Jutland: World War I’s Greatest Naval Battle

 

Edited by Michael Epkenhans, Jörg Hillmann, and Frank Nägler

The University Press of Kentucky, 2015

Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Reviewer

Second Division at Jutland

Review originally presented in First World War Studies, 2018

This book presents 11 papers given by British/Australian and German scholars at a conference held in 2006 organized by the Militär Geschichtliches Forschungsamt (MGFA, now reconfigured as the Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, ZMSBw) in partnership with the Otto-von-Bismarck Stiftung and Oxford University. It was first published in 2009, republished after revision in 2011 and the revised version published again in 2015–presumably to take advantage of the centennial of the battle that is its subject. The purpose of the collection, according to the preface, is "not only [to] take into account historical policy and diplomacy, historical strategy and operations, but … also attempt to approach the subject “from underneath” – that is, to take into account the politics of memory of the event …".

The articles can be divided into four groups: the Anglo-German naval rivalry (N.A.M. Rodger) and German operational and strategic planning (Frank Nägler) before the First World War; British (James Goldrick and Andrew Lambert) and German (Michael Epkenhans) operations and planning after the outbreak of war up to May 1916; the battle of Jutland described and analyzed from the German (Werner Rahn) and British (John Brooks) points of view; and the battle of Jutland remembered in Britain (Eric Grove), Germany (Jörg Hillmann, Jan Kindler) and more generally (Michael Salewski). The number of British and German contributors is roughly even (five to six). In terms of the article length, on the other hand, the balance is very heavily weighted in favor of the German contributions—248 pages to 83 or a ratio of three to one. 

The heavy emphasis on the German side of the ledger is understandable given the nationality of the primary conference sponsor (MGFA) and the three conference volume editors. Furthermore, much of the material offered on the German side is both interesting and will be new to English-language readers. Nägler and Epkenhans assess German operational assumptions based on comprehensive consideration of official documents. Rahn’s long narrative offers explanations of critical decisions by the German senior commanders during the battle—such as Hipper’s alteration of course to the south after sighting the British battle cruiser force and Scheer’s turning his fleet back toward the British battle line from which it had just escaped by desperate maneuver. In addition, Rahn’s documents include revealing after-action reports: Scheer’s "Tactical Lessons from the Battle of Jutland", and Hipper’s "Tactical Experiences of the Commanders of the Reconnaissance Ships", as well as personal narratives such as "Eyewitness Account by Johannes Karl Groth, Artillery Leader on board the Battlecruiser Lützow". Hillman and Kindler explore the German remembrance of Jutland productively. Regrettably, however, Salewski’s attempt to find greater meaning—or the lack thereof—in the happenings of the battle falls short of enlightening.

The British/Australian contributions cover what for English-language readers is for the most part familiar ground. Rodgers provides a recapitulation of the Anglo-German naval rivalry that takes into account new scholarship (up to 2009). Goldrick’s chapter provides a critical analysis of  British naval operations before Jutland. Brooks’s representation of the British narrative is largely confined to the activity of the battle cruisers and the tactical mistakes of Beatty, the commander of the main battle cruiser force. Andrew Lambert advances provocative views on the prominence of the Baltic in British naval strategic thought in what is by far the longest article by a British author, while Eric Grove offers a bare sketch of the protracted and indeed enduring controversy over Jutland in Britain in the shortest article in the book. Attentive readers of these articles will detect the survival of old controversies and the emergence of new ones even though the volume’s introduction avoids discussing the current state of the Jutland literature, which is attributable perhaps to prudence rather than dereliction.

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Despite the efforts of the volume’s authors and their legion of predecessors, Jutland remains an enigma. To a degree this state of affairs is inherent to a battle that had been expected and from which so much was anticipated but also one which resulted in heavy losses on both sides and an inconclusive outcome. There is, however, a great deal that has yet to be learned about important things. The archival material known to exist for both the British and German navies is more than enough to fuel productive inquiry into technical and related tactical questions that bear directly on the mind-sets of the opposing commanders and their strategic, operational, and tactical motivation. More disciplined examination of the particulars that determined the basic narrative, not contemplation of secondary matters and the meta-historical, should be the order of the day for naval historians with serious intentions about their subject and their craft. Resolution of much of the mystery of Jutland is a difficult challenge to be sure but not an impossible one.

Jon Tetsuro Sumida