Download or read book The Milne Papers written by John Beeler and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-05 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection covers the period February 1862-March 1864, which constituted the final two years and one month that Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander Milne commanded the Royal Navy’s North America and West India Station. Its chief focus is upon Anglo-American relations in the midst of the American Civil War. Whilst the most high-profile cause of tension between the two countries — the Trent Affair — had been resolved in Britain’s favour by January 1862, numerous sources of discord remained. Most turned on American efforts to blockade the so-called Confederacy, efforts that often ran afoul of international law, not to mention British amour-propre. As commander of British naval forces in the theatre, Milne’s decisions and actions could and did have a major impact on the state of affairs between his government and that of the US. While noting in one private exchange with the British ambassador to Washington, Richard, Lord Lyons, that he had been "enjoined to abstain from any act likely to involve Great Britain in hostilities with the United States," Milne added ominously, "yet I am also instructed to guard our Commerce from all illegal interference" and it is plain from his correspondence that both he and the British government were prepared to use force in that undertaking. Thus, between apparently high-handed behaviour by the US Navy and Milne’s and the Palmerston government’s resolve not to be pushed beyond a certain point, the ingredients for a major confrontation between the two countries existed. Yet most of Milne’s efforts were directed toward preventing such a confrontation from occurring. In this endeavour he was joined by Lyons and by the British government. No vital British interest was at stake in the conflict raging between North and South, and thus the nation was unlikely to become directly involved in it unless provoked by rash US actions. Yet there was no shortage of such provocations: the seizure of British merchant vessels bound from one neutral port to another, detaining such ships without first conducting a search of their cargo for evidence of contraband of war, the de facto blockade of British colonial ports, apparent violations of British territorial waters, the seizure of British merchantmen off the neutral port of Matamoros, Mexico, and the use of neutral ports as bases of operations by US warships among them. In responding to these and other sources of dispute between the US and Britain, Milne proved adept at pouring oil on troubled waters, so much so that in a late 1863 letter to Foreign Secretary Lord Russell, Lyons lamented his impending departure from the station: "I am very much grieved at his leaving....No change of admirals could be for the better." This collection centres upon Milne’s private correspondence, especially that between him and Lyons, First Lord of the Admiralty the Duke of Somerset and First Naval Lord Vice Admiral Sir Frederick Grey. It also includes private letters to and from many of Milne’s other professional correspondents and important official correspondence with the Admiralty.
Download or read book The Cunningham Papers written by Andrew Browne Cunningham Cunningham of Hyndhope (Viscount) and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume of Cunningham's papers covers the period from his brief term in 1942 as head of the British Admiralty Delegation in Washington and his subsequent appointment as Allied Naval Commander of the Expeditionary Force, through his time as First Sea Lord from October 1943 to his retirement from active service in June 1946. The collection includes official documents but also many letters to his family and brother officers that exhibit his feelings, as well as his illuminating diary entries from April 1944 onwards.
Download or read book Elizabethan Naval Administration written by C.S. Knighton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first general selection from the substantial body of surviving documents about Elizabeth’s navy. It is a companion to The Navy of Edward VI and Mary I (Vol.157 in the NRS Series), where the apparatus serving both volumes was printed, and it complements the other NRS volumes that deal specifically with the Spanish Armada. This collection concentrates (though not exclusively so) on the early years of Elizabeth’s reign when there was no formal war. From 1558-1585 the navy was involved in a number of small-scale campaigns, pursuit of pirates and occasional shows of force. The documents selected emphasize the financial and administrative processes that supported these operations, such as mustering, victualing, demobilisation, and ship maintenance and repair. The fleet varied in size from about 30 to 45 ships during the period and a vast amount of maintenance and repair was required. The main component of the volume is the massively detailed Navy Treasurer's account for 1562-3 which is followed by and collated with the corresponding Exchequer Account. The documents illustrate just how efficiently the dockyards functioned. They were one of the great early Elizabethan achievements.
Download or read book Shipboard Life and Organisation 1731 1815 written by B. Lavery and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-26 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea behind this volume, according to its editor Brian Lavery, was to give a rounded picture of life at sea during the age of sail. It concentrates on the daily routine of shipboard life rather than more dramatic events such as battles and mutiny. It supplements other volumes produced by the Navy Records Society, notably Five Naval Journals 1789-1817 (vol 91, 1951, ed H G Thursfield) and The Health of Seamen (vol 107, 1965, ed C C Lloyd.) The selection begins in the second quarter of the eighteenth century because, stated Brian Lavery, ‘there are no suitable documents from earlier periods’ and closes in 1815, when the navy entered a new era with the advent of steam and a long period of peace. One of the most important aspects of shipboard life was that it was intensely self-contained, especially in the later part of the age of sail. After the conquest of scurvy, ships were able to stay at sea for many months at a time and the world-wide battle for empire caused them to make very long voyages, often away from their home bases over a period of years. Even in port seamen often stayed on board and shore leave was not in any sense a right. This volume throws a spotlight on the way in which a crew of up to 850 men could be crammed into a small space for many months at a time, and the ways in which they were fed, clothed, allocated space for eating and sleeping, at the same time as they were organised for sailing and battle duties. It contains separate sections dealing with Admiralty Regulations, Captain’s Orders, Medical Journals, discipline and punishment. It also includes an extensive glossary of the nautical terms and descriptions of the time.
