The Battle of Jutland: Was it the 'new Trafalgar' the British public craved?

ITV Border's John Ballard, and author of '10 Greatest Ships of the Royal Navy', provides the context and background of the Battle of Jutland:

Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo might have been the spark that ignited the First World War but the conflict had numerous contributory causes.

A naval race between Britain and Germany was one of those factors.

Ever since victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 Britain had been undisputed master of the seas with the British Fleet a mighty force in every corner of the globe. From Newfoundland to New South Wales and Cyprus to Ceylon, the Royal Navy was there protecting British interests and projecting British power. It was even laid down in an Act of Parliament that the Royal Navy had to maintain a number of battleships at least equal to the combined strength of the next two largest navies in the world.

But by the late nineteenth century a newly unified Germany was beginning to challenge Britain's global economic and industrial supremacy - and was even setting out to build a fleet that could rival the Royal Navy.

While the British stayed ahead in the naval arms race, Germany's booming economy and expanding fleet saw Anglo-German relations deteriorate from suspicion in the 1880s to outright hostility by the early twentieth century.

When war finally broke out in August 1914 the rival armies quickly became bogged down in the mud of Flanders

What Britain needed - and the British people expected - was a set-piece full-on confrontation at sea that would rekindle the spirit of Nelson and Trafalgar, smash the enemy and break the stalemate of trench warfare by bringing the enemy to its knees.

For the first two years of the war the Admiralty was content for the British Grand Fleet, stationed at Scapa Flow in Orkney, to stay at anchor and keep a wary eye on the Kaiser's ships rather than engaging them in battle.

But by May 1916 the German High Command decided it was time to try and make a decisive breakthrough and take on the largest collection of maritime might ever assembled.

In a bid to lure the British from the safety of Scapa Flow the German Navy sent five battlecruisers out of port and into the North Sea. The Royal Navy responded by dispatching an armada to intercept them and the Battle of Jutland off the coast of Denmark ensued.

The expected new Trafalgar never came. Instead of an overwhelming victory, the Royal Navy lost more ships than the Germans with the battlecruisers Indefatigable, Invincible and Queen Mary all going down. Nearly 6,800 British sailors died at Jutland compared to 3,000 German dead.

Back home the news was treated with dismay by a war-weary public who questioned their fleet's tactics and conduct.

Yet what initially seemed like defeat, actually turned out to be something of a strategic victory. Although Britain lost more ships, having a larger fleet meant it was a hit she could afford to absorb and the British retained a comfortable numerical warship advantage over the Germans who realised they simply didn't have the resources to defeat the Royal Navy.

The German fleet stayed in port for the rest of the war and Germany eventually succumbed to the combination of a Royal Navy blockade that cut food supplies and the wearing down of its army on the Western Front.

Local connections

Many local men from Cumbria and the south of Scotland fought in the Battle of Jutland.

Four men from Longtown are known to have been there, and one of them, Walter Jackson, never came back.

ITV Border's Greg Hoare went to find out about his story.