In 1916, war-weary Britain was still supremely confident in the Royal Navy’s superiority over a surprisingly advanced German fleet.

Amid the disasters of Gallipoli, and the Western Front, there was but one certainty.

Britain ruled the waves.

It was the unshakable foundation stone behind the idea of the British Empire.

The tales of Drake and Nelson — mariners who had defied the odds to keep Britain British — were seared into the population’s psyche from a young age.

Titanic dreadnoughts with grandiose names such as Warspite, Queen Elizabeth and Invincible represented the pinnacle of industry and technical innovation.

Most of all, the empire’s Grand Fleet was in the mind of the populace both an impenetrable steel curtain, and an unstoppable offensive force.

It was an image carefully groomed and maintained by a government struggling to stay at the top of the international pecking order.

But it was a myth that was ripe to be burst.

Ultimately, the epic Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, changed nothing.

It also changed everything.

So how did a nation so primed with pride in its navy come to hurl coal and insults its own battered and torn warships as they limped for the safety of their homes?

DEUS EX MACHINA

There was no doubt the Royal Navy far outmatched its German counterpart.

Their guns were bigger and longer ranged. On the bigger ships, these were also centrally controlled so they could be fired as one against a single target.

While First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill summed up the state of naval warfare to the House of Commons: A battle between dreadnoughts was akin to “a battle between two egg shells striking each other with hammers. The importance of hitting first, hitting hardest and keeping on hitting … really needs no clearer proof”.

But, by 1916, doubts were beginning to emerge about the fleet’s quality, leadership and effectiveness.

A wake-up call came as early as November 1914 at the Battle of Coronel. A mismatched force of largely obsolete British warships was crushed by a retreating German Pacific Fleet. But, by December 9, this was soon seen to have been avenged when a squadron of British battlecruisers — led by HMS Invincible — overwhelmed the smaller German force.

The sense of victory was short lived.

Just days later, on December 16, 1914, four fast German battlecruisers and a force of supporting ships dashed across the North Sea. Their daring raid on naval and radio facilities in the British coastal towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby killed 137 and wounded 592.

The Royal Navy, despite having read coded German messages, had been ineffectual in its response.

The German ships managed to slip away, unscathed.

The homeland had been attacked. Hapless civilians had died under a rain of heavy explosive shells.

But the resulting public outrage was quickly redirected towards the Germans: Propaganda posters declaring “Remember Scarborough” were quickly and prominently plastered about the empire.

The confusion and doubt which had hamstrung the Royal Navy’s commanders was glossed over, if not ignored. An earlier revelation that British naval cannon shells were of poor quality and defective continued to be covered up.

But the myth of invulnerability had been dented. And the bluster of politicians and military commanders was beginning to look out of step with the steady stream of bad news, the wounded soldiers and sailors in the streets — and the ever mounting casualty lists.

Surely the Royal Navy, with its proud tradition and immense fleet of modern ships, would deliver the empire victory — and soon?

ON THE FIRING LINE

Writing in the mid-1920s, Winston Churchill commented that Admiral John Jellicoe “was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.”

He came very close to doing so.

The Battle of Jutland was the biggest — and last — full blown clash of massed dreadnoughts.

It would end up a bloody shambles.

After cautiously clinging to its heavily defended ports more than two years, the German High Seas Fleet was now desperate enough to risk action. It hoped to lure the British into a trap.

The British knew this: Code breakers had been monitoring developments.

So, by 11.30pm on May 30, when the German fleet entered the North Sea, the British Grand Fleet was already headed for an assembly point some 100km west of Jutland.

The hunters had themselves become hunted.

Second in command for the British was Vice-Admiral David Beatty. He boldly ordered his fast — but vulnerable — battlecruisers and cruisers to scout ahead. He was regarded as a daring but skilled commander, while also being somewhat cavalier. He would wear his cap at a jaunty angle, for example.

But Beatty was supremely confident his battlecruisers could land the crippling shots necessary to slow the German fleet down and bring it within Jellicoe’s grasp.

Admiral Jellicoe led the main force of slower — but better protected — dreadnoughts. A deliberate, careful thinker, Jellicoe also found it hard to delegate authority. Instead, he issued a 200-page tome of Grand Fleet Battle Orders covering every eventuality he could conceive. His captains quickly learnt to always await his orders.

As events that unfolded on May 31, Beatty’s scouting force dashed further and further ahead of that of Jellicoe. The strength offered by his heavy guns would therefore not be able intervene in a timely manner. Beatty’s own ships, meanwhile, were becoming somewhat scattered.

Who exactly was to blame for the ensuing bedlam has been a matter of debate for the past 100 years.

