On 31 May 1916 the British Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the German High Seas Fleet under Admiral Reinhard Scheer met in the North Sea off Jutland, in Denmark, in the largest naval battle of the First World War. Three British battlecruisers blew up, and Britain lost 14 ships and more than 6,000 men to Germany's 11 ships and about 2,500 men. Both sides claimed victory. But the German fleet slipped home in the night, and it never again seriously challenged British control of the North Sea.
Battlecruisers in the afternoon
The two fleets were the largest ever to meet in the war. The Imperial War Museums count 250 ships and about 100,000 men, 151 British warships against 99 German; Royal Museums Greenwich gives 279 ships. On the evening of 30 May the Admiralty, warned by intelligence that the High Seas Fleet would put to sea, sent Jellicoe out from Scapa Flow and Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battle Cruiser Fleet from Rosyth. The Germans planned to use Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers to lure part of the British fleet onto the guns of their main fleet.1
The light cruiser HMS Galatea fired the first shot at 2:28 p.m. on 31 May, and the battlecruisers opened fire on each other at 3:48. Within minutes HMS Indefatigable exploded after hits from SMS Von der Tann, and at 4:26 HMS Queen Mary blew up; more than 1,000 men died in the first and more than 1,200 in the second. A British signal preserved in the National Archives reports Indefatigable sunk about ten minutes into the action by a shell exploding in her magazine, and Queen Mary half an hour later, probably from the same cause. According to the Imperial War Museums, Beatty remarked that there seemed to be something wrong with "our bloody ships" that day.2
The fleets collide
At 4:33 p.m. Commodore William Goodenough's light cruisers sighted the whole High Seas Fleet, and Beatty turned north to lead the Germans toward Jellicoe. Just after 6 p.m. Jellicoe deployed the Grand Fleet from six columns into a single line and at 6:30 crossed the German "T", bringing his broadsides to bear on the head of the German line. Soon afterward HMS Invincible blew up, killing more than 1,000 men, among them Rear Admiral Horace Hood. The British inquiry quoted by the National Archives concluded that flame had reached the turret magazines of all three lost battlecruisers.3
Scheer saved his fleet with sudden turns away, at 6:35 and again after a second clash, then sent his battlecruisers and destroyers at the British line to cover his withdrawal. At 7:22 Jellicoe turned away from the torpedoes, and when he resumed the pursuit the Germans were out of sight. The Imperial War Museums also record the courage of Boy First Class Jack Cornwell, mortally wounded at his gun on HMS Chester and awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.4
Night and the reckoning
Jellicoe did not want a night action, and the British fleet, wary of submarines and mines, did not press the chase. In confused night fighting Scheer broke through the rear of the British fleet toward home. The armored cruiser HMS Black Prince was sunk with all 900 of her crew, the German pre-dreadnought Pommern was torpedoed with the loss of all hands, and the crippled battlecruiser Lützow was scuttled. Most of the High Seas Fleet was back in German ports by the afternoon of 1 June.5
The counts differ slightly. The Imperial War Museums give 14 British ships and about 6,000 men lost against 11 German ships and about 2,500 men; the National Archives gives 6,077 British and 2,551 German dead; Royal Museums Greenwich gives total casualties, including prisoners, of 6,945 British and 3,058 German.6
Who won?
Both sides claimed victory. The Germans pointed to the heavier British losses, while the British argued that Scheer had broken off and fled. Royal Museums Greenwich notes that on 1 June the British had 105 undamaged warships ready to fight again, the Germans only 40. The High Seas Fleet stayed largely in port for the rest of the war, and Germany turned instead to an intensified U-boat campaign against Allied shipping. As the Imperial War Museums put it, Germany avoided the destruction of its fleet but was never again able to seriously challenge British control of the North Sea.7 › Scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow, 1919
