German High Seas Fleet Defeated at Jutland

[Ebar]

Point of deviation the night of 31st May 1916. Admiral Scheer fails to slip clear of the Grand Fleet as per OTL instead battle is rejoined at first light on the morning of 1st June.

In the clash that follows the Germans loose the following:
Battlecruisers, 3: Derfflinger, Von der Tann and Seydlitz.
Dreadnought Battleships, 2: König, Hannover and Grosser Kurfürst
Pre Dreadnought Battleships, 2: Deutschland and Hessen

Before the both sides are forced to break off the engagement due to ammunition depletion. The British also loose the Battlecruiser Lion along with Vice-Admiral Beatty to a magazine explosion and the Battleship Agincourt to a torpedo strike.

Combined with the OTL losses final losses for Battle of Jutland
British: Battleships 1, Battlecruisers 4
German: Battleships 3, Battlecruisers 4, Pre-Dreadnoughts 3.
Along with serious damage to a significant number of the surviving units.

What will the long term effects be on the course of WW1 now that Germany has lost a significant proportion of her surface fleet?

 

[Prunesquallor]

But surely (although this is not an area I know much about) the Germans did suffer a strategic defeat at Jutland? They came out, inflicted some damage, went back in, and never came out again. I can't see it making any difference (except, perhaps to morale), if they did suffer heavy losses.

 

[Ebar]

The no coming out again is a myth, they did at least once and the so called "Death Ride" that sparked the 1918 mutiny was actually a well thought out plan.

 

[Prunesquallor]

But to all intents they never did come out in any real force. A couple of minor incidents in 1917 and that's it. And if that's all they can manage with the bulk of their fleet intact, what difference is it going to make if they suffer heavier losses at Jutland?

 

[Redbeard]

The High Seas Fleet did sortie now and then after Jutland, but only as long as the Grand Fleet didn'ts see and intervene. In that context the British had the North Sea in tight control all through the war, and Jutland only confirmed that.

The Germans also having the greatest materiel losses at Jutland will not change this, but might be an important moral blow to the Germans. OTL Jutland (or Skagerak, as the Germans called it) was used in German warpropaganda as a great victory and I believe of great symbolic importance, as they felt they had beaten the British on British home ground. The absence of such a symbolic victory is difficult to estimate, but I don't think effects will be immediate, Germany's destiny after all was tied to the Army. But perhaps the battlefleet will be dismissed and the personel handed over to the Army? I guess that battleships alone could man a couple of Divisions - what about a fanatsy about such a couple of Divisions being the drop that has the cup flow over at Verdun in 1917?

In UK a decisive victory at Jutland will have Jellicoe be celebrated as the Nelson of the 20th century. I guess he will be the natural choice for leading the RN well into the 1920's In OTL his main rival Beatty was 1st Sea Lord in the early 20's, but actually proved (IMHO) a much better 1st SL than commander of the battlecruiser squadron (as at Jutland).

If the HSF is done with as a capable factor already by 1916 the USN probably never will have the chance to operate with the GF. That will leave the USN with a great handicap, not at least in gunnery. A greater British confidence in the battlefleet as an instrument with which to achieve decisive victories might also have them be less willing to conclude limitation like those of the Washington Treaty. I would not exclude a US-British conflict by early 20's (but not likely). Without the GF experience the USN will be massacred.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

 

[Ebar]

But to all intents they never did come out in any real force. A couple of minor incidents in 1917 and that's it. And if that's all they can manage with the bulk of their fleet intact, what difference is it going to make if they suffer heavier losses at Jutland?

Possibilities that spring to mind are:

for the Germans:
Earlier switch to unrestricted U Boat campaign.
Abandonment of the concept of the surface fleet thousands of navy personnel released to other roles.
With the lost of best means of knocking Britain out of the war seek a negotiated settlement ( not that likely )
Decide they have nothing to loose and use the remaining fleet really aggressively.


for the British
Buoyed up by victory fail to learn why their ships blow up so easily.
Redeployment of major fleet assets perhaps to the Med to have a crack at Austro Hungarian empire or the Ottoman empire.

This is just the stuff that springs most immediately to mind.

