Hipper had no qualms about the loss of civilian life caused by the raids. He viewed it ‘entirely as a war measure and therefore as a task imposed upon him by duty. It is a regrettable but obvious fact that modern war is blind: it involves both combatants and non-combatants, slaying indiscriminate’.16 From the outcome, it was clear that Scheer’s and Hipper’s strategy was logical and predictable.
Then, after the loss of the Blücher at Dogger Bank, the Kaiser moved against Ingenohl – but replaced him with the excessively cautious Hugo von Pohl. Throughout the rest of 1915, the High Seas Fleet, if it sortied, remained closely offshore under the protection of the Heligoland Bight and was never further than 120 miles from home shores.
On 8 January 1916 von Pohl was hospitalised, suffering from liver cancer. On the ships of the High Seas Fleet, bottled up in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, there was little sympathy for the ailing commander-in-chief. The past year had provided little action.
When, ten days later, a new commander-in-chief was named, the anticipation of a fresh wind was almost palpable. Unlike Pohl, Scheer reckoned that a ‘fleet in being’ did not mean languishing in the safety of a home port. It meant actively seeking out contact with the enemy. Scheer was not afraid of making his case to the Kaiser. In mid 1915 Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller, the chief of the naval cabinet, had noted in his diary that he considered Scheer the dark-horse candidate to take over the High Seas Fleet. Interestingly, Tirpitz had also been considered for this position, but his vacillation about engaging the High Seas Fleet at the start of the war, and his politicking, robbed him of the position. Scheer brought with him the ‘calm and deliberate’ Captain Adolf von Trotha as chief of staff and the ‘brilliant and impulsive’ Captain Magnus von Levetzow to direct operations.17
On 26 March Hipper applied for sick leave. He had been having painful bouts of sciatica and for most of the time was unable to sleep. The next day, on board SMS Seydlitz Scheer approved command being temporarily handed over to Konteradmiral Friedrich Bödicker. Hipper had little but disdain for him – he did not like the same music as Hipper did (Hipper was a fan of Wagner and would often have the ship’s band play his favourites). But the differences did not last: later, at Jutland, he and Bödicker worked closely.
Behind his back, even if he had approved his leave, Scheer tried to get Hipper removed. ‘Vice Admiral Hipper no longer possess[es] the qualities of robustness and elasticity’18 needed for command of the scouting groups. Hipper frequently took time off at spas. His sciatica flared up chronically with the stress of his position. It was only Holtzendorff’s and Müller’s staunch rejection that staved off what would have been a fatal organisational blunder.
Scheer firmly believed in the strength of integrated naval operations: using all the means at his disposal, and not just the battleships and battle-cruisers. He laid out his vision in Guiding Principles for Sea Warfare in the North Sea, a manual that the Kaiser approved at the end of February in a meeting on the flagship Friedrich der Große, anchored in the waters of Wilhelmshaven. The Kaiser brought to the meeting his brother, Prince Heinrich, Tirpitz and Holtzendorff.
First of all, I have the High Seas Fleet … These ships alone would not be enough, in view of the enemy’s dreadnought strength. But I have one hundred excellent submarines … and a number of Zeppelin airships for scouting purposes. When I consider my fleet as a whole, I cannot argue that I am weak. I am strong – stronger than the enemy. My strength, however, will do me no good unless I attack with all weapons simultaneously … Only if I use, simultaneously, every naval weapon that I have will the total of my offensive power be greater than Britain’s resistance, and I shall win.19
Scheer was popular, quick-witted and handsome: what better combination for the new commander? Known as ‘the man in the iron mask’ because of his imperious looks, Scheer was also a strict disciplinarian. Trotha summed him up:
One could not find a better comrade. He never stood on ceremony with young officers. But he was impatient and always had to act quickly. He would expect his staff to have the plans and orders for an operation worked out exactly to the last detail… He was a commander of instinct and instant decision who liked to have all the options presented to him and then as often as not chose a course of action no one had previously considered. In action he was absolutely cool and clear.20
Pointers to Scheers vanity lie there in Trotha’s praise. Raeder talked of Scheers ‘practical common sense and a keen sense of perception, but he also possessed that rare commodity, a delight in responsibility’.21 He had a sense of humour too. Von Weizsäcker said that he had the nickname ‘Bobschiess’, because of ‘his likeness to a fox terrier, which he was fond of provoking to bite his friends’ trousers’.22
Much of Scheers post-war life was spent writing, starting with the publication in 1919 of his history of the German fleet, Germany’s High Seas Fleet in the World War. Published in English in 1920, it was the other side of Jellicoe’s 1919 The Grand Fleet. Neither makes terrific reading but of the two, Scheers is probably the more approachable.
