great fleets the high sea fleet of Germany and the Grand Fleet of Britain Britain's main naval base is Skappa flow in the north it wasn't ready by the way at the outbreak of war and as a consequence since the base was not secure the Commander of the Grand Fleet Admiral Jellico Had to keep his fleet at sea during the fall and early winter of 1914 the Grand Fleet steamed 16,000 miles Imagine that How far you can go in 16,000 miles? That's the voyage of the Russian Baltic fleet around the Tsushima in The Russo-Japanese war again He did not feel secure in Skappa flow until all the defenses were put in place and various entrances into Skappa flow were Blocked again. He only felt secure by being at sea Away from German submarines because the Germans have also followed British lead not only in the building of battleships But now long-range submarines by the way, Tirpitz didn't like submarines He didn't promote that until the very eve of war and it's only in 1912 that the Germans start to invest heavily invest heavily in a submarine force first Coastal defense submarines and then the larger submarines for offensive purposes Well, if you're steaming a lot one of the things that can happen is that you can run into a mine And here's the HMS audacious which hit a mine While out at sea. This is one of Britain's super dreadnoughts one of the Latest generation of battleships in the British inventory and yet it goes down to a mine laid by a German Ship The the sinking of the audacious by the way was captured on film because there was an ocean liner that went By and all the passengers in the ocean liner went and said look at that. There's a ship sinking over there And so it was captured and the British of course had to Quarantine this and prevent the news getting out because they didn't want people to know right away that one of their latest Class one of their latest battleships had just been lost Another example of how dangerous and lethal warfare could be that the big ships could be attacked was The sinking of the Abacore Cresce and Hogue off the coast of the Netherlands these three armored cruisers were in patrol off the coast of Netherlands they're hit by one submarine at first the first cruiser It's hit by a torpedo. It was thought that it was a mine So the other cruisers decide to slow down and pick up survivors making them sitting ducks for the German submarine U9 Which then torpedoes the other two Admiral Fisher would say about this that in one day with the sinking of the Abacore Cresce and Hogue these three armored cruisers That more sailors were lost killed than what Lord Nelson lost in all of his battles put together Again the reference back to Nelson the Nelson tradition Again, everything's being referred back to Trafalgar and to Nelson that this is a catastrophe It shows that hey We're taking heavy losses here and for what in return the Dardanelles on March 18th 1915 There's a major naval assault at the Dardanelles against the Ottoman Empire six battleships or Mind in that three or sunk again showing the dangers of torpedoes and mines to the big ships This weighs heavily on the mind of Admiral Jellico now as first Lord of the Admiralty in the period from the outbreak of war 1914 down to the Battle of Jutland on the right is Winston Churchill He would be first Lord of the Admiralty until May 1915 when he was forced to resign and he was succeeded by Arthur Balfour who is over there on the left out there Arthur Balfour is One of the most prominent British politicians in the early part of the 20th century. He had been prime minister Of of Britain in fact he had succeeded his uncle Lord Salisbury as prime minister And when people would say well, how did he get to be prime minister? They would say well Bob's his uncle That Lord Salisbury is his uncle. It's all family connections Well, he becomes first Lord of the Admiralty after Churchill. These are two very powerful political figures They are both unhappy with the stalemate in the North Sea They would like to see the Grand Fleet take offensive operations in other words revert to a more Mahanian strategy of launching an offensive When you go through Jellico's papers which are located in the British Library in London And you go through Balfour's papers which are also located in the British Library in London What you see is a correspondence between Jellico and Balfour and also Churchill and and Jellico in which these two civilian heads of the Royal Navy the first Lord of the Admiralty are pushing upon Jellico urging him to undertake offensive operations against the German fleet to destroy it to institute an even closer blockade of Germany Well Jellico is opposed to that and this is part of his correspondence Writing back to Balfour and he says hey the danger is very real a disaster could happen in a few minutes Without warning again the example the Abacur Kressi Hogue the example of the audacious the example of Six battleships being mined in the Dardanelles attack damaged or sunk You could also look to the experience of the Russo-Japanese war were on May 15th 1904 The Japanese main battle fleet ran across a minefield Two of the six battleships of the Japanese fleet were sunk that day one third in other words of the Capital ship strength of Japan was lost by going over a minefield Jellico is aware of all of this And so he understands that if his fleet goes over a minefield a reversal as he says could take place That reduces British margin of strength over Germany That that three to two edge that Britain has in large surface ships could disappear in a day And what happens well then Britain's whole world position collapses at that point Again the existence of the Empire is at once in the most immediate and grave danger Britain's command of the maritime commons could be lost to mines Well, here's the British blockade though. It's working its way on the Germans Jellico by the way fends off Balfour and Churchill and he does it in part because the Naval leadership uniform leadership the first sea lord all back him