Simon's Reviews > Rules of Game: Jutland and British Naval Command

This is an excellent book. It provides both a very well resesrched account of the battle itself (no mean feat given many uncertainties in who was exactly where when) but, even more importantly, also gives an outstandingly broad background background, especially on the British side, to the training, doctrine and personalities of the fleets and their commanders that led, over a period of many decades to the hazy May afternoon in the North Sea, when the Royal Navy missed their opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on the German High Seas Fleet. Therefore, this is an excellent account of what could have been a decisive moment in history but wasn't - although the consequences of the corresponding German failure to achieve their own naval goals (then or later) was to have profound consequences. Jellicoe comes out well, Beatty's much less so. The former's caution at the decisive moment was (probably) in retrospect a mistake but is still understandable 100 years later, especially given the uncertainties surrounding the effect of torpedoes in fleet actions. Gordon's indictment of the latter's cavalier approach to command and disregard of obvious procedures is clear. All in all, recommended without reservation.