Britain
John Jellicoe
1859–1935 Commander, Grand Fleet, 1914–December 1916
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe took the Grand Fleet to war in August 1914, with the knowledge, as Churchill put it, that he was the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon. He commanded the fleet at Jutland, deployed it skillfully in the face of poor intelligence, and refused to risk it on a night action or to run into the torpedoes of the retreating Germans. His caution has been criticized ever since, but it kept the blockade intact, which was the basic British strategy. He became First Sea Lord in December 1916 and held the post through the worst of the U-boat crisis, until Lloyd George replaced him in December 1917. He later served as governor-general of New Zealand.