Jacket blurbs:

On only one occasion during the four years of the First World War did the world's largest and most powerful navies meet in full battle. For so long the main indicator of the arms race between Britain and Germany — and according to some theories a major argument in the inevitability of the war itself — these two navies had long competed in construction, design and armament with each other and planned for that final battle which would decide the war at sea.

The reality of the naval war was far different to the single, decisive conflict strategists had hoped for. Instead a series of bold hit- and-run raids by German warships to bombard British coastal towns stung Royal Navy pride, and apart from fleeting chance encounters between isolated units of both fleets and the failed opportunities of Dogger Bank and Heligoland Bight the single, ultimate battle remained elusive. Until Jutland.

The Battle of Jutland took place on 31 May to 1 June 1916 as a plan to concentrate the German High Seas Fleet precisely against the numerically superior British Grand Fleet at a time and place of German choice, having lured the bulk of the Royal Navy into a trap in German waters. Bad luck, bad weather and the perennial weakness of such Great War battles — poor communications — meant the battle became a confused, rambling but desperately hard-fought conflict. It also became a pyrrhic victory for Germany since although the Royal Navy suffered higher losses in men and ships, the German fleet never ventured out of harbour to seek battle again. The decisive battle that was claimed by each side as a victory was in reality a defeat of the German High Seas Fleet.

Amazingly, this classic sea battle has never been studied from the enemy's view. Now, for the first time in the English language a balanced and unique assessment of the German view of Jutland is possible. Drawing on many official sources, archives and translations of documents about the Battle of the Skaggerak (as Jutland is known to the Germans), the historian V. E. Tarrant has created this superb new study of the classic battle.

The author provides a complete review of Jutland using hitherto unseen German naval records: an inter-war appreciation by the German Office of Naval History, High Seas Fleet War Diaries, Chief of the High Seas Fleet Operations Staff papers plus action reports from individual commanders involved in the battle and the letters and papers of Tirpitz, Scheer and Hipper. As well as this wealth of untapped original source material on German views and accounts, the author also discusses the technical and material inferiority of Royal Navy ships plus a unique revelation of the role German code-breaking and signal interception played in their conduct of the battle.

Illustrated with detailed action charts representing ship movements and dispositions hour-by-hour throughout the battle, and with accurate scale drawings and silhouettes of all major warships and classes from both sides, Jutland: The German View fills an important gap in the history and understanding of this great action.

Front of jacket illustration Seydlitz by Jim Mitchell.

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