The Royal Navy and the German Threat 1901-1914
Admiralty Plans to Protect British Trade in a War Against Germany
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:24th May '12
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
When and why did the Royal Navy come to view the expansion of German maritime power as a threat to British maritime security? Contrary to current thinking, Matthew S. Seligmann argues that Germany emerged as a major threat at the outset of the twentieth century, not because of its growing battle fleet, but because the British Admiralty (rightly) believed that Germany's naval planners intended to arm their country's fast merchant vessels in wartime and send them out to attack British trade in the manner of the privateers of old. This threat to British seaborne commerce was so serious that the leadership of the Royal Navy spent twelve years trying to work out how best to counter it. Ever more elaborate measures were devised to this end. These included building 'fighting liners' to run down the German ones; devising a specialized warship, the battle cruiser, as a weapon of trade defence; attempting to change international law to prohibit the conversion of merchant vessels into warships on the high seas; establishing a global intelligence network to monitor German shipping movements; and, finally, the arming of British merchant vessels in self-defence. The manner in which German schemes for commerce warfare drove British naval policy for over a decade before 1914 has not been recognized before. The Royal Navy and the German Threat illustrates a new and important aspect of British naval history.
An incisive politico-military history showing that a heretofore niche aspect of the Anglo-German naval race seriously troubled the British Admiralty throughout the Edwardian period. Discussion of ships, shells and security on the high seas is admittedly terse stuff, but the writing is sprightly and the result a timely dredging around the origins of the Great War after a century of resting, unrecovered, in an archival tomb. * Matthew Feldman, Times Higher Education *
a must-read for naval historians. * Professor Levy from the Journal of Military History *
a serious, scholarly and original interpretation which future historians will have to take seriously. * International Journal of Maritime History *
The history of the Royal Navy in the years 1900â14 has become a lively and controversial field in recent years, and this book is a noteworthy addition to the growing body of scholarship critical of the revisionist arguments ... The book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Royal Navy in the Fisher era. * Christopher M. Bell, Journal of British Studies *
compelling and offers a number of valuable new perspectives * Oliver Walton, Mariner's Mirror *
It is the single most important book on British strategy and naval history that have been published over the last 20 years. * Michael Clemmesen, Militært Tidsskrift *
essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Royal Navy in the Fisher era. * Christopher M. Bell, Journal of British Studies *
the best treatment of the origins of the battlecruiser I have seen. * Jonathan Beard, Michigan War Studies Review *
specialists in British naval history will welcome this book as an important and meticulously researched new addition to the literature on the British naval elite. * Mark Jones, Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin *
This is a good book. * Al Berger, H-War *
ISBN: 9780199574032
Dimensions: 240mm x 164mm x 24mm
Weight: 482g
198 pages