Great War Factsheets (original) (raw)
Related papers
The function of commerce warfare in an Anglo‐German conflict to 1914
Journal of Strategic Studies, 1997
This collection of essays was drawn from a public seminar hosted by the Sea Power Centre Australia (SPCA) and the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society (ACSACS) at the University of NSW (Canberra) in November 2014. The seminar presentations have been revised, enlarged and edited. An additional two papers, those by Dr Peter Overlack and Mr Michael Wynd, have been included to broaden and supplement the collection. The editor has also added an introduction covering a series of events between 1901 and 1914 that led to the establishment of the Royal Australia Navy and which gives the less informed reader a sense of the considerable challenges facing the new navy. The origins of the Great War of 1914-18 are the subject of continuing debate: why did the major Europe powers plunge themselves into a conflict that would produce such unprecedented death and destruction? The maritime aspects of this debate are no less complex with long-running arguments about the cogency of the strategies devised by the nations with substantial navies for the project of power at sea. This collection of essays is a snapshot of international naval affairs on the eve of war. The contributors assess the operational readiness of the combatants and the thinking behind the deployment of their ships once war was declared in August 1914. The editor, Professor Tom Frame, is Director of the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society (ACSACS) at UNSW Canberra. He joined the RAN as a junior entry cadet midshipman in 1979 and served until 1993. He has been a member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial, judged the inaugural PM's Prize for Australian History and is the author or editor of 26 books on a range of subjects.
British Maritime Coal and Commercial Control in the First World War: Far More Than Mere Blockade
Canadian Military History, 2015
The nature of British commercial control in the First World War has been understood primarily as a naval blockade which was actually only part of a complex and interwoven system. While Germany’s blockade relied on the destructive potential of its shells and torpedoes, Britain’s blockade employed more flexible and formidable powers, those of coal, geography, and commerce. Britain possessed advantages that ensured support abroad would make its way across to European shores while Germany’s support could not. Britain’s winning strategy, begun before the First World War and continued throughout the war, focused on maintaining commercial control of the world’s trading routes and fuel. T he g re at war was a transformative event in which Canada played a significant role. That contribution was enabled by the elaborate system of commercial and fuel control that provided Great Britain and her allies with dominance over the world’s waterways across which Canadian support, in addition to that o...
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, British foreign policy shifted. From the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, Britain’s primary enemy had been France, and Britain had often been an ally of German states. However, by the first decade of the 1900s Britain was informally allied with France and its relations with the German Empire were deteriorating. The decline of relations between the United Kingdom and Germany was the result of Anglo-German rivalry which developed during the 1890s and intensified into the 20th century. Economic, industrial, and colonial competition from Germany irritated the British, but the most contentious issue was the rapid and costly expansion of the Kaiserliche Marine. This was seen as a threat to Britain’s national security, and so Britain responded with many reforms and expensive construction programs. This costly naval race was a result of Germany’s desire to enhance its own world influence and Britain’s desire to retain its naval supremacy, the high regard the Kaiser had for naval power, Germany’s desire to become a world power, and the importance of Britain’s navy to its own security. Neither side was willing to relent during the race, which resulted in an intense naval arms race and the construction of two powerful and innovative dreadnought battle fleets on either side of the North Sea.
The Far Side of Germany: German Overseas Naval Forces and the Cruiser Crisis of 1914
When the question of exploits in the First World War outside the traditional dual European fronts is asked, commonly cited are the adventures of T.E. Lawrence in Arabia, or the guerrilla war of the redoubtable von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa. However, less talked about are the pockets of German warships scattered around her colonies, who were left isolated and abandoned when the war began, and would alone have to face the might of the Royal Navy. This handful of cruisers managed to traverse oceans, sink thousands of tonnes of shipping, and successfully evade an international effort to track and dispose of them for the first few months of the Great War. Their stories are symbolic of the imperial reach Germany commanded at the conflict's outset, as well as the determination and ingenuity of her sailors in fighting nations far more powerful and established than she, despite its ultimate futility.
War in History, 2017
It is a commonplace that the Royal Navy entered the Great War intending to strangle the German economy through a strategy of blockade. This was not so. Prior to 1912 blockade was mainly seen as a means of attaining operational intelligence; economic warfare was secondary. For legal reasons blockade had to be abandoned in 1912. Thereafter, only contraband control remained as a means of waging economic warfare, and this was seen purely as a way of luring the Germans to battle. In 1914 the Royal Navy had no grand strategy, a fact that explains its hesitant performance in the war.
The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord, 2016
La perturbation des importations transatlantiques de Grande-Bretagne par les sous-marins allemands pendant la Grande Guerre a conduit l'Amirauté à construire de petits navires et dragueurs de patrouille côtière, dont 60 chalutiers en acier et 100 dériveurs en bois construits au Canada. Géré par le ministère du Service naval du Canada, ces ordres ont été remplis par les chantiers navals sur la rivière des Grands Lacs et du Saint-Laurent entre 1917 et 1919. Bien que ce programme ait contribué au développement de l'industrie de la construction navale au Canada, la concurrence sur l'acier et la main-d'oeuvre qualifiée a eu un impact significatif sur la productivité et les relations de travail. After years of building dreadnoughts in anticipation of pitched battles on the North Sea, naval hostilities during the First World War were dominated by localized engagements intended to sever supply lines, erode the will to fight, and bring an end to protracted conflict on the continent. In response to Britain's blockade of its ports, German submarines attacked Allied and Neutral merchant ships to prevent imports of over 60 percent of Britain's food, and 80 percent of its wheat. 2 By September 1915, Germany had sunk about 570,000 gross tons of shipping. A year later, British losses had risen to almost 640 merchant vessels with a capacity of 2,295,329 gross tons, and losses by allies and neutral countries added over 1,000 ships and more than 1,563,650 gross tons to these totals. 3 By May 1916, Germany had developed Ucruisers that could cover 12,000 nautical miles and would take the campaign against Allied commerce to the coast of the Americas. The shortage of merchant ships and expansion of the German submarine fleet created a serious challenge to feeding
Imperialism • British Empire covered a fifth of the world • Belief in superiority • Fight for resources mainly in Asia and Africa, but also Latin America and Middle East • Wilhelm wanted 'a place in the sun' Militarism • Germany's Navy Law 1900 • Germany's Schlieffen Plan – was no secret that Germany had plans to attack France through Belgium (Russia mobilized faster than Germany anticipated, drawing German resources away from Western Front and creating a stalemate in France) • Standing, professionally trained armies • Military was not just an arms race, it was a valid means of foreign policy