Both men’s reputations would end in tatters.

EGG SHELLS WITH HAMMERS

At 2.35PM, the scouts of the two fleets of sighted each other. Each navy strove to entice the other into a trap.

In the ensuing battle, two of Beatty’s heavily armed but lightly protected battlecruisers suddenly, and unexpectedly, blew up.

Of HMS Indefatigable 1019 crew, only two survived. HMS Queen Mary lost 1266 men. Just 18 would be pulled from the water.

Beatty’s own flagship, HMS Lion, was badly battered.

“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,” he would famously rage.

Beatty, seeing the main German fleet on the horizon, ordered his remaining ships to reverse course and — instead of being led — attempted to lure the unsuspecting Germans towards Jellicoe.

But Jellicoe’s big dreadnoughts were not as close as anticipated. Beatty would have to continue to fight for a time, alone.

Finally Jellicoe’s heavier ships arrived, carving through water filled with wreckage and bodies. Their crews cheered — mistakenly believing them to be German.

The clash of dreadnoughts began.

Amid the carnage and confusion, the battlecruiser HMS Invincible exploded and sank within 90 seconds. The Germans were not without loss, either.

The battle rapidly degenerated into chaos.

Smoke from burning ships and belching guns filled the skies. Signals were confused or went unseen. The ever cautious Jellicoe chose discretion over aggression.

The eventual outcome was indecisive.

Under the cover of smoke and darkness, the smaller German High Seas Fleet managed to sip away.

The Royal Navy had held its ground. But the decisive outcome all had expected had not eventuated.

The British warships had been badly battered. In the final tally, it had lost a total of 14 vessels and 6094 men.

Against this could be measured the destruction of 11 German ships with the death of 2551 men. Among them were just one High Seas Fleet battlecruiser, Lutzow, and the obsolescent battleship Pommern.

By these statistics alone, the German High Seas Fleet held the highest score.

Through the night and much of the following day, Jellicoe’s ships strove to find the fleeting Germans.

But the airwaves were already thick with triumphant German claims of a dramatic victory.

The British public was stunned.

DREAMS TORN ASUNDER

While many British ships had been sunk, many more had been severely damaged. It was a long and arduous struggle to stay afloat and reach shore.

Fires were quenched and flooding stemmed. Struggling engines strained for home. They gingerly began to nose their way into their ports during the morning of July 1.

Waiting for them was a tsunami of public shock and outrage, whipped up by Germany’s exultant broadcasts.

Had the Royal Navy really lost?

Was Warspite really gone? Had Invincible really blown up?

Inexplicably, the British government was slow to release its own account of the battle.

Desperate families sat next to their radios, hoping to glean news of their loved ones from the triumphant German propaganda. Others could not contain their outrage.

Furious railway workers lined bridges, throwing dirty coal as still smouldering ships struggled past. Dockyard workers hurled abuse from the shore.

Perhaps fortunately, many of the tired and confused sailors aboard mistook these jeers for cheers.

Eventually, reliable news began to filter through to the tense population. Once safely ashore, sailors telegrammed their families to say they were safe. Tragically, the lack of such a message was often equally telling.

Crowds of worried relatives soon swarmed into the naval dockyards, displacing the angry workers.

Finally, the posting of an official Admiralty communiqué in shop and newspaper windows would provide certainty as to which ships would not be coming home.

Days later, King George V and Winston Churchill would pen desperate messages of encouragement, highlighting the Royal Navy’s strategic victory and tales of its bravery.

Britain could continue after such heavy losses. Germany could not. The High Seas Fleet would never again leave the safety of its harbours.

But it would take weeks, if not months and years, for the British government to regain lost moral ground.

The idea of the Royal Navy’s invincibility - and its rule of the waves - lay permanently at the bottom of the North Atlantic.

Bitter recriminations over who was to blame would linger for decades. The argument over who actually won or lost that day is yet to be resolved.

WHERE WERE THE AUSTRALIANS?

By a quirk of fate - an accident involving fog and our trans-Tasman mates - no Australian ships were present at Jutland.

Only one RAN ship was operating in the North Sea in early 1916 - the battle cruiser HMAS Australia. In April, during a patrol off Denmark in thick fog, Australia collided with squadron-mate HMS New Zealand, a gift from the Kiwis to the Royal Navy.

The Aussie ship was badly damaged and sent into docks for repairs - meaning she missed the action at Jutland. The Kiwi ship did take part and fired more shells than any other vessel on either side.

There were at least five Australians among the British crews, however - and possibly more that are not known about. Three of them were to lose their lives, all serving aboard the same ship - armoured cruiser HMS Defence, which was blown apart with the loss of all 903 men.

@JamieSeidel