Customer Reviews

A Naval History of World War I

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With this volume, Paul Halpern has performed an invaluable service to all those interested in the Naval aspects of The Great War.

Unlike most other treatments of World War I at sea, Mr Halpern does not succumb to the temptation to concentrate on the Battle of Jutland and submarine warfare in and around the British Isles to the exclusion of all other theaters.

The book includes a refreshingly detailed examination of cruiser warfare, mine warfare, riverine warfare and the first halting steps of the various Fleet Air Arms. Conflict is detailed in the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Baltic, the Black Sea, on the Danube River and in many other generally ignored locations.

Additionally, the usually irritating and occasionally disastrous effects of political considerations are also brought to light. The intricate and frequently ignored cause-and-effect relationship of one theater to another is carefully included in the narrative.

Perhaps the most laudible aspect of this volume is the Mr. Halpern manages to include all of these diverse facets of the naval conflict without becoming bogged down in minutia or losing sight of the "big picture." Although much detailed information is presented and many obscure considerations revealed, the author maintains a focussed and methodical pace of delivery that holds the reader's interest from beginning to end.

This book is an indispensable asset for anyone interested in a treatment of the Naval History of the First World War that remembers that there are more to the world's great waterways than the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. Very highly recommended.

This is the best analysis of WWI naval warfare ever written. Mr Halpern has written a fascinating text describing the main guidelines of the naval aspects of this conflict. Do not expect shot by shot descriptions of the battles, this book deals with the reasons leading to the different battles and their consequences and should be considered essential reading for anybody interested in World War I or Naval History.

Paul Halpern is a refreshingly independent thinker. No one else has managed to write 500 pages on the subject of 1914-18 naval warfare without mentioning Admiral Alfred Mahan.

And although he has had to compress mightily to fit that history within 500 pages, he still finds it worthwhile to mention such illuminating, if pointless, incidents as the Royal Navy's cattle raids in Turkey in 1916.

World War I was, as has so often been noted, the great divide between the premodern world and the modern one. Nothing says so more eloquently than this little anecdote about how the Royal Navy, owner of the most advanced machines yet seen on the planet, thought it necessary to practice the kind of warfare that Homer's Greeks had .

Although Halpern, professor at Florida State University, says he has had to neglect the crucial topic of logistics to fit his history into a manageable volume, in fact he presents a better discussion of the influence of bases, ships and supplies than most general histories do.

His excellent chapter four, on the usually underserved Pacific war, demonstrates this.

The allotment of ships and the location of bases in late 1914, along with certain decisions about troop movements, determined why some islanders today eat canned corned beef and look to New Zealand for jobs and higher education, while others eat Spam and look to the United States. And why other islanders had to suffer great hardships in 1941-45.

It depended upon whether Japan or the British Dominions swept up the multitudinous islands controlled by Germany. 'These expeditions were minor footnotes to the war,' writes Halpern, 'and one might legitimately ask if it would not have been better for the German islands in the Pacific to have been left to "wither on the vine" until they could be seized at a later date after other, more pressing problems had been resolved.'

But these minor events had major consequences in 1944. They determined that some islanders would be starved by blockade and blasted by naval and air bombardments, while others were not.

Halpern's description of the 'minor' events is fuller than in any other general history I know. Despite a crowded agenda, he exploits to the full the romantic stories of the naval war in the Pacific, like the famous raid of the cruiser Emden, and the horrifying stories, such as the Battle of Coronel, where a ship manned with hundreds of reservists from a single Scottish town went down with all hands.

Traditionally studies of the naval battles of the First World War have focused primarily on the non-event of the confrontation between the British and German battle fleets in the North Sea. While relevant in the context of the tensions that led to war and important for several reasons, such predominance creates a distorted impression of the war at sea as being one that was mainly fought between fleets of dreadnoughts around the waters off Great Britain. In fact, the naval history of the First World War is one that well justifies the title of the conflict overall, as ships of the various sides fought each other in critical struggles across every part of the globe.

In this respect, Paul Halpern is the ideal person to write an overall history of the conflict at sea. A longtime naval historian of the era, he approaches the subject from his earlier work studying the First World War in the Mediterranean, a long-overlooked front that engaged many navies not traditionally covered in histories of the war. This equips him with a background and perspective that is perfectly suited for a broader study of the naval history of the war, one that he displays on nearly every page. Beginning with a short survey of the navies of the major powers, he goes on to discuss the exciting pursuits of the first months of the war before taking the reader on a tour of the many neglected fronts, from the Black Sea to the Danube River. To accomplish this, he draws upon his own considerable work as well as many of the often-neglected official histories and memoirs, many of which require the surmounting of numerous language barriers.