up The uniformed leaders by and large are all on board with Jellico's cautious strategy of not launching an offensive Into the North Sea and instead let this blockade do its work against Germany And it has an impact This is an estimate put together by modern historians looking at the German economy And what I've tried to graph here is that at the outbreak of the war the GDP the gross domestic product of Britain in Germany it's approximately roughly equal and under the impact of war as you can see both economies decline But Britain's economy Recovers it has access to world markets because of its command of the sea the British economy actually grows during the first world war But notice how the German economy Takes a dive of 15 to 20 percent again the estimate and doesn't recover throughout the war Whereas Germany and Britain were economic equals at the outbreak of war in 1914 by 1918. They no longer are you can see the delta there that has emerged Britain is a stronger economic power relative to Germany By the end of the war the Germans understand this now a lot of this is due to the blockade not all of it The German leadership government mismanages the economy in the first world war another complete topic But the combination of German mismanagement of the economy plus the blockade has this impact on Germany's economy And again over time There's pressure now being put on the German Leadership to do something about this to break the blockade or at least make Britain hurt as much as Much as Germany is and meanwhile, what's the German army doing? It's engaged in very heavy fighting 1916 in February 1916 the chief of the German general staff Falkenhayn opens a large offensive at Verdun a Big battle of attrition on the Western Front the tack counter attack Grizzly battles tens of thousands of men killed. Okay, the army is doing a lot of heavy fighting. What's the Navy doing? Well turpits the architect of the fleet is frustrated. He wants the fleet to be put in play He wants it to undertake offensive operations become more aggressive and even if the German battle fleet is lost Well, that's a would be a good thing because at least it will show that the fleet can fight He's concerned that in the post-war world when the war is over When the war is over if the German battle fleet is not seen as playing an active role When it comes to decisions about force structure and funding That the army will get all the money and not the Navy again He's concerned that the German people understand that Germany is a sea power that needs a powerful Navy Again turpits always looking of how he can get funding for the Navy It has to show itself as being an important weapon taking part actively in the fighting in this war Again talk about a bureaucratic fighter. Here he is Well, all he does is annoy the Kaiser because the Kaiser is afraid of putting the battle fleet in play But the pressure grows on the German government again because of the blockade again because of the battles on the Western and Eastern front It's thought that the German battle fleet in which so much has been invested has to take a more active role And there's a change of command and the new Admiral takes over I'm a Reinhardt share takes command of the high sea fleet He had been a squadron commander up to this point and he decides that a more aggressive game plan is called for Again sorties by the German fleet into the North Sea That he then hopes will draw the British out from their bases into the North Sea and then by Luring them over mines or submarine attacks will somehow whittle down Degrade the British fleet so that eventually the German fleet can fight a battle at odds That will enable it to beat Britain's Grand Fleet Well the day for the Germans to talk Everything is playing up to the day the big day of battle. And so here we are finally adjutant Now what I want to highlight here is that the battle of Jutland has to be seen in the context of a 20-year old Naval rivalry between Britain and Germany. It just didn't spring up on the day It's part of a longer term rivalry between the two countries and the two navies Well, the German fleet comes out the British have advanced warning because they have broken German naval codes They know the Grand Fleet is out. They don't know or the high-sea fleet is out They don't know the exact location, but they want to bring it to battle Some wonderful paintings of the Battle of Jutland of the two fleets again these fleets Attracted a great deal of attention in both countries. It's often seen as theater in fact these great fleets came to represent British and German nationalism Well the high-sea fleet steaming out Being led by the battlecruiser force Germany also built battlecruisers. This is Admiral Franz Hipper Again wonderful representative of the leadership of the German Navy. He's a Bavarian not a Prussian He's a Catholic not a Protestant He's middle-class not an aristocrat But he is promoted why because he represents the technocratic elite of this new industrial Germany Now after the battle he becomes ennobled. He becomes Franz von Hipper And as you can see he's also awarded the pour le maurit The blue max the highest award that Germany could give its leaders for his role in Jutland Hipper leads out the vanguard On his staff The man second from the left if you look at him you'll see that that's Eric Rader who is going to become the head of the German Navy in the Second World War in the 30s and Down to 1943 until Hitler fires him again Here's a connection between the first war and the second war Rader is with the German battle fleet at the Battle of Jutland On the other side the battlecruiser force that's in the vanguard of the Grand Fleet is commanded by Sir David Admiral Sir David Beatty and there's a typical pose of his with the hand in his pockets and Looking right at you and his hat of scance and the rest Someone who's going to be a dashing figure and sees himself as being a dashing Figure again very aggressive commander who wants to bring the Germans to battle