Navies
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 apply for licenses as early as April 17, two days…
Most Recent
QUINQUEREMES AND TRIREMES II
“Roman quinqueremes and Lembos biremes, 3rd to 2nd Century BC” “Roman Triremes and Quadriremes, 2nd Century BC” FLEET MEN AND THEIR DUTIES Misenum The fleets and their soldiers fought in wars, transported troops and goods, provided manpower for building military installations, and operated mines. The Roman Empire had spread so…
Alfred the Great’s Navy
The treaty with Guthrum gave Alfred the breathing space he needed to fortify and revitalize Wessex. As the last outpost of independent England, it was essential for Wessex to have an efficient military. Alfred the Great reorganized Wessex’s army, keeping half of the men on duty at any given time.…
The Seventeenth Century Iberian Navies
A Van de Velde drawing of a Spanish two-decker of 1664. SPAIN Although the ‘Decline of Spain’ in the seventeenth century has been exaggerated by many historians, the Spanish armada that served Kings Philip IV and Carlos II was plainly no longer the formidable instrument that had served their predecessors,…
Austria-Hungary: An Inland Empire Looks to the Sea I
Career of the Tegetthof class In March 1918, a United States navy memorandum characterized the Adriatic Sea as “practically an Austrian lake, in which no Allied naval operations of importance are undertaken.” The assessment came just four weeks after the Austro-Hungarian navy suffered its worst mutiny of the First World…
Austria-Hungary: An Inland Empire Looks to the Sea II
Bombarding of Ancona by August von Ramberg, depicting Austro-Hungarian battleships shelling the Italian coastline in May 1915 At the turn of the century, Germany’s decision to challenge Britain’s hegemony at sea transformed the Triple Alliance into an anti-British bloc no longer attractive to Italy. The program outlined in Admiral Alfred…
The Revolutionary American Navy
The American navy played no part in the campaigns. The war created the navy, but it could not call into being a force of great power. The financial resources for a strong navy simply did not exist; nor for that matter did the conviction that a navy equal to Britain’s…