← Dan Snow's History Hit
Dan Snow's History Hit
The Battle of Jutland
00:46:20
The story of the world's first full-scale clash of dreadnought fleets.
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- [00:00]
Tony
G' Day America. It's Tony and Ryan from the Tony and Ryan Podcast from Down Under.
- [00:05]
Dan Snow
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Dan Snow
Boost Mobile's unlimited plans start at just $25 a month and will never increase in price.
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The Boost Mobile network, together with their roaming partners, covers 99% of the US population. 5G speeds not available in all areas.
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Dan Snow
Visit the nearest Boost Mobile or bo.
- [00:32]
Tony
Mobile.Com After 30 gigabytes, speeds may slow 25 per month with Active Boost Unlimited plan. Cancel within 30 days for a refund of service fees, activation and phone payments. Not refunded Did I talk too much?
- [00:46]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Can I just let it go?
- [00:54]
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- [02:28]
Dan Snow
Hi everyone. Welcome to Dan Snow's history here. It was the only time in the modern industrial era that the whole of the main battle fleets of the world's two biggest naval Powers have clashed on the high seas. The outcome, on that awesome occasion, the outcome of the First World War, hung in the balance. It was a moment of decision that was denied to the men on shore who fought in hellish trenches for years on end, gaining and losing a few meters at a time. This was a chance to win a battle that would for once transform the strategic situation. It took place at the height of summer in the North Sea, so of course the weather was pretty grim. Clouds, they obscured the great mass of ships, and that opacity was deepened by the clouds of smoke that belched out of the ship's funnels and the thousands of shells that were fired. Despite that, it was the climax of nearly half a millennium of battleship development. The process that had begun with bronze cannon being manhandled under wooden ships. That process reached its apogee here on that day in 1916, as the largest guns ever built sitting on top castles of steel propelled through the grey sea by dazzling new steam turbine engines at speeds unimaginable a generation or two before. This was the last and certainly the most titanic clash of battleships before war at sea was transformed by the coming of air power and the birth of a new era. Fought mostly on 31 May 1960, this was the Battle of Charlotte. Now, you all know, listening to this podcast, that I've got a list in my little old head at all times of the greatest moments in naval history. That split second with a fighting Temeraire just appeared out of the gun smoke at Trafalgar, crashed into the starboard side of the French redoutable, its carronades rescuing the desperate crew of HMS Victory in a moment of dreadful violence. Then we've got the moment where Lieutenant Commodore Wade McClusty tipped his dive bomber into a dive over the jet Japanese carriers at Midway changed the balance of power in the Pacific forever. Or when, during the Leyte Gulf, the astonishingly brave little USS Johnston went absolutely postal and took on virtually the entire Japanese fleet by itself. Or the pursuit. Who can forget this? The pursuit of Admiral Hawke into the rock strewn uncharted moor of Kiberon Bay at sunset in the teeth of November gale. Oh, I tell you what, I do love the Battle of Yarmen as well. The last stand of the Song dynasty, the final watery grave of the last emperor. But anyway, anyway, I will leave it there. The point being, there are many great moments in naval history and this, friends, is one of them. It is certainly one of them when the entire might of the British Royal Navy's principal battle fleet under the superb Admiral Sir John Jellicoe surprised their German adversary at Jutland and unleashed the most astonishing barrage that the world has ever seen at sea. Landing on the German High Seas Fleet of Admiral Reinhardt Scheer. That is the climax of the Battle of Jutland. That is the climax. Today's podcast. Just listen to this episode and find out how it all came about, what happened in that terrible moment and what the result was. Joining me on the pod is the man himself at the apogee of naval history, the legend, the one and only Professor Andrew Lambert Lawton professor of Naval History at the Department of War Studies at King's College London. The man who knows everything about. About everything. Strange. It's just a thing that he does. This is the story of how Britain was entirely dependent on the sea. Entirely. It was dependent on the sea for its fuel, its food, its supplies. Its armies in France and Belgium were dependent on the sea link to Britain and beyond. So it's the story of how Britain faced down the most serious naval competitor since the Dutch in the 17th century. You heard me, Napoleon. Since the Dutch in the 17th century. At stake, nothing less than the future of the world. It's a big one, folks. Enjoy.
- [07:07]
Professor Andrew Lambert
T minus 10 atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King. No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off.
- [07:20]
Tony
And the shuttle has cleared the tower.
- [07:26]
Dan Snow
Oh, hi, Andrew, thanks for coming back on the podcast.
- [07:28]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Great pleasure, Dan. Always happy to do this.
- [07:31]
Dan Snow
People are familiar with the outbreak of the First World War. The causes belli. German troops invade Belgium, triggering Britain's defence of Belgian neutrality. What was the reason that Britain was quite keen to do that, irrespective of Belgian neutrality, Above and beyond Belgian neutrality, The naval threat that Germany posed. How worried are the Brits about this navy that's just been built in Germany?