and there again He is on the bridge of his His flagship the lion the man to the left is captain his flag captain Ernie Chatfield who is going to become first sea lord during the 1930s and preside over the buildup of naval power a British naval power in the late 1930s So again the connection between the First World War and the second now one thing that I want to come get across here Is when you look at share when you look at Jellico when you look at Hipper when you look at Beatty Where are they they're on the bridge of their ships they're in the midst of the battle They're under great danger. They can be killed in these fights This is very very different from what we picture of the First World War on land Where generals are often derided as being Chateau generals far away from the front out of danger To understand what goes on at Jutland you have to understand that these leaders are not only under great stress because of the Responsibility but they're actually in the thick of the action Beatty's flagship lion came very close to being destroyed blown up at Jutland He could have been killed so the animals are very much in the thick of the fight Well the two fleets two battlecruiser forces come across each other Hipper in command of the German battlecruiser force scouting group one decides to ah This is great draw the British back toward the main German fleet Meanwhile Beatty seen the German battlecruisers launches an immediate pursuit He violates one of the principles of war Concentration of force. He has six battlecruisers plus four fast battleships of the fifth battleship squadron under Admiral Evan Thomas Beatty decides to engage in such an impetuous way charging at the Germans that he doesn't close up his formation and close up These forces in fact through signaling errors the fifth battleship squadron is delayed in getting into the action inexcusable Anyway, Beatty decides to attack he sees himself as having six battlecruisers against the five German battlecruisers six to five enough of a superiority Plus the British battlecruisers have heavier ordnance, so he thinks that he can pull this one off So he pursues These are the battleships of the fifth battleship squadron By the way, these are the largest most powerful battleships in the world at this time for battleships capable of doing 22 maybe 23 knots 815 inch guns that can outrange any any Heavy artillery on the German fleet again initially they're not in the action They're lagging behind if they had been in the action from the very beginning Their shell would have been able to tell on the Germans by the way these ships tend to be fairly good shooters too better than the battlecruiser force the battlecruisers unfortunately are not Are not good shooters more than that in a moment Well in the engagement one of the British battlecruisers the HMS into fatigable around 2 o'clock in the afternoon is destroyed by German heavy gunfire Not only does Beatty engage before his whole force is ready as they engage so quickly One of the German battlecruisers is not covered by German by British fire And so it is able to fire back without having to worry about being hit itself How the indefatigable is lost there's some debate about it Whether it's armor was penetrated or not if this is most is likely But it could also have been done by magazine explosion caused by bad handling of ammunition and shell More on that in a moment, too About 20 minutes later another battlecruiser the Queen Mary blows up as you can see by the way off in the left is Beatty's flagship lion also coming under heavy attack having a major explosion to losing a turret comes very close to being destroyed One of the things that happens in the Jutland story is that both Jellico and Beatty Had decided that whenever there was going to be an engagement That they wanted to have their ships fire as rapidly as possible and as a consequence of that some very sloppy handling takes place of loading of shell ammunition from magazines to Territ's It's now thought that at least two of the three battlecruisers that are destroyed in Jutland are due to this sloppy handling of ammunition and shell in other words the battlecruiser design was not at full what was it full was the Desire of the British to have more rapid fire at this time And it comes from the leadership from Jellico and Beatty one of the stories that needs to be told about Jutland has been told Is that after Jutland both Beatty and Jellico do their utmost to try to cover up this story? And their responsibility for it Again another painting now of the Queen Mary blowing up Well, Beatty and Hipper are going south Beatty by the way seeing two of his six ships destroyed his own Ship Lion almost destroyed turns the chat field and this time says there seems to be something bloody wrong with our ships today Well, maybe so but it also might have been not so much the ships, but also the way they were handling shell Hipper has drawn Beatty down to Admiral Scheer's main force Beatty then turns around again poor signaling the fifth battleship squadron is exposed slow to turn around Boy, the Germans are getting a lot of luck here in this. This should never have happened I mean, this is bad command on the part of Beatty engaging with a force without Concentrating his force and then leaving the fifth battleship squadron to lag behind Where they come close to having to face the whole German battle fleet? This is Germany's great opportunity at the Battle of Jutland Well in the chase north now Beatty is trying to draw the high sea fleet Jellico's fleet which is deploying now Beatty is sloppy again in signaling Jellico doesn't know the exact whereabouts of Not only the German high sea fleet and the German battlecruiser force, but also Admiral Beatty's force Jellico is very frustrated by this the lack of information uncertainty that he faces in this battle He deploys his force though in a brilliant way given the information at his disposal and brings it His force to the point where it really is crossing the tee