Archive Results For: WW1
Writing the Battle: Jutland in Sir Julian Corbett’s Naval Operations
This article examines the origins, development and purpose of Sir Julian Corbett’s account of the controversial battle of Jutland. Naval Operations is seen as an extended analysis of how British strategy was intended to work and why it had failed on this occasion. The argument was carefully constructed to explain the failure without challenging the […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | North Sea
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Biography | Navies
The Jutland Paradox: A keynote address
The battle of Jutland was a paradox, a massive naval engagement with little result. Thousands of men were lost in an indecisive clash that settled nothing. This account sets out its author’s interpretation of the battle. Key reasons for the battle being indecisive were the contrasting characters of the British Grand Fleet’s commanders. Admiral Jellicoe, […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | North Sea
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies
Document: Vice-Admiral Bethell’s Third Fleet Battle Orders, about 1914
There is a frightful dearth of battle orders for this period. Those orders that are known to exist relate to the principal British fleet, which was the Home Fleet from 1909 to 1912 then First Fleet of the Home Fleets (1912–1914). Bethell’s orders, never before published, are an important addition to our knowledge of tactical […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | North Sea
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies
Note: A British Account of the Action off Cape Sarych, 1914
An account using hitherto unpublished documents, examines the first engagement between the Russian Black Sea fleet and the modern German ships ‘sold’ to the Ottoman empire in 1914. Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Other (location)
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies
Note: Commerce Warfare in the Atlantic, 1917: SMS Moewe
An account of the sinking of the SS Otaki by the German SMS Moewe in 1917, written by the son of the chief officer at the time. Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics | WW1 | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Merchant Marines | Navies
Note: Commerce Warfare in the Atlantic, 1917: SMS Moewe
This corrects a statement in MM 2014/3 p335 that SMS Moewe was withdrawn from Atlantic waters in 1916. Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics
Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War: German Submarines Around the Canary Islands, 1916–1918
This article examines German U-boat operations in and near the neutral territorial waters of the Canary Islands as well as British and Spanish responses to these operations. The strategic importance of the area around the Canaries, where trade routes from South America to Europe converged with those from West Africa and the Cape, would determine […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Merchant Marines | Strategy & Diplomacy | Submarines
The Royal Navy in the Era of Two World Wars: was it Fit for Purpose?
Predicting the role that a navy will be called upon to adopt is an impossible task, made easier with the benefit of hindsight. Whilst a navy (or a ship) might be best fitted to a particular purpose, successful navies (and warship designs) have tended to be those with the broadest range of general capabilities. The […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2 | Other (location)
Subjects include: Administration | Navies | Submarines
The Growth of Britain’s Refrigerated Meat Trade, 1880-1939
Transport of meat required cold storage at port of loading, on-board and on discharge. The discussion concentrates on mechanical on-board systems. Early voyages under sail required auxiliary engines, later main boilers powered refrigeration. Details of a typical sail and steamship are provided. Detailed figures demonstrate expanding capacity and full shift to steam propulsion during the […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (location)
Subjects include: Logistics | Merchant Marines | Shipbuilding & Design
The Ascent of Extranational Tide Tables
The nineteenth century saw the development of tidal prediction from synthetic, which predicts high and low water for diurnal and semidiurnal tides, to harmonic, which deals with the whole tidal profile. Starting in 1839, France had by 1874 calculated fifteen home ports, and her colonies with a volume based on Tonkin in 1873; America had […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | WW1 | English Channel | Interwar | Other (Nineteenth C) | Indian Ocean | Pacific | Other (location)
Subjects include: Merchant Marines | Navies | Science & Exploration