The only comparative analysis available of the great navies of World War I, this work studies the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, the German Kaiserliche Marine, the United States Navy, the French Marine Nationale, the Italian Regia Marina, the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine, and the Imperial Russian Navy to demonstrate why the war was won, not in the trenches, but upon the waves. It explains why these seven fleets fought the way they did and why the war at sea did not develop as the admiralties and politicians of 1914 expected. After discussing each navy’s goals and circumstances and how their individual characteristics impacted the way they fought, the authors deliver a side-by-side analysis of the conflict’s fleets, with each chapter covering a single navy. Parallel chapter structures assure consistent coverage of each fleet—history, training, organization, doctrine, materiel, and operations—and allow readers to easily compare information among the various navies. The book clearly demonstrates how the naval war was a collision of 19th century concepts with 20th century weapons that fostered unprecedented development within each navy and sparked the evolution of the submarine and aircraft carrier. The work is free from the national bias that infects so many other books on World War I navies. As they pioneer new ways of viewing the conflict, the authors provide insights and material that would otherwise require a massive library and mastery of multiple languages. Such a study has special relevance today as 20th-century navies struggle to adapt to 21st-century technologies.
About the author
Vincent P. O’Hara is an independent scholar and the author of nine works including five published by the Naval Institute Press, most recently
Torch. His articles have appeared in the
Naval War College Review,
Warship,
MHQ,
Storia Militare, and other periodicals and journals. He holds a history degree from the University of California, Berkeley. W. David Dickson is the author of
The Battle of the Philippine Sea and lives in Hernando, MS. Richard Worth is the author of
Fleets of World War II,
In the Shadow of the Battleship, and
Raising the Red Banner. He lives in Bolivar, MO. All three writers also edited the Naval Institute Press’s
On Seas Contested: The Great Navies of the Second World War.
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