If the question of Beatty’s guilt in causing the escape of Hipper’s prized ships leads to a not-proven verdict, the finger of guilt points steadily at him over the signals he made subsequently. Four minutes after his 8-point turn order, Beatty modified it by directing Moore onto ‘Course NE’, which brought the Princess Royal, Tiger, and New Zealand between the sinking Blücher and the rear of Hipper’s line. This second signal was still flying when Beatty ordered another hoist: ‘Attack the rear of the enemy.’ When these signals were hauled down simultaneously, making them executive, they were correctly interpreted by all who could read them as, ‘Attack the rear of the enemy bearing NE’. The Blücher was the only enemy bearing NE; she was also ‘rear of the enemy’. Moore had not been informed of the threatened U -boat attack, and had interpreted the unexpected go-degree turn as a preliminary to the combined destruction of the Blücher, whose dire condition could not be observed clearly from his bridge. He reasonably assumed that with his flagship disabled, Beatty had given up the chase, contenting himself with this single victim. Beatty’s next signal, which was simply ‘Keep nearer the enemy’, was invisible due to poor visibility. Beatty could not use one of his undamaged searchlights instead of relying upon his signal halliards, of which all but two had been shot away, because of the Lion’s loss of electric power.
The New Zealand and Indomitable had reduced their distance from the Tiger and Princess Royal by cutting off the angle of the 8-point turn. The two bigger ships ‘now proceeded to circle round the Blücher, firing all the time, and the other two ships fell into line astern of them’, Filson Young described this phase of the engagement. ‘The doomed Blücher, already shot to pieces and in the act of dissolution, might well have been left to the squadron of light cruisers and flotillas of destroyers which were rapidly closing her; but her actual destruction seems to have been a kind of obsession with the captains of the two British battle cruisers. The psychological effects attendant upon ‘the blooding of the pack’ must not be ignored. Yet Admiral Beatty’s idea had been so very simple. The ‘cats’ were to continue the chase of their living prey, while to the gallant but slower Indomitable was to be allotted a fine fat mouse… ’
Lieutenant Young, a great Beatty admirer, was quite correct in his interpretation of Beatty’s intentions. But a well-reasoned plan, a simple plan, is valueless if orders are not communicated clearly to the participants.
Beatty was appalled when he saw Hipper disappearing towards the southerly horizon, while Moore and his four battle-cruisers did no more than expedite the end of the Blücher. ‘The disappointment of that day is more than I can bear to think of, he lamented later. ‘Everybody thinks it was a great success, when in reality it was a terrible failure.’(23)
Like the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, the Blücher fought to the end, her moment of capsizing being recorded in a series of photographs seen with appropriate satisfaction by millions of readers of the Daily Mail and Illustrated London News. ‘It will be some time before they go baby-killing again’, observed the Globe of Hipper’s surviving ships. Nearly 800 men went down in the German ship: 234 were saved by the British, and the number would have been much higher but for a final stroke of ill-fortune which struck their ship. A German seaplane at 12.30 p.m. spotted the boats pulling men out of the water, assumed they were British, and bombed and machine-gunned them in the water. The pilot killed a number, but more seriously the boats were instantly recalled, leaving many more struggling in the icy seas.
Beatty transferred his flag to the Princess Royal. He was in a dreadful rage, and for a time contemplated taking up the pursuit again. But it was clearly too late. Brokenhearted, he ordered the Lion to be towed home with a strong screen against U-boats. His state of mind was not improved when he learned that Jellicoe was only 140 miles north during the heat of the action, so that if the Admiralty had ordered steam up in the morning instead of the afternoon, the Grand Fleet’s massive strength would have been present at the point of rendezvous. As at Scarborough, even with his advantage of higher speed, Hipper would have been extremely fortunate to have escaped.