- [07:53]
Professor Andrew Lambert
The Imperial German Navy is the first peer competitor the British have faced is really on a level. Ship for ship, man for man, they're pretty much as good as the British in the past. They've invariably had an advantage in the quality of their people. Long serving, professional officers, highly skilled sailors. The Germans have created a fleet which is certainly a fitting opponent. It isn't as big as the Royal Navy, but. But then it doesn't have to be because it's only thinking about fighting in the Baltic and the North Sea. It needs to command the Baltic against the Russians, needs to keep the British out of the southern and eastern bits of the North Sea. Its problem is that Germany is in global trading power. And it needs access to the world market in order to keep up its supplies of critical raw materials. So if you want rubber, which is a major element of First World War armaments and equipment, there isn't any artificial rubber yet. If you want oil, where does oil come from? Well, that comes from a long way away too. Germans don't run out of food, so their navy is a critical part of a war effort, which they see being short. The whole German war plan is we have to win this quickly or we will lose. So the navy's job is to keep the Royal Navy from applying too much pressure to the German economy in the short term while the German army wins the war against France and then doubles down and wins the war against Russia, at which point the Brits will just have to go home and make a, an agreement with the Germans and understand the new world order. So the navy is a seriously important part of the German plan, but it is also the only reason why the British are on the other side to the Germans. So 50 years before, Britain and Germany looked at France as their mutual enemy. Now, because Germany has built this global power base and a very strong and quite threatening navy, Britain has had to change its diplomatic alignments. So this navy is a serious threat to Britain's global dominance and it's a challenge to British sea control, which is the basis of all British strategy.
- [10:13]
Dan Snow
And so as the First World War breaks out, your point's so important there. In terms of ships and their capabilities, it's more of a threat in some ways than Napoleon was back in, you know, 100 years before. Because actually Napoleon's fleet was a bit rubbish compared to the fleets, the ships of Nelson's navy. You think this was a fleet that was capable of taking on, possibly defeating these British dreadnoughts?
- [10:33]
Professor Andrew Lambert
The German navy was ship for ship, pretty much equal. So the chances of battle were much less likely to be successful for British than they had been. They would need to have a bigger fleet to make sure of victory rather than just better people. At Trafalgar, Nelson is outnumbered, but he wins. At Jutland, the Germans are outnumbered and they don't necessarily lose. So the playing field is more level than it has been. But Germany's ability to, to do more than simply fight a battle in the North Sea is very limited. They have no bases outside the North Sea, they have no access to high grade coal outside the North Sea, their communications will start to collapse. So really it's a very powerful North Sea fleet, but its strategic ability is deeply limited. By 1916. There are no overseas bases that the Germans can access. They can't fight from anywhere other than they're based at Willemshavn.
- [11:33]
Dan Snow
So the idea is that what they're very good at is leave Willemshaven, perhaps inflict a stinging defeat, a bloody nose on the mighty British, and then sail back to Willemshaven. And is that, roughly speaking, the plan for 19 as we get to 1916, what is the plan of the two navies? Well, I know when the war broke out, there was some annoyance in Britain. They assumed their navy was gonna sally forth, annihilate the German navy, and that'd be the end of that, but that hasn't happened. What pressures are both sides feeling by this point of the war?
- [11:59]
Professor Andrew Lambert
In both countries, these enormous fleets of very costly warships are holding a balance. They are not fighting very often. There's been one significant clash on the Dogger bank, but only between half a dozen ships on each side. There hasn't been a great fleet battle. Everybody expected it to happen on day one of the battle of, indeed of the whole war. Doesn't happen because neither of them has an objective they want to fight for that is worth taking the risk of defeat. Both of them are essentially on the defensive. The Germans are keeping the British out of the Baltic, which is essential for them. The British are keeping the German fleet out of the Atlantic, which is essential for them. So the North Sea is in stasis. Somebody has to take a risk. Somebody has to go for a more positive objective. The Germans come out in May, June 1916. They're trying to set up an ambush of British battleships leaving harbor using submarines. So they will come out. The British will then steam out to meet them. They'll run into a large flotilla of submarines and the size of their fleet will be significantly reduced. It's an ambush strategy. Let's trail our coat. Bring the British out over an ambush. Minefield, submarines. We'll level the balance so that next time we fight them in, it'll be one on one, not an unbalanced fleet. The British, by contrast, have finally accepted the logic that Jackie Fisher and Sir Julian Corbett had stressed that the key to the war was to pressure Germany in and around the Baltic. The threat to enter the Baltic is central to the Battle of Jutland. Jellicoe has planned British admiral commanding the Grand Fleet, a full fleet sortie right into the Skagerak just to the west of the Danish peninsula, and to send a squadron of cruisers down towards Copenhagen, essentially to say, the British are coming into the Baltic. What are you going to do about it. Germany. The Germans would be then expected to send their fleet out. The British would meet the Germans and defeat them because of their larger and more powerful fleet. So both of them have a game plan. Admiral Scheer is attempting to find a British convoy of ships coming out of Norway and Denmark. He will attack that. The British will then go to relieve the convoy and he'll set up a battle at a place of his choosing. The British are expecting the Germans to react to them. Ironically, they both have a plan to come out at the same time, expecting the other side to be surprised. As it turns out, the British are actually at sea before the Germans set off. The Germans then set off to try and draw the British out. So it's one of those complicated games where it looks like everybody is just coming out for a battle, but in fact they're coming out for very different reasons. And these two things intersect off the Danish coast when the scouting cruisers of the British and German forces encounter each other while they both go to inspect a neutral Danish merchant ship which happens to be in the middle of the battlefield.