In 1920 Scheers life went into a tailspin. One evening at home in Weimar, in a villa that stands today, Scheer asked his maid to fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar. When she did not come back, his wife Emilie went to look. When Emilie failed to reappear, his daughter Else went to investigate. A robber had been caught in the act by maid and wife: he had shot the maid dead and mortally wounded Emilie. Else was also severely injured but survived. Emilie died on the way to hospital. She and Reinhard had been married thirty-one years. The effect of the loss on the admiral was profound and he became a recluse.
Scheer published his autobiography at the end of 1925, Vom Segelschiff zum U-Boot (From Sailing Ship to Submarine). In 1928 Jellicoe reached out to his old adversary and invited him to his country house on the Isle of Wight. Scheer accepted but, aged only sixty-five, died at Marktredwitz, near Bayreuth in Bavaria, before he could make the trip. One can only speculate – with more than a certain amount of frustration – what an extraordinary meeting this would have been. Their discussion on the tactics of Jutland or the change of naval strategy and the launch of unrestricted war would have been a unique and fascinating opportunity to have heard the old foes explore the wide ranging issues. Frost concluded: ‘He [Scheer] was willing, contrary to Jellicoe, to leave something to chance’.23 I am no great fan of Frost’s writings but here, like Beatty, he may have a point. However, I strongly disagree with Frost’s comparison of Jellicoe to the American General McClellan, who would endlessly drill his men but was not very strong as a commander when it came to battle. It sounds very much like Admiral Sir Heworth Meuxs letter to King George’s private secretary: ‘Practically the whole of the fighting was done by our battle-cruisers, and our battle fleet only fired a very few rounds … Jellicoe has done splendid work as an organiser and driller of the fleet, but as yet I am sorry to say he has shown no sign of being a Nelson. It could not have been more misleading.
Scheer’s simple tombstone stands under the shade of trees in the quiet cemetery of Weimar. The words ‘Hier rührt Admiral Scheer (Here rests Admiral Scheer) are a quiet testament to the man, in the navy at sixteen and without the social or financial assets associated with the officer class, who nearly brought Britain to its knees.
On 25 May 1932, a week before the sixteenth anniversary of Jutland, Hipper died. Unlike Scheer he chose to be buried not where he had lived but where he was born, in Weilheim. Hipper was the only Bavarian to have broken into the hold of northern and central German officers on the High Seas Fleet.
It was actually more of an accomplishment than might appear, given that Austria – Bavaria’s neighbour – chose to fight Prussia in 1866, a mere five years before the establishment of the new German empire in 1871. Maybe for this reason, Tirpitz always felt that the navy was the melting pot of the German people. Hipper was the sole commander-in-chief from the southern state. Among the four major admirals at Jutland, he was also the only one who did not have poli
tical posts in either Whitehall or Berlin.
Hipper, the Jutland commander with the least experience in staff and administrative functions, was probably, of all the battle’s commanders, the most instinctive. Like Beatty, he was a natural leader of men. Unlike Jellicoe and Scheer, he lacked the political acumen acquired though staff and policy positions. But like Jellicoe he was a technician. Jellicoe’s expertise was gunnery, Hipper’s the torpedo. During his career, Hipper spent more than ten years as a ‘sea hussar’ in positions where he was teaching, in direct command of, or working with torpedoes. His service as a watch officer was equally important, not only because he was under the direct eye of Prince Heinrich, but also because watch-officer duties were such that they put him in direct control of a ship’s handling and management. The only exposure that Hipper had to strategy was on the short Admiralstab staff cruise in 1897. He never attended the Marineakademie. As a partial result of this, he knew little about politics or economics, nor did he speak a foreign language.