 

[Tom_B]

Not Likely but a Possibility

As redbeard pointed out the Germans regarded Jutland as victory. The Kaiser was exuberant and wanted to called it the Glorious 1st of June. The Kaiser had a great emotional attachment to the navy esp. the BB. Now if the HSF suffers a clear defeat then there is a Kaiserschock. A possibility (I am not presenting it as a probable outcome) is that it causes Wilhelm's melancholia to dominate and he joins forces with the elements of the Reichstag looking for a something like an ante bellum peace when Wilson asks for each sides' peace terms at the end of 1916.

No the real question is whether this opens the door for a negotiated resolution in early 1917.

Tom

 

[Max Sinister]

I don't think there will be a great difference, unless the Allies have the idea to use their complete naval superiority for a landing in Northern Germany (with Danish help, maybe)

 

[czarist]

the grand fleet couldve wiped the floor with any navy in the world, in fact w/ 2 or 3 navies at once

so this is realistic

however, pointless. the only difference is germany wouldve "officially" seded the water to GB and focused solely on land, which is actually irrelevant.

the kaiser may've been unstable but he wasnt going to cry a river over this and abdicate or ask for peace or anything. his technocrat underlings and army high command (the real wielders of power) would never let him because they wouldn't give a fuck.

 

[JLCook]

Without the GF experience the USN will be massacred

The High Seas Fleet did sortie now and then after Jutland, but only as long as the Grand Fleet didn'ts see and intervene. In that context the British had the North Sea in tight control all through the war, and Jutland only confirmed that.

The Germans also having the greatest materiel losses at Jutland will not change this, but might be an important moral blow to the Germans. OTL Jutland (or Skagerak, as the Germans called it) was used in German warpropaganda as a great victory and I believe of great symbolic importance, as they felt they had beaten the British on British home ground. The absence of such a symbolic victory is difficult to estimate, but I don't think effects will be immediate, Germany's destiny after all was tied to the Army. But perhaps the battlefleet will be dismissed and the personel handed over to the Army? I guess that battleships alone could man a couple of Divisions - what about a fanatsy about such a couple of Divisions being the drop that has the cup flow over at Verdun in 1917?

In UK a decisive victory at Jutland will have Jellicoe be celebrated as the Nelson of the 20th century. I guess he will be the natural choice for leading the RN well into the 1920's In OTL his main rival Beatty was 1st Sea Lord in the early 20's, but actually proved (IMHO) a much better 1st SL than commander of the battlecruiser squadron (as at Jutland).

If the HSF is done with as a capable factor already by 1916 the USN probably never will have the chance to operate with the GF. That will leave the USN with a great handicap, not at least in gunnery. A greater British confidence in the battlefleet as an instrument with which to achieve decisive victories might also have them be less willing to conclude limitation like those of the Washington Treaty. I would not exclude a US-British conflict by early 20's (but not likely). Without the GF experience the USN will be massacred.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

Do you mean perhaps like the way WWII began for the USN??

I would suggest, that IF there were to be a 1920's-ish War between the US and the UK, even supposing that the RN does massacre the USN, what of it? Name someone else who could replace those losses, probably within 2-3 years, and wind up facing down their opponent with a larger, better equipped, more powerful fleet?

Suppose all of those 14" gunned "Standards" are destroyed. Their replacements will start off by being 43,500 ton SOUTH DAKOTAs with 12x16" guns, and the follow-ons to those ships will have most likely 18" guns.

Against 18" gunned, 60,000 ton "Hyper-Dreadnaughts", the victorious and triumphant British ships with their 13.5" and 15" gunned majority of vessels are going to start hurting, and while there WERE British G3 and N3 designs, do you think that the UK can both afford and actually build enough of them to ultimately matter?

I don't!

If there IS a US vs UK war in the mid 1920's, what happens in Canada, and with as many miles of US coastline, on both coasts, HOW is the RN going to protect it's merchant shipping? With that in mind, what kind of sea-legs would the major combattant ships of the RN have? All of the ones I know about arn't all that long of ranged!

 

[zoomar]

My first inclination was to think, not much.

However, the real effect may be in how Germany perceives the war in the 1920's and 1930's. As others have said, German propaganda generally treated Jutland as a victory - and looking just at comparative losses this could be born out in the facts. Had the HSF been thrashed, it might make claims that Germany was winning the war before it was backstabbed by Jews and Socialists somewhat less widely accepted. Perhaps no Hitler.

