In the spring of 1916 the U-Boat offensive against merchant shipping was restricted to prize rules, giving Scheer, the German C-in-C, more submarines than usual to use against warships. He decided to station them off the major British naval basses and then entice the Grand Fleet out of harbour and over the waiting U-Boats.
Initially Scheer planned to raid Sunderland to draw out the Grand Fleet, but this relied on Zeppelin scouting and the weather ruled this out, so an alternative plan was used. He planned to send the battle cruisers, under by Hipper, to the Skagerrak (the sea between southern Norway and Denmark), threatening British patrols and merchant ships in the area. On the morning of 31 May the High Seas Fleet made for sea.
Both fleets sailed in similar formation, with a scouting squadron of battle cruisers sailing ahead of the main battle fleets. The battle falls into five main phases. The first came when Admiral Beatty, commanding the British battle cruisers encountered their weaker German equivalent under Admiral Hipper, (31 May) and chased them south towards the main German fleet.
The second phase saw Beatty flee north, pursued by the German Dreadnoughts. So far, both sides thought the battle was going tom plan, although a design flaw led to the destruction of two British battle cruisers. Now, in the third phase the Germans got a nasty surprise. Thinking themselves involved in a chase that would end with the destruction of the British battle cruisers, they found themselves under bombardment from Jellicoe’s battle fleet, which they had thought to be too far north to intervene.
The heavy British guns quickly forced Scheer to order a retreat, but then Scheer made what could have turned into a grievous error, turning back , possibly hoping to pass behind Jellico, and escape into the Baltic.
However, Jellicoe had slowed done, and the German fleet found themselves crossing in front of the British fleet, and in ten minutes of gunfire suffered twenty seven heavy hits while only inflicting two. Once again, Scheer ordered a retreat.
Finally, in the last phase of the battle, in a night of intense fighting, the retreat of the German battleships was covered by their lighter ships, while Jellicoe lost time after turning to avoid a potential torpedo attack.
The Germans lost one battle cruiser, one pre-Dreadnought, four light cruisers and five destroyers, while the British lost three battle cruisers, four armoured cruisers, a and eight destroyers. However, many of the surviving German heavy ships had suffered serious damage, and one result of the battle was to increase the British dominance in heavy ships.
Jutland was the last and largest of the great battleship battles. Neither submarines or aircraft played and part in the battle, despite the plans of both sides. Never again did battle fleets meet again in such numbers. While the Royal Navy suffered more losses, the battle effectively needed any threat from the High Seas Fleet, which now knew it could not contest control of the North Sea with the Royal Navy.
There was no way Germany could possibly deal with British naval strength on an even bases on the surface, and the only possible way Germany could impose a blockade on Britain was through the U-Boat. The German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, felt that such a submarine blockade, based on ;shoot without warning’. Would antagonise the United States and other neutrals. However, he was unable to hold back the pressures for taking such a step.
On 4th February 1915 Kaiser Wilhelm II declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone. Effective 18 February, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without waning. British ships hiding behind neutral flags would not be spared, though some effort would be made to avoid sinking clearly neutral vessels.
The German U-Boat force was now primarily based at Ostend in Belgium, giving it better access to the sea lanes around England. The Germans made use of this advantage, sending out about b20 U-Boats to begin the naval blockade. In January before the declaration of ‘unrestricted submarine warfare’ as the submarine blockade was called, 43,550 tonnes (47900 tons) of shipping had been sunk by U-Boats. The number of sinking then steadily increased, with 168200 tonnes (185000 tons) sunk in August.
Loss of warships were small. Although the cruiser FORMIDABLE had been sunk by the U-24 on New Year’s Day, the times of U-Boats sneaking up to British warships on the open sea whose captains were idly daydreaming were over, and the fast destroyer screens protecting battle fleets made successful attacks on battleships and cruisers a thing of the past. However, there was little a Royal Navy warship could do to sink the U-Boat if the submarine’s captain was reasonably alert. The U-Boat was generally safe from shelling once it had submerged. It could be rammed if it were at periscope depth, but ramming was hardly a reasonable tactic as a standard practice.
Militarily, unrestricted submarine warfare was proving a great success, and the U-Boats stood a good chance of starving Britain into surrender. However, in terms of the propaganda war, it was a great disasters for Germany. America wanted to stay out of the European war, but lurid stories of the ‘Rape of Belgium’ early in the conflict had turned American public opinion against Germany, and unrestricted submarine warfare seemed to confirm the reputation of brutality and ruthlessness. The death of American citizens travelling on British vessels torpedoed by U-Boats began to make headlines in the U.S.
