Naval
Zeppelins!
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born in 1838. He served in the Royal Wurttemberg Army, in which he fought during the Franco-German War of 1870. In 1890 he left the Army feeling, as did many South German noblemen, that Prussia had far too much influence in the recently created German Empire. He then devoted himself to the development of the…
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Jürgen Oesten and the End of the U-boats
JĂĽrgen Oesten JĂĽrgen Oesten, like so many of his comrades, was approaching the end of a war that Germany was bound to lose, and everything in his life was going to change again. Oesten brought U-861 into the harbor of Trondheim, Norway, on 19 April 1945, after a three-month passage…
Maarten van Tromp, (1598-1653)
Dutch admiral. While at sea with his father on a Vereenigde Oostindische Compaagnie (VOC) ship to India, he was taken prisoner by an English pirate and made to serve as a cabin boy for two years. He saw his first naval action in 1617 against the Barbary corsairs. He signed…
Newport 1778
By Charles P. Neimeyer During February 1778, the new Franco-American alliance was announced, and it immediately changed the entire complexion of the war. Now the British not only had to guard against American forces surrounding the island but also against the possibility of a French invasion fleet arriving off the…
The Saxon Fleet Keeps Sailing, 1066
In 1066, Harold of England put the Saxon fleet to sea to deter an assault from Norway or Normandy against England. However, when harvest-time came, the sailors went home to their fields and the way was open for the invasions that doomed Anglo-Saxon England. What if Harold kept the fleet…
French and Belgium Coast Late 1914
HMS Mersey, one of the monitors used for bombarding German positions on the Belgian coast in 1914. English Channel Though little noticed, the naval campaign in the English Channel was of vital importance in permitting the maintenance of the British Army in France. Like the North Sea campaign, it consisted…
Algiers 1816
The depredations of the north African pirates had been a menace to sea-borne trade for centuries. At times they had plundered not only in the Mediterranean but in the Atlantic and, on occasions, even so far afield as the North Sea. The larger powers had frequently made treaties with the…