Customer Reviews

The Rules of the Game : Jutland and British Naval Command

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This is a quite epic narrative history, which reads with the facility and pace of a well-constructed thriller. It is at once a social history of the Royal Navy that spans the Ironclad, Dreadnought and Great War eras, a dissertation on naval signalling and fleet-handling in a period of unprecedented technical innovation, a reflection on the challenges and stresses of leadership and a thrilling account of the Battle of Jutland from a British perspective. The book opens with a quite thrilling account of the opening phase of the battle, in which technical and human complexities are treated with equal aplomb, then breaks off - leaving the reader all but white knuckled - at the moment the German High Seas Fleet appears on the scene and forces Beatty's Battle Cruiser Force and Fifth Battle Squadron to turn northwards. It might seem an anti-climax to be diverted from this drama to the controversies that dominated the Navy in the Late-Victorian and Edwardian periods but this part of the story, with its splendidly delineated cast of larger-than-life characters, is no less gripping, especially in view of its ultimate relevance to command and control decisions at the potentially climactic encounter at Jutland. The third part of the book returns to the battle itself, with the arrival of Jellicoe's Battle Fleet, the main clash and the subsequent night action and German escape. The complexities of naval manoeuvre have seldom been so clearly portrayed in print, with excellent use being made of simple diagrams for illustration, and colour and pace are lent to the narrative by many well-chosen extracts from survivor's accounts, ranging from the light-hearted to the outright ghastly. This was indeed a battle where there was no mid-point between unscathed survival and horrific injury. The story is told almost exclusively from the Royal Navy viewpoint - that indeed of a British participant - and, thought this adds great immediacy, readers will need to look elsewhere for a more detailed account of the German movements. The final part of the book is in many ways the saddest, detailing the recriminations, self-justifications and personal tragedies involving the main participants after the war. A postscript that deals with the problem of intelligence overload as a purely Naval concern will be found by many readers to have singular relevance to large modern organisations employing E-Mail! This is, in summary, a quite magnificent piece of work and a delight for enthusiasts of naval history. The only mild criticism that might be made is that the writer has omitted to discuss how experience from the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars might have influenced Royal Naval thinking on visual signalling and fleet control under battle conditions. Japanese experience might be assumed to have been of particular relevance in view of the strong Royal Navy influence on Japanese naval development - and of the presence on Togo's flagship at Tsu-Shima of Captain William Packenham, who later commanded the 2nd. Battle Cruiser Squadron at Jutland. This minor gripe aside one can but long for more from the pen of Mr.Gordon.

Dr. Andrew Gordon's lengthy study will surely become the definitive account of the Battle of Jutland. Gordon provides an easy read with dispassionate analysis of the facts: a rational and sensible reassessment added to many revelations unearthed by the author's in-depth research. The book starts with an account of Jutland up to the delayed arrival of the 5th Battle Squadron (Evan-Thomas) to the Hipper-Beatty duel. Evan-Thomas and Beatty's handling of the advance guard (along differing tactical doctrines) provides the perfect point of departure and reference to the mid-nineteenth century Pax Brittanica, in which the Victorian Navy struggled to promote a workable combat doctrine from its opposing pool of 'authoritarian' and 'autorcratic' Admirals. The problems faced by the Grand Fleet at the onset of war, and highlighted by inadequacies at Jutland, can be traced to, and explained by, the wardroom battles of this era; particularly over the use of the cumbersome signal book and how best to adapt it to 'real' combat situations, governed by the ever-changing factors of the technological revolution. (Symbolised by the 'all big gun' Dreadnought.) Ultimately, the pioneering development in this field was arrested in its infancy by the sinking of HMS Victoria and the consequent loss of its foresighted Admiral, Tryon (inventor of TA; an initiative based battle signals procedure). The central discussion is followed by a return to the gunfire of Jutland where we witness how this 'arrested development' affected the course and outcome of the battle. The dispositions and handling of the Fleets by Jellicoe, Beatty, Scheer et al. are masterfully analysed; their respective shortcomings and doctrinal reasoning put across fairly. No encounter is left un-discussed, no surviving statement left without reappraisal. The post-Jutland analysis and Beatty-Jellicoe confrontation then come the focus of scrutiny from which we can deduce our own conclusions. Dr. Gordon's account if full of amusing anecdotes. I particularly liked the attention to individual experiences of the battle, and naval life, which are tied in to the relevant discussion: we are reminded of Tryon's last signal before the collision: "What are you waiting for?"... or that the spotter on Fisher's ill-fated battlecruiser Invincible was the German composer, Wagner's, godson. A later reference to the 'Jutland prize for creative writing' is typical of Gordon's lively prose. Furthermore, there is an interesting account of Freemasonry in the service, providing an explanation for many an admirals straight- jacket of 'dutifulness'. The book commendably puts the whole naval episode firmly into the context of the late 19th and early 20th century, with all its corresponding ideologies and imperialistic assumptions that disintegrated so painfully on the fields of Verdun and the Somme.

