Characters of WW1 - Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Jellicoe

For most people the name of Admiral John Jellicoe is associated only with his command of the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Churchill described him as the only man on either side who could have lost the war in an afternoon. The battle was indecisive and Jellicoe has been accused of over caution in that the British Public were longing for another ‘Trafalgar’, ie the annihilation of the German High Seas Fleet. In fact, Jellicoe deployed the Grand Fleet correctly and was hampered by poor intelligence and fickle weather. I give a flavour of these intelligence failings in the fifth novel of my WW1 historical naval fiction series, The Suicide Club. When the Germans realised that they were up against the Grand Fleet, they rapidly withdrew to their home bases before Jellicoe could press his numerical advantage. It is true that the Royal Navy lost more ships than the Germans in the battle, and an astonishing high casualty rate of 6,000 dead, but the battle’s significant achievement was that from then on, the German High Seas Fleet never ventured out again for the rest of the war.

Less well known is that Jellicoe fought as an infantry officer in the Naval Brigade. During the Egyptian war of 1882, he commanded a rifle company of the Naval Brigade. Moreover, in China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, whilst serving as a captain, he personally led a charge on the Boxers at the Battle of Beicang that not only earned him the appointment of Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), but Germany’s ‘Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd Class, with Crossed Swords’. Jellicoe was shot in the chest during the attack and nearly lost his life. Nobody could doubt his courage.

Unfortunately, Jellicoe’s career following the Battle of Jutland was less successful. He was promoted to the position of First Sea Lord, but it was a promotion too far. He turned out to be both a pessimist and even defeatist. He thought nothing could be done to beat the U-boat threat and resisted Lloyd-George’s entreaties to institute a convoy system for merchant shipping. In the end, Lloyd George lost patience with him and Jellicoe was sacked at the end of 1916. Nonetheless, he was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet in 1919 and appointed as Governor General of New Zealand in 1920. He was elevated to the peerage on his return to Britain in 1925 and died ten years later. Despite his failure as First Sea Lord, he was highly regarded by his fellow admirals for his sense of duty, courage and dignity.