The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle of the Great War. On May the 30th 1916, in response to low morale in Germany, the newly appointed commander-in- chief of the navy, Admiral von Scheer, ordered the High Seas Fleet to leave the Kielcanal in force with the objective of attacking British cruisers and merchant ships in and outside the Skager-Rack. The German fleet sailed in two divisions: in the van was von Hipper's battle-cruiser squadron of five ships with attendant cruisers and destroyers; and some sixty miles astern, the battle fleet of some nineteen or twenty battleships, twenty light cruisers. The British were alerted by unusual radio traffic over the North Sea and Jellicoe's Grand Fleet and Beatty's battle-cruiser squadron sailed on the night of the 30th of May and took up position the next morning and engaged the enemy. Although the British losses were greater than the German, the German fleet retreated back to its harbours. Research Battle of Jutland