Navies
WWI Cruiser Warfare
Minotaur-class cruiser (1906) first class armoured cruiser, 14,600 tons, 4-9.2in, 10-7.5in Challenger-class cruiser (1902) second class cruiser, 5,880 tons, 11-6in In 1914 the Royal Navy had twelve designated cruiser squadrons (although one had no ships in it), all of which were based around, or entirely comprised of, armoured or first-class cruisers. By 1918 there was only one armoured cruiser squadron…
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Invincible Armada (1588) Part IV
Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada; the Apothecaries painting, sometimes attributed to Nicholas Hilliard. A stylised depiction of key elements of the Armada story: the alarm beacons, Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury, and the sea battle at Gravelines Sidonia gave no more thought to the invasion. All his thinking was of…
Confederate Commerce Raiders
The Confederate raider Shenandoah undergoing repairs in Melbourne, Australia. (U.S. Naval Historical Center) Washington controlled 90 percent of America’s naval resources at the start of the Civil War. Therefore, the Confederate States Navy—created on February 21, 1861, two months before hostilities began—resorted to unconventional means. Jefferson Davis invited privateers to…
NAVAL RIVALRY (ANGLO-GERMAN)
Imperial German High Seas Fleet. The size and power of battleships grew rapidly before, during, and after World War I: a result of competitive shipbuilding among a number of naval powers, including Britain and Germany, brought to an end by the Washington Naval Treaty and Treaty of Versailles. In 1889,…
Roman Imperial Navy 2nd-3rd Centuries
Romanized Liburna during Trajan’s Dacian Wars. Octavian had formally established the Roman imperial navy following the battle of Actium, when he sent Antony’s captured ships to Forum Iudii (present-day Frejus on the south coast of France), establishing a permanent naval base to control the northern Mediterranean. He started with two…
Russian Naval Operations WWI Part I
The Russian flagship TSAREVITCH passing HMS VICTORY, ca. 1915. Russian Battleship Slava In 1914 and 1915, the British navy contained the German navy on the North Sea. The story was similar in the Mediterranean. The British, working with the French, exercised a somewhat loose control in the fall of 1914…
Russian Naval Operations WWI Part II
The Russian Navy in WWI – the Baltic. The Black Sea Before dawn on 16 October 1914, sudden explosions were heard at the port of Odessa and off the coast of Sevastopol. The Commander-in-Chief of the allied German-Turkish Fleet, Rear Admiral Wilhelm Suschon, decided to surprise the Russian seamen with…