It might also have had some effect (in what direction I know not) on the mutinies in 1918. Would a navy which knew it got creamed when it last went out be more, or less, likely to mutiny from inaction and Red agitatoin

I don't see how this would have anything to do with US/UK relationhsips. By the end of WW1, the rise of the Japanese navy was on the USN's mind and Britain was cooling to Japan as well. If, as suggested, the Washington Treaty did not occur the UK and Japan, not the USA would be hurt in the long run.

 

[zoomar]

Oh, and a new column would be built next to Nelson's with Jellicoe on top and the square would be renamed Victory Square. Iron Duke would be a museum ship at Portsmouth.

 

[Redbeard]

Hi JLCook

If you have a problem with someone hinting that USA actually could loose a war in the 20th century, then you better look away now, because it is going to get much worse!

Before WWI the USN as a fighting force was significantly inferior to the RN, not only in quantity, but also in quality. For instance US turbine machinery was even more unreliable than triple expansion, leading to that kind of machinery being used as late as in Oklahoma. Most serious were the defects in gunnery, where the USN found out - the good way - that their gunnery and fire control techniques were greatly inferior to the RN. If you are in doubt please look in any substantial US source on the 5th BS stay with the GF - and you will see my story confirmed.

The USN certainly learned a lot from the RN in those years, but remained technically inferior well into the 30's. First heavy USN guns had serious dispersion problems - especially the 12"ers and the 14"/50. The USN itself stated, that a 14"/50 ship (the newest by end of WWI) would only hit half as often as the other BB's of the USN, and they were at best mediocre compared to the RN 13,5" and 15" (which were exceptionally accurate and reliable). On top of that the USN didn't get a reliable heavy AP shell until the late 30's - the RN got theirs in 1917/18.

By 1922 the USN was also numerically inferior to the RN, and post WWI building programmes would not change that or give any technical lead. The Lexington BC's could best be labeled as thin skinned disasters waiting to happen, and the huge SoDak class ships were at least one generation behind the newest British designs (G3 16â€/N3 18â€). Add to that a very unbalanced composition of the USN (a good CL wasn’t produced until shortly before WWII, and early USN DD’s were lousy) and naval aviation still being something only the British really could practice.

USA sure would have a tremendous economical potential to keep building ships, but post WWI they would still be midgets compared to the British shipbuilders.

If this scenario still has the US Army expanded like in OTL WWI I could well imagine USA invading Canada, but the US effort to control that huge area will be greater than the loss in warpotential for the British Empire. And anywhere the RN can go, US interests will be unsafe, incl. the Caribbean (I could vene imagine the British keeping a bridgehead in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia). Next the Japanese in a pre Washington Treaty scenario will be happy to play the game in the Pacific. If there is no expanded US Army Washington DC will be in danger of seeing the Union Jack flying over the White House.

Then there is the question of UK’s potential for waging war. Often the totally exhausted situation of the British in 1945 is projected to the post WWI time, but nothing could be more wrong. There certainly was a great wish to take home the peace dividend (substantial tax reductions and social reforms) – now that there appeared no immediate dangers to the Empire. Already this makes it unlikely that the British will fire the first shot, but I could imagine them fighting back furiously if challenged on the Empire. Defending the Empire was the red thread of all British policies for two centuries.

I could imagine PoD’s where the always underlying anti-British forces of US society have a greater say, especially if combined with a relatively quick British victory in WWI, suddenly making the Empire appear more a threat. So we have a USA basically repeating the German feat of early 20th century of combining flaming talk with a substantial naval programme. You could imagine spin creating the political legitemacy to enter such a war, but I frankly can’t see how it can be maintained in USA for a prolonged war. There is no “day of infamy†(performed by a different race) to keep the fire hot, but only some vague goals of fighting the British Empire – and really no means to do that outside the American continents. The British on the other hand will be in the scenario they have materially and mentally prepared for – defending the Empire (don’t overlook the global base network of the British). The usual great endurances of USN ships was out of necessity due to the great distances in the Pacific and the absence of a base network similar to the British. USN ships in fully laden condition would have marginal stability and surplus buoyancy and I would hate to meet any opposition while just leaving port.

Unless all parts very quickly come to their senses I predict a total political crisis in USA with general confidence in the leadership being lost. Communist riots followed by fascist coup... By early 21st century USA will remind us of OTL present day Brasil or Argentina.