I have read many books of military history covering a variety of campaigns, but never have I read one with such breadth and insight as this. The enormity of the drama embodied in the moment the fleets met at Jutland is for the first time matched by an author's ability to depict a context rich enough to help us understand the influences which fed this cataclysmic misfire of naval strength.

Gordon focuses on the tension between doctrine's role as a useful tool for helping a widely flung set of commanders act in concert when distance, smoke, and angst prevent their communication and how a careless search for practical doctrine might invite a stifling dogma in its stead. As Gordon so fluidly writes of the malaise gripping the "fleet that had dozed unchallenged in the long calm lee of Trafalgar", the trust Nelson placed in subordinates had not long survived his death in that battle and its heir was an officious busyness centered on sparkle and conformity.

Particularly delightful in this work and an aspect not to be missed is the benefit to be realized by using two bookmarks when reading it, with the second preserving your spot in the end notes. Its 100+ pages of notes manifest a stringent and complete attribution of his borrowings, but a great many of the notes are not simply citations of others work but illuminating tidbits well worth savoring as you plow along the main text.

A new reader will also find that color has not been sacrificed in the rush to meet the obligations of covering so large a battle. My favorite anecdote was one of an untroubled officer on HMS Lion who, unaware that the Germans had truly been sighted, calmly finished preparing his sandwich as action stations were rung. The mental picture formed of his arriving on the bridge with mouth full and hoagie in hand is not unlike someone doing "the wave" in the audience at Ford's Theatre as Lincoln takes his seat.

I mean the 5 stars. I have given 5 copies of this book to people I know, simply to ensure that they might understand the mania for naval history it has fanned in my heart. If there is any justice in this world, this book will enjoy a massive new print run.

I really like and recommend this book to anyone remotely connected to national security decision-making. There are four major points in this book that neither the publicity prose nor the earlier reviewers emphasize, and I focus on these because they are the heart of the book and the core of its value:

1) Peacetime breeds officers, systems, and doctrine that are unlikely to stand the empirical test of war. As the author notes, every incompetent in war has previously been promoted to his or her high rank in peacetime. Systems are adopted without serious battle testing or interoperability (and intelligence) supportability being assured, and doctrine takes a back seat to protocol and keeping up appearances.

2) Technologists are especially pernicious and dangerous to future warfighting capability when they are allowed to promulgate new technology under ideal peacetime conditions, and not forced to stand the test of battle-like degradation and the friction of real-world conditions.

3) Doctrine based on the lessons of history rather than the pomp of peacetime is the ultimate insurance policy.

4) Robust--even intrusive and pervasive--communications (signaling) in peacetime is almost certain to denigrate healthy doctrinal development, has multiple pernicious effects on the initiative and development of individual commanders, and can have catastrophic consequences when it is severely degraded in wartime and the necessary doctrinal foundation and command initiative are lacking.

This is a very long book at 708 pages, and I would hasten to note that the book is worth purchasing even if only to read Chapter 25, pages 562-601, in which the author brilliantly sets forth 28 distinct "propositions". The balance of the book is extraordinary in its detail and a pleasure to scan over, but its primary role is to absolutely guarantee the credibility and industry of the author.