- [15:11]
Dan Snow
Unlucky for them. So just before we get onto this, in terms of the British public and even many naval planners, they were assuming that Britain, as it has done many times in the previous century and a half, couple of centuries, would go out and win a major fleet battle and that would be the end of that. But the technology has changed dramatically in almost every conceivable way. Can you just say a little bit before we get into the battle about how actually everyone's sort of making. This will be familiar to people that are talking about the Ukraine war. And there's many new weapons on the battlefield, many new techniques that have taken perhaps some of the commanders by surprise. Can you say a little bit about why both sides do seem to be making this up? They go along, really. No one's ever tried to ambush a battle fleet with submarines before, for example. And does this mean that this is a slightly more obscure and scrappy battle than traditional battles at sea?
- [16:02]
Professor Andrew Lambert
It's certainly a period of technological transformation. So we're in 1916 for Jutland. In 1905, the British introduced the first, what we class as Dreadnought or modern battleship. A ship with 8, 10, 15 heavy guns, turbine powered machinery for higher speed, very thick armor, and increasingly on the British side, the basis of modern fire control equipment, which is essentially a mechanical integrator, the basis of pre electronic computing. If you're going to be firing very heavy guns out towards the horizon, you need to Know how far the other guys are away from you, what course they're steering, where their ship is going to be when the shells arrive. And that's more than the length of the ship beyond the position you actually see it in. So you are predicting, to use a simple metaphor, it's wing shooting. If you're shooting grouse, they're moving pretty fast. And you're not firing at the target, you're firing ahead of it to where the target will be when it arrives. This has not happened before because previous battles, even going back to 1905 and the Russo Japanese War, are fought at much lower ranges and considerably lower speeds. These ships are slower, they're less powerful. And what we got here is 28 British dreadnoughts, 16 German dreadnoughts. These ships have never really fought each other in a fleet battle before. Some of the technologies are still being worked out. And yes, there is a buildup of pressure from the populations of both countries. They spent a king's ransom on these battle fleets and they've done nothing significant at all for the Germans. They're just saying, why don't we just invest in the army? The army's doing all right. Why didn't we not bother with this navy thing and just have more troops? For the British, it's existential, but they do expect this victory because they've been led to believe that Trafalgar is inevitable. Trafalgar isn't inevitable. You need a commander of genius with a great deal of latitude to set that battle up. And Trafalgar doesn't happen at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. It's two years into the war. It's 1805. The war starts in 1803. So everybody's over expecting. They're expecting Germans to come out to be destroyed. They're not going to do that. They're expecting the British to be able to catch them. The battle itself is fought on a day with very low visibility, so even the tactics of the battle are compromised. You can't see the enemy at the range that you can engage them. The range is set by low cloud and increasingly gun and funnel smoke, which makes it a closer range battle than it would have been.
- [18:49]
Dan Snow
And as the evening goes on, an extremely close range battle involving physical contact. Okay, so one of the reasons that the British fleet's gone to sea is because of this remarkable room 40, the crypto analysis section of the British Admiralty. This is a forerunner of all of the clever Enigma and everything else going up to the present day and hacking into Encrypted apps and data. Just how groundbreaking was the work that the British Admiralty was doing to try and drag intelligence gathering into this new era?
- [19:17]
Professor Andrew Lambert
The Royal Navy had always been an intelligence positive organization. It had always maximized the amount of intelligence it could get. And with new communication technologies, those opportunities are greatly increased. The Germans have quite slack radio procedures. The British know the Germans are putting to sea because the flagship has sent a radio message around the fleet to say, we're going to put to sea. And the British can read that because it's a pretty common message. They repeat it over and over again. They have very poor traffic security. They haven't thought about these things at all. They're using the radio when they should have used a flag hoist or a light signal within the anchorage, which could not be read in London. So the British have got that one sorted. They have broken the German code. The Germans have not broken the British code. So the British have a major advantage. Jellicoe knows the Germans are putting to sea before they put to sea. So Jellicoe sets off with the Grand Fleet before the Germans are expecting him. And therefore the Germans are very surprised to find the British on the Horns Reef when they get down there the next day. So it is critical. And room 40 is the basis of all of the intelligence operations that happened in the Second World War, which we paid far more attention to. But without room 40 and First World War decryption, you don't get those successes against the Enigma traffic. Enigma is Germany's response to having its codes read in the First World War.
- [20:46]
Dan Snow
Right. So the British know that the Germans have left Willemshaven. The British are keen to get to grips with this fleet and they head out into the Baltic, as you mentioned, the two cruisers. So these sort of powerful scouting squadrons meet each other and there's the famous run to the south. What happens here?
- [21:07]
Professor Andrew Lambert
So the battlecruiser squadrons, these are faster versions of Dreadnought battleships. They've got more engines, less firepower, bit less armor protection. So they are your heavy scouting squadron. They encounter each other in the middle of the afternoon at maximum visibility. At this point, Admiral Beatty, commanding the British force, has six battle cruisers and four battleships with him. But by core signaling procedure, he manages to lose contact with four of his battleships by just changing course and heading off towards the Germans without telling anybody what he's doing. He seems to be obsessed with the idea that it is his job to sink his opponent, Admiral Franz Hipper, and his five German battle cruisers. He nearly finished them off at the battle of Dogger bank and this is unfinished business and he's in a real hurry. And David Bey is not just an admiral in a hurry, he is also the son and brother of cavalry officers and he's a very enthusiastic huntsman. So as far as he's concerned, this is Talo and we're going to finish these people off very quickly. I have more ships, I have bigger guns, I've got plenty of speed, I should be able to do this. And he makes a complete and utter bulge of his battle. The red mist has descended. He's not thinking clearly. His staff are not providing with adequate information. His ships are not doing enough range finding to work out exactly how far away the enemy are. So when they open fire, they've got the range wrong. The Germans, by contrast, are proceeding at less speed, which means less vibration on their equipment. They have taken adequate numbers of rangefinder readings, so they know precisely how far away the British are. They're calculated their speed in their course. The German opening salvos are right on target. The British opening salvos are 3,000 yards over basic failures of operating procedure. The Battlecruiser fleet was not run in the same way as the Grand Fleet. No Grand Fleet ships made mistakes like that. Admiral Jellicoe was a gunnery officer, not a general service officer and he insisted on the very highest standards. Battlecruiser fleet is not shooting very well and they don't seem to think that's important. So Admiral Hipper, who handled his ships perfectly, his job is to take Beattie and his rashly advancing squadron to meet the rest of the high seas fleet to be wiped out. And that is exactly what the run to the south is. He's trailing his coat, he's saying, follow me and you're going to get a big surprise.
- [23:38]
Dan Snow
And BT's just taken the bait. He's just, he's off on one.
- [23:41]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yes, the red mist has descended and his thinking capacity, he's not a stupid man, but he's behaving like one on this particular occasion and he has some very shocking events which I think persuade him that he needs to calm down a little, but they are truly cataclysmic events.
- [24:00]
Dan Snow
Well, yes, let's get into those events, by the way, just before we get to those events. And his job, of course, as this sort of cavalry screen as they're scouting these past Moon Bath cruisers, is to update his commander in Chief all the time on what's going on. Is he doing that? Is Jellico, his boss, being informed exactly what BT is doing or is he just charged off almost by himself.
- [24:19]
Professor Andrew Lambert
BT is keeping up a running commentary on what he's doing. The problem is that the navigation is now dead reckoning because they're not able to see the sky. So he is not able to give Jellicoe an accurate location for the enemy at any stage in the run to the south. And when Jellicoe is approaching contact, he still doesn't have any accurate information about where the enemy is. And his first reliable understanding of the enemy's position is when they come out of the mist, well within gun range of the fleet. Failure of basic procedure, Failure of intention and slack procedure all the way through.
- [25:04]
Dan Snow
You listen to Dan to know history. Talking about the battle of Jutman. More coming up.
- [25:07]
Professor Andrew Lambert
You better believe it.
- [25:15]
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- [26:11]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Did I talk too much? Can I just let it go?
- [26:13]
Dan Snow
I wish I would stop thinking so much.
- [26:20]
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- [26:41]
Professor Andrew Lambert
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- [27:02]
Dan Snow
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- [27:11]
Professor Andrew Lambert
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- [27:25]
Dan Snow
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Professor Andrew Lambert
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- [27:51]
Dan Snow
And then BT pays a terrible. In fact, he almost gets killed. We might come on to that, but for some quick thinking. But he starts losing ships. I mean, BT is shocked by what happens the next few minutes.
