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The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command Paperback – May 23, 2005
- Print length720 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherJohn Murray
- Publication dateMay 23, 2005
- Dimensions5 x 1.75 x 7.75 inches
- ISBN-100719561310
- ISBN-13978-0719561313
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- Publisher : John Murray (May 23, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 720 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0719561310
- ISBN-13 : 978-0719561313
- Item Weight : 1.06 pounds
- Dimensions : 5 x 1.75 x 7.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,377,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,689 in World War I History (Books)
- #7,221 in Naval Military History
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Gordon does not suffer fools gladly. A working knowledge of Jutland and the Royal Navy is almost required to understand his monumental (622 pages, including notes) work. The reader would be better off first reading a general history of the encounter, such as Ronald H. Spector’s At War At Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century.
Gordon details not only the technical aspects of Jutland, including battle maps, but also delves into the history of the Royal Navy and the problems with fleet communications at a time before use of the Marconi wireless became a factor. From the days of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, signal flags were a fundamental method of communicating orders from the fleet admiral in his flagship to all his units during maneuvers.
In a sense, the Royal Navy was too successful. From 1805 until 1914 the world enjoyed the Pax Britannica, a time when the British fleet secured relative calm on the oceans of the world. Good as this was, it also created a “peacetime mindset” among navies. For almost 200 years, advancement in the Royal Navy went to bureaucrats more than fighters; men whose advancement in the ranks depended upon pleasing their immediate superiors who demanded clean, neat ships, unquestioning performance in ship and fleet-handling and the condition of their “brightwork.” Creative thinking was discouraged in favor of slavish imitation and obedience—in short, the precise opposite of Lord Nelson’s approach to battle, where each ship’s captain was expected to engage the enemy and seize the unforeseen opportunities presented by close contact with an enemy fleet.
During the Pax, everything depended upon directions by the flagship. The bible of the Royal Navy was the Fleet Signal Book, a massive tome that detailed flag signals that covered every possible move by a ship. This sometimes required a flag hoist of dozens of flags—all which had to be read almost instantly by the signals officers on each ship in order to conform to fleet movements. Maybe the best example of this philosophy was Admiral Jellico, commander of the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet during World War I.
The opposite of this philosophy of total central control is represented by Admiral Beatty, commander of the fast Battle Cruiser Fleet who gave a degree of individual initiative to his ship captains. In a land battle, the differences in these two philosophies would be between a set-piece army, such as at the Battle of Waterloo, and a free-ranging cavalry charging pell-mell at “targets of opportunity.”
During the Battle of Jutland, the problems with the set-piece philosophy where ship movements were controlled by the fleet admiral quickly became apparent. As soon as the Grand Fleet attacked Germany’s High Seas Fleet communication fell apart as Jellico’s flag signals were obscured by poor weather conditions (late in the day, rain squalls and fog), smoke from the coal burning battleships and cordite smoke from their guns. The result was fiasco: Captains who had been trained to a slavish obedience of flagship orders suddenly found themselves having to make individual decisions on ship-handling and attack. As a result, when the almost-certain chance came to destroy the High Seas Fleet, Germany’s Admiral Scheer managed to pull off a minor miracle by sneaking around the rear of the Royal Navy and making it back to the safety of German ports. What should have been another Trafalgar became a series of confused skirmishes between ships that accidently encountered each other during a literal fog of war.
Much of Gordon’s book minutely examines the contrast between these two philosophies of naval warfare; of the need in armed forces for obedience to superior officers while at the same time the importance of individual captains seizing unforeseen opportunities to destroy enemy ships and formations.
For the “armchair admiral,” this is the one essential book for his or her library. Because of space limitations this review barely skims the surface of Gordon’s major—and eminently readable work. As William Waldegrave is quoted, The Rules of the Game is, “For those who love the epic of sea power…unputdownable.”
This book stands out however in that it takes a fresh look not only at the battle itself, but at the Royal Navy as a cultural institution. It is Gordon's contention that the senior leadership and command and control system displayed at Jutland directly reflected a peacetime navy culture. In his view, the Royal Navy more or less unchallenged for almost 100 years (1815 to1914), developed a mentality that encouraged spit and polish, equated seamanship with quick sail and rigging work, and insisted on absolute obedience to superiors for all personnel. As steam replaced sail good seamanship came to be defined as maintaining accurate station keeping and being able to execute synchronized maneuvers promptly on command. Precision fleet maneuvers (steam tactics) were made possible by establishing a highly centralized command (the aptly named 'flag ship') and the excessive use of signal flags (RN Signal Book) to direct every ship's movements under virtually all circumstances. Precise fleet maneuvers, spotless ships, and prompt obedience to orders were valued over accurate gunnery. The individual initiative and flexible response to changing situations that characterized Royal Navy officers of Nelson's time were not only forgotten, but actively discouraged.
