Battle of Heligoland Bight (1914)

At 08:15, Keyes—with Lurcher and another destroyer—sighted two four-funnelled cruisers. Still unaware that additional British ships were involved, he signalled Invincible that he was chasing two German cruisers. Goodenough received the signal, abandoned his search for enemy vessels to attack and steamed to assist Keyes against his own ships, Lowestoft and Nottingham. Keyes being chased by four more German cruisers attempted to lure them towards Invincible and New Zealand, reporting them as enemy ships. Eventually, Keyes recognised Southampton and the ships attempted to rejoin Tyrwhitt. The British submarines were still unaware that the other ships were present and at 09:30, a British submarine fired two torpedoes at Southampton; the submarine missed and then escaped when Southampton tried to ram it. Lowestoft and Nottingham remained out of communication range; separated from the rest of their squadron, they took no further part in the action.[12] Tyrwhitt turned to assist Keyes, on receipt of the signal that he was being chased, sighted Stettin but lost her in the mist before coming upon Fearless and her destroyer squadron. Arethusa was badly damaged and at 10:17 Fearless came alongside and both cruisers were stopped for twenty minutes while repairs were made to the boilers.[13]

Cöln, Strassburg and Ariadne had sailed from Wilhelmshaven to join the German ships, while Mainz was approaching from a different direction. Admiral Maass was still unaware of the nature of the attack and dispersed his ships in search of the enemy. Strassburg was first to find Arethusa and attacked with shells and torpedoes but was driven off by torpedo attacks from the destroyers. As Tyrwhitt turned away to the west, Cöln—with Admiral Maass—approached from the south-east and was also chased away by torpedoes. Tyrwhitt signalled Beatty requesting reinforcements and Goodenough with the four cruisers remaining with him came to assist; the force turned west.[14]

SMS Mainz sinking

Beatty had been following the events by radio 40 mi (35 nmi; 64 km) to the north-west. By 11:35, the British ships had still not completed their mission and withdrawn; with the rising tide, larger German ships would be able to leave harbour and join the engagement. Beatty took his five battlecruisers south-eastwards at maximum speed, an hour away from the engagement. While the advantages of using his more powerful ships to rescue the others was clear, this had to be weighed against the possibility of mischance by torpedo or of meeting German dreadnoughts once the tide was up.[15]

At 11:30, Tyrwhitt's squadron came upon the German cruiser Mainz and the ships engaged for 20 minutes, before the arrival of Goodenough caused Mainz to attempt an escape. Goodenough gave chase and in trying to lose him, Mainz came back across the path of Arethusa and her destroyers. Her steering was damaged, causing her to turn back into the path of Goodenough's ships and she was hit by shells and a torpedo. At 12:20, her captain ordered his ship to be scuttled and the crew to abandon ship. Keyes had now joined the main body of ships and brought Lurcher alongside Mainz to take off the crew. Three British destroyers had been seriously damaged in the engagement.[16] Strassburg and Cöln attacked together but the battle was interrupted by Beatty and the battlecruisers. A destroyer officer wrote,

There straight ahead of us in lovely procession, like elephants walking through a pack of ... dogs came Lion, Queen Mary, Princess Royal, Invincible and New Zealand ...How solid they looked, how utterly earthquaking. We pointed out our latest aggressor to them ... and we went west while they went east ... and just a little later we heard the thunder of their guns.

— Chalmers[17]

Final phase 12:30–01:40

Strassburg managed to disengage and escape when the battlecruisers approached but Cöln was cut off and quickly disabled by the much larger guns of the battlecruisers. She was saved from immediate sinking by the sighting of another German light cruiser, Ariadne, to which Beatty gave chase and again quickly overcame. Ariadne was left to sink, which she eventually did at 15:00, attended by the German ships Danzig and Stralsund who took off survivors. At 13:10, Beatty turned north-west and ordered all the British ships to withdraw, since the tide had now risen sufficiently for larger German ships to pass through the Jade estuary. Passing Cöln again, he opened fire, sinking her. Attempts to rescue the crew were interrupted by the arrival of a submarine; one survivor was rescued by a German ship two days later, out of some 250 men who had survived the sinking. Rear Admiral Maass perished with his ship.[18]

Four German cruisers survived the engagement, saved by the mist. Strassburg nearly approached the battlecruisers but saw them in time and turned away. She had four funnels, like the British Town-class cruisers, which caused sufficient confusion to allow her time to disappear into the mist. The German battlecruisers Moltke and Von der Tann left the Jade at 14:10 and began a cautious search for other ships. Rear Admiral Hipper arrived in Seydlitz at 15:10 but by then the battle was over.[19]

Final phase about 13:00–14:00 CET (German perspective)

To preserve his ships the Kaiser determined that the fleet should, "hold itself back and avoid actions which can lead to greater losses". Admiral Hugo von Pohl, Chief of the German Naval Staff, wired Ingenohl that, "in his anxiety to preserve the fleet [William] ... wished you to wire for his consent before entering a decisive action". Alfred von Tirpitz was outraged by this decision and wrote after the war,