But where it mattered, Hipper shone. Hough summed up his role at Jutland: he ‘played the part of a maestro … He manoeuvred his ships superbly, kept his nerve under the most daunting and intimidating circumstances, and extricated his ships from the famous “death ride” following his C-in-C’s second turnabout. He and his captains deserve the highest credit.’24
* Souchon was in the Adriatic at the outbreak of war and feared that he would be boxed in. He fought his way through to Istanbul with Goeben and Breslau, and handed them over to the Turkish navy. Turkey was most receptive, as two of their own capital ships – those that became HMS Erin and HMS Agincourt – had been seized by the British. Souchon was named commander-in-chief of the Tukish navy and Goeben assisted considerably in closing the Bosphorus to international maritime traffic.
* In 1933 Marianne Scheer would christen the ‘pocket battleship’ Admiral Scheer. She married a naval officer and had a son, Helmut Scheer-Besserer, in 1921. Helmut’s son, Mathias, born in 1956, is the admiral’s surviving bloodline. Scheer married twice and in August 1916 adopted Rudolf Hennings as his son, changing his name to Rudolf Scheer-Hennings. His grandson, Reinhard, and I are now re-establishing the friendship that Jellicoe had wished to restore in 1928, when the German admiral died.
5
The Naval Non-War
Persuaded by the Kaiser that his fleet should not be put at risk, German naval commanders were also instinctively cautious. They felt that a fleet-to-fleet engagement with the British was to be avoided at all costs, at least until their superiority at sea could be whittled down.
In the early twentieth century Britain’s dominance of world trade remained enormous, even though it was in relative decline. In 1913 her merchant fleets totalled something in the region of eight thousand ships and just over eleven million tons.1 The Germans knew that, as a net importer, Britain’s dependency on trade could be used against it, directly and indirectly. As Churchill pointed out, ‘Britain imported almost two-thirds of its food and, usually, did not maintain a stock of more than four to six weeks of food and of raw materials for its manufacturing industries in stock at any one time’.2 Germany’s attack on Britain’s sea-lanes took three forms: long-range cruiser hit-and-run, submarine warfare, and, indirectly, the power of the High Seas Fleet.
Share of World Merchant Tonnage, June 1914
Tons Net (000s)
Percentage
United Kingdom
11,538
44.4
British Dominions and Colonies
902
3.5
Total British Empire
12,440
47.9
Germany
3,096
11.9
United States
1,195
4.6
Norway
1,153
4.4
France
1,098
4.2
Japan
1,048
4.0
Netherlands
910
3.5
Italy
871
3.4
Other
4,179
16.1
25,990
Source: Hawkins, The Starvation Blockades (see Bibliography).
To wear Britain down, a number of options were available: anti-commerce cruiser operations, to divert resources from the North Sea, mines, submarine warfare, and, finally, scouting groups to lure smaller sections of the British fleet into well-prepared traps, at which point they would be pounced on by larger German supporting forces of the High Seas Fleet.
Not only did the British have to contend with these threats: the Royal Navy was also charged with taking over German colonial territory, defending Britain’s worldwide bases and patrolling the oceans. Fisher once famously asked, ‘Do you know there are five keys to the world? The Straits of Dover, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Malacca, the Cape of Good Hope. And every one of these keys we hold. Aren’t we the lost tribes?’ But the Navy’s task made colossal demands on already stretched resources.
