Page:The Battle of Jutland.pdf/9



From the opening of the war the British Navy had been sustained by the hope that some day and somewhere they would meet the German High Sea Fleet in a battle in the open sea. It had been their hope since the hot August day when the great battleships disappeared from the eyes of watchers on the English shores. It had comforted them in the long months of waiting amid the winds and snows of the northern seas. Since the beginning of the year 1916 this hope had become a confident belief. There was no special ground for it, except the general one that as the case of Germany became more desperate she would be forced to use every asset in the struggle. As the onslaught on Verdun grew more costly and fruitless, and as the armies of Russia began to stir with the approach of (B780)