Overturns existing thinking to show that the Royal Navy engaged professionally in war planning in the years before the First World War.

This is the first comprehensive account of how intelligence influenced and sustained British naval power from the mid nineteenth century, when the Admiralty first created a dedicated intelligence department, through to the end of the Cold War. It brings a critical new dimension to our understanding of British naval history in this period while setting naval intelligence in a wider context and emphasising the many parts of the British state that contributed to naval requirements. It is also a fascinating study of how naval needs and personalities shaped the British intelligence community that exists today and the concepts and values that underpin it. The author explains why and how intelligence was collected and assesses its real impact on policy and operations. It confirms that naval intelligence was critical to Britain’s survival and ultimate victory in the two World Wars but significantly reappraises its role, highlighting the importance of communications intelligence to an effective blockade in the First, and according Ultra less dominance compared to other sources in the Second. It reveals that coverage of Germany before 1914 and of the three Axis powers in the interwar period was more comprehensive and effective than previously suggested; and while British power declined rapidly after 1945, the book shows how intelligence helped the Royal Navy to remain a significant global force for the rest of the twentieth century, and in submarine warfare, especially in the second half of the Cold War, to achieve influence and impact for Britain far exceeding resources expended. This compelling new history will have wide appeal to all readers interested in intelligence and its crucial impact on naval policy and operations.

In Britain, memory of the First World War remains dominated by the trench warfare of the Western Front. Yet, in 1914 when the country declared war, the overwhelming expectation was that Britain’s efforts would be primarily focussed on the sea. As such, this volume is a welcome corrective to what is arguably an historical neglect of the naval aspect of the Great War. As well as reassessing Britain’s war at sea between 1914 and 1918, underlining the oft neglected contribution of the blockade of the Central Powers to the ending of the war, the book also offers a case study in ideas about military planning for ’the next war’. Questions about how next wars are thought about, planned for and conceptualised, and then how reality actually influences that thinking, have long been - and remain - key concerns for governments and military strategists. The essays in this volume show what ’realities’ there are to think about and how significant or not the change from pre-war to war was. This is important not only for historians trying to understand events in the past, but also has lessons for contemporary strategic thinkers who are responsible for planning and preparing for possible future conflict. Britain’s pre-war naval planning provides a perfect example of just how complex and uncertain that process is. Building upon and advancing recent scholarship concerning the role of the navy in the First World War, this collection brings to full light the dominance of the maritime environment, for Britain, in that war and the lessons that has for historians and military planners.

This volume examines the transformation of British and US naval policy from 1870 to 1889, which resulted in the British Naval Defence Act (1889), the construction of the first modern US battleships, and began the naval arms race which culminated in World War One. In examining the development of strategic thinking in the Royal and US Navies, it overturns conventional wisdom regarding genesis of the Naval Defence Act and the US Navy’s about-face from a defensive to an offensive strategic orientation. It pays particular attention to activities of the key individuals in both countries’ navies, who were instrumental in transforming their respective services’ organizational culture. This study will be of interest not only to historians but to political scientists, sociologists, and others working in the fields of international relations, strategic studies, policy analysis, and military learning, adaptation and innovation. It is also essential reading for those interested in the naval arms race during this period.

In this new study of the lead-up to the Great War, David G. Morgan-Owen deals with an aspect of the war seldom discussed for the simple reason that it never actually came to pass: a German invasion of the United Kingdom. Morgan-Owen makes the case that this fear of invasion played a central role in the formation of British strategy.

