The Year 1915 Illustrated/Naval Battle in the North Sea

HE naval battle in the North Sea on Sunday, January 24th, was the first engagement in the war in which capital ships met to try conclusions. A German squadron was on its way out from Cuxhaven, probably to make another raid on the English coast. It consisted of the Dreadnought battle-cruisers, the Derffinger, Seydlitz, the Moltke, and a pre-Dreadnought cruiser, the Blücher, with six smaller cruisers and destroyers. Finding their course barred by an English squadron of superior strength, the Germans attempted a retreat. But Admiral Beatty, who had with him five of our best battle-cruisers, the Lion, Tiger, Indomitable, Princess Royal and New Zealand, was not prepared to let his foe go free. A stern chase therefore followed, the British vessels gradually overhauling the Germans. A speed of twenty-eight and twenty-nine knots was attained and firing began at a range of just over ten miles. The Lion and Tiger bore the brunt of the fighting for some time, concentrating their fire on the Blücher, which was so crippled as to be put out of action, and was finally sunk by a torpedo from a destroyer, losing all but 123 of her crew of 885. Her crew lined up and cheered before she went down, and the English vessels made a great effort to rescue as many of the survivors as possible.



The Lion, at the most critical period of the fight, was struck in the bows by an enemy's shell, with the result that her port engine was stopped. This mishap, and the presence of a number of German submarines, decided Admiral Beatty to break off the action. When last seen, two other of the German battle-cruisers were on fire and heavily damaged, and the prisoners taken reported that the scout cruiser Kolberg was also sunk. The accuracy of this latter statement was denied by the official German version of the battle. The Lion was eventually towed into port, the actual damage proving slight and easily reparable. During the engagement an attack by German aircraft was successfully repulsed, no damage whatever being done to the English ships. Thus ended the second real engagement between the two great rival fleets in home waters. In both cases the predominating power of the British Navy was attested to the loss of the Germans.

In a general review of the situation on February 15th, Mr. Winston Churchill told the House of Commons something of what the Navy had accomplished during the war. He mentioned that during the preceding three months on the average about 8,000 British vessels had been continuously passing to and fro on the high seas. Only nineteen vessels had been sunk by the enemy, and only four of that number by above-water craft, whereas during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, which began in 1793 and ended in 1814, 10,871 British merchant vessels were captured or sunk by the enemy. Dealing with a charge against the Admiralty of incapacity, Mr. Churchill referred to the work of the Admiralty Transport Department, and reminded his hearers that since the outbreak of war one million men had been moved across the seas without accident or loss of life. He continued:


 * The victory at the Falkland Islands was a memorable event, the advantage of which will only be fully appreciated by those who have full knowledge of all that has taken place. The combat off the Dogger Bank, in which the Blücher was sunk and the enemy made his escape into waters infested by his submarines and mines, is of the greatest advantage, because of the light it throws upon the rival systems of design and relative armaments and gunnery efficiency. This is the first test we have ever had, and it is most encouraging. It vindicates, as far as it goes, our theories, of design, and particularly our big gun armament, always identified with Lord Fisher.


 * The range of the British guns was found to exceed that of the Germans, and our shooting was at least as good as theirs. It had been supposed that the Germans possessed a sort of super-efficiency in gunnery, but there is a feeling now, after this combat, that our naval officers were too diffident in regard to their professional skill in gunnery. Everything we have learnt so far leaves us no doubt of the wisdom and the excellence of our material. Our 13.5-inch gun is unequalled by any enemy weapon at sea, and now we have the 15-inch gun, which is vastly more powerful. Another remarkable feature of this action was the steaming of our ships. They all exceeded previous records. Despite the fact that they had been six months at sea, and that the greatest trial was suddenly demanded of them, their steaming excelled all their peace-time records. Nothing could show more remarkably the excellence of their British machinery, the glorious feats of the engine room branch, or the admirable system of repairs and refits—all effected with ceaseless vigilance and without exhaustion. The Kent, for instance, in the Falkland Islands fight, although a 23k-knot vessel, was worked up to 25 knots, caught the Nürnberg, and sank her.