Britain and Economic Warfare in German Naval Thinking in the Era of the Great War

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-208
Author(s):  
Matthew S. Seligmann
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
German Navy ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

Under the leadership of Alfred von Tirpitz, the German navy concentrated on building a battle fleet based in the North Sea rather than cruisers designed for operations in distant waters. This has led many historians to assume that commerce warfare (Handelskrieg) played no real part in German preparations for war against Britain before 1914. This chapter disputes this analysis. It shows that Germany’s naval planners in the Admiralstab believed that by converting merchant ships into auxiliary cruisers and using them to attack British commerce on the high seas the German navy would be able to cause considerable damage to British shipping and so force the Royal Navy to divert forces from the main theatre of war to distant oceans. It goes on to examine the reality of this plan during the First World War.

scholarly journals ‘The want of sufficient men’: Labour recruitment and training in the British North Sea fisheries, 1850–1950

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First World ◽  
And Training

Between 1815 and 1950 the British fishing industry underwent fundamental and far-reaching changes. The industry expanded rapidly in the half-century prior to the First World War, before entering a period of stagnation thereafter. The technology of fishing was transformed by the spread of trawling, and the application of steam, and later motor power to the catching sector. All of this was driven by an expansion of demand for fish, consequent upon improvements in overland transport, which saw distribution and marketing arrangements transformed. This had major implications for labour in the industry. Fishermen became more numerous, and in many cases more specialised, as technological development introduced specialists such as the engineer and wireless operator into fishing vessels’ crews. The period also saw the rise of tied labour in the industry, in the form of thousands of teenaged apprentices brought in to man the North Sea trawling fleets, before apprenticeship declined in favour of more informal training arrangements. The impact of all of this was highly uneven. Some sectors of the industry were rapidly transformed, whereas others developed more slowly. The rapid growth and evolution of trawling promoted the widespread use of apprenticeship, for example, whereas concomitant developments in the herring fisheries had no such ramifications. This article seeks to provide an overview of labour recruitment and training in the British fisheries between 1815 and 1950, highlighting the scale and scope of the most important developments, and setting the best known facet of the subject, the apprenticeship system, in context.

The Great War and the Re-drawing of the Ottoman Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 166-197
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Great War ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The North ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This chapter details how, during the 14 years before the outbreak of the First World War, Britain comprehensively revised her diplomatic alignments, readjusted her military strategy, and rearranged her armed forces to meet the threat posed by the European powers. In the process, she signed an alliance with Japan and ententes with France and Russia, she concentrated her fleet in the North Sea and the Channel, and developed a plan to prevent Germany from imposing a quick defeat on France by mobilising a new British Expeditionary Force. However, there remained one flaw in all this: she had not really considered the Ottoman Empire or, indeed, the wider question of her relations with the Muslim societies in Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and especially India. This oversight was a by-product of her new strategy, which frankly made security in Europe the chief object and in effect downgraded the importance of the imperial world. As a result, Britain failed to take full account of changes in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa engendered by the Great War.

Labour, British radicalism and the First World War

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Charlie Chaplin ◽  
Labour Relations ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Parliamentary Politics ◽  
First World

This volume offers a series of new essays on the British left – broadly interpreted – during the First World War. Dealing with grassroots case studies of unionism from Bristol to the North East of England, and of high politics in Westminster, these essays probe what changed, and what remained more or less static, in terms of labour relations. For those interested in class, gender, and parliamentary politics or the interplay of ideas between Britain and places such as America, Ireland and Russia, this work has much to offer. From Charlie Chaplin to Ellen Wilkinson, this work paints a broad canvass of British radicalism during the Great War.

Postal Censorship and the Alchemy of Victory at Sea during the First World War

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
John Ferris
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
World War ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
The Waves ◽  
First World

Economic warfare shaped the First World War, but neither its execution nor its effect have been studied thoroughly. Economic warfare usually is seen just as a matter of warships; in fact, it stemmed from and was waged through a combination of diplomacy, intelligence, law, and seapower. The Royal Navy might have exercised blockade simply through strength, but Britannia did not wish to rule the waves by force alone. Britain cared about being, and seeming to be, lawful in action, which also eased the diplomacy of economic warfare. Intelligence, especially intercepted cables, wireless and, above all, the international post, unified seapower and sea law. Seapower enabled diplomacy, intelligence and law. They executed seapower. In particular, only overwhelming seapower could make every neutral at once tolerate British interception of their seamail, which was inconvenient and, neutrals thought, illegal. In turn, the postal censorship, Britain’s most feminised department of state, matched the most manly of arms as a tool of seapower.

A New History for a New Channel: The Great War and the Launch of BBC2

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Downing
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Television History ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World ◽  
Intense Debate ◽  
Do So

This article considers the making of the BBC2 series, The Great War, and examines issues around the treatment and presentation of the First World War on television, the reception of the series in 1964 and its impact on the making of television history over the last fifty years. The Great War combined archive film with interviews from front-line soldiers, nurses and war workers, giving a totally new feel to the depiction of history on television. Many aspects of The Great War were controversial and raised intense debate at the time and have continued to do so ever since.

The Russian Red Cross Society and staff replenishment of sisters of mercy on the eve of the First World War (1908–1914)

2020 ◽  
pp. 136-153
Author(s):  
Elizaveta E. Polianskaia ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Red Cross ◽  
World War ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Medical Facilities ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
Sisters Of Mercy ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This article deals with the problem of recruiting sisters of mercy by the Russian Red Cross Society (also RRCS, Red Cross) in 1908-1914s. In case of war, Red Cross had to send sisters of mercy to its own institutions and to medical institutions of the military Department. The war ministry was developing a mobilization plan, which included a plan for the deployment of medical facilities. The ministry sent this plan to the administration of the Red Cross. In accordance with the request of the ministry, the RRCS strengthened its efforts to attract new staff of sisters of mercy. This activity led to certain results. On the eve of the war, there was a number of sisters of mercy that were required to replenish the medical institutions of the Red Cross and the military Department. That means that according to the pre-war plan, in the matter of creating a cadre of sisters of mercy, the RRCS was ready for the war. However, the Great War took on a wide scale, a situation which the army, the industry, and the medical service were not prepared for. The Russian Red Cross Society was forced to quickly open new medical institutions and to urgently train new personnel. Sometimes the duties of nurses were performed by those who did not have the necessary education.

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