The North Sea blockade
Britain’s geographical position gave it a natural ‘breakwater effect’ in the North Sea, set astride the seaways to Germany. Nothing could get through to Germany by sea without passing British shores, either through the Channel or the narrow gap between the Orkney Islands and the northwest Danish coast. With the increasing threat of submarines and the unseen danger of minefields, the British finally decided on a ‘distant’ rather than a ‘close’ blockade (the latter had always been used against her enemies in the past).3
Up to as late as 1911 – with destroyers off the German coast – the British were still considering a close inshore blockade, which were the tactics that had been employed in the Napoleonic Wars. This changed in 1912, with recognition of the growing mine, torpedo and submarine threat, by an Order in Council to build a more distant blockade. Gary Staff has called it an ‘observational’ blockade. As such it was designed, after early warnings of German activity, to give the Grand Fleet time to put to sea. Only just before the start of the war in 1914 was a ‘far-distant’ blockade finally adopted, and none too soon.
Less than fifty days after the declaration of war, on 22 September three old cruisers had been on blockade duty off the Flanders coast. A lone German submarine, U.9, on her way back to base, spotted the targets. HMS Aboukir was first to be struck. Her commander, Captain Drummond, asked the other two ships for help in picking up survivors; he thought that his ship had hit a mine. On the surface, U.9 fired again: two torpedoes were aimed at Hogue which, despite opening fire, was hit and sunk within ten minutes. Cressy was also struck by two torpedoes after she came back to pick up survivors.
It was a wake-up call for the Royal Navy. By the time that British destroyers arrived, 1,397 men and sixty-two officers had paid the ultimate price. The Germans celebrated the victory of one of their new weapons and decorated U.9’s commander: Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddingen received the Iron Cross, first class. If the real dangers had not been fully appreciated, these early British losses brought the stark truth home: Germany’s sea lanes, unlike those of France, had either to pass by the closed funnel of the Dover Straits or through the gap between Scotland and Norway. For this reason the Grand Fleet was moved north, to the unprotected but distant anchorage at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys.
When war was declared, as much enemy shipping as possible was impounded. Around twenty German vessels unlucky enough to be in British waters or ports were immediately seized.4 ‘By November a larger picture emerged: 221 German merchant vessels lay idle in German ports, 245 had been detained in allied ports, and a further 1,059 in neutral ports. The bulk of Germany’s maritime fleet was paralysed for the duration of the war.’5
To the south, Commodore Tyrwhitt’s Harwich Force patrolled the east coast, with additional flotilla craft in the Straits of Dover that became known as the Dover Patrol. To the north, the 10th Cruiser Squadron was
formed to patrol the 270-mile gap. It was ill-equipped to do its job. The vessels were the old 7,000-ton Edgar-class cruisers. While reasonably well-armed (they had two 9.2in and twelve 6in guns), at 17–19 knots they were really too slow to be in a position for the chase. At times only three out of eight ships were on patrol, so prone were they to mechanical failures. By December 1914 they were replaced by armed merchant cruisers, mostly converted liners, and four radio-equipped trawlers.
Britain recognised, too, that a trade war could be the basis of whittling away not only Germany’s capability to fight, but also its will. Britain thus chose to adopt a naval blockade not only to try to force a naval encounter, but also to subdue Germany through economic pressure. The Navy was to provide the resources for trade protection or trade blockade in the natural choke-point of the North Sea.
The Royal Navy also had other specific roles beyond the control of commerce. Coastal protection and naval gunfire support might seem two sides of the same coin, but one is inherently more offensive than defensive. The British did not like to use the term ‘blockade’, as they were running a distant blockade. If their actions had been those of a close blockade that cut off specific enemy ports, things would have been different. The Declaration of London, the outcome of discussions held in London in 1908 to define the laws of the sea, particularly as they might apply in war, upheld the principles of international law, stating that a blockade should not extend beyond the coast or to ports belonging to or occupied by the enemy. Present at the discussion had been Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan and Russia but since the declaration was never ratified by any government, it never actually took on the force of law. Despite this crucial flaw, the United States continued insisting that Germany and Britain should honour its aim of protecting neutrals in time of war.6 Since Britain could not easily intercept coastal commerce between German ports and other countries – for example, the Netherlands – what it was doing could not actually be termed a ‘blockade’.
Jutland_The Unfinished Battle Page 14