Jellicoe did not know till 18:01 hours on May 31, 1916, the exact position of Scheer when Beatty’s flagship, Lion, appeared on the starboard bow of Jellicoe’s flagship, Iron Duke, and reported the course and bearing of the German battleship fleet. Jellicoe quickly deployed his forces to face the German C-in-C whose battleships were now approaching in a single file and came into contact with Jellicoe at 18:17 hours.
The Marlborough, Agincourt and Revenge opened fire. German ships Koening, Grosser-Kurfust and Markgraff were hit, whilst Scheer’s gunnery could not score much. In the meantime, Hood’s flagship, The Invincible, was hit by Hipper’s cruiser, Derrflinger, and was blown up. German ships Derrflinger and Von der Tanns were in equally bad shape with 180 causalities on board the former and Von der Tann’s turrets out of action. Hipper’s flagships, Lutzow, was so much incapacitated that he had to transfer his flag to Moltke. At 18:45 hours, Scheer reversed course in poor visibility and disappeared into the North Sea mist. For Jellicoe, it would have been a very frustrating moment to see the HSF slip away after so close an encounter, which had been 21 months in the making but had lasted only 25 minutes, with only nine salvos having been fired by his flagship, Iron Duke.
Jellicoe, however, did not chase Scheer because of torpedo and mine threat from the trailing course of the German Fleet. But Scheer’s reversal of course from the battle plank was only temporary. It was a tactical move by Scheer who turned back for Jellicoe’s line after 22 minutes. Another encounter took place in which two German ships of the Koening class were put out of action and were sunk later. Scheer now ordered his ships to close in on the enemy and ram. But soon, he reversed his order and engaged the enemy’s forward lines. Scheer took another turn around to extricate his ships and headed West into the mist again. This engagement lasted only 15 minutes. The retreat of the fleet was covered by German destroyers, which fired 31 torpedoes out of which 10 reached the British lines. Thus, the total duration of action between the main forces of the two fleets lasted 40 minutes.
Throughout the night of May 31 and June 1, there were series of clashes between British and German ships. But Scheer forced his way behind the British battle fleet. The Germans lost three battlecruisers, two destroyers and one dreadnought. The British losses were one armoured cruiser and five destroyers. In spite of these losses, the German fleet had, by daylight, made for the reaches of their base. Even during the dwindling phase of the night actions amongst British and German formations, Jellicoe still remained in the dark about the movements in the High Seas Fleet as some of his Captains who saw the tail of German fleet passing in the wake of the Grand fleet failed to report their positions to their c-in-c. This was a failure of royal magnitude at a critical juncture of the battle. Even the British Admiralty, which had known during the night the direction in which Scheer was heading, failed to give this vital information to Jellicoe. This would have enabled him to alter course to face Scheer in the morning of June 1.
At 4am on June 1, the Admiralty were to signal Jellicoe that the German fleet was safely home and ordered the British fleet to reverse course for home. Thus fizzled out the greatest battle in naval warfare history. There was no win for either side at Jutland in spite of Jellicoe having brought the Grand Fleet face to face with the High Seas Fleet. The British fleet lost more ships and more sailors than the German forces. The German losses were a battleship, a battlecruiser, four cruisers and five destroyers against the R.N.’s losses of three battlecruisers, three cruisers and eight destroyers.
The Germans, by virtue of two retreats and return during day action and then escaping through the destroyers screen at the rear of British fleet, did definitely record a victorious retreat of sorts. But Jellicoe could not claim victory over Scheer either. The Battle of Jutland ended in a tactical victory for the Grand Fleet, which kept a distant blockade of the High Seas Fleet intact for the rest of the war years. When Germany bid for peace in November 1918, the High Seas Fleet surrendered to Admiral Beatty who was then the Commander-in-Chief in place of Jellicoe. The High Seas Fleet was interned at Scapa Flow. Whilst the allied powers were bickering over sharing the naval spoils of war, the German fleet by a prearranged signal exploded charges on board and all its ships sank in the deep waters of the harbour where they still lie.
Battenberg, the First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty in 1914, was the cousin of the King Emperor George V as was Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Due to public outcry against Battenburg’s German lineage, he had to resign his post as Head of British Navy. Not only this, he changed his German name to Mountbatten, which is the literal translation of Battenburg. As the luck would have it, in 1956, his son, Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, became the First Sea Lord and occupied the same position from which his father was forced to resign.
After the Battle of Jutland, Jellicoe was moved to the Admiralty and Beatty was made the C-in-C of the Grand Fleet. Over differences about running escorted convoys to avoid rising merchant ship losses, Jellicoe was removed as First Sea Lord in the end of 1917. So ended the era of this Sea Commander who, according to Churchill, had possessed all Nelsonian virtues except that of insubordination. He later on served as Governor of New Zealand, having been made Admiral of the Fleet in 1919.
At the Trafalgar Square in London stands the tallest column in memorial to Nelson. Below is the memorial to Beatty and still at a lower level is the Jellicoe memorial.
