The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command by Andrew Gordon is a brilliant, fascinating examination of the pivotal naval battle of World War I, the Battle of Jutland. It is the finest book written on the subject of naval control and communications; one that is still required reading in many of the world’s naval colleges (including Annapolis) among those men and women who someday will be captains and admirals of fleets.
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.”
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Top reviews from other countries
Martine de B
Eblouissant sur le commandement anglais au Jutland
Reviewed in France on August 28, 2019J. J. Bradshaw
A stimulating book which challenges much established wisdom - essential reading for anybody seriously interested in Jutland
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2017hurz
Interessantes aus dem militärpolitischen Innenleben des Königreichs
Reviewed in Germany on January 9, 2021