On 31 May 1916 the British Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the German High Seas Fleet under Reinhard Scheer fought off Jutland, in the largest naval battle of World War I. Britain lost more ships, among them three battlecruisers, but the German fleet went home. In 1862 the Battle of Seven Pines began outside Richmond.
Full story · ~12 min readBattle of Jutland 1916: Who Won WWI's Biggest Sea Battle?On 31 May 1916 Jellicoe's Grand Fleet met Scheer's High Seas Fleet off Jutland.Read the full story ›
Battle of Jutland
31 May 1916 · 110 years ago
Out from Scapa and the Jade
On 30 May 1916, Corbett writes, learning that every section of the High Seas Fleet had received what seemed an important operation signal, the Admiralty telegraphed Jellicoe and Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty ordering them to concentrate east of the "Long Forties". That day, Jellicoe's letter of 18 June records, the Grand Fleet left Scapa Flow and its other bases, while Beatty's battlecruisers sailed from Rosyth. Scheer's report to the Kaiser says he sent Vice Admiral Hipper's scouting groups ahead to show themselves off the Norwegian coast, with the main fleet following, to draw the enemy out and "to give battle under conditions favourable to us". The fleets met on 31 May west of the Jutland Bank, off Denmark, in what Royal Museums Greenwich and the National Archives call the largest naval battle of World War I.1
Jellicoe's despatch and Corbett's official history give Greenwich Mean Time; the Admiralty's translation of Scheer's report notes that its times are German summer time, "two hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time", and Scheer's memoir says the same.2 › Battle of Jutland, 1916
Two ships in half an hour
Beatty reported sighting five German battlecruisers at 3.31 p.m. GMT and wrote that the action began at 3.48, "both forces opening fire practically simultaneously". Scheer's report has Hipper opening fire at 5.49 p.m. German time.3
A few minutes after 4.0 p.m. GMT, Corbett writes, the Indefatigable, in a duel with the Von der Tann, vanished in flame and smoke, and with her went 57 officers and 960 men. Scheer's report has her sunk "By 6.13 p.m." German time. At 4.26 p.m. GMT, by Corbett's account, a salvo struck the Queen Mary and a heavier explosion tore her apart; his figures are 57 officers and 1,209 men killed, and one officer and one man later rescued by German destroyers. Scheer puts that explosion "Towards 6.30 p.m." German time. Jellicoe's telegram No. 995 of 2 June told the Admiralty that the Indefatigable was sunk ten minutes after the action began "by shell exploding in Magazine", and the Queen Mary half an hour later, "probably same cause".4
At 4.33 p.m. GMT by Corbett's timing, the Southampton signaled battleships to the southeast; Beatty reported the enemy battle fleet sighted at 4.42 p.m. GMT and turned north to lead it toward Jellicoe.5
The Invincible
Jellicoe deployed into line as the fleets met; Corbett times the signal at 6.15 p.m. GMT, and Jellicoe says the battle fleets were in action intermittently from 6.17 to 8.20 p.m. GMT. At 6.16 p.m. GMT the armored cruisers Defence and Warrior were seen passing between the two battle fleets under very heavy fire; the Defence disappeared and the Warrior was disabled.6
Rear Admiral Horace Hood's Third Battle Cruiser Squadron was then leading the fleet. According to Corbett, Hood called up to his gunnery officer, "Your firing is very good. Keep at it as quickly as you can. Every shot is telling", moments before German salvoes struck the Invincible and she blew up. Corbett counts six survivors; his casualty table lists 61 officers and 965 men killed.7
Scheer escaped by turning his whole line about together, which Corbett times at 6.35 p.m. GMT, just after the Invincible blew up, and Scheer's report at 8.35 p.m. German time. He turned back east, then away again behind a destroyer attack and smoke; Corbett has Jellicoe turning his fleet away from the torpedoes, the preparatory signal coming at 7.21 p.m. GMT. Of this German move Jellicoe wrote in his letter of 18 June: "There is no real counter".8
A boy at his gun
Beatty's report singles out Boy (1st class) John Travers Cornwell of the Chester, who "was mortally wounded early in the action. He nevertheless remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders till the end of the action, with the gun's crew dead and wounded all round him. His age was under 16½ years".9