- [28:03]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yeah. So shortly after the ships come into contact with the Germans, it's six to five. The British should have an advantage. They should be able to concentrate. But instead the ship at the rear of the British force, HMS Indefatigable, gets in a gun battle with the Von der Tann. It's quickly overpowered by more accurate rapid salvos. It then rolls over, blows up and sinks with the death of everybody who is inside the ship. That's well over a thousand men. So you've just set off several hundred tons of high explosive in a very large strong armored box. Everything inside is pulverized. There are no survivors other than those who are literally outside. On the outside of the ship, two or three people.
- [28:48]
Dan Snow
And then that's not the end of it.
- [28:50]
Professor Andrew Lambert
No. Shortly after that, HMS Queen Mary, named after the King's wife. It's just been embarrassing. Is hit by salvos from other German battle cruisers and she then explodes in much the same way as in the fatigue while taking down even more high quality sailors with her. At this point, Beatty turned to his flank Captain only Chatfield and he said, there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today. But a few minutes later he then admits, and our bloody system as well. Beatty's finally understood that poor procedure and rash decisions have put him in a very bad position. He's now, now outnumbered five to four. He's lost two big ships, lost well over 2,000 men. Fortunately, the battleships that were attached to him, the Queen Elizabeth class battleships, have managed to cut the corner and join the battle. And they are now taking on the German battle cruisers at the rear of Hipper's line and hitting them much more often than the battle cruiser fleet. Despite being at longer range, these ships have done proper gunnery training and they're firing at longer range with bigger weapons. These are 15 inch guns and they're doing serious damage to the German fleet. Just as the British are beginning to get on top of the Germans, the battle takes another violent turn when Admiral Scheer's fleet hoves into view. And Beatty realizes that now it's not Hipper leading him to be ambushed. It's his job to lead Scheer to be ambushed by Jellicoe.
- [30:21]
Dan Snow
The incident I mentioned earlier because one of Beatty's ship takes a hit, doesn't it? And remind me, a turret is flooded by a very brave Royal Marine that prevents the kind of catastrophic explosion that destroyed the other ships.
- [30:32]
Professor Andrew Lambert
What happened? The ship in question is Beatty's flagship HMS lion. On board HMS Lyon. Shortly after the detonation of the Queen Mary the Q turret amidships is hit by a German round. Goes straight through the face plate of the armored turret. Explodes in the gun mounting where the gun's being reloaded. On the other ships that sank Indefatigable and Queen Mary they had taken out all of the safety interlocks that prevented flash in the gun mounting from reaching the magazines in the bottom of the ship. That meant that those ships were blown up by their own ammunition because they had removed the safety systems that excluded flash from the magazines in the interest of increasing the rate of fire. Rather than learning to shoot properly they preferred to shoot lots and hope that they would hit. Beattie's flagship had had those systems put back in at the behest of a new Warrant Officer Gunner who'd taken over the ship from a battleship in the Grand Fleet where nobody would have dreamt of taking the safety systems out. So Beatty was saved by one of his subordinates doing the right thing. And the battle continued with Lyon with only six heavy guns. Because the X turret was out of action that the ship was saved by doing the proper thing.
- [31:51]
Dan Snow
Right. So BT then does the. Also finally the proper thing. Having tried everything else and does a 180 starts heading north dragging this German fleet back towards where Beatty knows the main British battleships are. Yeah.
- [32:03]
Professor Andrew Lambert
So Beatty's job now is literally to lure the Germans further out to engage with Jellicoe. Jellicoe is now aware of this but he does not know where the Germans are. He just knows that they're heading towards him approximately. And the Beatty is leading them. So he doesn't have a precise fix. It's pretty murky. It's in the middle of the afternoon but it's already really quite grim conditions. This limits the British advantage of having longer range and heavier guns. It means a battle will be fought at medium range where the German guns are perfectly adequate. So the whole battle has just made a 180 degree turn. Beatty's force is steaming north to rendezvous with Jellicoe. Jellicoe needs to know where the enemy is coming. He needs to know precisely because he is in cruising formation in six columns abreast. He can't fight in six columns abreast. He needs to get into a line ahead so he can deploy his full broadside against the oncoming German fleet.
- [33:05]
Dan Snow
Every ship, each one astern, are the one in front. So every single ship is able to swing its guns around and just deliver a massive, massive broadside against the Germans. Right?
- [33:14]
Professor Andrew Lambert
And in order to do this, he needs to know what formation to adopt. He's got to get into a line of battle, but does he do it on the starboard column? Does he do it on the port column? Until Beatty tells him he's left guessing. And he has to make a decision because Beattie doesn't give him that information. Because Beatty has lost control of the navigation. He doesn't know where he is. He knows what course he's on, but he doesn't know where he's heading from. So Jellicoe has to make a decision. He orders deployment on the port column. And as the fleet comes into line, the Germans burst through the mist to find that they are directly opposite Jellicoe's flagship, the Iron Duke, which opens fire immediately. So the battle has provided surprises for everybody apart from Jellicoe. He didn't know the Germans were coming there, but he did know they were coming. The Germans did not know that Jellicoe was there.
