The Great War at sea: a naval history of the First World War, A history of the Royal Navy: World War I, Fighting the Great War at sea: strategy, tactics and technology

摘要

Traditional Anglophone interpretations of the First World War have tended to be dominated by accounts of events on the Western Front with brief asides looking at the war in the East and in other theatres such as Mesopotamia and Palestine. Within this conception of the conflict, the war at sea receives very little attention with possible exceptions for the Dardanelles and the U-boat campaign. In many regards, this is unsurprising. In contrast to the unprecedented slaughter that took place on the European continent, little actually appeared to happen at sea. Even the titanic clash between the British and German fleets failed to live up to its pre-war billing. The true impact of the naval war - the gradual degradation of the war economies of the Central Powers contrasted with the Allied exploitation of resources from across the globe - was difficult to quantify and largely invisible. Even in the immediate post-war period there was a broad sense that naval power had failed to achieve what had been expected of it in the conflict.