Germany assumed before the First World War that England would adopt a strategy of "closed blockade" of their ports, as it had done before against France, Spain and England in previous centuries. To counter this strategy, Germany produced powerful and heavily armored buildings, as well as a large quantity of torpedo boats. But the British Admiralty was aware that the nature of maritime warfare had changed, and that a closed blockade would no longer be effective.
When the sailing navy still existed, ships could stay at sea as long as their water and food supplies allowed, but the development of steam power changed this dynamic. The battleships had to return to port regularly to refuel with coal.
Consequently, to maintain a closed blockade, England had to possess a fleet about three times greater in number than that of Germany, to allow ships to take turns in manning the blockade, while others returned to port to take coal. The objective of a blockade is to prevent a country from benefiting from the resources that the sea can bring to it. Geographically, to access the Atlantic, Germany had to go either through the English Channel or through the North Sea. . The Admiralty therefore opted for a "remote" blockade strategy. A squadron of dreadnoughts supported by a large number of destroyers, torpedo boats and minefields protected the English Channel, while the powerful Grand Fleet withdrew to the ports of Rosynth, Edinburgh, Cromarty and Scapa Flow, from where it could easily monitor German attempts to break out of the North Sea.
The “remote blockade” proved successful. In 1916, Germany had been under blockade for two years. The shortage of food began to affect the performance of soldiers as well as civilians. The only effective German weapon was the U-boat, but Germany ended submarine warfare in 1916 to keep America out of the conflict.
German naval strategists were frustrated. Since the start of the war they had hatched plans to draw the Royal Navy into a decisive battle in Germany's territorial waters, where a combined use of mines and submarines would finally put the German navy on an equal footing with the British, allowing the German navy to dominate by its technology and its qualification. These hopes notwithstanding, the German admirals knew that their fleet could not match the British in a conflict on the high seas. In fact, the British admiralty repeatedly attempted to draw the German fleet into a full-scale confrontation. Admiral Hugo von Pohl, commander of the fleet, had the prudence to resist this temptation, supported by the Kaiser, but in February 1916 he was replaced by Admiral Reinhardt von Scheer, a much more aggressive strategist. /P>
Scheer thought that the German fleet could undermine the British domination by wiping a minimum of losses. He devised a plan to lure a small part of the British fleet - Beatty's forces stationed at Rosyth - into a trap and destroy it, in order to reduce Germany's numerical disadvantage.
On May 30, Scheer ordered Admiral Franz von Hipper to take forty ships and proceed to close to the Danish coast. Scheer himself followed behind, with the bulk of the German fleet ready to strike. The plan was based on the credulity of the British, and had a very slim chance of succeeding, even though the British Admiralty had not analyzed any wireless transmissions from the Germans since the start of the war. Signals to the German fleet were intercepted, and the Navy swung into action. Scheer had no idea that the bulk of the English fleet was at sea when Hipper left port. Despite this triumph of British espionage, the confusion of communications between the Admiralty and Admiral Jellicoe led the English to believe that Scheer had remained in port. Neither side knew that the entire enemy fleet was at sea. The stage was set.