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Author: Peter Padfield
Publisher: Thistle Publishing
ISBN: 9781909869400
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 422
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Book Description
More than the story of the intense battleship-building competition between Great Britain and Imperial Germany before the First World War, this is a study in envy: Kaiser Wilhelm II, grandson of Queen Victoria, reflected Prusso-German resentment at Britain's world power, and longed for a fleet to rival the Royal Navy. It is a fact, disgracefully unrecognised by the historical establishment, that his admiral, Alfred Tirpitz, designed the German battlefleet from the start as an instrument to smash the British fleet. Britain's First Sea Lord, Admiral 'Jackie' Fisher, and Winston Churchill, when appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, reacted by laying down more, larger and better battleships. Tirpitz was forced to respond, but the escalating costs of the competition lost him the support of the Army and other interest groups. Almost alone, Wilhelm continued to back him, thereby ensuring that Britain would be an enemy when war came in 1914 - a war which Peter Padfield shows with irrefutable evidence from the German naval archives was provoked by Berlin. 'Mr Padfield is much more than a skilled populariser. He has his own specialised contribution to make on the development of the battleship, especially its gunnery equipment.' Times Literary Supplement 'Important, readable and scholarly new book... adds immeasurably to our understanding of the events which carried much of the civilised world into the war of 1914-18.' Texas Times 'A fascinating story, well told.' The Seafarer
Author: Peter Padfield
Publisher: Thistle Publishing
ISBN: 9781909869400
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 422
Get Book Here
Book Description
More than the story of the intense battleship-building competition between Great Britain and Imperial Germany before the First World War, this is a study in envy: Kaiser Wilhelm II, grandson of Queen Victoria, reflected Prusso-German resentment at Britain's world power, and longed for a fleet to rival the Royal Navy. It is a fact, disgracefully unrecognised by the historical establishment, that his admiral, Alfred Tirpitz, designed the German battlefleet from the start as an instrument to smash the British fleet. Britain's First Sea Lord, Admiral 'Jackie' Fisher, and Winston Churchill, when appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, reacted by laying down more, larger and better battleships. Tirpitz was forced to respond, but the escalating costs of the competition lost him the support of the Army and other interest groups. Almost alone, Wilhelm continued to back him, thereby ensuring that Britain would be an enemy when war came in 1914 - a war which Peter Padfield shows with irrefutable evidence from the German naval archives was provoked by Berlin. 'Mr Padfield is much more than a skilled populariser. He has his own specialised contribution to make on the development of the battleship, especially its gunnery equipment.' Times Literary Supplement 'Important, readable and scholarly new book... adds immeasurably to our understanding of the events which carried much of the civilised world into the war of 1914-18.' Texas Times 'A fascinating story, well told.' The Seafarer
Author: Nicholas A. Lambert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674063066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 662
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Book Description
Before the First World War, the British Admiralty conceived a plan to win rapid victory in the event of war with Germany-economic warfare on an unprecedented scale.This secret strategy called for the state to exploit Britain's effective monopolies in banking, communications, and shipping-the essential infrastructure underpinning global trade-to create a controlled implosion of the world economic system. In this revisionist account, Nicholas Lambert shows in lively detail how naval planners persuaded the British political leadership that systematic disruption of the global economy could bring about German military paralysis. After the outbreak of hostilities, the government shied away from full implementation upon realizing the extent of likely collateral damage-political, social, economic, and diplomatic-to both Britain and neutral countries. Woodrow Wilson in particular bristled at British restrictions on trade. A new, less disruptive approach to economic coercion was hastily improvised. The result was the blockade, ostensibly intended to starve Germany. It proved largely ineffective because of the massive political influence of economic interests on national ambitions and the continued interdependencies of all countries upon the smooth functioning of the global trading system. Lambert's interpretation entirely overturns the conventional understanding of British strategy in the early part of the First World War and underscores the importance in any analysis of strategic policy of understanding Clausewitz's "political conditions of war."
Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140096507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
Military historian John Keegan’s gripping history of naval warfare’s evolution. In The Price of Admirality, leading military historian John Keegan illuminates the history of naval combat by expertly dissecting four landmark sea battles, each featuring a different type of warship: the Battle of Trafalgar, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, the Battle of Midway in World War II, and the long and arduous Battle of the Atlantic. “The best military historian of our generation.”—Tom Clancy “The Price of Admirality stands alongside Mr. Keegan’s earlier works in its power to impart both the big and little pictures of war.”—The New York Times
Author: Robert K. Massie
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307819930
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1076
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Book Description
A gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century’s first great arms race, from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie With the biographer’s rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittery figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow; Britain’s greatest twentieth-century foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionized the British navy and brought forth the first true battleship, the H.M.S. Dreadnought. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought is history at its most riveting. Praise for Dreadnought “Dreadnought is history in the grand manner, as most people prefer it: how people shaped, or were shaped by, events.”—Time “A classic [that] covers superbly a whole era . . . engrossing in its glittering gallery of characters.”—Chicago Sun-Times “[Told] on a grand scale . . . Massie [is] a master of historical portraiture and anecdotage.”—The Wall Street Journal “Brilliant on everything he writes about ships and the sea. It is Massie’s eye for detail that makes his nautical set pieces so marvelously evocative.”—Los Angeles Times
Author: Michael A. Verney
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226819922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
Jeremiah Reynolds and the empire of knowledge -- The United States exploring expedition as Jacksonian capitalism -- The United States exploring expedition in popular culture -- The Dead Sea expedition and the empire of faith -- Proslavery explorations of South America -- Arctic exploration and US-UK rapprochement.
Author: Paul Kennedy
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141983833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592
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Book Description
Paul Kennedy's classic naval history, now updated with a new introduction by the author This acclaimed book traces Britain's rise and fall as a sea power from the Tudors to the present day. Challenging the traditional view that the British are natural 'sons of the waves', he suggests instead that the country's fortunes as a significant maritime force have always been bound up with its economic growth. In doing so, he contributes significantly to the centuries-long debate between 'continental' and 'maritime' schools of strategy over Britain's policy in times of war. Setting British naval history within a framework of national, international, economic, political and strategic considerations, he offers a fresh approach to one of the central questions in British history. A new introduction extends his analysis into the twenty-first century and reflects on current American and Chinese ambitions for naval mastery. 'Excellent and stimulating' Correlli Barnett 'The first scholar to have set the sweep of British Naval history against the background of economic history' Michael Howard, Sunday Times 'By far the best study that has ever been done on the subject ... a sparkling and apt quotation on practically every page' Daniel A. Baugh, International History Review 'The best single-volume study of Britain and her naval past now available to us' Jon Sumida, Journal of Modern History
Author: Mark Lardas
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 1472825101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 49
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Book Description
In 1908 the most incredible naval arms race in history began. Flush with cash from rubber and coffee, Brazil decided to order three of the latest, greatest category of warship available--the dreadnought battleship. One Brazilian dreadnought by itself could defeat the combined gunnery of every other warship of all the other South American nations. Brazil's decision triggered its neighbor Argentina to order its own brace of dreadnoughts, which in turn forced Chile (which had fought boundary disputes with Argentina) to order some. In the process, the South American dreadnought mania drove the three participants nearly into insolvency, led to the bankruptcy of a major shipyard, and triggered a chain of events which led Turkey to declare war on Great Britain. It also produced several groundbreaking dreadnought designs and one of the world's first aircraft carriers.
