, instead of having been detached by Jellicoe for
operations to the southward, had, in fact, gone out directly from the
mouth of the Thames to sweep northward toward a junction with the main
fleet. This view of the matter is confirmed by the opening sentence of
Beatty's official report to Jellicoe:

"I have the honor to report that at 2.37 p. m. on 31st May, 1916, I
was cruising and steering to the northward to join your flag."

Another point which has been criticized is the action of Beatty in
turning south instead of north when he first found himself in touch
with Von Hipper.

It is not clear from the evidence at hand whether he followed Von
Hipper in this move or whether Von Hipper followed him. If Von Hipper
headed south, Beatty could not well refuse to follow him. Beatty was
there to fight if there was a chance to fight, and there is no
question that in heading south, whether he was following Von Hipper's
lead or taking the lead himself, he took the one course which made the
existing chance a certainty.

From this point of view he was right. From another point of view he
was wrong, for he was running at full speed directly away from his own
supports and directly toward those of his opponent. He thought, and
Jellicoe appears to have thought, that the Germans did not wish to
fight. But when Beatty finally turned north, both Von Hipper and Von
Scheer followed readily enough, although they must have known pretty
accurately what lay ahead of them. Beatty's error, then, if error it
was, seems to have been not so much in judging the tactical situation
as in judging the spirit of his opponent.

Very severe criticism has been directed against Beatty for fighting at
comparatively short ranges--9,000 to 14,000 yards--when he had a
sufficient excess of speed to choose his distance. This is hardly a
fair criticism of the early stages of the battle, as he was then
opposed to ships of the same type as his own, so that if he was
accepting a disadvantage for himself, he was forcing the same
disadvantage upon his opponent. And after all, 14,000 yards is not a
short range, though it is certainly much shorter to-day than it would
have been ten years ago.

When, in the later stages of the battle, he was opposed to
dreadnoughts, it would perhaps have been wiser to maintain a range of
from 18,000 to 20,000 yards, but the situation was complicated by the
necessity of holding the enemy and leading him to the northward, and
it is no