The British Navy in Battle

re of Emden, Cradock's heroic self-sacrifice off Coronel, the destruction of Von Spee's squadron off the Falkland Islands, the affair of the Heligoland Bight, the pur

r, but have arranged them so as to present the problems of sea

ery atom of information, then, that could be of the slightest value to the Germans has been ruthlessly excised, with results to a great extent ruinous to lay comprehension of the events described. This being so, I wish it clearly to be understood that every opinion or judgment expressed in these chapters must80 obviously be subject to modification and revision when further information becomes available. Gene

problem could be tackled at all, and in the solution of the gunnery problem they had to learn from the beginning and so discover, from their failure at the first attempt, the method which was so brilliantly successful on the second. In this respect the story isolates a single and, as I have said, a simple pr

e place which the observation of fire takes in the art of sea fighting, but illustrates in the highest degree the value of long practice in gunnery. Since 1905 every commissioned ship in the fleet has worked assiduously on this problem, and, whether the methods in use have been good, bad, or indifferent, this practice produced a race of officers extraordinarily well equipped for dealing with fire control as a practical problem. It is highly probable, if the methods and instruments they have been given have not always been of the best, that this fact, by throwing them on their own resources, did much to stimulate

ulably greater fighting82 power but of inferior speed. Neither side seems to have man?uvred in a way that would have added to the difficulties of fire control, but as, apart from man?uvring, the shooting conditions were extraordinarily difficult, one is fo

to maintain a range favourable to the more powerfully gunned ship. The battle resolved itself into three separate actions, and it was on this principle that Sir Doveton Sturdee fought the Graf von Spee and his two battle-cruisers, and that the Captain of the Cornwall engaged Leipzig. But, curiously enough, in the engagement between Kent and Nürnberg a d

pes and, finally, battle-cruisers, were employed on the British side. There were sharp artillery engagements between destroyers, there were torpedo attacks made by destroyers on light cruisers and by submarines on battle-cruisers. But they were not massed attacks on ships in formation, but isolated efforts at marksmanship, and they were all of them unsuccessful. This failure of the torpedo as a weapon of precision is of considerable technical interest. The light thrown on gunnery problems by the events of the day is less easy to define. The chief interest of thi

rpedo attacks will be discussed in the proper place. Suffice it to say here that no torpedo hit, but that the84 British were robbed of victory by a chance shot which disabled Sir David Beatty's flagship, and deprived the squadron of its leader when bold leadership was most needed. Why t

ely declare itself. We are, for example, entirely without information either about the method of deployment prescribed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet at six o'clock, or of the theory on which the night attack by the destroyer on the retreating German Fleet was ordered. We do not know how it was that a misunderstandingA arose between the battle-cruiser fleet and the battle fl

onings did not agree, and the Commander-in-Chief said in the despatch that such a discrepancy was inevitable. The word "misunderst

hods followed in the pursuit of Von Spee and those adopted by Captain Allen in his pursuit of Nürnberg. In the battle of Ju

Chief of the Grand Fleet seems to have been willing to engage only if he could do so without jeopardizing the forces under his command. The one was b

the coolness of his judgment86 or the firmness of his determination in the least degree. When he found himself opposed, no longer by five battle-cruisers, but by sixteen Dreadnought battleships as well, he reversed the course of the fleet, made Evan-Thomas fall in behind him, and, during a holding action for the next hour, kept the Germans under his guns, risking their fire, threatening the head of their line, and half-cajoling, half-forcing Scheer northward to where the British fleets would be united. The moment contact becomes imminent-knowing that the light might at any moment fail-he forces the pace and discounts risks incalculably greater than at any time during the day, if only the enormous striking power of the Grand Fleet can be brought for once into action as a whole. And so, regardless of the punishment hi

mand of an Admiral trained in the tenets of Whitehall. Now on May 31 he had executed a master stroke of tactics. The armoured cruiser, designed to be a swift bully over the weak, he had used to confound and paralyze the strong. There had been many a discussion as to the tactical value of speed when the Dreadnought type was f

ine darkness makes further pursuit impossible, but at any rate "our strategical position was such as to make it appear certain that we should locate the enemy at daylight under most favourable circumstances." It is plain, then,

Fleet ... the Fifth Battle Squadron, the First Cruiser Squadron, the Fourth Light Cruiser Squadron, and the flotillas." But he must add a note, that the units of the Battle Cruiser Fleet were less heavily armoured than their opponents! The obsession of the defensive idea is obvious. "The enemy constantly turned away and opened the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke sc

ted the situation that Scheer needed. It exposed the fleet to the torpedoes. And the risk was not faced. Speaking eight months afterwards at the Fishmongers' Hall, Admiral Jellicoe explained why. "The torpedo, as fired from surface vessels, is effective certainly up to 10,000 yards range, and this requires that a ship shall keep beyond this distance to fight her guns. As conditions of visibility, in the North Sea particularly, are frequently such as to make fighting89 difficul

several, blew up. The other nine German ships and Marlborough all reached port in safety. Surely, if the situation of heavy ships is "critical" when within torpedo range, their situation when within reach of heavy guns must be more critical still. Is it possible to distingu

the Dogger Bank affair, and seemingly in the early fighting of May 31, without allowing the menace to influence him to avoid action. He took the right precautions against i

on was known to Scheer. Yet says the Commander-in-Chief, "the enemy made no sign." His own pre-occupation is not to find the enemy, but his own light forces. He thinks it worth recording that he hung about the scene of the yeste

The defence can hardly be put better than it was by Mr. Churchill in his London Magazine article. Nor am I concerned here to argue the pros and cons on a point on which there can be little doubt as to the judgment of posterity. I direct attention to the singular fact that the Bri

incible to destruction, was woefully wrong. Now it seems extraordinary, if the strategy of waiting to fight till the Germans attacked was right-if this was the Admiralty doctrine-that it was not communicated to Sir David Beatty as well as to Sir John Jellicoe. If it was axiomatic to avoid the risk of ships being destroyed, so that Admiral Moore was right to break off the action at the Dogger Bank and Admiral Jellicoe right in letting the enemy "open the range under the cover of torpedo attacks," why was not Admiral Beatty forbidden to jeopardize his ships, and Admiral Arbuthnot warned against any pursuit of the enemy

appreciate the fact that modern war is so various and complicated a thing, and employs instruments and weapons and methods, the full possibilities of which are so obscure that only a long concerted effort could analyze and unravel them, that no organ except a General Staff could possibly have laid down the right doctrine of war or ensured the means of its application. But of all the evidence of what we had lost by its absence, I know of none more striki

rdinary events, then, we have to rely upon the stories officially given out by the Admiralty's descriptive writ