Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Regulators V's Rat Catchers, 13 Feb 2006
As some reviewers have already mentioned, this is ,primarily, a book that investigates why so many potential tactical initiatives were not taken advantage of by the various Royal Navy Senior Officers.
Admiral Beatty usually gets the sharp end of the stick in any 'historical' writing of either Dogger Bank or Jutland, but this book, does, in some detail, show exactly why he rose to the highest office - where he later ruined his 'name' by the adjusting the facts to reflect better on the Battlecruiser forces, that aside, the practical results of his command approach are not in doubt (except where gunnery practices are concerned and also some foolish 'downwards loyalty').
Jellicoe is shown, effectively, to be the product of his time, nothing more, nothing less. In this readers opinion, this does him little justice, but, like all histories with a point to prove - something else has to be disproved to make room (the equilibrium argument).
The only minus for me was the overindulgent reams of paper on the historical relationship between Evans-Thomas and the Royal Family, the research was obviously (very) thorough and accurate, but did we really need to have so much detail printed in the book in order to understand the point..?
Worth much more than the cost if RN history/WW1 is something that is of interest to you.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Splendid - a historical treasure house !, 19 Mar 2001
By A Customer
This is a quite epic narrative history, which reads with the facility and pace of a well-constructed thriller. It is at once a social history of the Royal Navy that spans the Ironclad, Dreadnought and Great War eras, a dissertation on naval signalling and fleet-handling in a period of unprecedented technical innovation, a reflection on the challenges and stresses of leadership and a thrilling account of the Battle of Jutland from a British perspective. The book opens with a quite thrilling account of the opening phase of the battle, in which technical and human complexities are treated with equal aplomb, then breaks off - leaving the reader all but white knuckled - at the moment the German High Seas Fleet appears on the scene and forces Beatty's Battle Cruiser Force and Fifth Battle Squadron to turn northwards. It might seem an anti-climax to be diverted from this drama to the controversies that dominated the Navy in the Late-Victorian and Edwardian periods but this part of the story, with its splendidly delineated cast of larger-than-life characters, is no less gripping, especially in view of its ultimate relevance to command and control decisions at the potentially climactic encounter at Jutland. The third part of the book returns to the battle itself, with the arrival of Jellicoe's Battle Fleet, the main clash and the subsequent night action and German escape. The complexities of naval manoeuvre have seldom been so clearly portrayed in print, with excellent use being made of simple diagrams for illustration, and colour and pace are lent to the narrative by many well-chosen extracts from survivor's accounts, ranging from the light-hearted to the outright ghastly. This was indeed a battle where there was no mid-point between unscathed survival and horrific injury. The story is told almost exclusively from the Royal Navy viewpoint - that indeed of a British participant - and, thought this adds great immediacy, readers will need to look elsewhere for a more detailed account of the German movements. The final part of the book is in many ways the saddest, detailing the recriminations, self-justifications and personal tragedies involving the main participants after the war. A postscript that deals with the problem of intelligence overload as a purely Naval concern will be found by many readers to have singular relevance to large modern organisations employing E-Mail! This is, in summary, a quite magnificent piece of work and a delight for enthusiasts of naval history. The only mild criticism that might be made is that the writer has omitted to discuss how experience from the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars might have influenced Royal Naval thinking on visual signalling and fleet control under battle conditions. Japanese experience might be assumed to have been of particular relevance in view of the strong Royal Navy influence on Japanese naval development - and of the presence on Togo's flagship at Tsu-Shima of Captain William Packenham, who later commanded the 2nd. Battle Cruiser Squadron at Jutland. This minor gripe aside one can but long for more from the pen of Mr.Gordon.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well researched and written. Overly tendentious., 21 May 2000
This account is certainly well researched and written leading to a good read. The scholarship is good but the author is overly tendentious in his assertion that the behaviour of the RN senior command at Jutland (down to captains) can be explained by a history and Pax Britannica experience dominated by connections with royalty, polar exploration and freemasonary. His criticism, though, of the Admiralty, and particularly Oliver, is certainly warranted.Coming after Campbell's turgid analysis of the fighting at Jutland Gordon's account is welcome, particularly his depiction of life at Scapa Flow in the Fleet and the social commentary of the life and times of the BCF in the Forth. But he is no Marder and Volume 3 "Jutland and After..." remains the definitive work.
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