Author | Robert K. Massie |
---|---|
Country | England |
Language | English |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | 2003 |
Media type | |
Pages | 880 pp |
ISBN | 978-0679456711 |
OCLC | 57134223 |
Preceded by | Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War |
Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea is a work of non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert K. Massie. It narrates the major naval actions of the First World War with an emphasis on those of the United Kingdom and Imperial Germany. The term "castles of steel" was coined by the British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill in reference to the large number of the Royal Navy's battleships he saw at Spithead in 1914. [1]
The book begins in the lead-up to the declaration of hostilities between Germany and Britain, whereas Massie's previous work Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War ended with the beginning of the war. All the significant naval strategies and battles of World War I are covered, including the Battle of Coronel, where a German squadron led by Admiral Maximilian von Spee destroyed a weaker British cruiser squadron under the command of Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock; the ensuing Battle of the Falkland Islands where Spee's force was annihilated by a superior British squadron; the Battle of Dogger Bank (1915); Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign; and a detailed multichapter narrative of the Battle of Jutland and its aftermath.
Other chapters describe German submarine warfare and events triggering America's entry into the war. There are also chapters dedicated to central personalities such as British Admirals John Jellicoe and David Beatty and the German Admirals Franz von Hipper and Reinhard Scheer. The book ends with an account of the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow.
The book was reviewed by historian Ben Pimlott in The Guardian , [2] historian Gary Sheffield in The Independent , [3] historian Max Boot in The New York Times , [4] The New Yorker , [5] and Publishers Weekly . [6]
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, during the First World War. The battle unfolded in extensive manoeuvring and three main engagements, from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. It was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. Jutland was the third fleet action between steel battleships, following the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904 and the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War. Jutland was the last major battle in history fought primarily by battleships.
The Battle of Coronel was a First World War Imperial German Navy victory over the Royal Navy on 1 November 1914, off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. The East Asia Squadron of the Kaiserliche Marine led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and overpowered a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.
The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a First World War naval action between the British Royal Navy and Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 in the South Atlantic. The British, after their defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, sent a large force to track down and destroy the German cruiser squadron. The battle is commemorated every year on 8 December in the Falkland Islands as a public holiday.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet was a Royal Navy officer. After training as a torpedo officer, he commanded two different cruisers and then three different battleships before becoming commander of the 1st Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet. He went on to command the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and then the 2nd Cruiser Squadron.
The Battle of Heligoland Bight was the first Anglo-German naval battle of the First World War, fought on 28 August 1914, between ships of the United Kingdom and Germany. The battle took place in the south-eastern North Sea, when the British attacked German patrols off the north-west German coast. The German High Seas Fleet was in harbour on the north German coast while the British Grand Fleet was out in the northern North Sea. Both sides engaged in long-distance sorties with cruisers and battlecruisers, with close reconnaissance of the area of sea near the German coast—the Heligoland Bight—by destroyer.
The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval engagement during the First World War that took place on 24 January 1915 near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the Kaiserliche Marine. The British had intercepted and decoded German wireless transmissions, gaining advance knowledge that a German raiding squadron was heading for Dogger Bank and ships of the Grand Fleet sailed to intercept the raiders.
Carl Friedrich Heinrich Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral in the Imperial German Navy. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet and progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as senior staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. He then took command of the III Battle Squadron, which consisted of the newest and most powerful battleships in the navy. In January 1916, he was promoted to Admiral and given control of the High Seas Fleet. Scheer led the German fleet at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, one of the largest naval battles in history.
The Grand Fleet was the main battlefleet of the Royal Navy during the First World War. It was established in August 1914 and disbanded in April 1919. Its main base was Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.
HMS Monmouth was the name ship of her class of 10 armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The ships were also known as the County Cruisers.
Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protected by case-hardened steel armour, and powered by coal-fired triple-expansion steam engines, pre-dreadnought battleships carried a main battery of very heavy guns in fully-enclosed rotating turrets supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons.
The pursuit of Goeben and Breslau was a naval action that occurred in the Mediterranean Sea at the outbreak of the First World War when elements of the British Mediterranean Fleet attempted to intercept the German Mittelmeerdivision consisting of the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau. The German ships evaded the British fleet and passed through the Dardanelles to reach Constantinople, where they were eventually handed over to the Ottoman Empire. Renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli, the former Goeben and Breslau were ordered by their German commander to attack Russian positions, in doing so bringing the Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of the Central Powers.
The German East Asia Squadron was an Imperial German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the mid-1890s until 1914, when it was destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. It was based at Germany's Kiautschou Bay concession in China.
Naval warfare in World War I was mainly characterized by blockade. The Allied Powers, with their larger fleets and surrounding position, largely succeeded in their blockade of Germany and the other Central Powers, whilst the efforts of the Central Powers to break that blockade, or to establish an effective counterblockade with submarines and commerce raiders, were eventually unsuccessful. Major fleet actions were less decisive.
The Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 16 December 1914 was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British ports of Scarborough, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and Whitby. The bombardments caused hundreds of civilian casualties and resulted in public outrage in Britain against the German Navy for the raid and the Royal Navy for failing to prevent it.
Admiral Sir William Edmund Goodenough was a senior Royal Navy officer of World War I. He was the son of James Graham Goodenough.
The 7th Cruiser Squadron was a blockading force of the Royal Navy during the First World War used to close the English Channel to German traffic. It was employed patrolling an area of the North Sea known as the Broad Fourteens in support of vessels guarding the northern entrance to the Channel. The Squadron had been part of the Third Fleet of the Home Fleets.
The 3rd Battle Squadron was a naval squadron of the British Royal Navy consisting of battleships and other vessels, active from at least 1914 to 1945. The 3rd Battle Squadron was initially part of the Royal Navy's Home Fleet. During the First World War, the Home Fleet was renamed the Grand Fleet. During the Second World War, the squadron covered Atlantic convoys.
The Raid on Yarmouth, on 3 November 1914, was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British North Sea port and town of Great Yarmouth. German shells only landed on the beach causing little damage to the town, after German ships laying mines offshore were interrupted by British destroyers. The British submarine HMS D5, was sunk by a German mine as it was leaving harbour to attack the German ships. A German armoured cruiser was sunk after striking two German mines outside its home port.
The Harwich Force originally called Harwich Striking Force was a squadron of the Royal Navy, formed during the First World War and based in Harwich. It played a significant role in the war.
Shortly after the end of the First World War, the German Kaiserliche Marine was scuttled by its sailors while held off the harbor of the British Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The High Seas Fleet was interned there under the terms of the Armistice while negotiations took place over the fate of the ships. Fearing that either the UK would seize the ships unilaterally or the German government at the time might reject the Treaty of Versailles and resume the war effort, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter decided to scuttle the fleet.