Author: Roger Parkinson
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781843833727
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
A reappraisal of the late Victorian Navy, the so-called `Dark Ages', showing how the period was crucial to the emergence of new technology defined by steel and electricity. In purely naval terms, the period from 1889 to 1906 is often referred to (and indeed passed over) as the `pre-Dreadnought era', merely a prelude to the lead-up to the First World War, and thus of relatively little importance; it has therefore received little consideration from historians, a gap which this book remedies by reviewing the late Victorian Navy from a radically new perspective. It starts with the Great Near East crisis of 1878 and shows how itsaftermath in the Carnarvon Commission and its evidence produced a profound shift in strategic thinking, culminating in the Naval Defence Act of 1889; this evidence, from the ship owners, provides the definitive explanation of whythe Victorian Navy gave up on convoy as the primary means of trade protection in wartime, a fundamental question at the time. The book also overturns many assumptions about the era, especially the perception that the navy was weak, and clearly shows that the 1870s and early 1880s brought in crucial technological developments that made the Dreadnought possible.
Author: Peter Padfield
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910670071
Category : Californian (Steamship)
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
'Fresh and valuable... Mr Padfield knows what he is writing about...with a knowledge and devotion displayed by no previous writer.' Times Literary Supplement 'This is not just another book on the Titanic but a fascinating revelation.' Birmingham Post 'The fascination of a closely reasoned detective story, and every landlubber should be able to follow it.' Daily Telegraph 'The story compels.' The Times 'An angry, exciting, vivid book. It may shake or shock, but never bore... decidedly one to remember.' Lloyds' List 'Admirable piece of detective work and reasonable speculation.' Books and Bookmen 'A dramatic and excellently told story.' The Book Society 'Mr. Padfield is justified in questioning the findings of the Mersey Inquiry.' Capt. Stephen Roskill, The Sunday Telegraph 'Mr. Padfield's book succeeds in clearing Lord's name of culpability.' Capt. S.W.C. Palk, The Navy 'It is a pity that Captain Lord did not live to read this splendid vindication... Padfield's magnificent analysis.' New Zealand Herald 'The night was clear and the sea was smooth. When she first saw the rockets the Californian could have pushed through the ice to the open water... and so have come to the assistance of the Titanic. Had she done so she might have saved many if not all of the [more than 1,500] lives lost.' This damning censure was handed down to Captain Lord of the Californian by the British Court of Inquiry into the loss of the Titanic. Lord was refused an appeal and was never charged under the Merchant Shipping Act for such a clear dereliction of duty, so never had an opportunity to defend himself. This book, first published in 1965, two years after Lord's death, was the first to question his censure. The evidence given in Court had convinced the author, Peter Padfield, that the Californian was never close enough to the Titanic to recognise her distress signals or attempt rescue. Twenty years later he was vindicated by the discovery of the wreck of the Titanic some 20 miles from the Californian's logged position that night. He remains convinced that the Inquiry was 'rigged' and Lord scapegoated to preserve the reputation of British liner companies and the responsible government department, the Board of Trade.
Author: Patrick J. Kelly
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253001757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 605
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Book Description
“A first-rate biography of this grand admiral who is better known for his political skills than his naval ones.” —US Naval Insitute Proceedings Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) was the principal force behind the rise of the German Imperial Navy prior to World War I, challenging Great Britain’s command of the seas. As State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office from 1897 to 1916, Tirpitz wielded great power and influence over the national agenda during that crucial period. By the time he had risen to high office, Tirpitz was well equipped to use his position as a platform from which to dominate German defense policy. Though he was cool to the potential of the U-boat, he enthusiastically supported a torpedo boat branch of the navy and began an ambitious building program for battleships and battle cruisers. Based on exhaustive archival research, including new material from family papers, Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy is the first extended study in English of this germinal figure in the growth of the modern navy. “Well written and based on new sources . . . allows the reader deep insights into the life of a man who played a very important role at the turn of the last century and who, like almost nobody else, shaped German policy.” —International Journal of Maritime History “An invaluable reference work on Tirpitz, the Imperial German Navy, and on politics in Wilhelmine Germany.” —The Northern Mariner
