Naval History Forums

What if at Jutland the actions would have been in favour of the Germans:
Say that the British Battlecruiser Squadron would have been anhiliated by Hipper and that the 5th Battle Squadron was destroyed by Scheer?

Say that the Germans sailed with some casualties: a couple of Battlecruisers sunk and some two other Battleships blown.

Now the German accomplished the edge they needed. Remember that the defeat was very important for the British, not so for the Germans...

I doubt that much would have changed Karl. Britain's geographical position favoured her wrt the blockade, and I don't think the political will was there to take on the GF at anything approaching parity. I'm accepting your scenario at face value, although I think it unlikely that losses of 14 to 4(ish) would happen.

Ian

Ian,

Of course that a 14 vs. 4 is quite... unlikely (not possible is another way to put it), but the idea is to watch this new scenario.
I believe that a catastrophe to the Grand Fleet at Jutland, in this case two squadrons wiped would be more important than what we might think.
There is an effect that would put the British on the defensive when their Tradition of Victory is suddenly shaken. Of course Jellicoe would go and Beatty is likley to be dead in the battle.
Scheer, as damaged as he might emerge from the encounter would be reaffirmed in his offensive conviction so he would sail ASAP to threat again the supremacy of Great Britain close sea approaches.
Anyway the blockade from the British would began to crumble while the Germans could begin their own blockade.
Well...

Kind regards.

The British might have been forced to actually use the US battleships.

I think the phrase "A wounded Lion simply fights harder" applies here.

For Britain to be defeated at Jutland would have been a nightmare.
The only thing worse would be for the Roya Navy to sulk in her harbours too afraid to venture out again.

I believe the Royal Navy would have had to return to sea and hammer the Germans to save face.

All Germany would manage to do would be to wound the lion which would fight harder and eventually defeat the HSF.

A severe British defeat at Jutland would have changed little for two reasons:

1) The British would have made greater use of French and later US ships to take the place of British losses,

2)To be effective the High Seas Fleet would have to break out into the Atlantic in strength and attack the convoys. But the battlewagons of the HSF were very short ranged, would have required a large supporting fleet train of supply ships, particulary colliers, and would have been very vulnerable to the slightest damage in action on account of their being no friendly harbours immediately available on either side of the Atlantic - Germany's colonies were lost, and remember that in WW2 warship commerce war in the Atlantic was difficult even with the Germans in possession of the Biscay, Channel and Norwegian ports.


An alternative scenario would be a possible seabourne invasion of eastern England. The Kaiser did have plans for an invasion of East Anglia, focussing on Cromer - but I think that such an invasion would still have failed, as the British could deploy aircraft, submarines, torpedo boats, mines etc. to deal with such a threat, not to mention the remaining Allied surface battle fleets.

Overall I think iankw is right in that geography favoured Britain's blockade and left the Germans bottled up in the North Sea and the Baltic. The Germans not forseeing that prior to the start of hostilities was a major blunder on their part.
Incidently geography also posed a very similar problem for the Austro-Hungarian fleet as the Italian change of sides left it bottled up in the Adriatic.

I THINK I WOULD NOT HAVE MATTERED DIDN'T THE GERMANS SINK MORE SHIPS ANYWAY? EVEN IF THE GERMANS WOULD HAVE WIPED OUT THE BRITISH IWOULD NOT HAVE MATTERED THE BRITISH WAS STILL A EMPIRE AT THIS TIME I THINK AND WOULD HAVE CALLED ON CANADA,AUSTRAILIA, AND EVENTUALLY THE US

And the French. We mustn't forget the French.....

RF:

And the French. We mustn't forget the French.....

Oh, uhhm, of course, yeah, uhhm, the french "battlefleet", the french...

RF wrote:And the French. We mustn't forget the French.....

This was actually a quotation taken from Prince Feisel to General Allenby at the point of the Turkish surrender in 1918, in the context of the disposal of the Turkish territories in Asia Minor, said with the same degree of sarcasm as used by me and Karl here....

RF:

And the French. We mustn't forget the French.....

This remind me of the movie Patton, when Georgie was giving a speech to some ladies in England and proclaimed that the world was ready to be ruled by the English and the Americans forgetting to mention the "russian allies". Patton´s aide, noticing the mistake whispered:

"The russians... don´t forget the russians..."

But was Patton being forgetful?

RF:

But was Patton being forgetful?

Of course not. He hated the vermin. But Ike and Bedell Smith remind him, anyway.
You know that when Patton died and the funeral being prepared his widow asked, plain clear, that she didn´t want to see Bedell Smith at the ceremonies because that would have been an hipocrecy? And Ike, who was in the US, didn´t travel to Germany to attend. Being Patton the general that saved the allied ass in several ocassions, as in the critical moment at the Bulge, it´s interesting Ike´s conduct. The war was over, anyway by Patton´s death (or murder?).

Kind regards...

I wonder what would have happened if Patton had stood against Eisenhower for the Republican presidential nomination in 1952?

I believe Ike would have won anyway. The Americans are always afraid of having a real strong person at the helm. The strongest they had in the last fifty years was Reagan and he wasn´t, how can I say it?, strong enough.
Ike was a propaganda icon in a different way Patton was. Patton was the gung-ho big mouth hero that stands up when the sharpshooters are firing over him, while Ike was fatherly figure that "knows best", a political being.
No doubt that Patton or McArthur for that matter, would have run circles around Ike in a battle or, that if Ike had field command against Rundstedt, he would have ended in a shameful retreat (never forget that Ike had the opportunity to anhilate the German Army at Falaise and Patton kept reminding him that until his dying day). But in the field of politics Ike was superior. McArthur never got even close to Ike in the presidencial race and Patton was conviently dead.

Best regards.