of the German force Cher understands this that he is now being engaged by a much superior force and Runs away. He does the smart thing turns away in this part of the action There's some very heavy firing that takes place and another British battlecruiser the HMS invincible is destroyed along with Admiral Hood Again, it is now thought that like the Queen Mary That the invincible was destroyed because of sloppy shell handling not because of the design of the battlecruisers And there as you can see the the invincible broken in the background The Grand Fleet is actually steaming by there. Well Cher is so desperate to get back home He now does something that well, he shouldn't have done. He makes a turn back toward the British fleet Not only is Jellico unaware having trouble locating the enemy forces because of visibility and and Poor scouting but Cher his situational awareness is also poor So he inadvertently turns his fleet right back at Jellico Well, it's not before long in the so-called second engagement when Jellico's forces start firing on Cher the Cher is how do I get out of here? And so again Cher does another major turn away in doing that He also orders his destroyers to launch a torpedo attack on the Grand Fleet Jellico then turns away to avoid this mass torpedo attack So at one of the critical moments of the battle you see both Cher and Jellico being decisive in Turning away and running away from each other Again, this helps explain why the battle of Jutland ends up the way it does by the way I think both leaders are correct in what they decide to do at this time that preserving the forces more important Then the destruction of the enemy's force because the odds don't look good that you'll be able to destroy the enemy's force by More aggressive action again some paintings of the battle By Klaus Bergen here German forces firing again it captures well the poor visibility That goes on in the battle Well after this second engagement Jellico tries to keep his force close to Cher But he doesn't know exactly where Cher is and he knows that Cher has two potential Roads back home Given the minefields and the rest that are in the southern part of the North Sea And so Jellico has to choose which one is it? Well given the Cher's course from the last engagement Indicated that he was handling heading south he thought okay the one the choice on the left is the likely one So Jellico positions his fleet Steaming at night time to try to intercept the German force on that on that approach back home Again, he expects that at daybreak on June 1st That he'll be still between the German bases and the German high-sea fleet Now what Cher does though at night though is he decides to go the other way To cut back now he ran a great risk here He's already cut back once and put himself right in the midst of the royal of the of the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet This time he gets a little bit luckier He's able to cut through behind the main force of Jellico. There's a lot of fighting that goes on there Jellico though isn't aware of the intensity of the fighting plus again the fifth battleship squadron Which is now at the rear of the British line of Jellico's force. They actually see through the night They actually see What they can make out silhouettes of German battleships In fact the the gunnery officer of the battleship Malaya says I want to open fire on them and the skipper says no No, no, we're not supposed to have a night engagement. So we're not going to fire. We're not going to illuminate targets Well, at least let's pass this information down the Jellico So he knows that Get some new information that might indicate that shares going the other way. It's like well No, no, no there the admiral probably knows all of this stuff And so some vital information that's not passed along to Jellico that should have been passed along to him as late as Midnight if he had changed course Looping back north he could have put himself in a position to intercept share on the morning of June the 1st But instead he continues on a southerly course expecting to meet the Germans further south Again shares force gets away By the way in the middle of the night cutting through the German lines The Germans who had every reason to conceal themselves to not turn on their searchlights and the rest Nonetheless do when they see tempting targets including British armored cruisers That German battleships then engage Again, one of the reasons why the British don't open fire is that they want to conceal themselves by putting on your search lights you're making the enemy aware of where you are and They don't want a night engagement the Germans had every reason to to avoid a night engagement in the sense of trying to escape But again when a target like this emerged it was turn on the search lights open fire Again, the Germans were lucky in this regard that information vital information was not passed along to To Jellico now what about Jellico's handling of the fleet? He's criticized for not being aggressive enough To centralize his command and control not Letting subordinates have more leeway and the Grand Fleet battle orders Well Churchill who is generally critical of Jellico who doesn't like Jellico Nonetheless pens one of the most famous statements about Jellico's responsibility that he was the only individual leader on either side of generals admirals or statesmen Who could lose the war in an afternoon? Again the great responsibility that he had for the Grand Fleet because if the Grand Fleet is destroyed Well, then the whole strategic contour of the war at sea changes that Britain loses That dominance at sea that it needs to be able to continue the war again, this is something of a defense of Jellico's risk averse behavior, okay, who won right away the big debate is who won well there There's the numbers, you know, if you look at the ships the tonnage Looks like the Germans won if you measure it this way What's fascinating about it is two of the German battlecruisers the