The development of mines, submarines, torpedoes, and long-range coastal artillery made the traditional close blockade of the enemy coast impractical, if not suicidal, and in his war orders to the Channel Fleet in 1908, Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher stipulated that each night the blockading fleet would retire at least 170 miles from the nearest German destroyer base. Smaller craft about 30 miles off the coast would provide warning of German fleet movements. In 1911 the redoubtable Admiral Sir Arthur K. Wilson, then First Sea Lord, returned to a close blockade of the Helgoland Bight, using two destroyer flotillas supported by three cruiser squadrons. Unfortunately Wilson’s plan was too dangerous, and as far as the destroyers were concerned, relatively impracticable. The destroyers had to return to port every three or four days, and because the nearest British port was 280 miles away, they needed three reliefs, with one on patrol, one in transit, and one in port. All of this required twice the number the Royal Navy possessed, and the blockading force was still vulnerable to a sudden overwhelming attack. By mid-1912 the close blockade was gone for good, replaced by an “observational blockade” of the Bight. A line of cruisers and destroyers was established from the southwest coast of Norway to a point halfway between England and Germany on the latitude of Newcastle-on-Tyne and then southward to the island of Texel and the Dutch coast. The British battle fleet would keep well to the west of this line; German trade would be cut off, and should the German battle fleet move against either the cruisers or the British coast, it would be brought to battle.
British naval maneuvers soon demonstrated that the observational blockade also was impractical. The line was close to 300 miles long and could be neither watched effectively by day and night nor adequately supported against concentrated German attacks. Any serious attempt to do so would have drained far too many destroyers and cruisers from the battle fleet. In the war orders issued at the beginning of July 1914, the observational blockade was abandoned in favor of a distant blockade to block the exits from the North Sea. The most powerful force—the Grand Fleet—was now off the Scottish coast, stationed at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, whereas the Channel Fleet blocked the Channel off Dover in the south. There was a line of cruisers from the Shetlands to Norway, but the Grand Fleet itself exercised its domination of the sea by frequent sweeps in the area between the fifty-fourth and fifty-eighth parallels. The object was to convince the Germans they could not hazard their fleet far from its bases without the serious risk of running into overwhelming force.2
During the Agadir crisis in August 1911, the Royal Navy lost the debate over how to use the British army in the event of war. A. K. Wilson viewed the army traditionally, as a “projectile to be fired by the British Navy,” and wanted military forces to create a diversion by capturing one or more islands off the German coast. Regular troops would also have to be held at home to guard against an invasion. The War Office, eloquently represented by General Sir Henry Wilson, the director of military operations, favored the concept of a Continental commitment, with the British Expeditionary Force rushed to France to fight alongside the French army. This was the policy adopted. Great Britain would pursue what was essentially a Continental rather than traditional maritime strategy. As for the threat of invasion, a subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence concluded in April 1914 that the maximum invading force likely to avoid interception by the navy would total seventy thousand, and if an expeditionary force were sent overseas, at least two regular divisions should be left at home.3
These changes in British strategic thought explain why the Grand Fleet did not appear off the German coast seeking battle and establishing a close blockade shortly after war was declared. The prospect of a distant blockade posed new problems for the Germans, because their plans traditionally had rested on the prospect of a close blockade, which would afford opportunities for their light craft. By 1914 the Admiralstab’s observations and analysis of what they could learn of British naval maneuvers had led them to conclude that the traditional form of permanent close blockade was now extremely dangerous for the blockading force. The war game played by the German North Sea station early in 1913 had demonstrated the difficulties the British would have had in maintaining a close blockade of the Bight. The Admiralstab therefore expected the British would alternate between close and distant blockades according to the situation. The close blockade was most likely at the beginning of the war, when the British might expect an offensive German sortie, or when transport of the British Expeditionary Force was in progress.4
