The Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht (Battle of the Skagerrak); Danish: Søslaget ved Jylland / Søslaget om Skagerrak) was the largest naval battle of World War I and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. It is also, by certain criteria, the largest naval battle in history.

It was fought on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland, the northward-pointing peninsular mainland of Denmark. The combatants were the Imperial German Navy"s High Seas Fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer and the Royal Navy’s British Grand Fleet commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The intention of the German fleet was to lure out, trap and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the Germans were insufficient in number to engage the entire British fleet at one time. This formed part of their larger strategy of breaking the British naval blockade of the North Sea and allowing German mercantile shipping to operate again. The Royal Navy, on the other hand, was pursuing a strategy seeking to engage and destroy the High Seas Fleet or else keep the German force bottled up and away from Britain"s own shipping lanes.

The Germans" plan was to use Vice-Admiral Franz Hipper’s fast scouting group of five modern battlecruisers to lure Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battlecruiser squadrons through a submarine picket line and into the path of the main German fleet and so destroy them. But the British had learned from signal intercepts that a major fleet operation was likely, and on 30 May Jellicoe sailed with the Grand Fleet to rendezvous with Beatty, passing over the intended locations of the German submarine picket lines before the U-boats had reached their positions.

On the afternoon of 31 May Beatty encountered Hipper"s battlecruiser force long before the Germans had intended or expected, which eliminated any submarine influence, but in a running battle Hipper successfully drew the British vanguard into the path of the High Seas Fleet. By the time Beatty turned towards the British main fleet he had lost two battlecruisers along with his numerical advantage over Hipper. However the German fleet in pursuit of Beatty was drawn towards the main British fleet. From 18:30 hrs, when the sun was lowering on the western horizon ing the German forces, until nightfall at about 20:30 the two huge fleets — totaling 250 ships between them — were heavily engaged.

Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk with great loss of life. After sunset, and throughout the night, Jellicoe manœuvered to cut the Germans off from their base in hopes of continuing the battle in the morning, but under cover of darkness Scheer crossed the wake of the British fleet and returned to port.

Both sides claimed victory. The British had lost more ships and many more sailors, and the British press criticised the Grand Fleet"s actions, but Scheer’s plan of destroying Beatty’s squadrons had also failed. The Germans continued to pose a threat that required the British to keep their battleships concentrated in the North Sea, but they never again contested control of the high seas. Instead, the German Navy turned its efforts and resources to unrestricted submarine warfare.