From: John Stoffel <john@sekrit.wpi.edu>
Subject: Re: Jutland
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 19:08:21 GMT


From John Stoffel <john@sekrit.wpi.edu>


Here are some quotes from "The Price of Admiralty" by John Keegan.  A
quick side note, I liked this book, but I wish he had tried to cover a
broader sense of each of four periods he did cover in this book.  I'm
also not very up on my naval history... so excuse or correct any
mistakes I make.  Another thought to keep in mind though, is that the
british lost lots more men than the germans.  So while Jutland was
more like a tie, I can't say  that I think Jellicoe messed up all that
badly.  Are there any suggestions on who you think would have done
better?

[Pg 150-151]
...
The Battlecruiser and Grand fleets, with their accompaning shoals of
destroyers and cruisers, had returned to Scapa Flow and Rosyth by 2
June.  At 9:45 that evening Jellicoe reported to the Admiraly that his
warships were ready to steam at fours hours' notice.

That signal writes the stategic verdict on Jutland.  Britain's navy
remained fit for renewd action, however it should come.  Germany's did
not.  [...] Scheer himself, however, was much less convinced of his
'victory'.  Shortly after the battle, reflecting on its conduct ot
fellow admirals, he conceded that "I came to the thing as the virgin
did when she had a baby", and in his official report on Jutland to the
Kaiser of 4 July, he warned that "even the most successful outcome of a
fleet action", which he implicitly conceded Jutland had not yielded,
"will not force England to make peace."

Germany could publicly celebrate Jutland becasuse the raw 'exchange
ratio' was in its favor.  The High SEas Fleet had lost only one
dreadnaught, Lutzow, the other ship casualties were either
pre-dreadnaughts like Pommern or secondary units like the four light
cruisers and five torpedo-boats.  The Royal Navy, by contrast, had
lost not only a considerable number oof secondary units - three
armoured cruisers and eight destroyers - but three dreadnaughts.

Three to one, in crude terms, could make Jutland look like a German
victory, but calculated in refined rather than crude terms  the
'exchange ratio' was very much more in Britain's favor.  Three of her
fast battleships, Warspite, Barham and Malaya, had suffered damage
requiring dockyard attention, but the Battleship fleet itself was
almost unscathed; and, depsite losses, the Battlecruiser Fleet on 1
June still outnumbered the German 1st Scouting Group, which, moreover,
was crippled by damage.  The German dreadnaught battleships had also
suffered grieviously.  Konig, Markgraf  and Grosser Kurfurst all
needed major refits when they returned to port and the German battle
line could not have met the British at four weeks', let alone four
hours' notice, except at risk of out right defeat.


				John

--
Youth of today!  Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental attitudes!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
john@wpi.wpi.edu | Work Station Specialist | Worcester Polytechnic Institute
John Stoffel     | 508-831-5512 (work)     | Worcester, MA  01609

Newsgroups: sci.military