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Updated: June 22, 2025
In current naval literature the maxim is applied to the sea in some such form as this: "The primary object of our battle-fleet is to seek out and destroy that of the enemy." On the surface nothing could look sounder, but what are the conditions which underlie the one and the other?
Beatty's business was now to turn and draw the Germans northwards into Jellicoe's jaws, but the turning in face of the German battle-fleet was a critical manoeuvre. Beatty's battleships were north-west on his starboard quarter, and as his battle-cruisers turned they masked the Queen Elizabeths' fire while exposing themselves to the concentrated attention of the German Fleet.
"Haven't they rather altered their tune since, though?" asked the visitor. "A bit, yes. They don't quite know how to take us nowadays. We come in from patrol and tie up alongside them to give the men the run of the canteen; they ask us to dinner and give cinema shows for the sailors, bless 'em. We're beginning to feel quite the giddy heroes when we find ourselves among the Battle-fleet."
Side by side with this new element in the organisation of a battle-fleet, which perhaps is best designated as a "Light Division," we have another significant fact.
They were still hidden by the mist and apparently unconscious of the Battle-Fleet bearing down upon them like some vast, implacable instrument of doom. The target of their guns suddenly became visible as the Battle-cruisers appeared on the starboard bow, moving rapidly across the limit of vision like a line of grey phantoms spitting fire and destruction as they went.
The correct solution of the dilemma will of course depend upon the conditions of each case mainly upon the relative strength and activity of the hostile battle-fleet and our enemy's probable intentions.
If we seek to make that control effective by devoting to the service a large proportion of cruisers, by so much do we prejudice our chance of getting contact with and defeating the enemy's battle-fleet, which is the only means of perfecting control.
The result on a memorable occasion was the escape of the enemy's battle-fleet, but the further result is equally important. It was that the escape of that fleet did not deprive him of the control which he was charged to maintain. His judgment may have been at fault, but the strategical distribution of his force was consistent throughout the whole period of his Mediterranean command.
The sun had not long set, and its afterglow bathed the bay in pink light. It was a land-locked harbour, and the surface of the water held the reflections of the anchored Battle-fleet mirrored to its smallest detail. So still was the evening that sounds travelled across the water with peculiar acute distinctness.
The curtain ahead was again pierced by a retreating force of Cruisers beaten back on the protection of the Battle-Fleet and ringed by leaping waterspouts as the enemy's salvos pursued them. As yet the enemy were invisible, but when the last ship swung into deployment the mist cleared for a moment and disclosed them amid a cloud of smoke and the furious flashes of guns.
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