The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1926. JUTLAND AND AFTER.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 August 1926, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1926. JUTLAND AND AFTER.

It is over ten years since the battle of Jutland, and phases of the great event are being diesussed still from various standpoints. The measure ot victory may lie gnaged from more points than one. Ketlecting on the titanic struggle at sea on May 31st., 1910, a naval writer considers that Jutland and its after effects were responsible for that material help which caused a break down in the German programme affecting the submarine warfare. The maximum intenitsy of the U-boat warfare on allied shipping was just a year after Jutland. That it was not more intense and a greater factor in ending the war for the benefit of Germany is, in the

opinion ol tlic naval writer, iargei.> due to the effects of Jutland. Germany lost loss ships than Britain, but she had manv capital ships damaged by the British fire, and the damaged ships were able to return to German ports where they had to he repaired. The repairs were hastened, and the haste necessary called for a cessation in submarine building, and that dislocation was the saving factor. At the crisis in 1017 when Germany made its greatest submarine effort, there were fift.v snltnmri 110 s short to acc-omnlisll

the plans which had been prepared in advance to circle the United Kingdom, and destroy maritime connection. Yet events as known now show that Germany very nearly succeeded with the 1917 plans, and had the extra boats been available, the story of the aftermath of the war would have been a very different one. But the time and energy required to repair the capital ships pounded at Jutland, held up the

building of the U-boats, so that there was more effect derived by laming the capital ships in the battle than in sinking them. The naval writer quoted, thus sums up the position of the naval situation as it developed through the war. The dislocation of the German submarine building plans commenced in 1916, and that derangement was due to two causes. Firstly, the urgency of post-Jutland repairs to battle-line units which diverted labour and materials from the normal output of underwater craft. Secondly, the decision to build huge submarines of a

new and experimental type further intensified the congestion created by the delays ensuing from “Jutland damages’’ question. Not to put too fine a point upon it, it was Jutland that just about saved our bacon. Those salvoes fired by the Grand Fleet and battle-cruiser squadrons on the misty afternoon and evening of May 31st., 191 (3. seemed to us, ten years ago. to be almost futile, buoyed up. as wo then were, by hopes of a new Trafalgar. But

were not those salvoes, .after all, our salvation ? It was not only the German battleships and battle-cruisers they hit; they damaged and crippled the whole German plan' for the output of com-merce-destroyim; submarines. Every shot that went home meant that, when the crisis of the naval war came, ten

months later. 10.000 tons of British shipping should stay afloat, and not be sunk. On these 1 grounds, therefore, the Fleet engagement of May 31st., 1916, was not an indecisive encounter between the hostile battle fleets. It was the decisive moment of the whole war at sea. It- did not, as many people imagine, break the morale of the German Fleet. Subsequent to Jutland, the High Seas Fleet made several sorties far into the North Sea. But it meant for us just that difference between success and defeat. In 1917

Germany made yher "Teat U-boat gamble; she came within ail ace of success. But she fr lied, and among other causes why she failed, we must not omit to include the influence of the Battle of Jutland.