ADMIRAL SCHEER DEAD

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1929, Page 7

ADMIRAL SCHEER DEAD

GERMAN LEADED. AT JUTLAND. BERLIN, Nov. 23. Admiral Seheer, Commander of the German Fleet at the Battle of Jutland, died suddenly at 5.30 this morning on his way from Dresden to Mannheim. He was aged 65. He entered the German Navy In 1879. Reinhart Seheer, the admiral who commanded the German High Seas Fleet at Jutland, was never ennobled, though, like Kluck, who accompanied the first German army against our British Expeditionary Force at the outbreak of war, lie is often wrongly adorned with the “Von.” Born in 1863, lie was one of the boldest and most determined officers that the German Navy produced, but lie <1 id riot show any trace of t.h surpassing genius which distinguished such a leader as Nelson. He was appointed to the command of .the High Seas Fleet in Jan. 1916, and a. once inaugurated a policy of bold sallies. The fiot was directed against Yarmouth and Lowestoft in April; in May he put to sea intending to bombard Sunderland, but on May 31st. 1916, was caught by the British Grand Fleet off the coast of Jutland. AUDACIOUS ESCAPE. His fleet was approximately half the strength of the British, hut by sheer audacity it managed to escape after inflicting nearly twice the loss which it sustained. Admiring in others the boldness which he himself so abundantly displayed, he never could understand the attacks made in this country upon Lord Beatty’s tactics. He was unfortunately an advocate of the savage submarine campaign which finally brought defeat' on Germany by compelling the United States to enter the war. He wanted at the last to sink fighting rather tha.n see his ships surrendered to the Allies, but his crews—and no one can wonder at their attitude—refused to go forth to what would have meant suicide. He was censured by the Kaiser in 1917 for risking battleships in covering the U-boats ofT the German coast, in which operation two of them were torpedoed by Commander N. F. Laurence. Seheer was indignant, and justly. His account of the naval war was published in 1920.