Molka and Sadlitz were so badly damaged In fact, they they had to go it on their own to escape during the night If they had been caught at sea by destroyers British destroyers who throw a few torpedoes at them They would have been lost The the Sadlitz and Molka could well have been sunk in this battle if you change that number around for German losses to three battle Cruisers something that should have happened. I would argue then the battle doesn't look at all like As as if the British haven't done as well again It's very close what is happening here in the losses that both sides are suffering And the reason why I want to highlight this is that there's a sort of a mythology out there that the Germans were just better than the British And I say no, that's not the case. The British are very good. They're inflicting a lot of damage on the German ships the Germans are a Little bit lucky in that those two battlecruisers escape and I would also add because of the poor handling of ammunition During the battle the two of the three British battlecruisers that were lost probably would have been sunk if they had Been following a more prudent way of handling shell and ammunition So that number could have been changed to one battlecruiser rather than three again You can play with these numbers and show that that the British fleet is Inflicting as much punishment damage as the Germans are in this Well right away the Germans claim victory and here's a painting that shows Kaiser Wilhelm on June 5th Going to visit the fleet and Wilhelm's coffin to give them a rousing speech This speech generally has only one sentence that's been translated into English Which is that the aura of trial fowler has been destroyed and the rest well? I was on a quest I wanted to actually find the whole speech and my colleagues in the SMP department know that I went on a little quest for This I finally was able to get through our wonderful library on interlibrary loan The collected speeches of Kaiser Wilhelm during the First World War and so I did my translation of the speech and again Wilhelm puts it in this larger contest of Germany striving for world power and Britain being that godlike figure that dominates the world and the world's oceans and that they've suffered a blow and again at Last the day has come the Tog You know in the British fleet Albion, you know that it dominated the oceans Imposed a tyrannical rule on the sea for over the whole world During the past hundred years since Trafalgar Again worn the Nimbus. This is often translated Nimbus is translated as aura. You know I Know that aura has a better sound in the English here, but he uses in the speech the word Nimbus twice It's a cognate. So I thought I had to keep it And and Nimbus has that glow like a crown, but it's the crown of a god So the Kaiser is very specifically saying here this foreign Jupiter with this glow Now well, it's come to an end and what happened on the day of battle the English fleet is beaten Again, generally, it's only the last one that gets translated the tradition of Trafalgar torn to shreds I think this is the first English translation of a bigger chunk of the speech and so I'm most proud of that Anyway again this hammer blow has been struck and again He uses the word Nimbus and it's English global domination again That's what's at stake here at the battle of Trafalgar and in the war at sea It's not over something trivial. It's over something major who's going to be the dominant world power Britain or Germany Well, what's the response in Britain? Well initially, it's very depressed This is a painting of Lord Riddle who is one of the big press barons whose Papers his diaries. He was an avid diary keeper and also in the British Library in London and what he writes down is wow We suffered a reverse Jutland's a defeat. That's the initial view that's being held by the British elite Fisher who's no longer in power no longer in uniform on the sidelines He tells CP Scott another press bar and the Manchester Guardian again This is what Fisher is saying to the media elite Behind the scenes not for the record is saying that and again you find this in the CP Scott diaries again Also at the British Library. I have found looking through the diaries and letters of the press barons of Lord North Cliff Lord Riddle and CP Scott very revealing because all the generals admirals and politicians want to talk to them and Put a spin on it and of course they are keeping track of what's being said To them and Fisher says this is a defeat. Why because we're superior to the Germans and numbers This is an unsatisfactory result even if the losses were one-to-one, which they weren't that would be a defeat as well Again, the tradition of Trafalgar is the superior British fleet should have inflicted much heavier Lopsided losses on the Germans rather than the outcome Lloyd George the up-and-coming man in the political scene the most dynamic British political leader at the time He's very upset about the news that he hears about Jutland and again. He says to to Lord Riddle that That the British have suffered a reverse and he's really angry at the Admiralty What's wrong with the admiralty that they haven't produced a great victory? In fact Lloyd George who was in the countryside was so upset by the news of Jutland that he gave up his golf game and Return to London There he is in a painting at Walton Heath with Lord Riddle again Where do you talk about politics you do it on the golf course and Lloyd George tells Lord Riddle? I can't play golf. We've suffered a defeat at sea. We have I have to go back to London right away So again, that's very serious when you give up your golf game in the countryside Meanwhile the Prime Minister's wife is recording in her diary What she thinks about this and what has happened the Germans have won the information game They've gotten out the news ahead of time that they're the winner that they have gained a triumphant victory over the British fleet and It's not only in Germany, but they've gotten this