THE ROYAL NAVY AND THE GERMAN THREAT 1901-1914 by Matthew S. Seligmann ( 9780199574032 )

Item Details

Title:

THE ROYAL NAVY AND THE GERMAN THREAT 1901-1914
ADMIRALTY PLANS TO PROTECT BRITISH TRADE IN A WAR AGAINST GERMANY

By:

Matthew S. Seligmann

Format:

Hardback

List price:

£140.00

Our price:

£135.80

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3% off

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£4.20

ISBN 10:

0199574030

ISBN 13:

9780199574032

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Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

24 May, 2012

Pages:

198

Description:

Offers a new and original account of the efforts made by the Royal Navy to prepare for war with Germany in the decade and a half before 1914. Seligmann demonstrates that from being unready for an assault on British seaborne trade, the Royal Navy had given a great deal of thought to its protection.

Synopsis:

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.

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press

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Returnable

Some other items by this author:

GERMANY FROM REICH TO REPUBLIC, 1871-1918 (HB)

GERMANY FROM REICH TO REPUBLIC, 1871-1918 (PB)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA (HB)

LEADERSHIP IN CONFLICT (HB)

LOSING THE PEACE (PB)

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE FROM GERMANY, 1906-1914 (HB)