Table of Contents
IGCSE History: World War I – The Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland:
31st May, 1916: the Battle of Jutland occurred just off the Jutland Peninsula.
Germans:
Commanded by Admiral Scheer.
- He decided to attempt to lure the British into a trap using his cruiser fleet led by Admiral von Hipper.
- This was his desperate bid to free the seas from English control.
- It failed as his message was decoded by the English allowing Admiral Jellicoe to devise a counter-strategy.
What Happened?
Admiral Beatty (British) arrived to take the bait and fought with von Hipper’s ships. Beatty’s ships had design flaws which the superior German gunners exploited:
- He lost two cruisers.
- Then Scheer’s dreadnoughts arrived.
- Beatty pretended to retreat northwards and lured Scheer and Hipper’s ships to Jellicoe’s dreadnoughts.
- The German’s fought bitterly till night and then retreated.
- They used their destroyers as a smoke screen and threatened to launch a torpedo attack.
- This allowed them to escape safely to port.
Results:
Both sides claimed to have won.
Arguments for the statement that the Germans had lost:
- They had fled the battle.
- The German fleet rarely went to sea after that and left the British in control of the North Sea.
- The British blockade continued.
- “The German fleet has assaulted its jailor, but is still in jail.” – American newspaperman
Arguments for the statement that the Germans had won:
- British navy lost 14 ships whilst the Germans only lost 11.
- The British lost 6 000 men whilst the Germans only lost 2 500.
- Half of the German shots met their marks whilst only a third of the British shots made contact.
- The Germans began resorting to U-boat warfare which resulted in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (British) on the 7th May, 1915 and which indirectly resulted in the USA joining the war against the Central Powers.