The war that emerges within these pages is not a staid affair of massive battleships glaring at each other from their respective ports, but a series of struggles of cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and river boats often characterized by dash and ingenuity. Though Halpern recounts many of these clashes, his focus is primarily strategic, as he explains how each of these battles and campaigns played a role in the broader effort by the various sides to win the war. His analysis is insightful, explaining why these oft-ignored struggles mattered in the grand scheme of conflict. Nor does he overlook the traditional subject of the stand-off between the Grand and High Sea Fleets, giving them due attention as a critical component of his topic.

All of this makes Halpern's book a truly impressive study of the First World War at sea. Encompassing as it does issues of geography, diplomacy, and society, it is indeed not just an account of battles and campaigns but a real naval history of the conflict. Such an inclusive scope can make it easy to quibble about minor errors such as typos, or about what was left out (my personal complaint is the lack of a concluding chapter examining some of the post-war consequences of the experiences he describes), but none of this should overshadow the magnificence of Halpern's achievement. Simply put, this is the single best history of the naval conflicts of the First World War, one that is an indispensable starting point for understanding the conflicts at sea and the role it played in the war overall.

This book covers the entire range of naval warfare during The Great War, including many arenas not normally considered important. While most histories concentrate on the British struggles with the German Imperial Navy in the North Sea, Halpern broadens his scope to include all of the basic naval events. He writes that "this was indeed a world war, and naval operations took place throughout the world and were conducted by many navies" (p. xi). He includes chapters on the submarine aspect of the war, the air war against the submarines, and the major battles like Jutland and the Dardenelles.

I was particularly surprised to read about the claim for Russian naval superiority in the Black Sea region, since I had previously assumed that the Germans and British were dominant everywhere, from the North Sea to their colonial battles in the Atlantic and the Pacific. Russian amphibious operations in 1916 were uniformly successful, although "there is no comparison between the problems the Russians faced and the fierce resistance the Allies met when they landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula" (p. 245). But revolution and subsequent civil war at home brought an end to major Russian involvement in the war, including their naval operations.

According to Halpern, Gallipoli itself, arguably the most famous failed amphibious operation in world history, was actually not due to the failure of British submarines to sink opposing vessels, as some have speculated. Instead he insists that their "exploits...were...the proudest and most successful aspect of the Dardenelles campaign" (p. 119), and that it was the determined Turkish resistance that led to disaster and the fall of the British First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

The original absence of a German naval strategy ultimately led to the Imperial Navy stumbling "into the submarine war against commerce" (p. 291). The problem was that submarines could not spare men to man captured vessels. They had to be sunk, and for the crews of these ships this meant a watery grave. There was simply no room to spare for prisoners. This policy did not please the Allies one bit, and the British launched an all-out campaign to end German submarine dominance of the seas. Surprisingly, Japan played an important role in the war against the Germans. They aided the British by sending "fourteen destroyers at a critical moment in the war against submarines (p. 393), and received high praise from London as a result.

"A Naval History of World War I" challenges many long-held assumptions about the importance of naval operations outside of the North Sea, and may revolutionize the established thinking on the subject. The naval events of the Great War were more complex and important than they are generally seen as being, even among historians, and this tome provides a good general treatment of their vagaries and vicissitudes. After all, we cannot understand World War II and recent twentieth century naval history without a proper context to put it all in. This book is a great place to start. I heartily recommend it to the general public, as well as to students of the Great War and lovers of naval and maritime history.

I bought this for my father a few years ago for his birthday. I opened to a random page and read an engagement which had been an oral history in my family. I never knew my grandfather, but I felt closer to him after reading about some engagements his ship was in.

This unique text covers all of the Naval Actions that occurred during the Great War in a single volume. The book is most valuable to the reader as it provides general or survey type coverage in an impartial manor so the reader can select the area(s) he/she would like to specialize in. I thought I was familiar with most naval actions of the period. After reading this book I now I realize i have much to learn. Despite the massive scope of topic, the book is very well written and organized. In addition the author has gone to incredible lengths to provide neutral accurate coverage. It is not a bad read. If you are serious about studying this subject your collection is not complete without this text. For the beginner, you will have the benefit of an organized framework to draw from. For those who have some knowledge of the subject, it will open your eyes to new areas of study and possibly make you aware of campaingns you did not know about. Certainly the book will encourage further study.

Excellent, I highly recommend this volume.

Excellent, I highly recommend this volume.

In this book you would have thought that Britannia rules the world single handed, no mention is made of the fact that the rickety British Empire, rotten to the core, was upheld not by the grace of Godm or the might of the Dreadnoughts, but by American finance.