The German Admiral could never have had the least doubt as to his task. His business was to save his fleet from the annihilation with which it was manifestly menaced. So far fortune had been kind. The British Battle-Cruiser Fleet had done what the Germans had expected it to do. It had engaged promptly and determinedly and its losses, surprisingly enough, had been suffered, not while it was holding a force greatly superior to itself, but while engaging Von Hipper, whose ships were less numerous and more lightly armed. Though Scheer did not expect an encounter with the Grand Fleet, he was very far from being unprepared, should it come. Accordingly, when at six o’clock he realized that the supreme moment had arrived, he was probably as little in doubt as to his method of executing his task, as to the character of the task itself.
The tactics of Admiral Scheer were a development and an extension of those of Von Hipper on January 24 of the previous year. If his task was to break off action as soon as possible and to keep out of action until darkness made fleet fighting impossible, means must be found of thwarting or neutralizing the attack of the British Fleet while it lasted, of evading that attack at the earliest moment, and of preventing its resumption. He could only neutralize the attack in so far as he could thwart the fire-control and aiming of the enemy by the constant or intermittent concealment of his ships by smoke. He could only evade attack by preventing the overwhelming force against him being brought within striking distance. Recall for a moment the lessons of the Dogger Bank. In his retreat Von Hipper had put his flotillas to a double task. For the first two hours of that engagement he had checked the speed of his battle cruisers to cover _Bluecher_. When the British Fleet had so gained on him that its artillery became effective, he realized that the case of _Bluecher_ was hopeless and that, unless prompt measures were taken, the case of the battle cruiser would be little better. _Bluecher_ was, therefore, abandoned to her fate and _Derfflinger_, _Seydlitz_, and _Moltke_ concealed by smoke. Simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, a veritable shoal of torpedoes was launched across the path on which _Lion_ and her consorts were advancing. The smoke baffled the gun-layers, the changed course forced on the battle-cruisers baffled the fire-control. The Germans gained immunity from gunfire and, in the pause, changed course and got a new start in the race for home. Then the first of a succession of rendezvous for submarines placed on the pre-arranged line of the German retreat, repeated this tactic of diversion just before _Lion_ was disabled. The intervention--an hour later--of a second protecting picket of submarines was decisive, for, on realizing their presence, the officer who had succeeded Sir David in command broke off pursuit. It was on these tactics on a greatly extended scale and developed no doubt by assiduous study and repeated rehearsal, that Scheer now had to rely.