Even without the inauguration of a comprehensive and detailed plan of operations for the Army and Navy the military situation required that the movements of the Navy should be adapted to the progress of the Army's operations lest the failure of some naval undertaking should put the Army in the dilemma of having to relax its own offensive or perhaps break it off altogether.
The enemy, too, cannot have failed to realise the importance of the German Fleet for a favourable development of the war on land. If the enemy ever succeeded in securing the command of the Baltic and landing Russian troops on the coast of Pomerania our Eastern front must have collapsed altogether and brought to naught our plan of campaign, which consisted of a defensive attitude in the East and the rapid overthrow of the French Army. The command of the Baltic rested on the power of the German Fleet. If we had destroyed the Russian Fleet our danger from the Baltic would by no means have been eliminated, as a landing could have been carried out just as easily under the protection of English naval forces if the German Fleet no longer existed to hinder it. For such a purpose the English Fleet had no need to venture into the Baltic itself. They had it in their power to compel us to meet them in the North Sea immediately they made an attack upon our coast. In view of such an eventuality we must not weaken ourselves permanently, as we could not help doing if we attempted to eliminate the danger which the Russian Fleet represented for us in the Baltic.
It was all the more probable that the English Fleet would attack because the combined enemy fleets would then have a free hand against our coasts. It was improbable that England would seek battle with the German Fleet - which she was bound to regard as her primary naval objective - in the Baltic where all the advantages were on our side.
For this reason the concentration area of our Fleet mas the North Sea. It was from there that we could threaten the east coast of England and therefore tie up the English Fleet in the North Sea. We could always deal in time (by using the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal) with any attempt of the English to penetrate into the Baltic. At the outset somewhat weak observation forces had to suffice against the Russians, and these forces had to try to intimidate the Russians into the same course of action by adopting offensive methods wherever possible. Mines could do us good service in that respect. This method of intimidation, however, could only be effective so long as we could still employ a superior force against the Russians, and we should abandon that superiority out of hand if we attempted to seek battle with the English Fleet under unfavourable circumstances, because, to say the least of it, the result was doubtful. In view of the high state of preparedness and the superiority of the English Fleet probabilities pointed to a failure for us which would have a fateful effect on the final result of the war.
Apart from the fact that these considerations urged caution, at the beginning of the war we were without any certain data as to the whereabouts of the English Fleet, and could only acquire some by observation of the movements of the enemy. We had to expect an attack in the greatest possible strength because our unfavourable strategic situation, which was due to the geographical formation of the North Sea theatre, put us at a disadvantage at the outset. Our position in the North Sea suffered from the fact that for any enterprise we had only one point of exit : in that far corner which faces the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser. From it alone could the Fleet emerge for an attack, and to it must return again to seek the shelter of our bases in the estuaries of the Jade and Elbe. The route round Skagen and the Belt was closed to us, as the Danes had laid minefields in these waters. The sides of the "Wet Triangle," the apex of which can be imagined at Heligoland, ended at Sylt in the north and the mouth of the Ems in the west. The left bank of the Ems is in Dutch, and therefore neutral, territory. All movements of ships there could accordingly be observed and the observation brought to the knowledge of the enemy in the shortest time. The channel at Sylt is navigable solely for destroyers and light cruisers, and then only in favourable conditions of wind and tide.
On the other hand, the east coast of England offered a whole series of safe anchorages for large ships, indeed for the whole Fleet. As appears from the map, the English coast takes a westerly direction the farther north it gets, so that on our attacks against the northern bases our distance from home is increased, to the great advantage of the enemy.
While we could be taken in flank from the south if we attacked the English Fleet, thinking it to be in the north, and taken in the flank from the north if we made our attack in the south, the English were in the favourable position that as they approached our coast they need expect danger from only one quarter immediately ahead, the German Bight. They could send out submarines against the one base from which we should have to emerge, to do us all the damage they could on our way out and home, and need only keep that one point under observation. That relieved them of the obligation of detaching special observation forces.
THE BRITISH BATTLE FLEET [1]
FLAGSHIP
Iron Duke.
FIRST BATTLE SQUADRON
Battleships
Marlborough. St. Vincent. Colossus. Hercules. Neptune. Vanguard. Collingwood. Superb.
SECOND BATTLE SQUADRON
Battleships
King George V. Orion. Ajax. Audacious. Centurion. Conqueror. Monarch. Thunderer.
THIRD BATTLE SQUADRON
Battleships
King Edward VII. Hibernia. Commonwealth. Zealandia. Dominion. Africa. Britannia. Hindustan.
FOURTH BATTLE SQUADRON
Battleships
Dreadnought. Temeraire. Bellerophon. Agincourt. Erin. Queen Elizabeth. War spite. Valiant. Barham.
FIRST BATTLE-CRUISER SQUADRON
Battle-Cruisers
Lion. Princess Royal. Queen Mary. New Zealand. Invincible. Inflexible. Indomitable. Indefatigable.
SECOND CRUISER SQUADRON.
Shannon. Achilles. Cochrane. Natal.
THIRD CRUISER SQUADRON.
Antrim. Argyll. Devonshire. Roxburgh.
FIRST LIGHT CRUISER SQUADRON.
Southampton. Birmingham. Nottingham. Lowestoft.
Destroyer Flotillas (number and composition unknown).
The above ships formed The Grand Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe.
THE SECOND BRITISH FLEET.
Flagship
Lord Nelson
FIFTH BATTLE SQUADRON.
Battleships
Prince of Wales. Agamemnon. Bulwark. Formidable. Implacable. Irresistible. London. Queen. Venerable.
SIXTH BATTLE SQUADRON
Battleships
Russell. Cornwallis. Albemarle. Duncan. Exmouth. Vengeance.
FIFTH CRUISER SQUADRON
Light Cruisers
Carnarvon. Falmouth. Liverpool.
SIXTH CRUISER SQUADRON.
Drake. Good Hope. King Alfred. Leviathan.
THE THIRD BRITISH FLEET
Seventh Battle Squadron
Eighth Battle Squadron
Eight ships of the "Majestic" class.
Six ships of the "Canopus" class.
Seventh Cruiser Squadron
Ninth Cruiser Squadron
Tenth Cruiser Squadron
Eleventh Cruiser Squadron