June b, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
so long only as the name of the German success could be 
claimed afterwards. 
It is this point which lends significance to. the event. 
And it is because (jermany's greatest necessity now is 
a renewal of the national moral, that it is the Allies' 
greatest necessity to strike at the instrument of its 
restoration, regardless of what the blow may cost. Had 
in point of fact the British attack on the German fleet 
been " over-confident " or " rashly impetuous," had our 
success been gained at a loss disproportionate to that 
which the enemy had suffered — but nevertheless re- 
mained a success, then the sacritice of ships and men 
would seemingly have been rightly incurred. It was 
the plain duty of the British fleet to thwart the purpose 
of the enemy at sea, whatever it might be, and to drive 
his fleet back into harbour at whatever cost in ships and 
men. 
The News and Its Reception 
This truth, it seems to me, was so obviously the key 
to the whole naval position, that I must confess to com- 
plete astonishment at the way in which the news of this 
event was broken to the people of this country and in 
some quarters received by them. The first announcement 
was made on Friday evening at seven o'clock, in the form 
of a statement issued by the secretary of the Admiralty. 
Apart fron> the known losses of the British fleet and the 
supposed losses of the enemy, this statement told the 
public nothing but the following facts. 
An engagement had taken place on the afternoon of the 
previous Wednesday off the coast of Jutland. In its 
first stage the battle cruiser fleet, supported by fast 
battleships, had engaged the German fleet till the British 
main forces appeared. The action between the main 
forces was brief, because the enemy took advantage of 
a low in\'isibiUt3' to avoid action. Finally, the enemy 
had retreated to his harbours. 
To anyone with the faintest understanding of things 
naval, two things were clear. First, if the enemy had 
any object in being at sea, he had been thwarted in ob- 
taining it. Ne.xt, the day had ended with Sir John 
Jellicoe in possession of the field from which the enemy 
had been driven. It was evident, therefore, that our 
sea command had been vindicated ; that the victory 
was ours. The statement of losses made it, it is true, 
appear tliat the cost of victory had been heavy, but 
relati\'ely to the size of the two navies, the enemy's losses 
were at least as serious. The. victory might not be 
decisive in the sense that there was no enemy fleet left to 
fight with ; but it was obvious that the enemy's plans, 
no less than his hopes had been defeated, and that he 
was in certainly no better a position than he was before 
to dispute Great Britain's control of the North Sea. 
Subsequent statements, it must be remembered, added 
nothing almost to these 5ubstantial and eloquent facts. 
They did put the GeiTnan losses higher, and limited our 
destroyer casualties to eight. Bvit the evidences of 
victory were patent from the first communique. 
^^'hethcr the Admiralty was right or wrong to leave 
the interpretation of this statement to the intelligence 
of tlie newspapers that reported it, is a point that is 
difficult to decide. That we had won was clear. It 
may have seemed wiser to let the absurd German state- 
ment have a start, so that the truth, when fully known, 
should have a still greater effect. For once, the facts 
were allowed to speak for themselves. And the result 
was startling. Mr. Balfour's administration has ever 
since last autumn been subjected to alternations of 
sniping and curtain fire from a certain section of the 
press. If Mr. Balfour had ordered the circulation of 
Friday's statement with- no other object than to let his 
enemies in, he achieved it to admiration. 
A small section of the press, small in numbers, but 
highly important from its circulation and popularity, 
read in the Admiralty's report nothing but the list of the 
ships sunk, and immediately lost its head. The Times 
treated the event as a German " success snatched from 
us upon our own element." " We have suffered," it 
said, " the heaviest blow at sea we have met with dming 
the war. . . we engaged, perhaps in over confidence, 
in a long running fight again.st" ships more nuriierous, 
stronger and more heavily armed. . . and we have 
suffered heavily." The Daily Mail and the Daily 
Chronicle found the result one that could not be " re- 
garded with satisfaction." The latter paper declared 
that a feebler force had been sent " far forward into 
enemy waters, to be almost overwhelmed by its stronger 
adversary." and that this policy " is directly traceable 
to the influence upon naval strategy of civilian alarm." 
The Weekly Dispatch asked " ^^'hat was wrong last 
week? . . . The British navy was beaten. . . 
Why did we fail ? . . . The fight itself was mis- 
managed. . . . Lord Fisher must be recalled to the 
Admiralty at once." The Daily News mourned over 
this " gravest disaster " and foresaw a serious danger of 
diminishing confidence in the administration of the navy, 
and called at once for the retmn of Lord Fisher " in this 
hour of the country's urgent need." The Observer would 
have it that " we had missed victory." " that our 
strategical object had not been obtained," that " it was 
a public duty to be plain " and " nothing could com- 
pensate for the absence of Lord Fisher from Whitehall." 
Elsewhere we were told that we could not dismiss from 
our minds the thought that soriieone had blundered.' 
Of London papers the Morning Post and the Westminster 
Gazette put the matter from the first in its true light, 
but even the Daily Telegraph, exceptionally sane as 
a rule on naval subjects, warned us not to be too gloomy 
or to indulge in undue pessimism — as if a measure of 
gloom and pessimism would be wholesome ! 
It is an odd way of commending a new naval chief to 
forces fresh from victory, to tell them that he alone can 
rescue them from the disastrous consequences of defeat ! 
And it is as unfortunate as it must be unjust, that Lord 
Fisher's name should have been coupled with views almost 
too repugnant to professional intelligence and feeling to 
be called ridiculous. 
But on Saturday and Sunday last, it was not the 
ridiculous side of it that I saw. The news that a near 
relative had been severely wovmded in the action took 
me to one of the bases and was the occasion of various 
visits to the naval hospital. Here were men who h^d 
taken part in the great action, had been knocked out of 
shape, or burned almost out of human recognition on 
this glorious day, and they had come into hospital 
counting their sufferings as nothing weighed against the 
greatness of their deeds. It was certainly pitiful when 
one of them said to me, " We were a bit bucked with- 
ourselves when we came in here, but look at these papers. 
They tell us we have been beaten ! " The thing became 
tragic when one heard of widows and bereaved mothers 
having their grief embittered by the thought that the 
lives of husbands and sons had been lost in a failure. 
It should not, one would imagine, need a very robust 
faith in the British navy, to make one slow to believe in 
defeat. It was once supposed to be a characteristic of 
the race that we did not knov.- when we were beaten. 
Now it seems we do not know when we have won. 
" The sailors, naturally enough, are broken-hearted that 
they have not sunk every German ship. The result, in 
this respect, is so contrary both to their expectations, 
and to their knowledge of what their guns could and 
would have done, had it been possible to see, as to 
seem a much smaller thing than obviously it is. But 
there is no reason why the nation should measure its 
gratitude by their disappointment." 
But there is another aspect of the matter that must 
be noted. It is not necessary, if ever we are defeated, to 
scream at once that someone has blundered. It is con- 
ceivable that defeats may come without any blunder at 
all. It is certainly not very generous to imply either 
that the Admiralty— though this department can look 
after itself —or that naval oflicers, who cannot do so, have 
brought disaster on us by rash tactics and ])rofessional 
incompetence. Time, in this instance, will vindicate the 
accused. And the time will not be long. But however 
ignorant and ill-conceived, these hasty judgments give 
pain. They have been persisted in, after the least 
observant must have realized that our tactics had 
succeeded, and they are not supported by any fact.s 
known to us. They are a poor return to those who risk 
not only life and limb, but honour and name in the 
country's cause. Arthur Pollen. 
Professor^ L. P. Jack's article " A Bad School of 
Statesmen." ojcmg to the sudden demand upon our space, 
has regretfully to be held over until next week. 
