europe

Robert Masie has written an excellent follow-up to his history of the pre-World War I Naval Race. His account is more than fair to the major players, and I believe is absolutely right in singling out Admiral Jellicoe as the hero of both Jutland and the War at Sea. Jellicoe described by Churchill as the "only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon" served as the German fleets "jailer," knowing that by keeping the fleet bottled up in German home waters he could guarantee British superiority. One story missing from the book is the battle of Zeebruge -- the commando raid on the German sub base in German-occupied Belgium. A good read.

Massie's second book on the British/German dreadnoughts is a winner!!! The first volume named 'Deadnought: Britian Germany and the coming of the great war' was a masterpiece of history and a great span of history from the unification of Germany to the declaration of war. The first book detailed the arms race between the two nations, specifically at sea.

This second volume covers a mere four years of bloody conflict, yet its a tour de force. The Germans confronted the British in the North Sea with a large navy that had come close to rivaling Englands mighty naval supremacy. Yet the Germans were timid at sending its high seas fleet into action. Why? Because the Kaiser treasured his fleet and was afraid it might be destroyed or harmed.

The book expertly covers the search for the 'Goeben' and Dardenelles campaign, the fights at sea in the pacific and the standoff at the river plate(Falklands). These were times when small german surface raiders travlled the high seas seeking out prey.

The books climax is the battle of Jutland, an epic battle where Britians 'castles of Steel' confronted the High Seas fleet in a massive contest.

This book is simply massive in scope as well as words. A wonderful, if lengthy read. If you have read the first one you will love reading how these fleets confronted eachother, if you missed the first then you will love this one for its scope of history. Makkie describes in meticulous detail the lives of central characters like Churchill, Beaty, Scheer, Jellicoe, and Beatty, Hipper, and Tirpitz. Wonderful character sketches bring these great men to life.

A sad story about a great German fleet whose commanders, although very skilled, did not have the guts to committ an expensive armed service to battle and the decisive English who gambled everything on the theory that 'every man will do his duty'.

A must read, will Makkie write another book, I hope so!

It's hard to imagine a 900 page book is incomplete - but it is. The narrative is well written and very engaging, but I found myself using other resources such as an Atlas with better charts and the Internet during my reading to better understand what was happening in the battles. The book could have been improved by more and better maps [especially of Jutland - showing Jellicoe's turn, the German turnabouts and the German escape through the British wake]. A few tables incorporating sinkings and outcomes, and comparing ship types would have helped. What is the difference between an armored cruiser and a battle cruiser? Finally, a short epilogue indicating the ultimate ends of the the main characters [Jellicoe, Fisher, Beatty, the German admirals] would have tied things up nicely. It would have been nice to see Jellicoe's 1914 'tactics' letter in an appendix [I found it on the 'Net], etc. Excellent writing, but a few things like this would have topped it off.....