One interesting factor is where all the immigrants now cut off from going to N.America will go. AFAIK the largest immigration to USA was in the interwar years, but they’ll have to go elsewhere now. Could be Argentina and/or Australia. Perhaps the planet would just with anxiety have watched the Argentinian presidential election. BTW I liked the outcome of the OTL Presidential election we all have just watched, and I also think the initiative to call in the Washington conference in 1922 was very wise – the British and Americans very sensibly concluding to stop their naval rivalry before something went terribly wrong very much is the base for everything we take for granted now.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

 

[Redbeard]

As redbeard pointed out the Germans regarded Jutland as victory. The Kaiser was exuberant and wanted to called it the Glorious 1st of June. The Kaiser had a great emotional attachment to the navy esp. the BB. Now if the HSF suffers a clear defeat then there is a Kaiserschock. A possibility (I am not presenting it as a probable outcome) is that it causes Wilhelm's melancholia to dominate and he joins forces with the elements of the Reichstag looking for a something like an ante bellum peace when Wilson asks for each sides' peace terms at the end of 1916.

No the real question is whether this opens the door for a negotiated resolution in early 1917.

Tom

You have some good points, I could imagine the Kaiser mentally collapsing and Wilson getting the role he hoped for. The question is, if a negotiated solution (draw) can keep the involved governments stable? Will it upon the carnage of 1914-17 just to say: "Well folks, take a brake - the Imperialist War is temporaily over, but we'll resume it as soon as we've regained out breath..." and still stay in power. I could imagine communist agitors having the chance of their lifetime. Russia is probbaly gone anyway, but all continental powers will IMO be in serious danger (the British are really to masochistically happy with their classes to ever really rebel).

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

 

[wkwillis]

Point of deviation the night of 31st May 1916. Admiral Scheer fails to slip clear of the Grand Fleet as per OTL instead battle is rejoined at first light on the morning of 1st June.

In the clash that follows the Germans loose the following:
Battlecruisers, 3: Derfflinger, Von der Tann and Seydlitz.
Dreadnought Battleships, 2: König, Hannover and Grosser Kurfürst
Pre Dreadnought Battleships, 2: Deutschland and Hessen

Before the both sides are forced to break off the engagement due to ammunition depletion. The British also loose the Battlecruiser Lion along with Vice-Admiral Beatty to a magazine explosion and the Battleship Agincourt to a torpedo strike.

Combined with the OTL losses final losses for Battle of Jutland
British: Battleships 1, Battlecruisers 4
German: Battleships 3, Battlecruisers 4, Pre-Dreadnoughts 3.
Along with serious damage to a significant number of the surviving units.

What will the long term effects be on the course of WW1 now that Germany has lost a significant proportion of her surface fleet?

That is not a conclusive battle.
For Germany the point was to make sure that their fleet was always larger than half the enemy fleet. This was so that the Germans could use the Kiel canal to force the British to only use half their fleet at a time, so that they could not escort convoys to the Russian front, bombard the German lines where they were close to Germany, transport Russian armies along the German shore, or bombard the German cities.
They accomplished all of their goals during the war.
They also cut the British supply lines in half using submarines both by sinking ships and by forcing convoy to reduce their efficiency.
From the German point of view the Battle fleet was now dispensable. The huge number of fighters and bombers and subs made all the potential British threats untenable. The British would not dare take Russian troopships into sub infested waters, let alone try to land them against air attack (without landing boats!) from German planes. They could not bombard German cities without being counter bombed by German planes. They could not escort convoys with sub attacks all the way up the Baltic with aircraft spotting. The whole prewar purpose of Baltic control was rendered surplus to requirements by the Luftwaffe.
Sure, the British navy could have postJutland bombarded on moonless nights with some safety from the Luftwaffe...but in even more danger from the subs, patrol torpedo boats, etc.

 

[Bill Cameron]

I agree with most of the posters here; let the GF sink a few more HSF vessels and nothing really changes. In the OTL, the Germans won a tactical victory of sorts but the strategic picture never changed. Besides, the tactical victory they won was 'Getting away mostly safe from under the guns of a larger fleet'. Nothing to really brag about there. "Phew, we got away..."

Sure, Kaiser Bill and a few other spin doctors thought the entire affair was a great German victory. Scheer, Hipper, their officers, and their crews knew better however. Upon returning to Scapa, Jellicoe wired the Admiralty that the GF would be ready to sortie again in 48 hours. Hipper told his superiors it would be months before the HSF could sortie in full strength again. One author described the entire Jutland episode as the HSF breaking out of jail, punching their GF jailer in the eye, and then being returned to their cell. That pretty much sums it up.