In the German war game of March 1914, the leader of the “Yellow” (Anglo-French) side had established a distant blockade of the German coast, closing with only light forces, and determined that a close British blockade would be very improbable and that the bulk of the British fleet would be placed far to the north at Scapa Flow. Admiral Hugo von Pohl, chief of the Admiralstab, concluded that the existing balance of strength between the German and British fleets would not permit the Germans to make an offensive thrust that far to the north, and that the distant blockade could best be countered by sending out submarines and minelayers while the German fleet acted energetically against British forces guarding the Bight. This would force the British to reinforce them, and facilitate the erosion of British strength to the point where the High Sea Fleet might meet them on equal terms. A historian who has closely studied German naval plans points out that this recommendation overlooked the fact, demonstrated by the maneuvers, that the British might not leave any forces to guard the Bight. The Admiralstab consequently failed to meet the challenge posed by the distant blockade. Furthermore, the kaiser, although agreeing to the war game’s conclusions, assigned great value to the cooperation of submarines with the battle fleet and expressed the wish that in all defensive plans the offensive idea not be dropped. Therefore one might argue the Germans approached the war without any definite plans for operations against the British.5
According to the war orders approved at the end of July 1914, the German navy would seek to wear down the blockading forces with mines, destroyers, and submarines. The mine and U-boat offensive might even extend to the British coast, but the bulk of the fleet would only give battle under favorable circumstances, that is, after the power relationship had been balanced. These final orders, however, seemed directed primarily against the prospect of a close blockade; they failed to deal with the problem of a distant blockade in which the British would not obligingly present targets to be “worn down” in the Helgoland Bight.6 Tirpitz himself had raised the question in May 1914 when he asked the commander of the High Sea Fleet, “What will you do if they do not come?” Reportedly neither Tirpitz nor Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, commander of the High Sea Fleet, had a satisfactory answer.7
The commander in chief of the Grand Fleet, the major British naval force, was not a likely man to put his head into the noose and make things easy for the Germans. Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, fifty-five years old, had only been named to his command on 4 August, replacing Admiral Sir George Callaghan, whom Churchill considered too old and whose health might not stand the strain of war. Callaghan had trained the fleet for war and was heartbroken, but the potentially awkward situation was handled with tact by all concerned. Despite some apprehension over “changing horses in midstream,” the appointment was generally considered to be a wise one.
In his memoirs Jellicoe explained his ideas on the uses and purposes of the Royal Navy, which centered on four major points: (1) it was absolutely vital for the navy to ensure the unimpeded use of the seas for British ships, because Britain as an island nation was not self-sufficient; (2) in the event of war the navy should bring steady economic pressure on the enemy by denying him the use of the sea; (3) the navy should cover the passage and assist any army sent overseas and protect its communications and supplies; and (4) the navy should prevent the invasion of Great Britain and its overseas dominions by enemy forces. Jellicoe argued that the quickest and surest means of achieving these objectives was to destroy the enemy’s naval forces
. This must be the first objective, for, as he stated quite simply, “The Fleet exists to achieve victory.”8
But how could this be achieved if the German fleet, weaker in numbers, stayed in port? Jellicoe readily dismissed the prospect of a close blockade as impossible under modern conditions. The British would therefore block Germany’s access to the high seas with their two major forces, the Channel Fleet in the south and the Grand Fleet in the north. The Grand Fleet from its strategic position in the North Sea would support the cruiser squadrons carrying out sweeps to the south in search of enemy vessels, and would be favorably placed to bring the German High Sea Fleet to action if it put to sea.9
The initial British deployment reflected this strategy. The Grand Fleet with its twenty dreadnoughts and four battle cruisers was stationed at Scapa Flow. To the north there were (once reservists had been mobilized for the elderly ships) the northern patrols carried out by the Sixth Cruiser Squadron (four Drake-class armored cruisers) and the Tenth Cruiser Squadron (eight old Edgar-class cruisers). In the south the major heavy force was Vice Admiral Sir Cecil Burney’s Channel Fleet, with eighteen predreadnoughts and four light cruisers. There were also sizable forces at Harwich, notably Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt’s two light cruisers and thirty-five destroyers, later known as the Harwich Force, and the Eighth (Overseas) Submarine Flotilla (sixteen D- and E-class submarines) under Commodore (S) Roger Keyes. Keyes also commanded the Sixth Submarine Flotilla (six older C-class boats) at the