Night
"At 9 p.m. the enemy was entirely out of sight," Jellicoe reported, "and the threat of torpedoboat-destroyer attacks during the rapidly approaching darkness made it necessary for me to dispose the fleet for the night". Scheer held on for Horns Reef through attacks by British light forces.10
At night the armored cruiser Black Prince ran into the German line and, Corbett writes, sank with all hands; his table lists 37 officers and 820 men killed. British destroyers torpedoed the old battleship Pommern, which, Scheer's report says, "was torpedoed at 4.20 a.m., and blew up with a tremendous explosion" (German time); Corbett's table lists 71 officers and 769 men killed. The crippled battlecruiser Lützow was abandoned and sunk by a German torpedo. On 1 June Scheer ordered his fleet home, while Jellicoe searched the waters until 1.15 p.m. GMT and then shaped course for his bases.11
The reckoning
Jellicoe reported the loss of 14 ships, eight of them destroyers, and added: "still more do I regret the resultant heavy loss of life". Scheer listed as German losses the Lützow, the Pommern, four light cruisers and five destroyers, and Corbett's list of ships sunk names the same British and German ships; Royal Museums Greenwich counts fourteen British ships sunk and eleven German. In his letter of 18 June Jellicoe called the sinking of the Queen Mary and the Indefatigable a result that "cannot be other than unpalatable", and blamed in part "the indifferent armour protection of our battle-cruisers". A private Navy report, transcribed by the National Archives, concluded that "flame reached the turret magazines causing them to explode".12
Corbett's tables give 328 British officers and 5,769 men killed, and 160 German officers and 2,385 men killed "so far as is known". The National Archives says Britain lost 6,077 men and Germany 2,551; Scheer gave 2,400 German killed and estimated the British dead at over 7,000. Royal Museums Greenwich gives casualties, prisoners included, of 6,945 British and 3,058 German.13
Who won?
Both sides claimed victory, the National Archives notes. Royal Museums Greenwich writes that on losses Germany could claim a tactical victory, but that its fleet retreated and conceded the field: on 1 June 105 undamaged British warships were ready to fight again, against only 40 combat-ready German ones. Rear Admiral W. C. Pakenham wrote in his report of 3 June that the Germans had escaped annihilation, but that "such success is essentially different from victory".14
Scheer told the Kaiser that "even the most favourable issue of a battle on the high seas WILL NOT COMPEL ENGLAND to make peace in THIS war", and urged submarine warfare against British commerce instead. Royal Museums Greenwich concludes that the Royal Navy kept its dominant position at sea and its blockade of Germany, and that the battle sowed the seeds of an intensified U-boat campaign. See also the greatest naval battles.15
The Battle of Cold Harbor
31 May to 12 June 1864 · 162 years ago
The Battle of Cold Harbor (31 May to 12 June 1864) was fought northeast of Richmond, Virginia. Robert E. Lee's entrenched army repulsed Ulysses S. Grant's attacks, above all the dawn assault of 3 June, which cost the Union about 6,000 men in one morning. It was Lee's last major victory in the field.
Read the full story of The Battle of Cold Harbor ›Also on this day
1862: with McClellan's Union army outside Richmond, General Joseph E. Johnston attacked part of it at Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks, Virginia. Johnston was badly wounded: "about sunset", by his 1862 report, "about half-past 7 o'clock" by his 1887 account. General Robert E. Lee took command of the army on 1 June. The Union return of casualties for 31 May and 1 June totals 5,031. Johnston's report of June 1862 gives the Confederate loss as 4,283; his 1887 account gives 6,134, "so far as the reports indicate"; the American Battlefield Trust estimates 5,739 Union and 7,997 Confederate casualties.16
1902: at Vereeniging the delegates of the two Boer republics accepted the British peace terms by 54 votes to 6, and that night their governments signed the treaty at Pretoria with Kitchener and Milner. The official history has them in Kitchener's house at 10.30 p.m. and signing "a few moments later". Kestell, one of the two secretaries present, gives 11.05 p.m.. President Steyn, ill, had already resigned and did not sign.17