- [34:11]
Dan Snow
So that's the greatest concentration naval firepower ever assembled in the history of the world at that point. And the Germans have just crunched straight into it and didn't even know it was there. An extraordinary moment.
- [34:22]
Professor Andrew Lambert
And it's all the more extraordinary because the Germans are coming on in a single line ahead. So the only firepower they have is the forward guns of the leading battleship. So that's four guns against several hundred.
- [34:34]
Dan Snow
And that, frankly, remarkably, that leading ship takes quite a lot of punishment, doesn't it? But actually survives from memory.
- [34:41]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yes, all the German battleships, dreadnought battleships, survive this action. What happens is Scheer has anticipated this moment. He knows he's inferior. He knows that he may have to face the entire British fleet. He's practiced a maneuver called the emergency battle turn away. And this is a feat of seamanship which even British naval officers had to Admire. The whole German fleet is advancing at a speed of about 25 miles an hour, closely in formation, one behind the other. In order to reverse course, they have to start turning 180 from the rear. So the last ship makes a maneuver, and as soon as the ship ahead of it sees its bow swing round, it begins that maneuver. So it's a ripple effect from the rear to reverse course. This means that the leading ships, the most modern German battleships, the Konig class, have to continue absorbing punishment from the Grand Fleet until everybody else has made that maneuver. So this is heroic. It's doing it under fire. You're being hit by heavy rounds, and these ships are absolutely doing exactly what they've been ordered to do. They get away with this, they retreat into the Merc. Angelico has lost the target before he's done enough damage to stop the German fleet and force it to fight. The Germans, however, are now out to the west of the British, and the British are between the Germans and their base. This is a big strategic initiative.
- [36:10]
Dan Snow
Well, what does Jellicoe want to do at this point? Does he want to crush that German enemy, or does he want to marshal his resources, keep his fleet in bay and make sure he's still the biggest fleet in the North Sea by the end of the day?
- [36:19]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Jellicoe's object is to do the maximum damage to the Germans he can without risking his fleet, because his fleet is absolutely essential to Britain in ways that the German Navy is not. So he's looking for an opportunity to force the Germans to fight at a disadvantage. And after that first exchange of fire, he's got that position. He is now between them and their base. If they want to go home and refuel, they've got to fight him. Scheer then sets a course to go back home and he straight away runs back into Jellicoe and another round of heavy fire is pounded on the leading German ships. The Germans throw in their destroyers, torpedo boats, and they order the already badly damaged battlecruisers to advance on the British fleet, to distract them while the main battle fleet is extracted. So for a second time, they conduct the emergency battle. Turn away. This is a nightmare. In navigational terms, these ships don't turn very easily and they don't turn very smoothly. So you've got a whole fleet of dreadnought battleships making a very big maneuver, a 180 in series, and they don't collide. There are no accidents. The seamanship is exemplary. So this is something that really impressed the British. The Germans were able to pull this off under very heavy fire, under immense pressure, and they did it twice.
- [37:44]
Dan Snow
And this second time there's some controversy here because this second time, rather than just chasing them at full speed, Jellicoe pauses. Now why is that? Is that because the battlecruisers are providing distraction? Or is it these destroyers that you've mentioned, these smaller, faster vessels?
- [37:58]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Jellicoe is deterred from pursuing the Germans into the murky and thick weather because the torpedo boats and destroyers have been deployed and he knows that a torpedo hit on any of his battleships could be fatal. So he's not prepared to take excessive risk. So at the beginning of the battle, Beatty is taking huge risks and gets punished. In the middle of the battle, Jellicoe is taking a more cautious approach. He thinks he's got the Germans where he wants them. He has. They are not able to go home without fighting him. And his hope must be that in the morning when the light comes up and hopefully the clouds are cleared, he can finish the job in conditions which favor him, which would be good visibility, able to see much further and to use the range and power of his more powerful artillery.
- [38:52]
Dan Snow
More Jutland after this, don't go away.
- [39:04]
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- [39:34]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Did I talk too much? Can I just let it go?
- [39:36]
Dan Snow
I wish I would stop thinking so much.
- [39:43]
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- [40:13]
Dan Snow
There is no one in history that I envy less than Jellicoe at this point. He's thinking strategically, he's thinking tactically. He's thinking in ways that actually Nelson Drake didn't have to. They had to hurl themselves at the enemy in front of them without much consideration for the well, Nelson was commanding a detached fleet. He wasn't commanding the Channel Squadron Aussie. So Britain wouldn't necessarily be automatically invaded if Nelson had been defeated at Trafalgar. But Jellicoe is having to make all these decisions, knowing that this is the great prop of the British Empire, this fleet.
- [40:42]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yes. If Jellicoe loses the fleet, the war is over and so is Britain.