Both Moore, and Pelly of the Tiger, came in for some heavy criticism from the Navy’s hierarchy. Beatty told Jellicoe that Moore had not got the right sort of temperament for a battle-cruiser admiral. ‘Moore had a chance which most fellows wd have given [the] eyes in the head for, and did nothing… It is inconceivable that anybody should have thought it necessary for 4 BCs 3 of them untouched to have turned on the Blücher which was obviously a defeated ship and couldn’t steam while 3 others also badly hammered should have been allowed to escape.(24) Fisher called Pelly ‘a poltroon’ for misunderstanding Beatty’s signal allotting targets and leaving the Moltke unmolested. But to contravene Jellicoe’s General Fleet Instructions, which laid emphasis on the importance of knocking out the enemy’s vanguard, was asking too much of a captain under these circumstances. As Hipper by doing just that was to demonstrate, to knock out the leading enemy ship could swing the tide of battle. Fisher also considered that Pelly should have taken the initiative after the Lion was knocked out. Pelly ‘was a long way ahead, he ought to have gone on, had he the slightest Nelsonic temperament in him regardless of signals! Like Nelson at Copenhagen and St. Vicent! In war the first principle is to disobey orders. Any fool can obey orders!’(25)
Admiral Moore’s appointment was terminated, and as a slap in the face, but not too heavy a one, he was appointed in command of a cruiser squadron responsible for the Canary Islands area. Pelly got away scot-free, thanks to Beatty who took into account this captain’s blameless record to date and the Battle Cruiser Squadron’s morale, which was never improved by the removal of senior officers.
Heads rolled in Germany, too. Hipper’s reputation as a clever, successful and dashing battle-cruiser commander was enhanced, if anything, as a result of his escape. It was Ingenohl who was blamed for not bringing out the High Seas Fleet in support of him, and he was relieved on 2 February. His replacement had previously been an excellent squadron commander, and more recently Chief of the Naval Staff. Admiral Hugo von Pohl was fifty-nine years old, a short, slim man who ‘gives the impression of ability, quickness of decision and force of character’, according to one estimate. ‘A very taciturn fellow who looks as if he had lost 1/2 a crown and found 6d.’(26) He was just the admiral the Kaiser needed to keep the High Seas Fleet safe, although his poor state of health was a consideration.
The Battle of the Dogger Bank was hailed by the British Press as a great victory, with ‘baby-killer’ Hipper being put to flight and losing a ship on the way while also suffering considerable damage to his other ships. ‘After yesterday’s action, it will not be easy for the loud mouthed boasters of Berlin to keep up the pretence that the British Fleet is hiding in terror’, was the satisfied conclusion of the Pall Mall Gazette. By contrast, the German Press had nothing to crow about. There was no denying that they had lost a heavy armoured ship (even if it was not quite a battle-cruiser) and over a thousand men. The German Fleet felt the loss of pride more than the loss of the Blücher, which had, all said and done, indirectly saved Hipper’s force from likely catastrophe.
The engagement also led to a profound material advantage for the German Navy. All the battle-cruisers present had been designed at a time when predictions pointed to relatively short-range actions. Even in the stronger German ships insufficient emphasis had been paid to horizontal protection, which was the reason why the Seydlitz’s deck had been pierced by a shell fired from around 17,000 yards, and therefore on a steeply plunging stage of its trajectory. The subsequent fire was spread by instant ‘flash’, and failed to reach down to the magazines (which would have been an end of the flagship) only as a result of the heroic flooding of these magazines by an officer. The men who had succumbed in the terrible inferno had not died in vain. The need for further protection between turrets and magazines was recognized by the German naval authorities, and urgent work was put in hand for all dreadnoughts, battle-cruisers and battleships.
Both sides had been heavily handicapped by poor visibility in spite of the clearness of the day. As at the Falkland Islands, funnel and cordite smoke, combined with spray from bursting shells, made life a nightmare for layers and spotters alike. German destroyers added to the confusion by putting down a smokescreen at one point, the first time this protective device had been used in a naval battle. Because of the wind, German smoke was particularly troublesome, but that does not excuse the relatively poor shooting of the British battle-cruisers, especially the Tiger’s which made only one hit out of 355 heavy shells fired. Beatty’s ships fired in all 1,150 heavy shells and scored only 6 hits, or 1/2 per cent – excluding the Blücher from the calculations, and most of the shooting at her was short-range target practice.
