Beatty
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
DAVID, EARL, a British admiral, born in 1871. He chose a naval career, and from the start manifested those qualities of judgment and intrepidity that signalized his work in all stages of the service. In 1898, serving in the Kitchener expedition on the Nile, he won the D. S. O. He was in the Boxer Rebellion and gave distinguished service at Tien-Tsin, where he was twice wounded. In 1900 he was made captain, and in 1910 became rear admiral. For two years prior to the outbreak of the World War he was naval secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty. In 1913 he be came commander of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron. The first action of importance in which he participated was the fight in the Bight of Helgoland, which resulted in a British victory. His casualties were slight, while the Germans lost five ships, 700 of their men being drowned or otherwise killed, while 300 were captured. In the Dogger Bank action of Jan. 24, 1915, his squadron scored another triumph, only two of his ships being hit, while the German armored cruiser "Blücher," after having been put out of action, turned turtle and sank with heavy loss of life. The battle of Jutland, the greatest naval action of the war, was fought May 31, 1916. Both sides suffered severely and conflicting claims were made as to the side with which victory rested. In this action, Beatty for a while was engaged d with much inferior forces against practically the whole of the German High Seas Fleet. His cruiser squadron fought brilliantly in the effort to hold the Germans until the Grand Fleet under Jellicoe could arrive and get into action. The Germans drew off and retreated under cover of the night, leaving the British still holding the seas, as they had done up to that time. When Jellicoe was made First Sea Lord on Nov. 29, 1917, Beatty was made commander of the grand fleet, which office he held until the close of the conflict. In that capacity it fell to him to receive the surrender of the German fleet off the Firth of Forth, Nov. 21, 1918. He received many decorations and was made an earl in 1919.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote in 1921 while Beatty was still serving, and left him an earl fresh from receiving the German fleet's surrender; he went on to become First Sea Lord from 1919 to 1927, the longest tenure in the post's history, and led the Royal Navy through the Washington Treaty naval limitations before dying on 11 March 1936 and being buried in St Paul's beside Nelson. Collier's slips on one date: Jellicoe became First Sea Lord in December 1916, and Beatty took over the Grand Fleet that November, not in 1917. Where the entry calls Jutland a battle in which "conflicting claims were made," a century of scholarship has settled the numbers - Britain lost fourteen ships and about 6,000 men to Germany's eleven and roughly 2,500 - while treating Beatty far more critically, faulting his battlecruisers' signalling and gunnery and his later efforts to shape the official record of the battle in his own favour against Jellicoe.
Written for this edition, 2026.