to America as well That they have Britain has suffered a defeat and meanwhile Britain. We're incorrigible. We're not able to get our message out or spin on this Again that Britain is somehow losing the spin game of who won the battle. Well, who did the British turn to? to turn around the spin Winston Churchill Churchill is no longer in office. He had been forced out in May 1915 from being first door to the admiralty In the end of 1915 he resigned his office another office that he had in the government and went off to serve for five months as a Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of a Scottish battalion on the Western front Imagine this a cabinet minister who is now a Lieutenant-Colonel Goes on raids In the no man's land Several times comes close to being killed on one occasion his dugout his command dugout was destroyed by German artillery fire He fortunately was not in it at the time Well, anyway, Arthur Balfour the first Lord of the Admiral. He says, okay, how do we deal with the spin here? well, he turns to Churchill and Says to Churchill. Can you write up some glowing report about the Battle of Jutland? Not for the last time Do you have Winston Churchill being called in to somehow turn defeat into victory and he writes up a dispatch? He's given inside information and the rest and this is the most important part of it was that one The British are still in command of the world see ways The strategic effects of Jutland do not favor the Germans and Why wasn't there a Trafalgar well the environment conspired against it hazy weather fall of night Retreat the enemy runs away That alone frustrated what our brilliant commanders? Sir John Jellico and Beatty in other words no fault should be put on the admirals for this again Churchill plays a leading role in turning around the propaganda battle with regard to the battle of Jutland Well, what are the admirals saying about each other behind their back? Well, Jellico is telling his wife that Beatty doesn't have the experience enough and he's made a lot of mistakes Again, you have to find this By looking at what Jellico's wife is saying Jellico is not going to publicly say any of this But this is what he's thinking meanwhile Fisher Admiral Fisher goes to C.P. Scott again a press bound and says, you know what I want to call Beatty I want to call him Balaclava Beatty. What does that mean? It's the charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War in which the Light Brigade is destroyed By Russian artillery fire, you know a reckless Leadership that puts their men their capability in harm's way in a way that they're bound to be destroyed And so Fisher is calling Beatty like Lord Lucan or Lord Cartigan Responsible for a military disaster not for a victory on this again behind the scenes the admirals are being very catty With each other and by the way, you can also find in the letters of Admiral Beatty. What does Beatty think? Admiral Beatty's wife Ethel who is an heiress of the Marshall Field Fortune American this is what she's writing to a friend There seems to be very little to say except to curse Jellico Curse Jellico for not going at them in an aggressive way as her husband had done to annihilate the German fleet He failed hopelessly And not only that but he doesn't tell the truth He's trying to cover up why he wasn't aggressive enough and put the blame for the losses at Jutland on her husband She didn't like that obviously Well, what does Beatty think about all this again? Here's the Beatty who you know is charging in the battle and all the rest Well, one of the takeaways he has from the Battle of Jutland is I'm not doing that again He succeeds Jellico as commander of the Grand Fleet at the end of 1916 Jellico is promoted to be First Sea Lord So he goes back to the center of things at the Admiralty Well anyway on January 9th 1918 Beatty writes his big long appreciation which is in the National Archives at Kew and It's hard to read it over there on the left, but that's what the title page looks like again now He's in Jellico's shoes and these are some of the big takeaways In theory the British still have a superior battlecruiser for us as he says nine to six a three to two edge But in reality Beatty thinks that there are only three battlecruisers That can really stand up to the Germans That the reality is that the Germans actually outnumber the British in battlecruiser strength He doesn't want to engage under those circumstances because the battlecruisers are supposed to clear the way for the main battle So right away the British would fight at a disadvantage In addition to that one of the things that he sees as being a defect of the fleet the Grand Fleet Was that the shell that the Grand Fleet had was not able to penetrate German armor and until The Grand Fleet gets better Shell projectiles that that they shouldn't engage the enemy So at the earliest the summer of 1918 is when the Grand Fleet should engage So again, here's Beatty the very dashing Beatty, you know who's seen is wanting to bring on a battle against the Germans No he's content with the stalemate and this is the concluding paragraph of his appreciation in which he says hey Right now the Grand Fleet The the strategy of the Grand Fleet is in No longer to endeavor to bring the enemy to action at any cost. This seems to be the exact antithesis of Lord Nelson and Trafalgar's spirit again germ The British naval leadership Jutland is reinforcing their caution. Well, how about the German side? They won this great victory But no sooner is the battle over that Admiral share the commander of the high sea fleet says You know the battle fleet ain't the decisive weapon the real decisive weapon in the war at sea is the U-boat We have to turn to the U-boat here You know the big build-up in Germany the bells being rung the Kaiser giving the rousing speech and the admiral saying We don't want to do that again because if we do we're going to get destroyed So instead what do you do? Well, you've got to get around the island chains You