Download or read book Falklands 1914 written by Richard Hough and published by Periscope Publishing Ltd.. This book was released on 2003 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This naval history tells the dramatic story of the destruction of Germany's East Asiatic Squadron in the opening weeks of the World War I. This crack force of armoured cruisers, led by Vice-Admiral von Spee, had the potential to be a menace to Allied shipping in the Pacific.

Download or read book Castles of Steel written by Robert K. Massie and published by Random House. This book was released on 2003-10-28 with total page 1076 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea power in the winning of the Great War. The predominant image of this first world war is of mud and trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, poison gas, and slaughter. A generation of European manhood was massacred, and a wound was inflicted on European civilization that required the remainder of the twentieth century to heal. But with all its sacrifice, trench warfare did not win the war for one side or lose it for the other. Over the course of four years, the lines on the Western Front moved scarcely at all; attempts to break through led only to the lengthening of the already unbearably long casualty lists. For the true story of military upheaval, we must look to the sea. On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen. When war came, these two fleets of dreadnoughts—gigantic floating castles of steel able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away—were ready to test their terrible power against each other. Their struggles took place in the North Sea and the Pacific, at the Falkland Islands and the Dardanelles. They reached their climax when Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each the home of a thousand men. When the German High Seas Fleet retreated, the kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which, in its indiscriminate violence, brought a reluctant America into the war. In this way, the German effort to “seize the trident” by defeating the British navy led to the fall of the German empire. Ultimately, the distinguishing feature of Castles of Steel is the author himself. The knowledge, understanding, and literary power Massie brings to this story are unparalleled. His portrayals of Winston Churchill, the British admirals Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and the Germans Scheer, Hipper, and Tirpitz are stunning in their veracity and artistry. Castles of Steel is about war at sea, leadership and command, courage, genius, and folly. All these elements are given magnificent scope by Robert K. Massie’ s special and widely hailed literary mastery. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Robert K. Massie's Catherine the Great.

Download or read book Naval Battles of the Twentieth Century written by Richard Hough and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2003-05-27 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The major naval powers—Britain, America, Russia, and Japan—have all played a part in the theater of war at sea over the last one hundred years. Naval fighting has always been a rapidly developing affair, and in no century have changes been so swift and fundamental. In 1905, when this book begins, the first major engagement between ironclad fleets—the Battle of Tsu-Shima—took place in the Far East and decided the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war in Japan’s favor. What follows are the mighty sea battles of our century, graphically reconstructed for the reader. Victories, defeats, and mutinies at sea, from the battle with the Bismarck to the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal.

Download or read book The Day the World was Shocked written by John Protasio and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Bring[s] home the horrors of life-and-death scenarios at sea . . . ties the sinking of the Lusitania to America’s entry into the First World War” (Sea History). Unlike the loss of the Titanic several years earlier, which could be attributed to nature, the destruction of the passenger-liner Lusitania came at the hands of a German U-boat, one of many which infested the Atlantic at the time, seeking destruction. Many questions, however, rage to this day. Was the liner armed? Did she carry contraband munitions in a secret effort to aid the Allies? Did the Germans set out from the start to sink this ship? Was the Lusitania deliberately allowed to sink by the supposedly protective Royal Navy in order to draw the United States into the war? This book answers these and other questions surrounding this emotionally charged sinking. It traces the story from the time of the vessel’s construction to her demise, while providing a real-time look at the chaos on board once German torpedoes had shattered the ship. And what of the U-boat commander, who may either have made the greatest mistake in history or had just been performing his duty? This account deals with the diplomatic repercussions of the sinking, while also examining the human side of the story. John Protasio, author of three previous books on maritime disasters, has here provided an expert account and analysis of the sinking that swayed a nation—in fact, the world—into a new era, as the United States finally found that it could no longer hide behind its oceans and instead felt compelled to assert itself as a global power.