Gordon maintains that the Grand Fleet (including its more racy Battle Cruiser Fleet) that steamed into the Battle of Jutland, in spite of its modern ships, carried the cultural baggage of the Victorian era . And that its Admiral, Sir John Jellicoe, was very much a product of the peacetime navy who valued tight control and strict discipline coupled with risk avoidance over a probable, but uncertain decisive victory. Admiral Sir David Beatty did demonstrate some command initiative in opening the battle, but failed in his essential mission of keeping Jellicoe informed of the locations and directions of the German High Seas Fleet. In the end keeping the Grand Fleet in being as an overwhelming naval force was probably the best that could have been hoped for in this battle. And this Jellicoe did.
I wish this superb book was available in hardcover. I wasn't 200 pages in before the photo pages started falling out.
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The book is split into five parts, these being the background to the battle, the run to the south and turn North, a study of the Victorian and Edwardian RN which attempts to explain the cultural factors affecting RN command during the battle, the run to the North and clash of fleets followed by an analysis.
No study of Jutland can escape the Jellicoe - Beatty controversy and this is especially true of a book whose central theme is the conflict between Jellicoe's centralised command and the prescriptive nature of the grand fleet battle orders, and Beatty's loose mission focused command style which expected subordinates to anticipate their commanders intentions and act on initiative. Gordon falls very much on the side of Beatty in this conflict although it is to his credit that he does not avoid facing the ghastly behaviour of Beatty after the battle, particular his treatment of Ralph Seymour which was utterly appalling and of Hugh Evan - Thomas. Few could seriously dispute that Beatty was on the right side of this debate and what would become known as mission command was far superior to centralised control using a set of prescriptive battle orders. However, it is hard to escape the feeling that in making a point, Gordon goes too far and that some of his analysis strays into feeling somewhat tendentious and that a little more balance would actually have supported his case.
The book devotes significant effort to studying Beatty and the 5th battle squadron (5BS), and rightly so as perhaps no other part of the Jutland story goes to the heart of the Jellicoe vs. Beatty command debate as effectively as the story of 5BS. And this is the part of the story which probably challenges the advocates of Beatty more than any other. For all the forward thinking of Beatty, his failure to even meet with Evan - Thomas before sailing in order to brief him on what would be expected of him should the fleet sail was a shocking omission. The signals failures during the battle have been well documented and as Gordon freely admits the fact that Ralph Seymour was not the best flag lt shouldn't be used to try and excuse Beatty of his responsibilities, it was to his credit as a human being that he stood by Seymour during the war, displaying a loyalty his subordinate that was commendable in many ways (making his later turning on Seymour perhaps even more distasteful) but ultimately Beatty has to be assigned the responsibility for continuing to retain an officer of known deficiencies in such a critical role. That Evan - Thomas decided to take a very literal approach to signalling procedures was a great failing but it was for Beatty to have briefed him before the battle. One of the key qualities of a commander is to understand those they command and their capabilities. No matter how right Beatty was in principle, his ideas needed to be understood by those he commanded and implemented effectively and the mishandling of 5BS does not tell of a commander implementing effective command and control.
An odd omission given its relevance to the books central theme is that Gordon does not really consider the signalling error at the battle of Dogger Bank which led to the battle cruisers halting their pursuit of Hipper in order to destroy the already crippled large armoured cruiser Blucher (it should be noted that some have argued that as well as letting Hipper escape, this error could also have perhaps saved some of Beatty's ships from the fate that befell them at Jutland). This has generally been ascribed to Seymour's signalling, yet if Evan - Thomas is to be blamed for a lack of initiative in his literal approach to signalling protocol then surely the fact that the battle cruiser captains, captains who were apparently imbued with the spirit of Beatty and who had been well briefed were also guilty of what critics might call a mindless obedience to signals regardless of what military good sense might indicate is worthy of some comment? If his own battle cruisers had demonstrated such problems with displaying initiative at a critical moment, why on earth did Beatty assume that 5BS, coming from the grand fleet and accustomed to grand fleet battle orders, would fall in with his looser mission based style? I think this omission is quite a serious one as it is an important piece of the puzzle with significant implications for Gordon's analysis of the command approaches of Jellicoe and Beatty. To be simplistic, it is irrelevant how right an idea is if those who will have to execute it cannot do so.
