Naval
French Navy: 1870s to 1904 PartĀ I
French cruiser Chasseloup Laubat, on the Hudson River, New York. The maritime strategy of the Third Republic in the years before the First World War falls into two very different phases. From 1871 to the last decade of the 19th Century strategic thinking has been described by one French historian as a āCold Warā against the traditional enemy Great Britain.…
Most Recent
The K-VerbƤnde inĀ Scandinavia
While real enemies assailed German-held Europe from east, west and south, Hitler remained obsessed with the phantom threat to the Scandinavian sector of his Thousand-Year Reich throughout the course of the Second World War. The conquest of Norway and Denmark had secured the Reichās northern flank and, of more immediate…
Pyrrhus in Sicily
Two new warlike prospects now invited Pyrrhus. Both offered him the opportunity-which he always coveted ā of championing Greek civilization. One opportunity lay in Greece itself, where an eruption of Celtic hordes from the north had produced turmoil; the other lay in Sicily, where the Greek cities, lacking a military…
Effect of the Battle of the Atlantic on HomeĀ Defence
The Danger Area Shifts to the Western Approaches It was expected that the German Naval Command would take advantage of the great strategical possibilities offered by the occupation of Trondheim and Lorient to attempt to strangle the import trade of the British Isles by submarine attack and by naval raiding…
The Hell-Burners ofĀ Calais
Under cover of darkness, and hidden in the midst of the English fleet, the fireships were prepared. Stripped of most of their equipment, they were then filled with combustible material of all kinds, including sails, spars, timber, and sacking, all smothered in pitch, tar and oil. More pitch and oil…
The Elusive DresdenĀ I
Dresden, flying a white flag, moments prior to her scuttling. Before the war, Germany had devoted considerable study to the damaging blows which could be made against Britain through attacking the vital trade routes. It was, however, fully appreciated that the task of getting through to the Atlantic, and so…
The Elusive DresdenĀ II
Dresdenās war against commerce in the Atlantic had been neither particularly brilliant nor as ruthless as were the assaults by some other raiders. She had steamed from the West Indies to Cape Horn, burnt many hundred tons of coal, cruised thousands of miles, and the net gains were two not…