know the first island chain is Silt Helgeland and Borkum the second island chain, you know as England the third island chain is Ireland up to Iceland so The British aren't going to come into the first island chain. It's too dangerous The German fleet battle fleet doesn't want to go outside the first island chain It's too dangerous the British by the way don't really want to go inside between the first and second island chain either But the U-boats well, they're ready to go out and fight and Germany now wants to unleash them out beyond the second and third island chain It's often I often hear people when they talk about the Anglo-German naval war and rivalry They say the Germans didn't come out and fight Well, what they mean is they're talking about the high sea fleet doesn't come out and fight The German Navy does come out and fight it comes out and fights hard and this U-boat war So there's another whole element to this war It's a hybrid war if you will between the big surface fleets being in check with each other But then also the more unconventional asymmetric fight of German submarines going against International shipping again if Germany as a battle fleet sinks 111,000 tons of British warships in a single day of Jutland in the submarine war the German submarines sink almost 13 million tons of shipping during the first world war Again represented symbolized by the loss of the Lusitania in the spring of 1915 Again, you want to reach out beyond the first and second island chain to be able to go after British shipping Neil Ferguson in an article in foreign affairs several years ago again highlighted that the loss of the Lusitania To the U-20 Symbolizes an end of globalization again something big is at stake here in this naval war Well, Admiral Hertzendorf who is the chief of naval staff equivalent of First Sea Lord He's big proponent of the submarine war even though he knows that it will bring the United States into the war Holtzendorf Apparently said to the Kaiser. Yeah, I the Americans won't even get over here if you unleash the U-boats for the Germans There's something of playing the German myth and culture The great opera by Carl Maria von Weber their fry shoots It's a story about hunters. It's for us English here. It's basically the silver bullet The guy wants to get the girl He has to win a hunting contest and he sells his soul to to the devil to be able to get the bullet that always hits its target again that silver bullet and so they forge that bullet and Of course to do it though. You have to compromise on your morals in some way to win. You're cheating What why do I put this up here? Well again, this was Kaiser Wilhelm's favorite opera You know, he's predisposed toward the silver bullet. You know, what is the silver bullet? Well, it's the U-boats by the way the German Army leadership under Hindenburg and Ludendorff agree with the Navy They put their weight behind The German Navy and as you can see hunters all there You can see all the things that they're shooting behind them The Kaiser was known, you know for killing lots of animals and putting their antlers up all over in the hunting lodges and all the rest so again now they're going to go hunting of international shipping But Minholweg he has his doubts But he can't stand up to the military and naval leaders in this regard who have convinced the Kaiser to go over The Kaiser is hey if Wilson once wore then we'll have it Well, initially the German submarine campaign does well Unleashed unrestricted submarine warfare as you can see the tonnage being sunk goes up to alarming levels Loss of ships beyond the second and third island chain Jellico who's now first sea lord Uh mismanages The defense of British trade. This is a more serious Flaw in his leadership than anything he does at Jotland. He's slow to introduce convoys He's backed up by the new civilian head of the Royal Navy Sir Edward Carson Lloyd George is frustrated at the shipping losses now prime minister He moves to fire Jellico first by firing moving away Carson and then bringing in a new first Lord Sir Eric Getty's who fires Jellico on Christmas Eve 1917 Does it by sending him a letter even though they were in the same building? Getties won't walk over to Jellico's office. He sends him a letter saying hey, it's time for you to go now And we have somebody new here who's going to take over sir Roslyn Wester whems who serves out the rest of the war as first sea Lord Most historians agree that Jellico had to go but a lot of people think I was treated in a shabby way being shown The door on Christmas Eve, you know, it's like Merry Christmas Jellico and you're fired Well anyway, Eric Getty's is a ruthless man He was a businessman who made a great reputation in running railways in fact He unsnarled the British logistics behind the Western Front Railway earlier in the war So he's a very competent man and he saw in Jellico somebody who was not up to the task And so Lloyd George was glad to have Getty's there to fire Jellico one more consequence of Jutland is that it spurs American naval development at this time in the aftermath of Jutland in August 1916 a major piece of Legislation is passed in the United States to build up a Navy second to none and I love this $2 bill that shows a battleship Probably the New York on the reverse side Woodrow Wilson Understands that because of the war that the United States has to build up its Navy and in February 1916 He gave a speech in St. Louis and that's the takeaway from that There is no other Navy in the world that has to cover so great an area of defense as the American Navy and the US Has to have in his judgment incomparably the greatest Navy in the world Boy, that sounds like Kaiser Wilhelm and turpitz Here and indeed there is a build-up that takes place We were gonna build battlecruisers six big battlecruisers over 40,000 tons with 816 inch guns Of course they Lexington and Syracotoga two of those battlecruisers instead of being battlecruisers Returned into these two large fleet carriers after