Battle area showing the positions of the British Grand Fleet and German High Seas Fleet at 14.00 hours on 31st May 1916.

Jutland Peninsula

An attempt to remove the blockade strangling Germany

16 battleships5 battle cruisers

6 pre-dreadnoughts11 light cruisers

61 torpedo-boats

28 battleships9 battlecruisers8 armored cruisers26 light cruisers78 destroyers1 minelayer 1 sea plane carrier

Battle of Jutland- The victory of the war hung in the balanceVS

Pre-dreadnought battleship 1908

HMS Dreadnought (1911)

SMS Rheinland, German Dreadnought

Tirpitz believed Germany’s future dominant role in the world depended on a navy powerful enough to challenge Britain

Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz

•Beatty sights Hipper's leading battlecruisers.

•Hipper turns towards the South East, hoping to lure Beatty in the direction of Scheer's main battle fleet

•. At this point, Scheer and Hipper must have thought that their plan of detaching Beatty from the British Grand Fleet was working.

HMS Queen Mary- sunkAll but twenty-one of her 1,266 crew were lost

Crew of 1,019 officers and men, leaving only two survivors

Crossing the T

• By 18:30 the main battle fleet action was joined for the first time, with Jellicoe effectively "crossing Scheer's T".

• The officers on the lead German battleships, and Scheer himself, were taken completely by surprise when they emerged from drifting clouds of smoke & mist to suddenly find themselves facing the massed firepower of the entire Grand Fleet main battle line, which they did not know was even at sea.

                               

                                

        

                      

                  

British Grand Fleet

0 0

0 1

3 1

3 0

0 4

8 5

6,097 2,551

510 507

Losses

German High Seas

Fleet

Dreadnoughts

Pre-DreadnoughtsBattlecruisers

Armoured Cruisers

Light Cruisers

Destroyers

Personnel - killed

Personnel - wounded

“Admiral Jellicoe is the only commander on either side capable of losing the war in a single afternoon." Winston ChurchillFirst Sea Lord

Destruction of the German High Seas Fleet would not harm Germany’s war effort in the slightest, whilst defeat – unlikely, but possible - would cause Britain to lose the war.

"Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that even the most successful outcome of a further battle will not force England to make peace." Admiral Reinhard Scheer

Confidential report on the Battle of Jutland to the Kaiser, 4th July 1916.

The German High Seas Fleet remained in port for the rest of the war

"The German Fleet has assaulted its jailor, but it is still in jail.“

American newspaper