Each of the 28 propositions, one sentence in length with varying explanatory summaries, is compelling, relevant, and most critical to how we train both flag officers and field grade officers of all the services. Were the author so inclined, I would encourage him to develop the final chapter as a stand-alone primer for military leaders seeking to learn from history and avoid the dangerous juxtaposition of too much technology and too little thought. While the author draws his propositions from an excruciatingly detailed study of the Battle of Jutland and the British naval cultures in conflict before and after Jutland, this book is not, at root, about a specific battle, but rather about the constantly forgotten "first principles" of training, equipping, and organizing forces for combat. Hard to do in peacetime with the best of leaders, a tragedy in waiting with the more common peacetime pogues in charge. "Ratcatchers", the author's phrase for those who do well in war, are crushed by the peacetime protocols, and this is perhaps the greatest lesson of all: we must nurture our ratcatchers, even place them on independent duty to travel distant lands, but somehow, someway, keep them in play against the day when we need them.

This book is not just about the battle of Jutland: it's a critical and outstanding representation of the birth and evolution of British Navy's tactical doctrine from the middle of the XIX century till 1916, with significative glimpses beyond that date. The widening gulf between the peace-time ethos and training of the officers' corps (strict repect of the authority and slavish attention to goose-step fleet manouvres) and the requirements of a war-time Navy (initiative and skill at gunnery) is well presented, with many stimulating references to the psychological, social and cultural context of the Victorian Navy. The examination of the battle reflects to some extent the more general aim of the book and, as a consequence, is not as detailed as it could be (see for that John Campbell's "Jutland, an analysis of the fighting"). But the many still-debated episodes of the clash of the two fleets are thouroughly discussed and illuminated by the vast knowledge of the author. A captivating narrative and a final chapter on how the example of pre-1914 British Navy can teach a modern military service to avoid committing the same errors complete a masterful historical work. I totally agree with the previous rewiers in regarding Andrew Gordon's book as a major contibution to the history of British Navy in the First World War.

This is a big fat book, and when the box arrived, I rather wondered when I would get to it. Once I started though, I found I couldn't stop, Gordon has an engaging style that takes us through even the technical details of warship design and capabilities with remarkable flair. From the outset it is clear that this is NOT just about Jutland, but rather the book uses Jutland as a way of examining Naval Command structure as a whole. Thus it is no real shock when we suddenly shift from the 5th Battle Squadron's delayed turn away from the High Seas Fleet to a discussion of the development of the Victorian Navy. We don't get back to the battle for 250 pages, but by that time we have a much better sense of who the players are, what sort of background they are bringing to the situation, and what sort of legacy they are likely to leave.

Of great interest is Gordon's application of the lessons (un)learned at Jutland to the present. While at first glance it seems hard to imagine the relevance of a battle fought nearly 90 years ago with Battleships to todya's electronic wars with "robo-cruisers" but Gordon makes some telling points about the need for both command independence and integration. I would STRONGLY recommend this book as a follow on to Massie's excellent DREADNAUGHT, which took us from the end of the 19th century up to the outbreak of the Great War. Gordon takes us further back and further forward, and the result is a remarkable achievement.

The Rules of the Game adds to our under- standing of those factorsin the battle of Jutland which make it such a fascinating example of the "fog of war" and the mind-sets of commanders hobbled by tradition and their own preconceptions. Gordon explores the backgrounds of the various British admirals -- Jellicoe, Beatty, Evan-Thomas, etc --who commanded elements of the Grand Fleet. The book's format is unusual: it begins with an account of the opening phases of the battle, then backtracks 100 years, delving into the personalities and events which shaped the Royal Navy after Trafalgar. The author has his heroes and bete-noirs -- those who attempted to bring realism into fleet maneuvers and those who could see no farther than the shine on a ship's binnacle. The Victoria sinking of 1893 and the deqath of Admiral Tryon played a major role, according to Gordon, in arresting evolutionary practices in ship handling and signalling. Midway through the book, we get back to the battle, which is clearly described , although not in such detail as accounts by Corbett and Marder. The author obviuosly has access to new material, which he utilizes to present us with new perspectives on both British and German command decisions. I highly recommend this book to any student of naval history for its intelligent use of sources, clarity of writing, and thoughtful conclusions

