With the Grand Fleet still at sea off its own coast, Germany flooded the world with the following statement: "During an enterprise directed toward the North, our High Seas Fleet, on Wednesday last, met a considerably superior main portion of the British Battle Fleet. In the course of the afternoon, between the Skager Rack and the Horn Reef, a number of severe and, for us, successful engagements developed and continued all night. In these engagements, as far as is at present ascertained, we destroyed the great battleship _Warspite_, the battle-cruisers _Queen Mary_ and _Indefatigable_, two armoured cruisers of the _Achilles_ class, one small cruiser, and the new destroyer leaders _Turbulent_, _Nestor_, and _Alcester_. According to trustworthy evidence, a great number of British battleships suffered heavy damage from the artillery of our vessels and the attacks of our torpedo-boat flotillas, during the day battle and during the night. Among others, the great battleship _Marlborough_ was hit by a torpedo, as is confirmed by the statements of prisoners. A portion of the crews of the British vessels that were sunk were picked up by our vessels. On our side the small cruiser _Wiesbaden_ was sunk by the enemy's artillery in the course of the day battle, and, during the night, the _Pommern_ by a torpedo. Regarding the fate of the _Frauenlob_, which is missing, and some torpedo-boats, which {199} have not returned up to the present, nothing is known. The High Seas Fleet returned to its harbour in the course of to-day." This was the German version, by twenty-four hours the first in the field; and a certain kind of triumph undoubtedly followed it. In every neutral country, including America, heavily captioned newspaper articles proclaimed a British defeat--an impression hardly dissipated by the candour and caution of the first British official report. That our losses were heavy could not, of course, be denied, and they were instantly and frankly confessed. Six cruisers, including three battle-cruisers, and eight destroyers had paid the price of admiralty; while, on the other hand, the German losses were only grudgingly announced as it became impossible to conceal them. How heavy they were and how profound was the loss of moral that followed the Jutland defeat was only later to become manifest, though a good deal might have been guessed from the foregoing message. Further evidence, too, might have been deduced from the hurried visit of the Kaiser to Wilhelmshaven, and the almost hysterical exaggeration of his address to his broken fleet. There he assured them that "the gigantic fleet of _Albion_, ruler of the seas, which, since Trafalgar, for a hundred years, had imposed on the whole world a bond of sea tyranny," had "come out into the field," and had been beaten; that "a great hammer blow" had been struck; and that the "nimbus of British world supremacy had disappeared."