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Updated: June 5, 2025
In Germany the complaint was that the ruse had not worked, and not long afterward Admiral von Ingenohl was replaced as commander of the High Sea Fleet by Admiral von Pohl. None of the blame for the failure was laid at the door of the officer who had actually been engaged in the fighting Admiral Hipper which showed that his senior officers had considered the engagement as part of a larger action.
He went out to the back of the house, and returned with a dry white bullock-hide, as rigid as a sheet of iron. This he threw down at Carew's feet. "Here y'are, Mister; put that under you for a hipper, and you'll be all right."
The shift of course taken by Beatty at four o'clock, accompanied possibly by a corresponding shift of Hipper, opened the range so far in a few minutes that fire slackened on both sides. Beatty then swung to port in order to close to effective range. At 4.15 twelve of his destroyers, acting on the general order to attack when conditions were favorable, dashed out toward the German line.
Almost at the same instant the German battle cruiser Lützow, Hipper's flagship, was so badly disabled by shells and torpedo that she fell out of line helpless. Hipper managed, however, to board a destroyer and two hours later succeeded in shifting his flag to the Moltke. From Jane, Fighting Ships, 1919 Normal displacement, 25,800 tons. Beam, 96-3/4 feet. Mean draught, 27-1/4 feet.
Beatty immediately swung off to the southeast in the hope of getting between the German squadron and its base; but the German commander, Vice Admiral von Hipper, changed course correspondingly, and the two squadrons continued on courses nearly parallel but somewhat converging until, at about 3.45 p. m., fire was opened on both sides, the range at that time being approximately nine miles.
In turning south, when Beatty's force was sighted, Von Hipper was right from every point of view, for he was closing with Von Scheer while drawing Beatty away from Jellicoe. He was equally sound a little later when he turned north, for he did not turn until he had been joined by Von Scheer.
Had he been able to do this he would have secured the tactical advantage which is the object of all maneuvering in a naval engagement, and would at the same time have compelled Von Hipper to run to the northward toward the point from which Jellicoe was known to be approaching at the highest speed of his dreadnoughts. Seeing himself thus outmatched, Beatty made a quick change of plan.
The Germans, however, were encouraged by their success to repeat the attempt once too often, and on 24 January 1915 a more ambitious effort was made by Admiral Hipper to emulate these raids, or perhaps rather to lure the British on to mine-fields north of Heligoland which he extended before he set out.
The smoke of the German ships was made out at a distance which must have been close to twenty miles, and the range-finding as Beatty and Von Hipper closed must have been almost perfect, as is proved by the promptness with which the Germans began making hits on the Queen Mary and the Indefatigable. But this did not continue long.
But when Beatty finally turned north, both Von Hipper and Von Scheer followed readily enough, although they must have known pretty accurately what lay ahead of them. Beatty's error, then, if error it was, seems to have been not so much in judging the tactical situation as in judging the spirit of his opponent.
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