Andrew Gordon's work, 'The Rules of the Game' is must reading for any person who is interested in Naval tactics, leadership and politics. Dr. Gordon's book, while centered on the Royal Navy, has points that will be of benefit to members of any Naval service throughtout the world. A valuable part of this work is the forward written by Admiral Sir John Woodward of the Falkland Island campaign of 1982, who performs the very vital role of linking us today with the Royal Navy of the Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian eras. Examples of Dr. Gordon's attention to detail are numerous but a particularly interesting point is the examination of how the Royal Navy came to acquire it's fire control system and the impact such a decision had on events of 31 May 1916. The book is not a quick read, although I found it engrossing and hard to put down. I first wrote this review seven year ago. Nothing in my opinon of the book has changed except that it's applicability should be measured against the war in Iraq and the message traffic issues going on there. Dr. Gordon's list of theorms at the conclusion of the book make exceptionally good reading and act as a fine demonstration that the problems that faced Admirals Beatty and Jellicoe in 1914-16 haven't improved all that much and in fact have gotten worse as technology has improved. The example of Admiral AB Cunningham in his shore based headquarters enduring a battle in which he is not present but only monitoring message traffic is quite illustrative of how a battle can be fought and monitored without the CinC getting involved in the tactical decisions of the man on the spot. Unfortunatley ABC is/was a rarity but it was good to see him included in the text. This is a very interesting and thought provoking book and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the historical processes of the Royal Navy and how this issue has affected it down to the present. Also remember that if this issue is affecting the Royal Navy it is surely affecting every navy in the world be it the new navies of Estonia, Latvia and China or the established old order navies of the US, France and Russia. Everyone is trying to fight the battle of communications and Dr. Gordon gives us a fine grounding of the genesis of this problem.

This was a great book to read. It flowed well and was exciting throughout. I found the relevance in this work not only in how it explains what happens when peacetime complacence takes over the military, but also how it can be applied when examining leadership in business, especially big business. Those management styles that describe Britain's naval commanders from Nelson to Tryon to Culme-Seymour to Jellicoe and Beatty can easily be applied to the management styles of many of America's big corporations. I've always believed that the study of military history is critical in being successful as management within a big corporation. This is a must read for anyone wanting to understand management and command style.

I was glad that this work was not completely one-sided. Andrew Gordon stated how commanders like Sir John Jellicoe and Sir Hugh Evan-Thomas were in many aspects not up to leading a wartime battle command because of their reliance on central control and inflexibility to the fluidity of battle. It also showed how much of Lord Nelson's command style appeared in Sir David Beatty, but he does not hide the fact that Beatty made many big mistakes that led to the loss of two capital ships a few thousand sailors. Beatty at times is shown as reckless (the Battlecruiser Force lacked the targting accuracy when needed most and two battlecruisers were lost) and not a good communicator (he did meet with Evan-Thomas to explain what he expected of them and caused the 5th Battle Force to take much unnecessary damage). But, he was a courageous commander and did his part by leading (as ordered) the German High Seas Fleet to Jellicoe's Grand Fleet of over 35 capital ships. It also shows that despite his shortcomings, Evan-Thomas was a brave man and did his part during the fight with the Germans.

After getting into this book, I was hoping to read more on the German aspect of the battle, especially since Admiral Scheer almost led his High Seas Fleet to annihilation by the Grand Fleet not once, but several times during the battle. But, the fact that Andrew Gordon was a former British Naval officer and that his work concentrated on his organization, I can understand why he explained the British aspect of the battle. Plus, his main focus was not the battle, but how command style wholly influenced the outcome of this engagement.

On the eve of the decisive showdown with Napoleonic France, Admiral Horatio Nelson was offered the opportunity to select any officer from the Navy List to serve in his fleet. Nelson's confident, if not arrogant response was "Choose yourself, the same spirit actuates the whole profession." The end result was Trafalgar, one of the most decisive and strategically important naval victories in the history of warfare. A century later things were much different in the Royal Navy. The "long calm lee of Trafalgar" had taken its toll on the war fighting spirit and abilities of the British naval officer corps. When the navy failed to achieve another Trafalgar-like victory at Jutland in 1916 against the Germans former First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill commented "We had more captains of ships than captains of war."

In this substantively and physically weighty tome, Andrew Gordon sets out to discover how and why the mighty British navy could have fallen so far from the heights of Trafalgar to the relative depths of Jutland.

"The Rules of the Game" is actually two full-length, distinct books in one. The first is a highly detailed account of the Battle of Jutland. I have read several accounts of the battle before, but nothing compares to the clarity, analysis, and authority that Gordon delivers here. The sequence of the battle is told almost exclusively from the British perspective and includes an almost minute-by-minute account of both phases of the engagement - the so-called battle cruiser duel and the engagement between the main battles fleets.