Humber. These light forces were supported by “Force C,” five old Bacchante-class armored cruisers. The commanders in chief of the home ports controlled additional forces: at the Nore (the Thames estuary and adjacent coast), 12 old destroyers, 20 torpedo boats, and 6 C-class submarines for coastal defense; at Portsmouth, 6 destroyers and 23 torpedo boats; and at Devonport, 4 destroyers and 8 torpedo boats. There were also substantial light forces (generally old) distributed along the east coast that were not directly attached to the fleets or under the control of the commanders in chief of the home ports. Their principal base was at Dover, and they were under an officer known as the admiral of patrols—Rear Admiral George Ballard. Ballard also had four old Majestic-class predreadnoughts for the defense of the Humber, but the primary concern of his approximately four light cruisers, twenty old destroyers, and fourteen small submarines was the protection of the shipping lanes between England and France.
The Royal Navy also had a number of cruisers on commerce patrols in the south: “Cruiser Force G,” with four old Talbot-class cruisers patrolling the Channel, and “Cruiser Force E” (Eleventh Cruiser Squadron), with five old cruisers patrolling the southern entrances to the Irish Sea.10
The majority of the cruisers at sea in the Channel and in western areas were actually French. The role of the French navy in northern waters is often overlooked, but the numbers involved were not negligible: approximately 14 cruisers, 31 destroyers and torpedo boats, and 23 submarines. The principal French force was the 2eme escadre légère, consisting of six armored cruisers commanded by Contre-amiral Rouyer. These ships were, however, old and weakly armed, no match for the High Sea Fleet or even a powerful raider. The French, as previously explained, had made the strategic decision to concentrate their newest and strongest forces in the Mediterranean, but because no alliance existed between France and Great Britain, they had to make some provision for the north. They still did not expect the German fleet to institute a close blockade of the French coast in the event they had to fight Germany without British assistance. The same considerations about mines, torpedoes, and submarines would, after all, work against a close German blockade. The French did, however, reckon with the possibility of bombardments by heavy ships of French ports such as Cherbourg to disrupt the French mobilization and act on public opinion. They expected that any movement by the big German ships would be preceded by a mass of light cruisers, destroyers, and minelayers to neutralize the French flotillas. The French defenses in the Straits of Dover consisted of submarines, with destroyers scouting ahead of the submarines and cruisers positioned behind them for support.
French and British staff conversations before the war resulted in 1913 in an agreement between them as to the respective roles their navies would play in a war, but only if they were allies. Roughly, the French (joined by four British cruisers) would take the responsibility for defending the western part of the English Channel between the Cotentin Peninsula and the English Coast, whereas the British would take the responsibility for defending the Dover Strait with the flotillas based on Dover. French torpedo boats and submarines would participate, mostly in the area between the Varne and Cape Gris-Nez and inside the banks along the French coast.
The French Navy did not yet know that the British would join the war when Rouyer received a series of cables on 2 August ordering him to sail the following morning. He was informed that two German battle squadrons had passed the Kiel Canal going from east to west, and he was ordered to block the passage of the German fleet. The French navy had few illusions about the real balance of strength between itself and the High Sea Fleet, and French naval literature has always stressed the grim aspect of these obsolete ships sailing to what most of the officers and men considered certain death. The French minister of marine had been assured already by Churchill that the Germans, regardless of British neutrality, would not be permitted to operate in the Channel, but the minister rather callously failed to inform Rouyer of this fact; consequently, there was no cause for the very real anxiety.11
The British were also in the process of mobilizing or requisitioning sizable numbers of merchant ships, trawlers, and drifters for auxiliary forces. By the end of August, they had commissioned twenty-one armed merchant cruisers to assist in blockade duties, and the number of trawlers involved totaled more than 200. By the beginning of 1915, the Admiralty had a grand total of 827 minor vessels of all sorts in the auxiliary patrol, and by the end of the war the number had risen to more than 3,700. The French eventually followed the British example as the submarine threat developed, and in February 1915 they began requisitioning and fitting out sixty trawlers to patrol the Channel south of the line Colbart-Cherbourg.12 As the war went on without a major battle and the submarine and mine dangers increased, the importance of these auxiliary craft grew.
