Chapter Seventy-Nine: Striking at the Heart

September 4th. At dawn, Jellicoe boarded the Grand Fleet's flagship, the Iron Duke. The Admiralty had already issued orders: the Grand Fleet was to leave port at once, intercept the High Seas Fleet entering the North Sea, and guard the shipping lanes within the English Channel.

Jellicoe did not merely dispatch the battlecruiser squadron; he mobilized the entire Grand Fleet. This decision was swiftly vindicated. That very afternoon, the Admiralty confirmed that it was not merely three battlecruisers that had sailed from Wilhelmshaven into the North Sea, but a formidable fleet of eight capital ships. Among them, aside from the three battlecruisers, were five modernized main battleships.

A day later, British intelligence confirmed again: the fleet was heading for the English Channel. Clearly, had Jellicoe sent only four battlecruisers, there would have been no hope of victory.

There was every reason to believe the High Seas Fleet would not brave the Channel, for only a narrow channel was navigable for capital ships; the rest was heavily mined, patrolled by hundreds of small vessels—enough to entomb any fleet that dared enter. Yet, it was equally plausible that the High Seas Fleet might operate just north of the Channel, and as long as they were nearby, the safety of transport ships plying those waters could not be assured.

Jellicoe’s objective was therefore clear: he needed only to ensure the High Seas Fleet posed no threat to the ships within the Channel. Whether to seek a decisive engagement was not the chief concern—though, if the opportunity arose, he would gladly destroy eight capital ships.

The key was this: the High Seas Fleet surely had a definite purpose, and was unlikely to seek battle against a superior force. In Jellicoe’s eyes, this was a straightforward mission.

Yet Jellicoe was unaware that, on the very evening his fleet left port, the High Seas Fleet’s battleship division, having reached the Gulf of Finland, withdrew under cover of night after bombarding the coastal fortifications near St. Petersburg. The newly arrived First Battleship Division—four Nassau-class battleships—took their place, continuing the harassing fire on Russian positions. By dawn, the thirteen main battleships, the core of the High Seas Fleet, had left the Gulf of Finland, steaming west at eighteen knots, bound for the North Sea.

By this time, the battlecruiser squadron under Colonel Raeder had turned north. According to Feng Chengqian’s plan, the battlecruiser squadron would not head for the English Channel, but after penetrating deep into the North Sea, would bombard coastal towns in Britain, disrupting the Royal Navy’s deployments and leaving their intentions inscrutable.

On the morning of September 5th, Raeder carried out Feng Chengqian’s orders. Within half an hour, the eight capital ships unleashed hundreds of 300mm and thousands of 150mm shells on the southern shore of the Humber, battering the city of Grimsby. After the fierce bombardment, the fleet swiftly withdrew to open waters. That afternoon, they struck again, bombarding Hartlepool, some 150 kilometers north of Grimsby.

In a single day, two coastal towns were shelled, and the whole of Britain was in an uproar. Though the damage was relatively minor—most shells fell wide of their mark, fewer than a hundred civilians killed, and only a few dozen buildings destroyed—the public and ambitious politicians alike blamed not the ferocity of the Imperial German Navy, but the incompetence of the Royal Navy. If the homeland could not be protected, what use was the Royal Navy?

All the pressure now converged on Jellicoe. Only after receiving a telegram from Churchill in London did Jellicoe realize that the High Seas Fleet’s true aim was not to blockade the Channel, but to raid Britain’s coastal towns. He was vexed, feeling he should have anticipated this. With only eight capital ships—five of them older, modernized vessels—the High Seas Fleet would never risk the Channel.

Jellicoe saw the situation more clearly from a different angle. The High Seas Fleet’s main strength was fighting in the Baltic, containing the Russian fleet bottled up in port. The greatest fear of the Imperial German Navy was a Royal Navy attack on Wilhelmshaven, their chief North Sea base. Thus, the High Seas Fleet dispatched its eight faster capital ships to raid British coastal towns, pin down the Grand Fleet, and ensure that Wilhelmshaven would not be threatened.