The Emperor did not wish for losses of this sort ... Orders [were] issued by the Emperor ... after an audience with Pohl, to which I as usual was not summoned, to restrict the initiative of the Commander-in-Chief of the North Sea Fleet. The loss of ships was to be avoided; fleet sallies and any greater undertakings must be approved by His Majesty in advance. I took the first opportunity to explain to the Emperor the fundamental error of such a muzzling policy. This step had no success but on the contrary, there sprang up from that day forth an estrangement between the Emperor and myself which steadily increased."[20]

After the war, Churchill wrote,

All they saw was that the British did not hesitate to hazard their greatest vessels as well as their light craft in the most daring offensive action and had escaped apparently unscathed. They felt as we should have felt had German destroyers broken into the Solent and their battle cruisers penetrated as far as the Nab. The results of this action were far-reaching. Henceforward, the weight of British Naval prestige lay heavy across all German sea enterprise ... The German Navy was indeed "muzzled". Except for furtive movements by individual submarines and minelayers, not a dog stirred from August till November.

— Churchill[21]

The Germans knew nothing of our defective staff work or the risks we had run.

— Churchill[21]

Lieutenant Stephen King-Hall on Southampton, later wrote about the battle that

As may be deduced from these extracts the staff work was almost criminally negligent and it was a near miracle that we did not sink one or more of our submarines or that one of them did not sink us. Furthermore if anyone had suggested, say in 1917, that our battle-cruisers should rush about without anti-submarine protection and hundreds of miles away from the battle fleet in a mine infested area a few miles from the German battle fleet, he would have been certified on the spot.

It was because the presence of unsupported battle-cruisers was absurd that the logical Germans were sitting in Wilhelmshafen unable to move because the tide was too low on the bar of the Jade river!

I should like to be able to write that this important hydrographical circumstance was part of the plan, but it was only discovered long afterwards.

Nevertheless the strategical and indeed political consequences of this affair were of great importance.

The German Navy was manned by a personnel no less courageous and at least as well trained as our own; their ships were superior type for type; their gunnery was more accurate. Yet in the mind of every German seaman was the reflection that they were challenging the might of a navy which, by and large, had dominated the seas for four centuries. The German seaman had a respect and almost traditional veneration for the British Royal navy, and entered the war with an inferiority complex in striking contrast to the superiority complex which the German Army felt towards all other armies.

It was therefore a rude shock to the German Navy ... to learn of this audacious manoeuvre and successful engagement literally within sight of the main German base.

— King-Hall[22]

German sketch showing all actions of the battle (expandable)

The Germans had assumed that their cruisers, leaving port one by one, would not meet larger ships or a superior force and failed to keep their ships together so they might have better odds in any engagement. Beatty—when faced with the choice of leaving one of his ships to finish off disabled enemies—had elected to keep his squadron together and only later return in force to finish off the ships. Goodenough managed to lose track of two cruisers, which played no further part in the battle.[23]

German light cruisers armed with larger numbers of faster firing 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns, proved inferior to similar British cruisers with fewer but more powerful 6 in (15 cm) guns. The German ships proved difficult to sink despite severe damage and impressed the British with the quality of their firing. British and German sources reported the determination and bravery of the defeated German ships when overwhelmed.[24] No one reported the presence of British cruisers to Admiral Hipper until 14:35. Had he known, he could have brought his battlecruisers to sea faster and consolidated his fleet, possibly preventing German losses and instead inflicting some on the departing British ships. The British operation took longer than anticipated and large German ships would have had sufficient high water to join the battle.[25]

The British side suffered from poor communication, with ships failing to report engagement with the enemy to each other. The initial failure to include Jellicoe in planning the raid could have led to disaster, had he not sent reinforcements and the communication failures meant British ships were unaware of the new arrivals and could have attacked them. There was no way to warn off British submarines which might have targeted their own ships. It had been the decision of Admiral Sturdee—Admiralty Chief of Staff—not to inform Jellicoe and also not to send additional larger ships which had originally been requested by Keyes. Jellicoe had countermanded this decision once he knew of the raid, by sending ships which were part of his command. Keyes was disappointed that the opportunity for greater success had been lost by not including the additional cruisers properly into the plan as he had originally intended. Jellicoe was disturbed by the Admiralty's failure to discuss the raid with their commander in chief of the Home Fleet at sea.[26]

The Germans appreciated that standing patrols by destroyers wasted time and resources, leaving them open to attack. The Germans sowed defensive minefields to prevent enemy ships from approaching and freed the destroyers to escort larger ships, which were never to be sent out one by one.[27] The British realised it was foolish to have sent Arethusa into battle with inadequate training and jammed guns. British ships were criticised for having fired considerable ammunition and torpedoes with little effect but this criticism backfired when at the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915, British crews tried to conserve ammunition and missed opportunities to damage German vessels.[28]

Germany lost the light cruisers Mainz, Cöln and Ariadne and the destroyer V187 sunk. The light cruisers Frauenlob, Strassburg and Stettin had been damaged and returned to base with casualties. German casualties were 1,242 with 712 men killed, including Maass and the destroyer commodore. The British took 336 prisoners, 224 German sailors were rescued by Commodore Keyes on the destroyer Lurcher and brought to England, the son of Tirpitz being among the prisoners. The British had lost no ships and casualties did not exceed 35 men killed and about 40 wounded.[29]