Chapter I: Front Matter

THE BRITISH NAVY
IN BATTLE

BY
ARTHUR H. POLLEN

_ILLUSTRATED_

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1919

COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Greeting. By Way of Dedication 3

II. A Retrospect 11
The First Crisis 14
The Second Crisis 20
The Third Crisis 22
The Fourth Crisis 25
The New Era 28

III. Sea Fallacies: A Plea for First Principles 33

IV. Some Root Doctrines 48

V. Elements of Sea Force 61

VI. The Actions 79

VII. Naval Gunnery, Weapons and Technique 93
Fire Control 96
The Torpedo in Battle 103

VIII. The Action that Never Was Fought 108

IX. The Destruction of _Koenigsberg_ 119
The First Attempt 126
Success 134
A Problem in Control 142

X. Capture of H. I. G. M. S. _Emden_ 152

XI. The Career of Von Spee. I 165
Coronel 172

XII. Battle of the Falkland Islands. I:
The Career of Von Spee II 180
A. Preliminary Movements 182

XIII. Battle of the Falkland Islands. II:
B. Action with the Armoured Cruisers 191

XIV. Battle of the Falkland Islands. III:
C. Action with the Light Cruisers 201
D. Action with the Enemy Transports 210

XV. Battle of the Falkland Islands. IV:
Strategy--Tactics--Gunnery 213
British Strategy 215
The Tactics of the Battle 219
A Point in Naval Ethics 230

XVI. The Heligoland Affair 232
The North Sea 240

XVII. The Action Off the Dogger Bank. I 245

XVIII. The Dogger Bank. II 251

XIX. The Battle of Jutland:
I. North Sea Strategies 267

XX. The Battle of Jutland (_continued_):
II. The Urgency of a Decision 283

XXI. The Battle of Jutland (_continued_):
III. The Distribution of Forces 294

XXII. The Battle of Jutland (_continued_):
IV. The Second Phase 307

XXIII. The Battle of Jutland (_continued_):
V. The Three Objectives 315
The Tactical Plans:
Admiral Scheer’s Tactics 317
Sir David Beatty’s Tactics 324
Sir John Jellicoe’s Tactics 326

XXIV. The Battle of Jutland (_continued_):
VI. The Course of the Action 330
The German Retreat 333
The Night Actions and the Events of June 1 335

XXV. Zeebrügge and Ostend 341
Strategical Object 342
Sir Roger Keyes’s Tactics 345
Attack on the Mole 352
Moral Effect 353

LIST OF LINE CUTS

PAGE
Big guns more accurate at long range, because more regular 94

Big guns need less accurate range-finding, because the danger
space is greater 95

Range-finding by bracket 97

The crux of sea fighting, changes of course and speed produce
an irregularly changing range 98

In this sketch the black silhouette shows the position at the
moment the torpedo is fired; the white silhouette the
position the ship has reached when the torpedo meets it 107

Plan of _Sydney_ and _Emden_ in action 158

Plan of the action between the British battle-cruisers and
the German armoured cruisers 199

Plan of action between _Kent_ and _Nürnberg_, and of that
between _Cornwall_ and _Glasgow_ and _Leipzig_ 207

The action off Heligoland up to the intervention of
Commodore Goodenough’s Light Cruiser Squadron 235

The action off Heligoland. The course of the battle-cruisers 239

The Dogger Bank Affair. Diagram to illustrate the character
of the engagement up to the disablement of _Lion_ 249

The official plan of the Battle of Jutland. Note that the
course of the Grand Fleet is not shown to be “astern”
of the battle-cruisers, but parallel to their track 295

Position of the opposing fleets at 3:30 P.M. 298

The first phase; from Von Hipper’s coming into view, until
his juncture with Admiral Scheer 301

The second phase; Beatty engages the combined German Fleet,
and draws it toward the Grand Fleet 309

Sketch plan of the action from 6 P.M. when the Grand Fleet
prepared to deploy, till 6:50 when Admiral Scheer
delivered his first massed torpedo attack 332

Jutland Diagrams. Third phase at end of book

THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE