Battle of Jutland 2 - The build up

Beatty's 'Guard Fleet' in the Firth of Forth 1916

As already noted, the firepower and numerical superiority of the British Grand Fleet (BGF) over the German High Seas Fleet (GHSF) meant that the Germans would not seek a pitched battle confrontation against the greatest see fleet ever assembled. Instead they developed their tactics of brief sorties and raids to lure smaller detachments of the BGF into battle on a more advantageous footing. From the 1914 and subsequent raids on Scarborough, Whitby and Lowestoft they had succeeded, at least to a degree, in fragmenting the BGF. When he was appointed C-in-C Jellicoe had selected Scapa Flow off the Orkneys as the safe haven for his fleet. Although initially vulnerable to U boat and mine attack, by 1916 it was fully functioning. However, the public outrage at 
the impunity of the German raids, augmented by Zeppelins, far to the south of Scapa Flow, pressured Jellicoe into stationing a significant battle cruiser fleet, under Admiral David Beatty, at Rosyth in the Firth of Forth. Regular sweeps by this force, added to Tyrwhitt's smaller squadron at Harwich calmed government and public fears. Nevertheless, this enabled Scheer to develop his plans.

Reinhard Scheer was 51 at the outbreak of war. An able and fast-thinking flag-officer in the German Fleet, he was much admired by his subordinates and fellow officers. By end 1915 he was Commander of the 2nd Battle Squadron of the GHSF. Following the Dogger Bank battle of early 1915, the cautious C-in-C Ingenohl had been replaced by the like minded Hugo von Pohl, aged 60. Pohl's only aggressive move was to support strongly Tirpitz's arguments for unrestricted submarine warfare, which was declared in February 1915 and led, among others, to the infamous sinking of the Lusitania.

Alfred von Tirpitz
Direct rival to Jacky Fisher
and architect of German
Naval Power

As a disciple of Tirpitz, Scheer was enraged when the politicians won the argument with Tirpitz and the unrestricted campaign was called off in September 1915. By January 1916, Pohl was seriously ill with advanced cancer, and could not continue. Scheer was thus appointed as C-in-C, at a time when public opinion was pressing for action from the GHSF, since the previous heroics of the U boats were now much reduced. One of his first acts was to recall U boats from the high seas, and to begin a process of U boat ambushes on British fleet ships in the North Sea.

Scheer's aim was to pressurise the BGF, by means of raids, torpedo attacks and Zeppelins, into abandoning its distant blockade of German ports and be forced to engage more directly with the GHSF  His strategy was approved in principle by the Kaiser in February. He developed a plan to bombard Sunderland with a scouting force of battle cruisers led by Vice-Admiral Franz von Hipper to lure out Beatty to the jaws of the GHSF. He would also lay down a gauntlet of U boats off the Firth of Forth, and further north on the route south from Scapa Flow. He aimed to destroy Beatty's squadron before the BGF could arrive from Scapa Flow in sufficient strength.
Scheer planned initially for this attack to be on 17th May, and he sent his U boats out well ahead to take up position. Crucially, events conspired to delay the operation by two weeks. Firstly, there were some technical problems with some of the German Dreadnoughts, and repairs were needed to the Seydlitz, one of Hipper's scouting battlecruisers, after a recent raid on Lowestoft. Secondly the weather intervened, making it difficult for Scheer's Zeppelins to provide him with the badly needed aerial observations.  By the time all arrangement were in place, the U-boats were at the end of their cruising scope and were forced to return towards Germany, ending that part of Scheer's plan. Partly as a result of this, Scheer made a late change of plan to avoid Sunderland, and proceed northwards closer to the coast of Jutland and nearer to the GHSF's own safety zones.

Admiral Scheer's fleet set sail from the Jade - natural harbour of Wilhelmshaven that was its home -early on the morning of 31st May. They were accompanied by Hipper's 1st Scouting group.

Sir Reginald "Blinker"Hall
Director Naval Intelligence 1914-19

Scheer's vigorous, attack minded approach was well known in the British Admiralty, and a bolder policy in the North Sea was anticipated. Furthermore the nascent intelligence services  in Room 40 of the Admiralty, led by 'Blinker' Hall,  had made numerous signal interceptions alerting them to Fleet activity, and the likelihood of U boat ambushes. Shamefully and (as it turned out) very unfortunately for Jellicoe, the value of this intelligence to the coming battle was almost completely lost due to incompetence and petty rivalries within the Admiralty. Those responsible for passing on the messages held the newest branch of the service, Room 40, in contempt, and they failed, or delayed, in passing on messages. This later caused such confusion that Jellicoe disregarded new messages, preferring to rely on the evidence of his own eyes and his own men.