Castles of Steel

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Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
Castles of Steel Cover1.jpg
Author Robert K. Massie
LanguageEnglish
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Ballantine Books
Publication date
2003
Publication placeEngland
Media typePrint
Pages880 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]

Contents

Summary

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.

Reception

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]

Editions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Jutland</span> 1916 naval battle during World War I

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle 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 World War I. 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 only full-scale clash of battleships of the war, and the outcome ensured that the Royal Navy denied the German surface fleet access to the North Sea and the Atlantic for the remainder of the war, as Germany avoided all fleet-to-fleet contact thereafter. Jutland was also the last major naval battle, in any war, fought primarily by battleships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Coronel</span> Naval battle of 1 November 1914 near Chile in World War I

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 Imperial German Navy led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and overpowered a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Falkland Islands</span> Naval battle of World War I

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doveton Sturdee</span> British Royal Navy officer

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Heligoland Bight (1914)</span> First major naval battle of First World War

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Dogger Bank (1915)</span> Part of World War I

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 the Dogger Bank and ships of the Grand Fleet sailed to intercept the raiders.

HMS <i>Inflexible</i> (1907) 1907 Invincible-class battlecruiser of the Royal Navy

HMS Inflexible was one of three Invincible-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy before World War I and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau in the Mediterranean Sea when war broke out and she and her sister ship Invincible sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau during the Battle of the Falkland Islands. Inflexible bombarded Turkish forts in the Dardanelles in 1915, but was damaged by return fire and struck a mine while maneuvering. She had to be beached to prevent her from sinking, but she was patched up and sent to Malta, and then Gibraltar for more permanent repairs. Transferred to the Grand Fleet afterwards, she damaged the German battlecruiser Lützow during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and watched Invincible explode. She was deemed obsolete after the war and was sold for scrap in 1921.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Fleet</span> First World War fleet of the Royal Navy

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.

<i>Invincible</i>-class battlecruiser Royal Navy ships

The three Invincible-class battlecruisers were built for the Royal Navy and entered service in 1908 as the world's first battlecruisers. They were the brainchild of Admiral Sir John ("Jacky") Fisher, the man who had sponsored the construction of the world's first "all-big-gun" warship, HMS Dreadnought. He visualised a new breed of warship, somewhere between the armoured cruiser and battleship; it would have the armament of the latter, but the high speed of the former. This combination would allow it to chase down most ships, while allowing it to run from more powerful designs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pre-dreadnought battleship</span> Battleships built from the 1880s to 1905

Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the early 1900s. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and their classification as "pre-dreadnought" is retrospectively applied. In their day, they were simply known as "battleships" or else more rank-specific terms such as "first-class battleship" and so forth. The pre-dreadnought battleships were the pre-eminent warships of their time and replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s.

Pursuit of <i>Goeben</i> and <i>Breslau</i>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Asia Squadron</span> Division of the Imperial German Navy in the Pacific Ocean (1890s-1914)

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 Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval warfare of World War I</span>

Naval warfare in World War I was mainly characterised 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 counter blockade with submarines and commerce raiders, were eventually unsuccessful. Major fleet actions were extremely rare and proved less decisive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby</span> Attack by the Imperial German Navy on 16 December 1914

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">7th Cruiser Squadron</span> Cruiser formation of the Royal Navy

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raid on Yarmouth</span> Raid carried out by the Imperial German Navy

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harwich Force</span> Military unit

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow</span> Destruction of interned warships, 21 June 1919

On 21 June 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet was scuttled by its sailors while held off the harbour of the British Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The fleet was interned there under the terms of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 while negotiations took place over its fate. Fearing that either the British 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.

References

  1. Churchill, Winston Spencer (1923). The World Crisis . Vol. I. London: Thomas Butterworth. pp. 212–213.
  2. Ben Pimlott (23 January 2004). "Navy Blues". The Guardian . Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  3. Gary Sheffield (20 February 2004). "Castles of Steel by Robert K Massie". The Independent . Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  4. Max Boot (23 November 2003). "What the Dreadnoughts Did". The New York Times . Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  5. "Castles of Steel". The New Yorker . 1 March 2004. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  6. "Castles of Steel". Publishers Weekly . October 2003. Retrieved 19 August 2018.