Download or read book Dreadnought written by Roger Parkinson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The years leading to World War I were the 'Age of the Dreadnought'. The monumental battleship design, first introduced by Admiral Fisher to the Royal Navy in 1906, was quickly adopted around the world and led to a new era of naval warfare and policy. In this book, Roger Parkinson provides a re-writing of the naval history of Britain and the other leading naval powers from the 1880s to the early years of World War I. The years before 1914 were characterised by intensifying Anglo-German naval competition, with an often forgotten element beyond Europe in the form of the rapidly developing navies of the United States and Japan. Parkinson shows that, although the advent of the dreadnought was the pivotal turning-point in naval policy, in fact much of the technology that enabled the dreadnought to be launched was a continuity from the pre-dreadnought era. In the annals of the Royal Navy two names will always be linked: those of Admiral Sir John 'Jacky' Fisher and the ship he created, HMS Dreadnought. This book shows how the dreadnought enabled the Royal Navy to develop from being primarily the navy of the 'Pax Britannica' in the Victorian era to being a war-ready fighting force in the early years of the twentieth century. The ensuing era of intensifying naval competition rapidly became a full-blooded naval arms race, leading to the development of super-dreadnoughts and escalating tensions between the European powers. Providing a truly international perspective on the dreadnought phenomenon, this book will be essential reading for all naval history enthusiasts and anyone interested in World War I.

Download or read book From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow written by Arthur J Marder and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The five volumes that constitute Arthur Marder's From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow represented arguably the finest contribution to the literature of naval history since Alfred Mahan. A J P Taylor wrote that 'his naval history has a unique fascination. To unrivalled mastery of sources he adds a gift of simple narrative . . . He is beyond praise, as he is beyond cavil.' The five volumes were subtitled The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904–1919 and they are still, despite recent major contributions from Robert Massie and Andrew Gordan, regarded by many as the definitive history of naval events leading up to and including the Great War. This last volume describes the Royal Navy's final triumph. The convoy system brought rewards and the US Navy arrived in European waters. The striking 1918 raid on Zeebrugge was a big morale booster, and in November 1918 Beatty received the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. In June the following year the Germand scuttled their fleet at Scapa Flow and so came to an end a major era in naval history. A new introduction by Barry Gough, the distinguished Canadian maritime and naval historian, assesses the importance of Marder's work and anchors it firmly amongst the great naval narrative histories of this era. This new paperback edition will bring a truly great work to a new generation of historians and general readers.

Download or read book Churchill and Fisher written by Barry Gough and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid study of the politics and stress of high command, this book describes the decisive roles of young Winston Churchill as political head of the Admiralty during the First World War. Churchill was locked together in a perilous destiny with the ageing British Admiral 'Jacky' Fisher, the professional master of the British Navy and the creator of the enormous battleships known as Dreadnoughts. Upon these 'Titans at the Admiralty' rested British command of the sea at the moment of its supreme test — the challenge presented by the Kaiser's navy under the dangerous Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Churchill and Fisher had vision, genius, and energy, but the war unfolded in unexpected ways. There were no Trafalgars, no Nelsons. Press and Parliament became battlegrounds for a public expecting decisive victory at sea. An ill-fated Dardanelles adventure, 'by ships alone' as Churchill determined, on top of the Zeppelin raids on Britain brought about Fisher's departure from the Admiralty, in turn bringing down Churchill. They spent the balance of the war in the virtual wilderness. This dual biography, based on fresh and thorough appraisal of the Churchill and Fisher papers, is a story for any military history buff. It is about Churchill's and Fisher's war — how each fought it, how they waged it together, and how they fought against each other, face to face or behind the scenes. It reveals a strange and unique pairing of sea lords who found themselves facing Armageddon and seeking to maintain the primacy of the Royal Navy, the guardian of trade, the succour of the British peoples, and the shield of Empire.

Download or read book Battles and Honours of the Royal Navy written by David A. Thomas and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1998-12-17 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An invaluable and up-to-date reference book listing every battle honour awarded to ships of the Royal Navy. Although the honours go back to the Spanish Armada in 1588, surprisingly the system was not officially sanctioned until 1954.

