Portrait postcard of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe of the Royal Navy. Appointed Commander of the British Home Fleets on August 2, 1914, Jellicoe was criticized for his leadership of the British fleet during the May 31, 1916 Battle of Jutland in which he failed to decisively defeat the German High Seas Fleet. He was made First Sea Lord later that year. The card was postmarked from Glasgow, Scotland, on January 7, 1915.
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe
"Visit from Admiral Jellicoe.A real sailor and a real Anglo-Saxon.He takes a serious view of the situation as a result of the submarine war. In February 500,000 tons were sunk, and against this between eight and ten enemy submarines were destroyed. It is extremely difficult to know when a submarine has been sunk. . . .The Germans are beginning to lack experienced officers."
Entry from the war diary of Albert, King of the Belgians, March 4, 1917, on his visit from Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Great Britain's First Sea Lord. Germany had resumed its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 in an attempt to starve Britain into submission. 500,000 tons was a significant increase over the average of 320,000 in the preceding four months, a period in which the Allies sank only ten submarines in all theaters. Jellicoe overestimates the Allies' success in destroying U-boats. Halpern, in his A Naval History of World War I, writes that, 'in February, March, and April the Germans lost only nine submarines' (p. 341).
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, pp. 156–157, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
1917-03-04, 1917, March, Jellicoe, Admiral Jellicoe, John Jellicoe
