Battle of Jutland
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The Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht, lit. 'Battle of the Skagerrak') was a naval battle between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, during the First World War. The battle unfolded in extensive manoeuvring and three main engagements from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle and only full-scale clash of battleships of the war, and the outcome ensured that the Royal Navy denied the German surface fleet access to the North Sea and the Atlantic for the remainder of the war. Germany avoided all fleet-to-fleet contact thereafter. Jutland was also the last major naval battle, in any war, fought primarily by battleships. Germany's High Seas Fleet intended to lure out, trap, and destroy a portion of the British Grand Fleet. The German naval force was insufficient to openly engage the British fleet. This was part of a larger strategy to break the British blockade of Germany and allow German naval vessels access to the Atlantic. Britain's Royal Navy pursued a strategy of engaging and destroying the High Seas Fleet, thereby keeping German naval forces contained and away from Britain and her shipping lanes. The Germans planned to use Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper's fast scouting group of five modern battlecruisers to lure Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's battlecruiser squadrons into the path of the main German fleet. They stationed submarines across the likely routes of the British ships. However, the British learned from signal intercepts that a major fleet operation was likely, so on 30 May, Jellicoe sailed with the Grand Fleet to rendezvous with Beatty, passing over the German submarine picket lines while they were unprepared. The German plan had been delayed, causing further problems for their submarines, which had reached the limit of their endurance at sea. On the afternoon of 31 May, Beatty encountered Hipper's battlecruiser force earlier than the Germans had expected. Hipper successfully drew the British vanguard into the path of the High Seas Fleet. By the time Beatty sighted the larger force and turned back towards the British main fleet, he had lost two battlecruisers, from a force of six battlecruisers and four battleships. Beatty's withdrawal at the sight of the High Seas Fleet, which the British had not known was in the open sea, reversed the battle by drawing the Germans towards the British Grand Fleet. Between 18:30, when the sun was lowering, back-lighting the German forces, and nightfall at 20:30, the two fleets—totalling 250 ships—directly engaged twice. After sunset Jellicoe manoeuvred to cut the Germans off from their base, hoping to continue the battle the next morning, but under the cover of darkness Scheer broke through the British light forces forming the rearguard of the Grand Fleet and returned to port. Fourteen British and eleven German ships sank, with a total of 9,823 casualties. Both sides claimed victory. The British lost more ships and over twice as many sailors but succeeded in containing the German fleet. The British press criticised the Grand Fleet's failure to force a decisive outcome, while Scheer's plan of destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet failed. The British long-term strategy of denying Germany access to the United Kingdom and Atlantic succeeded. The Germans' "fleet in being" continued to pose a threat, requiring the British to keep their battleships concentrated in the North Sea, but the battle reinforced the German policy of avoiding all fleet-to-fleet contact. At the end of 1916, after further unsuccessful attempts to reduce the Royal Navy's numerical advantage, the German Navy accepted its surface ships had been successfully contained, turning its resources to unrestricted submarine warfare for the second time (the first attempt of the war having ended with the controversy following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by U-20) and destruction of Allied and neutral shipping, which—with the Zimmermann Telegram—by April 1917 triggered the United States of America's declaration of war on Germany. Reviews by the Royal Navy generated disagreement between supporters of Jellicoe and Beatty concerning their performance in battle; debate over this and the significance of the battle continues.