Download or read book The Wolves and the Greyhounds written by Robert Schreiner and published by Robert G Schreiner. This book was released on 2024-04-01 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entire fleet of German warships has mysteriously vanished, and the Royal Navy must find them—before it’s too late. At the outbreak of the First World War, a Royal Navy task force raced to the German colony at Tsingtao to surround and blockade enemy forces stationed there. They arrived to find the port completely empty. Somehow, all of the powerful warships of the feared German East Asia Squadron had steamed out into the vastness of the Pacific—and disappeared. As days turned into weeks, the possibility that the elusive German fleet might suddenly appear on any horizon paralyzed the British Empire and set in motion a frantic search for the enemy warships. The fates of two naval commanders—one British, one German—are inexorably drawn together as the world plunges into war. John Luce, a veteran Royal Navy captain, must face the greatest challenge of his career as he leads a ragtag squadron of obsolete British warships into unfamiliar waters in search of the rogue enemy fleet. His darkest fears are realized, and the course of the war may hang in the balance. Captain Julius Maerker of the Kaiserliche Marine has assumed his new command with the East Asia Squadron. As war is declared, he finds himself serving in the shadow of a mercurial and fiery admiral, whose ambition will take the German fleet on an extraordinary odyssey and risk the lives of thousands of his men. In this epic wartime adventure, bold gambles and tragic miscalculations pull these two captains, their ships, and their rival empires into a desperate clash—culminating in the most decisive naval battles of the war. The Wolves and the Greyhounds brilliantly dramatizes a largely forgotten chapter of WWI that will captivate fans of historical fiction and military thrillers.

Download or read book The Late Victorian Navy written by Roger Parkinson and published by Boydell Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Royal Marines and the War at Sea 1939 45 written by Martin Watts and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining a personal narrative with tactical and technical analysis, this book casts new light on the Royal Marines during the Second World War.

Download or read book Through a Canadian Periscope written by Julie H. Ferguson and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2014-03-10 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colourful and well-researched account of Canada's submarine service, from its beginnings on the first day of the First World War to its uncertain future today. Ferguson details the careers of the Canadians who served in British submarines in all theatres of the Second World War then goes on to examine the modern era.

Download or read book The First World War written by Hew Strachan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-06 with total page 1248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first truly definitive history of the First World War, the war that has done most to shape the twentieth century. The first generation of its historians had access to only a limited range of sources, and their focus was primarily on military events. More recent approaches have embraced cultural, diplomatic, economic, and social history. In Hew Strachan's authoritative and readable history these fresh perspectives are incorporated with the military and strategicnarrative. The result is an account that breaks the bounds of national preoccupations to become both global and comparative.To Arms, the first of three volumes in this magisterial study, examines not only the causes of the war and its opening clashes on land and sea, but also the ideas that underpinned it, and the motivations of the people who supported it. It provides full and pioneering accounts of the war's finances, of the war in Africa, and of the Central Powers' bid to widen the war outside Europe.

Download or read book Victoria and Albert written by Richard Hough and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996-10-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The life of Queen Victoria and the passionate love she shared with the German Prince Albert."--Jacket.

Download or read book Harper s Pictorial Library of the World War written by Albert Bushnell Hart and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book European Powers in the First World War written by Spencer Tucker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1996. The First World War was the single most important event of the twentieth century. This volume concentrates on non-U.S. aspects of the conflict. Organized alphabetically, its more than 600 detailed entries offer information and insight on such subjects as the causes of the conflict, major battles and campaigns, weapons systems (including military aviation, chemical warfare, the submarine, and the tank), and the terms of the peace. Some 350 biographies provide information on the roles played in the conflict by generals, admirals, and civilian leaders. There are also biographies of individuals who were shaped by the war, such as Charles De Gaulle, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin; essays on each of the countries involved in the conflict; new appraisals of such subjects as military medicine and artillery tactics; and essays on such diverse subjects as art, literature, and music in the war. Each entry has references for additional reading, and a subject index provides easy access. The volume is an excellent reference source for scholar and neophyte alike.

Download or read book The First World War in Africa written by Hew Strachan and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-10-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Arms is Hew Strachan's most complete and definitive study of the opening of the First World War. Now, key sections from this magisterial work are published as individual paperbacks, each complete in itself, and with a new introduction by the author. The First World War was not just fought in the trenches of the western front. It embraced all of Africa. Many of those who fought this white man's war were black. The dangers they confronted went beyond those of the battlefield. They fell prey to malaria and dysentery, and they were attacked by lions and crocodiles. But it was a vast and spectacular theatre of operations, in which great personalities - thrusting German officers like Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, or big-game hunters like Peter Pretorious - could impose themselves. Embracing the perspectives of all the nations who fought there, this is the first ever full account of the Great War in Africa.