E-text prepared by Charlie Howard
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
(https://archive.org)

THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE
BATTLE OF JUTLAND
MAY 31, 1916

By
THOMAS G. FROTHINGHAM
Captain, U. S. R.

Author of
A Guide to the Military History of
The World War
1914–1918

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
BACON & BROWN
1920

Copyright, Bacon & Brown
1921

v

PREFACE

The following is an account of the essential factsof the Battle of Jutland, amplified from the reviewin the author’s book, A Guide to the Military Historyof The World War, 1914–1918, published thisyear by Little, Brown & Co. This gives a greatlyneeded description of the events of the naval action,with the forces of both sides placed in truerelation, one to the other.

No previously published account had containedan adequate treatment of the manœuvres of bothfleets, as certain important events of the actionwere not understood, and it had been assumed thatsituations existed for which there was no foundationin fact. All this has resulted in a mass of confusedand erroneous narratives—and the Battleof Jutland has become one of the most misunderstoodactions in history.

The British Admiralty has announced that anofficial record of the Battle of Jutland would notbe given out. Instead of this, the official dispatchescovering the action have been issued in theform of a Blue-book. The publication of thesedocuments does not help to solve many vexedviquestions—and the need is all the more evidentof a trustworthy account of the action.

The reader may feel sure that the real course ofthe great naval battle has been traced in the presentversion, and that the facts here given have beenestablished beyond dispute. In this way a reliablebasis has been provided for reading narratives ofthe action, for studying the details of its varyingfortunes—and for correcting many erroneous impressionswhich have been current.

A portion of the text was published in the BostonEvening Transcript of October 9, 1920. Two ofthe charts have been reproduced from A Guide tothe Military History of The World War, and thethanks of the author are given to Messrs. Little,Brown & Co. for their courtesy in allowing use ofthe text of the book.

vii

LIST OF TABLES