Gabriela A. Frei examines how sea powers used international law as an instrument in foreign policy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, illuminating key developments of international maritime law surrounding state practice, custom, and codification, and outlining the complex relationship between international law and maritime strategy.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Stafford Corbett emerged as foundational thinkers on naval strategy and maritime power. Important in their lifetimes, their writings remain relevant in the contemporary environment. The significance of Corbett and Mahan to modern naval strategy seems beyond question, but too often their theories are simplified or used without a real understanding of their fundamental bases.Labeling a strategy, operation, or even a navy “Mahanian” or “Corbettian” tells very little. Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought provides an in-depth introduction and a means to stimulate discussion about the theories of Mahan and Corbett. Although there is no substitute for opening the actual writings of Mahan and Corbett, this requires time, not just to read but most importantly to understand how states exploit the sea in the strategic sense. Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought takes the reader from their grand strategic foundations of sea power and maritime strategy, through their ideas about naval warfare and strategy, to how Mahan and Corbett thought a navy should integrate with other instruments of national power, and finally, to how they thought states with powerful navies win wars. This window into naval strategy provides twenty-first-century readers an understanding of what navies can and perhaps more importantly cannot do in the international environment.

Offering exhaustive coverage, detailed analyses, and the latest historical interpretations of events, this expansive, five-volume encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and detailed reference source on the First World War available today. One hundred years after the beginning of World War I in 1914, this conflict still stands as perhaps the most important event of the 20th century. World War I toppled all of the existing empires at the time, transformed the Middle East, and vaulted the United States to becoming the world's leading economic power. Its effects were profound and lasting—and included outcomes that led to World War II. This multivolume encyclopedia provides a wide-ranging examination of World War I that covers all of the important battles; key individuals, both civilian and military; weapons and technologies; and diplomatic, social, political, cultural, military, and economic developments. Suitable as a reference tool for high school and undergraduate students as well as faculty members and graduate-level researchers, World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection offers accessible, in-depth information and up-to-date analyses in a format that lends itself to quick and easy use. The set comprises alphabetically arranged, cross-referenced entries accompanied by further reading selections as well as a comprehensive bibliography. A fifth volume provides chronologically arranged documents and an A–Z index.

An important book, presenting the latest insights by the leading world authorities on naval history. This book presents a wide range of new research on many aspects of naval strategy in the early modern and modern periods. Among the themes covered are the problems of naval manpower, the nature of naval leadership and naval officers, intelligence, naval training and education, and strategic thinking and planning. The book is notable for giving extensive consideration to navies other than those of Britain, its empire and the United States. It explores a number of fascinating subjects including how financial difficulties frustrated the attempts by Louis XIV's ministers to build a strong navy; how the absence of centralised power in the Dutch Republic had important consequences for Dutch naval power; how Hitler's relationship with his admirals severely affected German naval strategy during the Second World War; and many more besides. The book is a Festschrift in honour of John B. Hattendorf, for more than thirty years Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the US Naval War College and an influential figure in naval affairs worldwide. N.A.M. Rodger is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. J. Ross Dancy is Assistant Professor of Military History at Sam Houston State University. Benjamin Darnell is a D.Phil. candidate at New College, Oxford. Evan Wilson is Caird Senior Research Fellow at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Contributors: Tim Benbow, Peter John Brobst, Jaap R. Bruijn, Olivier Chaline, J. Ross Dancy, Benjamin Darnell, James Goldrick, Agustín Guimerá, Paul Kennedy, Keizo Kitagawa, Roger Knight, AndrewD. Lambert, George C. Peden, Carla Rahn Phillips, Werner Rahn, Paul M. Ramsey, Duncan Redford, N.A.M. Rodger, Jakob Seerup, Matthew S. Seligmann, Geoffrey Till, Evan Wilson

For the British Empire and its allies of the Great War, 1917 was a year marked by one crisis after another. There was also social and political upheaval on the home front, including labour unrest and opposition to conscription in the dominions. But here and there glimmers of light pierced the gloom. The armies of the empire began to solve the puzzle of trench warfare. The dominions asserted themselves more in the councils of imperial power. And the United States finally entered the war. Turning Point 1917 examines the British imperial war effort during the most pivotal and dynamic twelve months of the Great War. Written by internationally recognized historians, its chapters explore military, diplomatic, and domestic aspects of how the empire prosecuted the war. Their rich, nuanced analysis transcends narrow, national viewpoints of the conflict to view the British Empire as a coalition rather than individual states engaged in their own distinctive struggles. In drawing attention to the developments that made 1917 a turning point, this book provides a unique perspective of the war.