- [40:46]
Dan Snow
Right, okay. So he watched them go off into the gloom. These destroyers are firing off their little torpedoes. So Jellicoe goes, well, let's pause here, let's take it easy. They've gone off into the gloom. We're still in the right place. The Germans at this point have avoided twice absolute obliteration at the hands of the world's most powerful fleet. Scheer, the German commander, what's he feeling as night falls? Is he feeling hopeful he might be able to sneak away?
- [41:09]
Professor Andrew Lambert
According to his memoirs? Yes, I very much doubt that was the case. He's now been pushed out into the North Sea. His routes home are limited because the German Bight is heavily mined. So he needs to get to one of the three channels, which allows him to get from the North Sea back into his base at Wilhelmshaven on the German North Sea coast. The British know where those minefields are, funnily enough, and Jellicoe is anticipating that he will try and return through the central position. So Jellicoe has to make a choice where he thinks the Germans will try to go home. He wants to be there at first light to catch them. Just as the conditions become right for gunnery. With the sun rising behind the German fleet, illuminating it on the horizon against the British range, finding instruments. So perfect gunnery conditions first thing in the morning, damaged German fleet carrying some damaged ships with it, relatively slow moving, perfect targets. You should now be able to wipe out the enemy because they're holding together as a fleet and they're going fairly slowly. They're not going to be able to run away from the Grand Fleet. So the plan is that they should be able to meet them at the perfect time to finish the job. The mistakes of the previous day would be forgotten in a glorious victory.
- [42:32]
Dan Snow
And it doesn't quite work out like that, does it?
- [42:36]
Professor Andrew Lambert
No, it doesn't. Jellicoe is waiting on everything unfolding as he planned. Unfortunately, Shea makes yet another attempt to break through the British position. And in the middle of the night, there's some furious fighting at very close range between elements of the main German fleet and elements towards the rear of the Grand Fleet. And this is not reported to Jellicoe. Nobody seems to think it's worth bothering the Admiral. In the middle of the night, German battleship is sunk, some German cruisers are sunk, one of them in a collision with its own forces. British armored cruiser is sunk, some really close quarters fighting in the middle of the night the Germans managed to break through and reach not the central return route but the extreme eastern return route at the Horns Reef. So at first light they are not where Jellicoe expects them. They've gone to one of the other two channels they could have used to get through the German minefields. Once they're through the minefields Jellicoe can't pursue them.
- [43:40]
Dan Snow
It's just astonishing that night action. I mean Jellicoe is making decisions throughout this battle. Just terribly let down by his subordinates reporting to him that I suppose the, the communication system.
- [43:52]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yes, and the real problem is initiative. Everybody seems to assume that the all knowing, all seeing admiral is actually on the bridge next to them and is able to report at one point very badly damaged German battle cruiser Seidlitz is lined up to be finished off by HMS Marlborough. And the captain is about to fire when the rear admiral on board says we don't have any orders to do that and suspends fire and the Zeit creeps back to Willemshavn and survives the war. So there's a lack of initiative which in the Grand Fleet is worse than in the Battlecruiser Fleet. In the Battlecruiser Fleet there's a lack of basic professional skills which is far worse than the Grand Fleet. The Grand Fleet fights very well but it doesn't think much at all. It waits to be told what to do. Battlecruiser Fleet is much more initiative, much more freedom. And what the British evolved between the wars is a fighting system which exploits the best bits of both practices. So the admiral who really shakes up procedure between the wars was the captain of Beatty's flagship, HMS Lyon, only Chatfield. And he gets the Royal Navy ready to fight at night, in thick weather, in anything and drills into them that you have to use your skill and judgment. And in the Second World War we do not find Royal Navy warships or wondering what to do or failing to report really important things. We find a much higher level of performance right across the fleet. So why is it a problem at Jutland? Because they haven't done this for 100 years. Nobody in the Grand Fleet had taken part in a fleet battle. Nobody, nobody had the experience of this scale of warfare. They'd been training, but the training and the war fighting are of course, as we all know, very different things. And under the stress of baffle these people just sat still and didn't use their initiative. So Scheer was saved by his own dogged determination and the failure of initiative on Part of the Grand Fleet for which Jellico is not responsible.
- [46:01]
Dan Snow
Is it one of the great what ifs? This is the question. Had that gem fleet been destroyed, would the war have been very different? And as well as that, I will ask. There was consternation at the time because the British lost double the number of sailors. They lost 6,000 men, didn't they? They lost a few more ships, 14 to 11 ish. And the Germans were able to claim some sort of victory. Let's start with that. I mean, where do you stand on the debate? Was Jutland a defeat for the Royal Navy?
