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The German Fleet, being close to its bases, was able to publish at once its own version of the battle. A resounding success was a political necessity for Germany, and it is likely that she would have claimed a victory if any remnant of her fleets had reached harbour. As it was she was over-joyed at having escaped annihilation, and the magnitude of her jubilation may be taken as the measure of her fears. It is of the nature of a naval action that it gives ample scope for fiction. There are no spectators. Victory and defeat are not followed, as in a land battle, by a gain or loss of ground. A well-disciplined country with a strict censorship can frame any tale it pleases, and stick to it for months without fear of detection at home. Therefore Germany claimed at once a decisive success. According to her press the death blow had been given to Britain's command of the sea. The Kaiser soared into the realms of poetry:—"The gigantic fleet of Albion, ruler of the seas, which since Trafalgar for a hundred years has imposed on the whole world a bond of Rh