Distant Victory: The Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War

Distant Victory is an examination of the great sea fight at Jutland that is more than a mere balance sheet of ships sunk and lives lost, or an account of which fleet fled before the other. Rather, it is an a retelling of the battle that reveals its long-term consequences set in motion by the decisions both the Germans and the British made as a result of each fleet’s experience at Jutland. While the German High Seas Fleet could claim a tactical victory because it sank more ships and inflicted higher casualties on the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet than the British did to the Germans, the British could rightly claim that strategically they won the battle, for when it was over the German warships had retreated to the safety of their harbors, having failed in their objective of defeating the Grand Fleet in detail.

For the past nine decades the Battle of Jutland has been history’s most hotly debated and least understood naval action. Treated usually as a tactical German victory or else as a draw, and dismissed as strategically indecisive, it has been remembered by historians as for its lost opportunities, mistakes, and sheer scale, the largest naval surface action ever fought and the greatest clash of battleships the world would ever see. The Battle of Jutland has never been seen as one of the decisive battles of the First World War.