Download or read book The Collective Naval Defence of Empire 1900 1940 written by Nicholas Tracy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of high policy documents charts Britain’s difficulties in defending the Empire in a time of ’imperial overstretch’. The 20th century saw the rise of several great maritime and military powers and the relative decline of British strength, which created major defence problems for the British Empire. Various solutions were attempted, such as ententes with France and Russia, the settling of differences with the USA and an alliance with Japan. These sufficed until after World War I, when the Empire gained several new territorial responsibilities, all to be defended on a declining economic base. The dominions were encouraged to pay for their own navies, although the Admiralty wished to assume control of them. The increasing threat from Japan made Australia, New Zealand and other Asian colonies nervous and the promised ’main fleet to Singapore’ became less and less likely as the 1930s wore on.
Download or read book Morale and Discipline in the Royal Navy during the First World War written by Laura Rowe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The experiences of men who fought at sea reveal the relationship between discipline, leadership, and the strength of the fleet.
Download or read book The Durham Papers written by Hilary L. Rubinstein and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-13 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Admiral Sir Philip Durham (1763–1845) was one of the most distinguished and colourful officers of the late Georgian Navy. His lucky and sometimes controversial career included surviving the sinking of HMS Royal George in 1782, making the first conquest of the tricolour flag in 1793 and the last in 1815, and having two enemy ships surrender to him at Trafalgar. A Scot distantly related to Lord Barham, Durham entered the Navy in 1777, serving initially on the American and West Indies stations. He was Kempenfelt's signal officer on HMS Victory during the second battle of Ushant in 1781 and on the Royal George. Making his reputation initially as the daring young master and commander of HMS Spitfire early in the French Revolutionary War, he became a crack frigate captain with a fortune in prize money, and commanded HMS Defiance at Trafalgar, where he was wounded. He ended his war service as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands. En voyage he artfully captured two brand-new French frigates which were subsequently taken into the service of Britain, and during his tenure he won the heartfelt gratitude of local merchants by ridding the surrounding seas of American privateers preying on British trading vessels. True to form, he clashed with the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court on Antigua and with the general with whom he led a combined naval and military assault on Martinique and Guadeloupe following Napoleon's escape from Elba. He later served as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth having resigned his parliamentary seat to do so. Married first to the sister of the Earl of Elgin, of 'Marbles' fame, and secondly to a cousin of 'sea wolf' Lord Cochrane, he was well-known to George III, who as a result of Durham's amusing yet improbable anecdotes, dubbed any tall tale he heard 'a Durham'. This collection of his papers consists mainly of letters and despatches relating to his service in the Channel Fleet, the Mediterranean, and the Leeward Islands. Correspondence with his parents during 1789–1790 reflects his anxieties relating to employment and prospects for promotion when he was a young lieutenant with an illegitimate child to support. The collection, featuring items from and to him, comprises a fascinating and informative set of documents.
Download or read book The Rodney Papers written by David Syrett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overbearing, avaricious and difficult, yet talented and ambitious, George Brydges Rodney has never attracted much sympathy or understanding. He was nevertheless an original thinker and one of the great admirals of the eighteenth century. The contents of this volume, the first of three, document his career from 1742 until 1763 - his private and political life. His early years as a captain were spent in the severe conditions of the North Sea and in taking privateers in the western approaches. During the peace after 1748 he was Governor of Newfoundland and in the Seven Years' War blockaded Le Havre before going, as a flag officer, to command in the Leeward Islands where he participated in the capture of Martinique. This volume also contains letters to his wife which indicate, against past opinion, that Rodney had a heart.
Download or read book The Naval War in the Mediterranean written by Paul G. Halpern and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, originally published in 1987, fills a gap in a neglected area. Looking at the entire war in the Mediterrean, the volume examines the war from the viewpoint of all the important participants, making full use of archives and manuscript collections in Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria and the United States. A fascinating mosaic of campaigns emerges in the Adriatic, Straits of Otranto and the Eastern Aegean. The German assistance to the tribes of Libya, the threat that Germany would get her hands on the Russian Black Sea Fleet and use it in the Mediterreanean, and the appearance and influence of the Americans in 1918 all took place against a background of rivalry between the Allies which frustrated the appointment of Jellicoe in 1918 as supreme command at sea in a role similar to that of Foch on land.