- [46:26]
Professor Andrew Lambert
No. First thing in the morning, the British command the North Sea. They return to fleet base Scapa Flow and they continue to dominate the North Sea for the rest of the war. What they're not able to do is to declare that they've won the battle because they've not achieved any strategic advantage. Had they won the battle, wiped out the High Seas Fleet, or reduced it to irrelevance, they would then have been able to think seriously about sending forces into the Baltic large ships to reinforce the Russian fleet, which was still active in the Baltic and was causing Germany some problems. Completing the blockade of Germany by cutting it off from Sweden, which was a major supplier of iron, copper, finished goods, even horses. It may well have shortened the war. And the demoralizing effect of such a massive defeat as the destruction of the High Seas Fleet may well have tipped the balance in German politics towards some kind of concession. So it was an opportunity lost. It was not a defeat for the Royal Navy. It was a failure to exploit its position effectively to achieve a knockout blow. But if you compare it with the inconsequential results of most of the fleet battles of the 18th century, we mustn't judge them by Nelson's standards, because the German fleet at Jutland was not the Franco Spanish fleet at Trafalgar. They were amateurs facing a genius. Scheer and his men were highly professional, very skilled man for man, unit for unit. They were fit comparisons for the Royal Navy. And this was not a battle the British had had with that level of opponent since the Anglo Dutch wars of the 17th century. The Dutch were as good as the British and so were the Germans. So this was not a defeat, but it was certainly a lost opportunity. It should have been a more significant strategic victory. But in the end, what did the Germans get from coming home from Jutland? Nothing. They abandoned the High Seas Fleet, turned over to unrestricted U boat warfare, which immediately brought the Americans into the First World War and Ensured that they lost conflict. So the consequences of Jutland are nowhere near as bad as they might have been because within nine months the war is effectively won by German U boat warfare bringing the Americans in.
- [48:46]
Dan Snow
Yes, and we should say that German High Seas Fleet, I mean, I think they do sneak out one more time, but effectively never leave with intent ever again from their harbor.
- [48:55]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yeah, they come out in August and they try to set up a submarine ambush again. They've got the Zeppelins out this time because the day of Jutland the weather is so bad they can't see anything from Zeppelin. They use the Zeppelin on a much nicer day a couple of months later, and they set up the ambush. Two small cruisers are sunk, but there is no contact between the fleets. Scheer is so nervous of running into the Grand Fleet that he's, as soon as he hears rumors that there's a Grand Fleet squadron approaching, he turns for home. So what it's done to the Germans is given them a shot in the arm. But it's made them very, very well aware that if they get stuck in a serious fight with the British on a fine sunny day, they're going to lose.
- [49:37]
Dan Snow
And perhaps a little postscript is that they do order that fleet to sea one more time in the dying hours of the war. And that actually precipitates the final end of the German Empire. The sailors on those ships refused to go to sea.
- [49:50]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Yeah. The mutiny of the High Seas Fleet is not just a disaster for the German Navy, it's a disaster for Germany because those sailors come ashore at Kiel and Willemshaven, where funnily enough, there are high speed rail links to Berlin. And the revolution that overthrows the monarchy in Germany is front ended by sailors. If you look at the photographs of the 1918 Revolution, most of them are sailors. They're carrying rifles they brought with them from their ships. They're making extemporized armored cars. They are taking control. The army's at the front. The navy is able to get to Berlin quickly. So it's literally the High Seas Fleet that brings down the German Empire. And of course, remember that elements of the High Seas Fleet can still be found at the bottom of Scapa Flow.
- [50:36]
Dan Snow
Yes, they get interned, don't they, by the Allies at the end of the war. And then they sink themselves on the news at Versailles that they will be permanently handed over.
- [50:44]
Professor Andrew Lambert
And to this day those ships are still a Reservoir of pre 1945 non irradiated high grade steel which is used for all kinds of scientific and medical purposes. So they're a very useful legacy.
- [51:00]
Dan Snow
Such an extraordinary story. Thank you for giving us that wonderful overview. Andrew Lambert thank you so much. Dinner. What is your latest book that people can go and buy?
- [51:08]
Professor Andrew Lambert
My latest book is called no More Napoleons and it looks at how Britain managed and structured Europe across the long 19th century to avoid any major wars. Because at the end of the Napoleonic wars, as at the end of all major wars, it was flat broke and it desperately needed to rebuild the economy. So it's getting away from this idea about high diplomacy and thinking more about the practicals of running a global empire, raising funds and keeping everything liquid.
- [51:37]
Dan Snow
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
- [51:38]
Professor Andrew Lambert
Pleasure then.
- [51:40]
Dan Snow
Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History Hit. We could not make this podcast without you. That's actually true. So make sure if you want to keep it going, that is to hit follow in your podcast player right now, you'll get new episodes dropped into your podcast library automatically. By the power of tech, you can listen anywhere you get your pods, Apple, Spotify, even BBC sounds. Imagine a world. Just imagine. We never miss an episode of this podcast podcast. I mean it's there. The technology makes that possible. That could be your reality right now if you hit follow. See you next time.
- [52:24]
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