Hipper’s ships (again excluding the Blücher) fired 976 rounds and scored 22 hits, or 2.1 percent. Jellicoe thought the German fire was markedly superior, ‘thus confirming my suspicion that the gunnery of our Battle Cruiser Squadron was in great need of improvement, a fact which I very frequently urged upon Sir David Beatty’.(27)
In mitigation, two factors should be taken into consideration. First, it was the battle-cruisers’ first experience of firing while proceeding at a speed of around 28 knots, which led to an immense amount of spray and vibration, obscuring lenses and adding to the difficulties of spotting. There were periods when the enemy, because of smoke and spray, were invisible and the guns were firing ‘blind’. To make matters worse, the enemy tended to fire ‘shorts’, creeping up ‘the ladder system’ to hitting range rather than straddling with ‘shorts’ and ‘overs’. These enemy ‘shorts’ added to the relative invisibility of the German ships, which in any case were half shrouded, and sometimes wholly shrouded by funnel smoke and the smoke-screens laid by German destroyers. The gunlayers and spotters suffered a very hard time of it at the Dogger Bank. In the north-east wind, the Germans were much less affected by smoke.
It might also be added in extenuation of the relatively poor British gunnery that they had never done gunnery practice at these extreme ranges. But of course they should have done, just as they should have practised firing at full speed in unfavourable smoke and spray conditions.
As so frequently happens, exaggerated claims were made by both sides. Hipper claimed that he had sunk the Tiger. Beatty thought he had badly damaged the Derfflinger as well as almost crippling the Seydlitz. In fact, the Derfflinger was hit three times, and suffered a fire which was subsequently extinguished without much harm. The Moltke was untouched by so much as a splinter. Only the Seydlitz, from that single hit from the Lion, was gravely damaged.
Faults could be found in the conduct of almost every aspect of the Dogger Bank engagement from the British point of view. But judgements should not be too harsh. Britain was without experience of a major action for more than one hundred years, since when tactical, strategical, and matériel factors had experienced greater changes than in the previous five centuries. Everything was new. All the peacetime experiments and exercises could not simulate the reality of a running fight at eight to ten miles range and more between 25,000-ton dreadnought battle-cruisers travelling at up to 35 m.p.h.
In an ideal naval world, Moore would have seized the opportunity, disregarded Beatty’s signal (as he interpreted it), and gone after Hipper. But under centralized control, brought about by W/T and other electronic novelties, Nelsonian initiative had perforce shrivelled. Over the years, so much emphasis had been placed, by the service, Press, and public alike, on the vast size, vast cost, and vast value of the individual dreadnought, that even Beatty (‘If I lose one of these valuable ships the country will never forgive me’) was affected by it. The spirit, the style, all the tactical thinking in the Navy tended to wards preservation rather than aggression, because the price of loss was considered too high. The first reason why Beatty had not destroyed more of the enemy was the sight of a supposed periscope. The torpedo had given everyone the jitters. By contrast with the torpedo, the gun was to become a little-used and relatively innocuous weapon.
If the Battle Cruiser Squadron’s shooting was generally weak, the Tiger’s shooting was appalling, in spite of the fact that she was the only ship fitted with director firing: Beatty should have taken greater pains to ensure that it was better. She had joined his squadron on 6 November, and in that time had never fired her guns at a moving target. Moreover, her company was a mixed one, including a large number of recovered deserters, whom, one can presume, were not the most eager for battle. Morale was poor in spite of heroic efforts by Captain Pelly. Why this newest and most formidable battle-cruiser was assigned such a motley bunch is a complete puzzle.
Whatever mixed opinions there were about most aspects of this first-ever dreadnought-to-dreadnought action, there were two things against which it was impossible to find fault. Room 40 and NID had worked superbly well. No commander could have been better served.
To know when, where, and in what strength you would meet the enemy was a priceless asset. The second was the performance of the ships themselves. For the duration of that long pursuit, not a turbine faltered under sustained and mostly maximum pressure. It was a proud day for British engineering.
For the Lion, it was a long, slow, cold passage back home, towed by the Indomitable. To be without heat or artificial light in the middle of the North Sea in January was an uncomfortable experience with uncanny overtones – no sound of water against the hull, no beat of turbines, only the stale, sharp smell of spilt oil and chloroform.