Had Jellicoe been in charge, he would have retaliated in kind, seizing the opportunity to bombard Wilhelmshaven and cripple Germany’s key North Sea base. In his view, with war newly declared, the Germans likely hadn’t completed their minefields or defensive works outside Wilhelmshaven, making it an easy target.

Alas, this was not Jellicoe’s decision to make. Churchill’s telegram left no room for doubt: the Grand Fleet’s primary task was to secure the homeland and destroy any High Seas Fleet elements entering the North Sea. The fleet was to sail north at once and hunt down the force that had bombarded Grimsby and Hartlepool.

Though Jellicoe, as fleet commander, had operational autonomy and was not bound to obey the First Lord in battle, he was not a mere military man—he was politically astute. He understood that the real issue was not Churchill’s order, but the political forces behind it.

Jellicoe also had another concern. Even before the war, the Royal Navy’s leaders had debated where best to base the Home Fleet. When France was Britain’s main rival, the Home Fleet had always been stationed at Portsmouth on the Channel’s northern shore. But as the Imperial German Navy grew into a formidable threat across the North Sea, the strategic situation changed.

A decade before, the Royal Navy had begun searching for a better base for the Home Fleet, but budget constraints kept the plan on the drawing board. Not until 1913, the year before war broke out, did the Royal Navy choose Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands as the fleet’s new home. Unfortunately, construction would not be finished until late 1915. Until then, the Home Fleet would remain at Portsmouth.

Jellicoe’s worry was that the High Seas Fleet might attack Scapa Flow. If that happened, the Home Fleet would have to remain at Portsmouth for some time yet—a disadvantage for future operations in the North Sea.

Would the High Seas Fleet attack Scapa Flow? As Jellicoe pondered this, Feng Chengqian was considering the same question. Though Raeder’s battlecruiser squadron had yet to encounter the Grand Fleet, intelligence suggested that the Grand Fleet had left Portsmouth on the 4th and might sail directly from the Channel into the North Sea, cutting off the battlecruiser squadron’s route back to Wilhelmshaven.

Of course, Feng Chengqian had already anticipated this. According to his plan, if Raeder, after bombarding the British coast, had still not met the Grand Fleet, he would proceed directly to the Skagerrak, return to a Baltic port, and then pass through the Kiel Canal back to Wilhelmshaven, avoiding destruction by superior forces.

As of September 5th, none of the British fast, light craft operating north of the Channel had encountered the Grand Fleet. Was the Grand Fleet avoiding action? Feng Chengqian did not think so, but Hipper did. Fortunately, Hipper did not insist on his view.

Feng Chengqian’s sole concern now was that the Royal Navy already knew the High Seas Fleet’s main strength had left the Gulf of Finland and was heading for the Skagerrak. In that case, the Grand Fleet, once in the North Sea, might abandon pursuit of Raeder’s squadron and instead wait at the Skagerrak for the High Seas Fleet to arrive, seeking a decisive, one-sided battle.

If so, Feng Chengqian would have to reconsider. Thirteen battleships against the Grand Fleet’s twenty-odd capital ships offered no hope of victory. Even counting the eight battlecruisers, the odds were not good.

He had to distract the Grand Fleet, to make Jellicoe abandon thoughts of intercepting the main High Seas Fleet. But how?

On the night of September 5th, Feng Chengqian, in Hipper’s name, sent Raeder a telegram: after completing his bombardment, he was to steam at full speed for the Orkney Islands, shell the Royal Navy base under construction at Scapa Flow, and, if possible, destroy several British warships.

It was a ruthless move. If Jellicoe had any strategic vision, he would not stand idly by—he would lead the Grand Fleet north to intercept Raeder’s rampaging squadron.

Should that happen, defeat for the Grand Fleet would not be far off.