JUTLAND BATTLE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19156, 12 November 1927, Page 12

JUTLAND BATTLE.

■ —■» GERMAN ADMIRAL'S VIEWS. RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED ON BRITISH COMMANDER. (raoM otra owk correspondent.) Admiral Reinhard Scheer, who led the German Fleet at .the Battle of . Jutland,, gives in the current number • of the "Fortnightly Review" his version of the battle and its results.' After expressing disappointment "t the barrenness of the Harper Record, Admiral Scheer continues: — Admiral Beatty has been reproached for plunging too sharply into action, as soon as Tie came in sight of the German cruisers, without having taken the'precaution of having his supporting squadron—the sth Battle Squadron—closer at hand. It appears to me that this censure is unjustified. We shall come closer to "the trutli about Jutland'- if we drop the myth about the German desire to "escape,"' as well as all this raking forth of unessential faults and errors of the British leadership in this battle. One ought rather to seek it in the dilemma in which Admiral Jellicoe found himself in view of his general strategic task and the orders under which he . stood. Strategic Limitations. The British Admiralty had adopted the strategic offensive, inasmuch as it hoped to achieve.its goal by the.operation of the principle of "the fleet in being. . . ." To the strategic limitations imposed upon Admiral Jellicoe must be added the tactical helplessness of his longdrawn line of battle. But from the very moment that he had the possibil-. ity.of annihilating the German Fleet by his preponderance of ships (45 against 27 major units), his adherence to the strategic leitmotif of avoiding losses in ships became a fallacy. An abiding faith in the best traditions of the British Navy, the tradition of conquering nil enemy in open and chivalrous battle rather than by the chicanery of politicians, ought,' one might think, to have brought forjth the resolution to convert this encounter at Jutland into another glorious first "f June. - - Instead of this, England was obliged to incur the great danger of the Üboat warfare, from the consequences of which she was only released by the intervention of America. And it was America that harvested the success of the naval battle of Mav 31st, 1916. That is the truth about Jutland.