A 'no doubt about it' HSF defeat; one that even Kasier Bill and his fellow loonies couldn't conflate into a German 'victory', may strengthen the hand of the Unrestricted Submarine Warfare lobby. That, in turn, may actually help the Germans. The Germans would begin such operations sooner, support them more fully, and see a much greater effect. By starting earlier, they may have even been able to 'starve out' Britain before the US involved itself.

Why do I believe that to be probable? Two reasons; first, why the US really went to war, and second, the British Admiralty.

Busting a myth here, unrestricted submarine warfare did not bring the US in on the side of the Allies. To be sure, it did lay the groundwork but Wilson did relatively little in the way of preparing the US for war during any of the various sinking crisis; i.e. Lusitania, Arabic, Laconia, etc. He realized that the Midwest and West viewed those sinkings much differently than the East did.

What actually drove the US to war was the Zimmerman Telegram. The prospect of an Imperial Geman-Mexico-Japan alliance (however silly) brought home the idea of war to the relatively isolated Midwest and West. Suddenly, they began to take notice of everything else. IMHO, the Germans could have gone on sinking merchant ships with Americans aboard without the slightest fear of US intervention as only one section of the US; the Eastern Seaboard, viewed such actions with alarm.

The British Admiralty during most of WW1 was... well, dysfunctional is a kind word for it. Despite having numerical superiority, despite reading their enemy's message traffic, and despite having total freedom of the seas while their enemy remained bottled up in harbor, the RN did bugger all during most of the war. There are a lot of reasons for this and most of them can be laid at the feet of institutional inertia. Simply put, neither the system or the men in it were up to the task at hand.

Churchill brought back Fisher early in the war and was repaid by watching Fisher sink quickly into senile dementia under the strain. By the time of the Lusitania affair, Fisher's trolley was nearly completely off the tracks and it could no longer be ignored thaks to his messages to Asquith. Besides saddling the organization with a senile Fisher, Churchill was also a micromanager who routinely involved himself in the most trivial of tasks. This stifled the initiative of those staffers who should have been handling the work in the first place. Churchill wasn't alone in this sin. VADM Henry Oliver, the chief of the Naval War Staff, was a notorious micromanager too. The amount of work, trivial and substantive, that needed to cross his desk prior to it being acted upon was beggars disbelief. Like Churchill, Oliver's work habits stifled the initiative of his underlings and had far reaching consequences(1).

The Admiralty as a whole was slow to act, slow to respond, and slow to show any kind initiative. In 1917 and in the face of a growing submarine threat, convoying even had to be rammed down their collective throats by the politicians. An earlier German push may have had more time to work before the Admiralty was prodded into taking action. Especially if the Admiralty had a 'no doubt about it' victory at Jutland to point to.

So, IMHO, a Jutland deeat could plausibly help the Germans.


Bill

1 - One example of this occurred during the Dogger Bank battle. Beatty; who wasn't very good himself, made a snap decision regarding a reported periscope sighting that allowed the German's to escape. Oliver, thanks to Blinker Hall and the Room 40 code breakers, knew there wasn't a German sub within 50 miles of the action but had failed to pass that information along the Beatty. No one else on the Naval War Staff even thought of telling Beatty either because that was something only VADM Oliver could do.

2 - BTW, the HSF did sortie after Jutland. Many times as a matter of fact, but just not that far north. One such sortie occurred in 1918 while the USN squadron attached to the GF was taking it's turn covering the Scandinvian convoy. A few hours steaming could have seen a HSF-USN battle and one that the USN would not have enjoyed.

 

[Derek Jackson]

As I understand it a part of the cause of the naval mutiny in 1918 was a belief that the HSF would be sent out in the hope that they would defeat the Grand fleet and maybe change things. Sailors thought this was suicide and were probably right.

If the HSF were smaller after an awful such an attempt might be less likely. That might prevent the mutiny. It would NOT prevent German collapse

BUT

Might it make it clearer to ordinary Germans that they had lost the war and make it harder for Hitler to promote the "Stab in the back" myth?

 

[Prunesquallor]

Actually I've always thought of the HSF as the "Afrika Corps" of WWI. It made for nice reading and a touch of glamour, but everybody regarded it, in the end, as a minor detail. In WWII, it was the Eastern Front that mattered to the average German, in WWI the war in the trenches.