Beatty had wanted to save time and distance by sending her at once into the Tyne for repairs but her increased draught due to the quantity of water she had taken in precluded this. Nor did the Admiralty wish to advertise too widely the extent of her damage and the urgent need for repairs by sending her to a southern dockyard. As she proceeded slowly up the Forth, her list and damage were plain for all to see, and people gathered in groups on the bank and cheered her on.
Here the Lion received temporary repairs and then ‘we were escorted to the Tyne,’ wrote one of her company, ‘where they hadn’t a dock big enough to take us. They put us on the mud off “Pelau” where they tilted the ship over on her starboard side and put on eight new 4-inch armoured plates. We were there about 6 weeks and so we had a nice spot of leave, the first since war broke out…’(28)
THE DARDANELLES FIASCO AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The need to assist Russia and the search for a diversion – The Baltic project and associated island-seizing enterprises – The Fisher-Hankey amphibious Gallipoli plan – Churchill embraces the Navy-only solution – The record unfavourable to naval attacks on forts – Early Gallipoli bombardments confirm the historical view – Air support shunned by gunnery officers – The mine menace and heavy battleship losses The War Council authorizes landings – Fisher’s growing disenchantment and resentment – The final rift, Fisher’s resignation and the fall of Churchill
There can be no doubt that Winston Churchill’s influence on the early course of the war was, by a wide margin, greater than that of anyone else – greater than Jellicoe’s or Beatty’s, more powerful than that of the Board of Admiralty. His self-claimed responsibility for directing the affairs of every department combined with his capacity for work increased even further under the pressure of war. As the supreme authority, Churchill was not exceeding his powers in taking so much upon himself; but he was certainly breaking with custom and common practice. The consequent diminution of the First Sea Ford’s powers and responsibilities had deeply depressed Prince Louis, who had been too demoralized to fight back. With Fisher it was a different story.
Admiral Beatty was one of the first to catch the whiff of discord. ‘The situation is curious’, he wrote to his wife, ‘two very strong and clever men, one old, wily and of vast experience, one young, self-assertive, with a great self-satisfaction but unstable. They cannot work together’, he predicted. ‘They cannot both run the show.’(1)
Admiral Jellicoe had his doubts too, especially on the
relatively frequent days when he received a letter (‘BURN THIS!!!’) from Fisher about what was going on down in Whitehall: ‘Winston has so monopolized all initiative in the Admiralty [he wrote on 20 December 1914] and fires off such a multitude of purely departmental memos (his power of work is absolutely amazing!) that my colleagues are no longer ‘superintending Lords’ but only ‘the First Lord’s Registry’! I told Winston this yesterday and he did not like it at all, but it is true! and the consequence is that the Sea Fords are atrophied and their departments run really by the Private Office, and I find it a Herculean task to get back to the right procedure… ’(2)
The relationship between Churchill and Fisher makes a strange, awesome, but finally tragic story. The two men had so much in common. No one can deny the fierce patriotism and love of the Navy that fired them. But their egocentricity was on an heroic scale, too. So much in these two brilliant men was compatible, but too much was incompatible. After receiving the news from the Falkland Islands, Churchill writes, ‘This was your show and your luck… Your flair was quite true. Let us have some more victories together and confound all our foes abroad – and (don’t forget) at home.’(3) But one month later a note of asperity creeps in here and there: ‘You seem to have altered your views, since taking office,’ writes Churchill, ‘about the relative strengths of the British and German Grand and High Sea Fleets… ‘(4)
For the first weeks their prolific exchange of letters, notes and memoranda reflected an alert, restless, creative, and emphatic united front. But there were other disruptive factors at work, seemingly trivial and stemming from contrasting life styles. Fisher arrived at his office ‘before the cleaners’, customarily took a brief, spartan lunch and returned home relatively early to dinner and bed around 9 p.m. When Churchill arrived at the Admiralty Fisher had already been at work for four hours: he would often take a leisurely luncheon, enjoy a brief nap, and work through until dinner. After a sociable and intellectually amusing and stimulating evening, he would retire and, full of good food, wine, and brandy, work through from 10 p.m. until one or two in the morning, ‘starting the nightly strafe of memoranda, full of brilliant ideas that seldom could be taken seriously in the mornings’, as Fisher’s naval assistant described the activity.(5)
The Great War at Sea: 1914-1918 Page 19