Gordon pays particularly close attention to the issuing, receipt and interpretation of signals between British ships during the battle. Even after nearly a century the fog of war has not dissipated from the battle of Jutland. There is a general lack of reliable primary sources; many of the critical details are therefore subject to conflicting personal testimony, which were given in the years after the battle when an acrimonious debate among the surviving officers poisoned relationships and skewed perspectives. Gordon aims simply for truth and seeks neither indictment nor exoneration of the major players. In his words, "Jutland is not a 'zero-sum game' of credit and blame between Jellicoe-ites on the one hand and the Beatty-ites on the other." Nevertheless, Gordon's central conclusion is that the swashbuckling David Beatty was culpable of many tactical sins and failure of judgment throughout the battle. Most notably, he positioned the 5th Battle Squadron (consisting of the four new, world-class Queen Elizabeth class battle cruisers under Hugh Evan-Thomas) too far to the rear in the original cruising formation, thus ensuring that those critical ships could not be fully brought to bear if the Germans were encountered. And he failed in one of his core missions: providing accurate and timely information to John Jellicoe and the British Grand Fleet on the speed and bearing of the German High Seas Fleet once it had been engaged to ensure that the German "risk fleet" could be led into a trap and destroyed.

The other book - and the more important one - is a thoughtful and probing analysis on the effects of a long peace on military institutions and their associated doctrines. Gordon's basic thesis is that peacetime militaries tend to attract and promote "authoritarian" personalities, as defined by Professor Norman Dixon in his 1976 book "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence." In layman's terms, authoritarians are spit-and-polish, by-the-book types who thrive in the highly structured and hierarchical nature of peacetime armed forces. This natural tendency was reinforced and exacerbated by the advent of steam tactics and complex signaling that "had the effect of ritualizing the Navy's concept of battle in a way that ballroom dances were to ritualize courtship." The officers most associated with this school were the commanding officers of the British Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow under John Jellicoe and the officers of the 5th Battle Squadron under Evan-Thomas. Gordon notes that such authoritarian officers exemplified the Victorian and Edwardian concepts of chivalry. They tended to have close connections to the British royal family (e.g. Evan-Thomas was a life-long friend of King Edward), were often affiliated with the Royal Geographic Society and/or participated in dangerous polar exploration expeditions, and were often Craft Freemasons. Their concept of battle was one of highly orchestrated maneuvers depending on detailed signals emanating from the fleet commander.

On the other end of the spectrum were the "autocrats" (again, the term comes from Dixon). The archetype autocrat is the jaunty David Beatty. These are the men who scorned convention and, as a result, suffered from slower promotions in the peacetime navy. Beatty had the rare fortune to experience real combat as a naval officer while on a gunboat supporting the British at Omdurman in 1898 where he also had a chance encounter with a young Winston Churchill - two events that paid handsome dividends in his naval career. The autocrats embraced the Nelsonic concept of initiative and daring in combat. As Gordon notes and the autocrats stressed, "It was forgotten that at Trafalgar no tactical signal emanated from the flagship after the fighting started."

Gordon maintains that the decisive event that led to the failures of Jutland actually occurred a generation before the battle, off the coast of Lebanon in 1893. It was there and then that two British battleships (the Mediterranean flagship Victoria and the Camperdown) collided in broad daylight when an erroneous signal from the flagship was executed even though the obvious outcome was the sinking of the Victoria and claiming the life of the Mediterranean commander-in-chief, Admiral George Tryon. Tryon had been a passionate critic of the signaling culture then taking deep root in the navy and fought hard to inculcate instead a set of action principles that would guide individual behavior in combat much as Nelson was able to rely on at Trafalgar. Tryon had promoted a "TA system" that consisted of just a few signals to be used in battle when smoke, fire and fear would likely make the smooth transmission of signals difficult, if not impossible. The tragedy came to be associated with the dangers of maneuvering under the very loose "TA system" even though it was not in effect the collision occurred. The subsequent court martial forced the navy to consider the issue of blind obedience to orders, even when those orders will clearly end in disaster.

This is one of the best books I have read over the past few years. It has substance, style, and piercing insights into the nature of military organizations in times of extended peace. For anyone interested in military culture and military doctrine this is a "must read."