the Washington Naval Conference of 21 22 well as everyone predicted the German submarine offensive Brings the US into the war. That's Woodrow Wilson by the way The commerce warfare is warfare against mankind And on Good Friday 1917 Wilson asked for a declaration of war which is voted by the Congress the United States the return of the Mayflower Fighting naval support of battleship squadron to Beatty's force at Scapa flow Admiral Sims going over to take command of American naval forces in European waters one of the things I came across in his papers is a letter he wrote to his wife In which he has dinner with Winston Churchill In the letter he highlights that last night he had dinner with Lady Randolph Churchill who's Winston Churchill's mom Winston Churchill's mom Lady Randolph is an American. She was born in Brooklyn There she is in 1917 Or anyway, she invited her son Winston who had been First Lord of the Admiralty. That's what Churchill looked like in 1917 it's a painting from the year before 1916 Sims and Churchill had a long talk and what does he say? The allies meaning Britain would have been beaten if America had not come into the war again One of the key elements to understand second-world war strategy is that Churchill Sees the US playing a key role in Britain's ability to defeat Germany in the two-world wars Well with the introduction of convoys what you can see from the graphs as convoys come in German sinking losses go down The submarine gamble of a bunk on the part of the German leadership Betting the house. It doesn't work. It brings the US into the war and if you look at GDPs That's the US GDP in relation to Britain and to Germany Again Germany has now brought in a very powerful actor against it that associated power now lined up with the allies and By the end of 1918 over two million American soldiers in France. Okay, so what what are some of the big takeaways? For us today, well, here's a couple one the pre-war arms race largely predetermined the battle of Jotland Germany's not going to win any battle of Jotland unless the British mess up big time the the surface Engagements Germany shouldn't be able to win it just shouldn't and again It's already determined before the battle has been fought. It's only reckless behavior like Beatty engaged in give the Germans any Opportunity at all to equalize things. So that has to be kept in mind the day of battle is determined largely by what happens before It's often said about Jellico the Jellico Was a leader who had a flawed cutlass in other words the Royal Navy wasn't as good as the Germans in some way I don't think that's the case at all I think you know It's a wash in some ways the Germans were better than the British many ways the British were better than the Germans When it comes to fire control shell all the rest So I think what you have to look instead is how about the leaders? Well again, the the pressure put on rapidity of fire explains Some of the losses at Jotland on the British part So it's more leadership failure if you want to look at what's wrong with the Royal Navy at Jotland rather than the ships themselves Again it highlights how important it is to have leaders who are adept able to adapt at changing conditions of war at this time Another thing to take away from Jotland is just the lethality of naval warfare Look at the number of ships sunk in a single day at Jotland It could have been worse if share and Jellico had behaved in a more aggressive way Again, those are heavy losses, but they're heavy losses That are the outcome of a battle in which leaders are being risk averse What if they hadn't been risk averse willing to take on more risk? There would have been even greater losses at at Jotland again, how much uncertainty there was and how uncertainty colored the risk assessments of Jellico in this again with greater information he would have been willing to take on more risk and Finally the day after One of the things I want to get across from this presentation today is that by focusing too much on the day on the day of battle You lose sight of the larger rivalry between Britain and Germany, which goes back to the 1890s and would go on to 1918-1919 indeed would surface again in the Second World War So you have to look at the longer Longer tide of history in this regard of a longer rivalry between these countries by focusing on one day You're not seeing the bigger picture of what's going on the dynamic here of rivalries for world power between these two Empires the German Empire and Britain in addition by focusing so much on the day of battle You forget all the other things that are taking place in the naval war at this time Lots of operations not only of submarines and destroyers and Merchantships and mountain layers that are going on it it takes us away from a lot of the naval warfare that's going on The fleet that Britain had had to be prepared not only to fight on the day But also on the day after and the day after that and the day after that Again the war comes to a crisis at sea with the submarine campaign The submarine offensive is as important more important to study when it comes to failure of command in Britain than the battle of Jutland That's more important So again, you have to see not just focusing on the episodes as Churchill would say You have to look at the longer trends the tendencies as well. This is a big attrition war at sea Is a fleet able to not only fight on the day of battle but continue to fight on the day after as well So I think that is one of the most important takeaways from studying the battle of Jutland is not just focus on On this one day of battle but to look at the war as a whole and how important is to command the maritime commons over the longer haul The battle of Jutland again was determined largely by the pre-war rivalry going the way it was It was determined by Britain's willingness and ability to stay ahead of Germany in a naval arms race before the battle was fought And on that I'll close and take any questions that you all have