The initial German deployment is easier to describe. The main German naval force, the High Sea Fleet under the command of Admiral Ingenohl in the Friedrich der Grosse, was concentrated in the North Sea. The First Squadron (the older dreadnoughts—four Helgoland and four Nassau class) and the Third Squadron, in the process of being formed with the latest dreadnoughts (four König class, with two to join) were anchored at the mouth of the Jade River, accompanied by the four battle cruisers of Rear Admiral Franz Hipper, senior officer of the scouting groups. The Second Squadron, composed of the most modern predreadnoughts (eight Deutschland class), was anchored at the mouth of the Elbe between Cuxhaven and Brunsbüttel, where the Germans considered that these ships, lacking torpedo nets, could be better protected by the floating boom off Cuxhaven. A cruiser and a torpedo-boat flotilla protected the mouth of the Ems, while other light forces were deployed to protect the estuaries of the Jade, the Elbe, and the Weser. Two U-boat flotillas—nineteen submarines—were attached to the High Sea Fleet. There were other German squadrons being mobilized, but they were made up of old predreadnoughts, more likely to be used in the Baltic than in any encounter with the Grand Fleet. The Baltic was a separate command under the kaiser’s brother Prince Heinrich of Prussia, who initially had seven cruisers of different types and ages, fourteen torpedo boats, four U-boats, and four minelayers. His task was essentially defensive (see chapter 7), but he was authorized to make frequent sweeps and raids to keep the Russians off balance and prevent them from using their (at this stage) numerical superiority.13
What were the forces the Grand Fleet and High Sea Fleet could actually employ against each other? The authorities tend to agree on the major points. At first twenty British dreadnoughts would have
faced thirteen German dreadnoughts, and four British battle cruisers would have faced three German battle cruisers. In the early stage of the war, each side would have made use of eight predreadnoughts (King Edward VII class versus Deutschland class). It is more difficult to reconcile the different estimates of what cruisers and destroyers might have been involved, particularly when the number of ships unavailable due to refits is considered. In August 1914 Jellicoe estimated the Grand Fleet had 9 armored cruisers to 2 for the High Sea Fleet, but only 12 light cruisers to 15 for the Germans. His situation in terms of destroyers was even more disadvantageous, for the Grand Fleet had only 42 against 88 for the Germans. Would all those destroyers really have been with the High Sea Fleet? The German official history subdivides German destroyers into 42 “newer” and 46 “older” craft, whereas at Jutland in 1916 the Germans engaged only 61. The evaluation of the numbers and the fighting value of ships can be a very complex subject. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that Jellicoe believed he was at a considerable disadvantage in destroyers. It was, in fact, a constant source of worry during the war. Jellicoe later wondered why the Germans did not use their “superfluity” of destroyers in making an attack on Scapa Flow during the early months of the 1914–15 winter. The destroyer situation also reinforced his disinclination to risk the Grand Fleet too close to the German shore. After little more than a fortnight of war, he wrote the First Sea Lord that when they did meet the High Sea Fleet, “I believe we shall give a very good account of ourself. Only I want to fight them fairly, not with a great superiority in T.B.D.’s and mines in their favor together with what may well be a scheme for, viz. a locality adjacent to some of their submarines.”14
A Naval History of World War I Page 5