Since the days of the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy had been the acknowledged as the most powerful maritime force on the planet. Britain could boast more warships, and particularly more Dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers than any other nation. But the Germans had undertaken an enormously-expensive ship-building programme designed to place the Kaiserliche Marine on an equal footing with the Royal Navy. Since the outbreak of war between the two nations in 1914, the British public had waited in eager anticipation for the moment when the opposing battlefleets would meet at sea.
After a number of smaller engagements, major elements of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet, finally faced each other across the grey seas of the North Sea off Jutland. Instead of the great victory that the British expected, the result was disappointingly inconclusive, with the Grand Fleet losing more men and more ships than the Germans.
In this incitful and unique investigation into the battle, naval historian Richard Osborne draws on the words of the key players to resolve the many disputes, controversies and myths that have surrounded this battle throughout the intervening 100 years. AUTHOR: Richard Osborne is a retired lecturer in Pharmacology who was born in Portsmouth in 1948 and awarded a Ph.D in Neurochemistry by Imperial College in 1974. He has always had a keen interest in ships joining the World Ship Society in 1962 and serving as its Chairman from 2000 to 2012. SELLING POINTS: . Examines the controversy between Beatty and Jellicoe over the failure to defeat the German fleet. . Detailed analysis by the participants of each stage of the action. . As with other titles in the series, this book is packed with graphic eye-witness accounts of the fighting. 16 illustrations