Download or read book Battle of Dogger Bank written by Tobias R. Philbin and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive study of one of the pivotal naval battles of the Great War. On January 24, 1915, a German naval force commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper conducted a raid on British fishing fleets in the area of the Dogger Banks. The force was engaged by a British force, which had been alerted by a decoded radio intercept. The ensuing battle would prove to be the largest and longest surface engagement until the Battle of Jutland the following summer. While the Germans lost an armored cruiser with heavy loss of life and Hipper’s flagship was almost sunk, confusion in executing orders allowed the Germans to escape. The British considered the battle a victory; but the Germans had learned important lessons and they would be better prepared for the next encounter with the British fleet at Jutand. Tobias Philbin’s Battle of Dogger Bank provides a keen analytical description of the battle and its place in the naval history of World War I. “Tobias Philbin has written a very entertaining and informative book on the Battle of Dogger Bank. It will be enjoyed by a wide audience including naval historians, strategists, and those interested in how broader long-term decision-making determines the manner in which battles are fought, won and lost.” —The International Journal of Maritime History “The author’s research in British and German archives and knowledge of secondary sources produces a significant work on the war at sea.” —Stand-To “An interesting and stimulating book that is a useful contribution to the history of the First World War in the North Sea.” —The Mariner’s Mirror
Download or read book Jellicoe s War The U boat Threat in World War One and the Question of Convoy written by Nicholas Jellicoe and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2024-10-19 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a fresh look at the undersea war as a whole and all the complex factors bearing on the campaign, only one of which was convoy. Its analysis is original, and its conclusions thought-provoking – an important contribution to the naval history of the Great War.
Download or read book The Cunningham Papers written by Michael Simpson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following America's entry into World War Two, there was a necessity for the Royal Navy to strengthen co-operation with the United States Navy. Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham's brief term as head of the British Admiralty Delegation in Washington was to endear him to the Americans so much so that they proposed him as Allied Naval Commander of the Expeditionary Force which was to invade North Africa in November 1942. In October 1943, Cunningham was summoned to replace the dying Pound as First Sea Lord, a position he held until his retirement from active service in June 1946. In that time he presided over the invasion of Normandy, operations in the Mediterranean, the sinking of the Scharnhorst and Tirpitz, the defeat of the late surge of U-boat activity, the British Pacific Fleet, and the problems of manpower, the futures of the Royal Marines and the Fleer Air Arm, and the conversion of the Royal Navy from its swollen wartime strength to a much-reduced peacetime cadre. Cunningham remained concerned over the future of the country's defence and that of the Royal Navy and he was able to speak in major defence debates in the House of Lords. He died suddenly in 1963 and was buried at sea. Cunningham was one of Britain's great sailors, a worthy successor to Nelson, whom he admired and many of whose qualities he displayed. This second volume of Cunningham's papers covers the period of his life described above. It includes official documents but also many letters to his family and brother-officers that exhibit his feelings, as well as his illuminating diary entries from April 1944 onwards.
Download or read book The Battle of Jutland written by Richard Osborne and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2016-07-31 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Jutland was the greatest naval engagement of the First World War, if not any war. Admiral Scheer had adopted a policy of launching attacks against the British coast. What he did not know was that the British had broken his naval codes and that they knew of his plans. Consequently, when Scheer threw his entire fleet in a mission to attack the British mainland in May 1916, he could not know that the Royal Navy at Scapa Flow were underway.This is a fresh account of this greatest naval engagement, it offers fascinating insight into the events preceding the action, the tactics during the battle and the political and military fall-out. The book draws on released official records and personal accounts.Jellicoe failed to ensnare Scheer and the bulk of the German fleet which escaped battered, but intact. The Germans knew however that despite their great fleet, it was the Royal Navy that controlled the North Sea.
Download or read book The Development of British Naval Aviation 1914 1918 written by Alexander Howlett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) revolutionized warfare at sea, on land, and in the air. This little-known naval aviation organization introduced and operationalized aircraft carrier strike, aerial anti-submarine warfare, strategic bombing, and the air defence of the British Isles more than 20 years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Traditionally marginalized in a literature dominated by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, the RNAS and its innovative practitioners, nevertheless, shaped the fundamentals of air power and contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the First World War. The Development of British Naval Aviation utilizes archival documents and newly published research to resurrect the legacy of the RNAS and demonstrate its central role in Britain’s war effort.
Download or read book Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland written by John Brooks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-03-09 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book reviews critically recent studies of fire control, and describes the essentials of naval gunnery in the dreadnought era.With a foreword by Professor Andrew Lambert, it shows how, in 1913, the Admiralty rejected Arthur Pollen's Argo system for the Dreyer fire control tables.
Download or read book The Naval Route to the Abyss written by Matthew S. Seligmann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 779 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intense rivalry in battleship building that took place between Britain and Germany in the run up to the First World War is seen by many as the most totemic of all armaments races. Blamed by numerous commentators during the inter-war years as a major cause of the Great War, it has become emblematic of all that is wrong with international competitions in military strength. Yet, despite this notoriety, ’the Great Naval Race’ has not received the attention that this elevated status would merit and it has never been examined from the viewpoint of both of its participants simultaneously and equally. This volume, which contains a comprehensive survey of the existing scholarship on this topic, both English-language and German, as well as important primary source materials from a range of archives in both Britain and Germany, fills this gap. By putting the actions of the British Admiralty side-by-side with those of its German counterparts, it enables the naval race to be viewed comparatively and thereby facilitates an understanding of how the two parties to this conflict interacted. By offering a comprehensive range of German documents in both their original text and in English translation, the book makes the German role in this conflict accessible to an English speaking audience for the first time. As such, it is an essential volume for any serious student of naval policy in the pre-First World War era.
