Lost Ships VI: The Ghosts of Jutland
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ndn-9vj80I

May 31st 1916: 250 ships of the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy and the High Seas Fleet of the Kaiserliche Marine met in what was to become the largest naval battle of the First World War: The Battle of Jutland

By the time the guns fell silent on June 1st 1916, 24 ships had been sunk and 8,645 crewmen had been killed, with both sides failing to achieve their objectives

Eddie Rickenbacker top-scored for the US forces with 26 confirmed kills; he wrote a very readable and informative WW1 memoir called Fighting the Flying Circus, which was in the school library when I was a pupil way back when. Rickenbacker was surprisingly humane for a individualist warrior; he wrote some memorable anecdotes, including a strange incident when his guns jammed at the critical moment when he was about to deliver the coup de grace to a helpless and badly damaged enemy aircraft. It impressed me that after the first moment of rage and frustration, a more generous impulse took over and, since he could not kill the German as it was his duty to do if his guns were still working, he flew alongside the other plane and waved him goodbye, wishing him luck. He wasn't really sorry that the other man got away, though he would have killed him had that been possible; Rickenbacker never expressed hatred for his opponents and often expressed considerable respect. He fought with integrity.

The other anecdote I remember right now is that he took to the air just before the ceasefire was due on 11 November 1918, and observed the fierce fighting right up to the last second; then the shelling just stopped and the men on both sides started to emerge and walked towards each other as Rickenbacker circled overhead. He watched as they met and saw them shaking hands; reading his book I felt that he was sharing with me an extremely privileged moment.

Probably the last war more soldiers than civilians got killed

Still the flu sorted that out, karma I expect

If it affected politicians and bankers the same way I'd give peace a chance :D

March 19, 1915
Western Front The Germans launch an attack in the Vosges.
Eastern Front An Austrian sortie from Przemysl fails. The situation of the garrison is now desperate.
Mediterranean Bad weather halts operations. Although the Allied shelling has done its job – Chanak and its forts are abandoned and in ruins and the Turks have consumed half their ammunition – de Robeck does not know of his enemy’s vulnerability. He and Keyes decide, nevertheless, to sweep the straits once more and then resume the attack. But General Ian Hamilton reaches a different conclusion: that the battleships cannot do the job alone. He telegraphs to Kitchener’ “It must be a deliberate and prepared military operation, carried out at full strength, so as to open a passage for the Navy.” Kitchener concurs.

March 19, 1916
Western Front, Verdun A German attack on Poivre Hill is repulsed.
Eastern Front Russian forces on the Dniestr gain a success at Uscieczko. The attack at Lake Naroch resumes on a broader front, but with little success.
Persia Russian troops enter Isfahan.

March 19, 1917
Western Front The French take Chauny on the Oise. The Germans at Verdun are repulsed between Avocourt and Hill 304. The Germans successfully complete the withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, conceding the initiative on the Western Front to the Allies and embracing a policy of “strategic defense”.
Mesopotamia The British occupy Fallujah and Sindia. Maude issues a proclamation, promising freedom for the Arabs.
Mediterranean The French semi-dreadnought battleship Danton is torpedoed by U-64; 296 are lost.
Russia The Petrograd Soviet orders people back to work. There is an assassination attempt on Kerensky.
Diplomatic Relations Prince Sixtus has written a letter to Emperor Karl advising him that the opportunity for negotiating a peace with Russia is heightened by the revolution and the new government, that if Germany negotiates a peace it will come at Austria’s expense, and that he should preclude an offensive against Italy. He presents the letter to Count Erdody in Geneva; the count tells him that Karl must see him and Xavier in Vienna and promises safe conduct. The brothers agree to make the journey.

March 19, 1920
United States The Senate rejects the Versailles Treaty 49-35.
Germany In response to the putsch, Communists organize the Ruhr Red Army, over 50,000 strong, which defeats the local army and Freikorps forces to seize control of the area. Noske is forced to resign.

The aviation curiosity of WWI is that, having been invented in the US by the Wright Brothers, the US had no militarily adequate airplanes in WWI, and US pilots flew British and French planes -- most famously Eddie Rickenbacker (and Snoopy's) SPAD (for Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés)

The attitude of the US towards the military-industrial complex, pre-WWI bears zero resemblance to the contemporary . . . the US distrusted a standing military, and was extremely stingy. The Wright brothers spent years, mostly fruitlessly, trying to get military contracts, and also did not advance their technology rapidly enough.

For me, the British won that, even though they lost more heavy ships

Why? - because like in the Battle of Britain (air battle WW2) a "draw" was enough for them. They already had the most favorable situation, so all they had to do was maintain the status quo, which they did

You could say - well no, actually you must say - that Beatty lost to Hipper, which is not really open to question. Beatty was very incompetent, and would not command of a rowing boat in my navy

But because not enough English ships were sunk, Scheer could not change his situation, which was what it was all about. So Jellicoe beats Scheer. That was all that mattered

Jellicoe achieved his objective. The High Seas Fleet in port in no mood to come out again. He would have preferred to have sunk the lot but the fact was that the Grand Fleet were still in control of the battleground and were ready for more.

It is often missed that Jellicoe put his fleet in the perfect position. One minute Scheer was steaming North to finish off Beatty and his battlecruisers and the next he was coming to terms with a horizon lit by the fire of the Grand Fleet. The only thing that saved Scheer was superb training and the excellent build quality of his ships.

Palo couldn't agree more about Beatty.

Snoopy flies a Sopwith Camel....

One factor in battleship design was that the Royal Navy had to build ships which were in long term use in both peace and war.Crews would be at sea for long spells and accommodation-though spartan-had to take this into consideration.This had to be taken into consideration at the design stage and led to compromises being made.Other navies didn't build to these limits.
Also in an economy drive the Royal Navy didn't go ahead with the long range gunsights and predictors in the belief that actions would be at shorter ranges.Why people thought that-it's obvious that if you are close to the enemy you only got there by being further away earlier and if you have armament capable of accuracy at 26 000 yards why not use it?

. . . right you are.

On that note, its interesting to see how a historical event "ages out" of popular culture.

WW I remained contemporary in the British Empire and France much longer than it did in the US and Germany. WW I is "The Great War" in Britain, whereas WW II is "The Big One" in the US.

Its mostly the scale of the casualties. Walk around a small farm town in Wales, in New Zealand, in Australia, and you'll inevitably find a monument to the dead, with an improbably long list of names . . . on more than one occasion I've found myself looking around at a tiny village of just a few houses, and trying to figure out where the twenty young men could have come from.

Charles Schultz was the probably the last American popular writer with WW I references, the "Red Baron" mysteriously remained an icon in US pop culture, even getting a strange novelty song: "Snoopy vs the Red Baron (1966)

Its an artifact of Charles Schultz' age: he was born in 1922, so he's from the small chronological window of those who would have been exposed to stories of WW I as children, but would no longer be kids when WW II came around.