The section on the Victorian and Edwardian navies attempts to explain the culture of obedience and emphasis on ship handling and complex manoeuvres of the pre-war navy and in particular the baleful effects of Admiral George Tryon's untimely demise when his flagship HMS Victoria was rammed by HMS Camperdown. In emphasising the importance of George Tryon's ideas and the adverse impact of these ideas being abandoned following Tryon's death I can only agree with Gordon. The book makes the point that Tryon's fleet was manoeuvring by signal when his terrible misjudgement resulted in tragedy making it rather ironic that the incident was used to discredit his TA system of manoeuvring without flags. This section feels a little odd in places, for example it dwells at some length on the role of freemasonry in the RN officer corps and polar exploration to help explain the lack of initiative shown by RN officers and their dependency on orders received from above. This section also feels a little over cooked, as while it is generally accepted that obedience to the signal book and an over emphasis on spit and polish and being able to execute impressive fleet manoeuvres which were of little value in action had far reaching consequences for the RN in WW1 it is unfair to pretend that RN officers of the era were in some way stupid or incompetent. I don't believe that this was Gordon's intent but it is the impression created by this section. Yet, it is heartening that Gordon does highlight that the famous quote of Berkely - Milne that he wasn't paid to think has been taken out of context.
Ultimately the book makes an error which Gordon himself identifies in other books on the subject, that of seeing the clash of culture between Jellicoe and Beatty as a zero sum game such that if Beatty's ideas were right then those of Jellicoe were wrong. No matter how important it is to foster initiative and seize opportunities, commanders also need to take care of the more mundane aspects of command and to understand the material they have been given. The poor gunnery of the battle cruisers in WW1, the failure to apply ammunition handling procedures and the failure to act on Seymour's signalling failures, all of which should have been identified and acted upon before the Jutland battle do not speak highly of Beatty. Equally, Jellicoe's rigid adherence to orthodoxy and his caution may have cost the RN the opportunity to destroy Scheer's fleet but it is also true that the superb gunnery of the grand fleet, its high morale and his appreciation of what his subordinates were capable of cannot be dismissed when considering Jellicoe's qualities. The truth is that a fleet commanders needs elements of both Jellicoe's technocratic attention to detail and Beatty's flair and willingness to exploit opportunities.
In a sense the endless Jellicoe - Beatty debate is rather sad, both men were courageous, dedicated officers who served their country well. Whatever failure can be ascribed to Beatty at Jutland it has to be recognised that he fulfilled his most important role superbly by delivering Scheer's fleet to the grand fleet. Equally, Jellicoe's deployment to cross Scheer's Tee was one of the singularly most vital command decisions of the war and a decision vindicated by all serious analysis whilst his caution was based on a pragmatic understanding of the relative strategic positions of the RN and German fleet.
The book finishes with 28 lessons for modern navies where Gordon demonstrates that the principal lessons identified by his analysis are applicable today, process vs. product, an over reliance on centralised command and the battle between rationalism and empiricism. I wouldn't disagree with Gordon's 28 points but at the same time it feels a bit anecdotal and homespun and oddly disappointing following the intellectual rigour displayed in the rest of the book.
If some of the above seems a bit negative, I'd emphasise again that this book is essential reading if you are interested in the battle of Jutland and it is a genuine classic of naval history. If some of my review seems a little negative it is because the book is so stimulating and forces the reader to reconsider their existing views. And in a sense that is the greatest achievement of the book, no matter how much you already know of the subject I am sure you will find something fresh and original in this book which will cause you to reconsider things. Cery highly recommended, 5*.
Aus seiner Sicht ist das seit Trafalgar immer mehr zentralisierte Kommandosystem der RN mitverantwortlich fuer den aus britischer Sicht negativen Ausgang der Schlacht.
Das Buch beschreibt u.a. den Aufstieg und die Entwicklung dreier Hauptakteure auf britischer Seite, Jellicoe (Befehlshaber Grandfleet), Beatty (Befehlshaber Schlachtkreuzerflotte) und Evan-Thomas (Kommandeur 5.Battle Squadron).
Insgesamt eine hervorragende und sehr lesbare Darstellung der Skaggerak-Schlacht und des Weges dorthin und aus meiner Sicht zusammen mit Campbells "Jutland" und Massies "Dreadnought" und "Castles of Steel" unverzichtbar fuer alle, die sich mit der RN und dem Seekrieg 1914 - 1918 beschaeftigen.






