Reviews - Time for Controversy

[Harley]

Time to try and inject some life into this section of the forum. I'll list some books and give my succinct and damning opinions on them, and see what everyone else has to say :D.

THE RULES OF THE GAME: Jutland and British Naval Command by Andrew Gordon

The most arrogant book I've ever read. Roughly half the book is devoted to Jutland and most of the rest is devoted to a very spotty account of "the underlying reason why" things happened they way they did. He's tried to make his arguments on far too narrow a field and been exceptionally selective with his sources to back them up. His account of Jutland is good, but not exceptional, and despite his claim that he spent 18 months going through Jutland records and recollections it doesn't really show. His arguments might have been more palatable if he hadn't inserted so many insufferably snide and sarcastic comments throughout the book which certainly aren't the hallmark of a good historian and even less of an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve.

CASTLES OF STEEL: Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea by Robert K. Massie

This is essentially an affordable alternative to the Official History of the War by Corbett and Newbolt and to Marder's "Dreadnought to Scapa Flow" series. Which doesn't mean it's as good as those two series nor is it particularly much more informed than them. There are numerous errors in the text of a technical nature and he seems to have misattributed and misquoted a number of sources for some utterly bizzare reason. I can stomach the sources problem as I'm lucky to have a large number of sources Massie used. The main problem is one of scope. Hundreds of page leading up to and covering Jutland but really not that much afterwards. The referencing is annoying - only quotes are referenced (and as stated sometimes incorrectly), and nothing else, so you have to take Massie's word about how such and such an operation took place or why this thing behaved like that. Which is not the best of things when he is under the impression that "Warrior" was built out of wood. In the Acknowledgments Massie says he visited lots of archives and looked through numerous primary sources. You won't find much evidence of it.

THE SWORDBEARERS: Supreme Command in the First World War by Correlli Barnett

I bought this book specifically for the sections dealing with Jellicoe. I can't judge the merits of his sections on Generals, although it is interesting to note that in a speech to the Haig Fellowship in 2004 Barnett admitted that he was a bolshie "Easterner" when he wrote this book and after a nudging from John Terraine, he admitted he had been talking out of his rear-end. Barnett bangs on with his old saw about Britain in decline and so on and so on, which is a major feature of his "Pride and Fall" series. The failure of Jutland to be a decisive British victory because of a failure in materiel is a fair-enough opinion, but Barnett's arguments seem to me to be a lot of tripe. I knew this was going to be a pile of hogwash as soon as I saw his first reference, Kenneth Dewar's "The Navy from Within", one of the most vicious, self-serving opinionated naval memoirs ever written. Anyone who takes it seriously...well, they deserve everything they get. Unfortunately Barnett only seems to get accolades...

Let the debate begin. I've plenty more opinions from where these came from!

Simon

[astraltrader]

Although I accept what you have said about the errors you have noticed in Castles of Steel I think you have failed to acknowledge the books great strength which is to paint a most readable, vivid and coherant picture of the major naval events of the First World War.

I have read like yourself many accounts of the events that this book covers but none that excels as much at providing narrative histories of all the major subjects, studded with vignettes and pen-portraits.

To provide just one example, Massie is able to breathe life into events like the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 like no other book I have read.

If I was going to criticise this book it would be a criticism that would apply to any single volume trying to cover such a broad canvas. It cant possibly cover everything! In this case I do feel that the content is very much as you say loaded toward events leading up to and including Jutland. Events that happened in 1917 and 1918 are barely covered. I personally would have liked to have seen the inclusion of the 3rd battle of Heligoland as well as more about the fighting between the British Dover Patrol and the German forces at Zeebrugge and Ostend.

Personally speaking though I can think of no-other single volume work detailing the major naval events of WW1 that would appeal to both the informed as well as the general reader as much as this book does.

[Harley]

The problem with far too many books nowadays is that they are coherent, but not accurate. It's when authors starting making things more readable when the inevitable lapses of accuracy occur.

If you want a fool-proof one volume history of the First World War then you really can't do any better than the all-encompassing "A Naval History of World War I" by Professor Paul G. Halpern, which from Amazon is marginally more expensive than "Castles of Steel".

It's when one starts giving undue coverage to "Lusitania" when you're trying to cover the entire war, that's when your problems start. Most of Massie's pen portraits of officers are rather poor as well and reflect no great scholarship on his part (such is my opinion of them). I find it absurd that from July 1914 to August 1916 takes up 682 pages of my copy of "Castles of Steel". The rest of the war takes up 103 pages. That fact rather speaks for itself.

Simon

[Joseph]

Simon,

THE RULES OF THE GAME: Jutland and British Naval Command by Andrew Gordon

I read that book and liked the way he went more into the nitty gritty of the Command and Control aspects of the battle. His portrayal of the conflict between Beatty and Evan-Thomas and the way they commanded and used their styles of leadership was new and refreshing.
His depiction of the Battle was no better nor worse than many I have read, but he did pull in some of the more humdrum aspects of shipboard life that do go on in battle.

I have the Official History so I'm glad I didnt buy Castles of Steel, but I do tend to concentrate on Souce and contemporary accounts.

Regards Charles

[astraltrader]

Simon - As I have already stated I think more coverage could have been given to the last couple of years of the war in Castles of Steel - you have said nothing new.
That aside I still think it a good effort.
Out of abject curiosity what did you think of "Dreadnought"?

[Harley]

Simon,
I read that book and liked the way he went more into the nitty gritty of the Command and Control aspects of the battle. His portrayal of the conflict between Beatty and Evan-Thomas and the way they commanded and used their styles of leadership was new and refreshing.
His depiction of the Battle was no better nor worse than many I have read, but he did pull in some of the more humdrum aspects of shipboard life that do go on in battle.

Regards Charles

Any quoting from personal accounts is always good. However, It really grates when Gordon sees fit to append some smart-ass comment after them.

Terry, I haven't read "Dreadnought" for nearly two years, but I just bought a copy last week which I will get round to looking through soon. Two things spring to mind about it though - when it came out it was criticised by the so-called "revisionist" school of historians of British naval history - which might actually be a big point in its favour. The other point was that he seemed to have been afflicted by the arrogance which leads a writer to label a historical figure as "colourless" or "unimaginative" based on very little knowledge.

I just hope to God there aren't as many silly errors in "Dreadnought" as in "Castles of Steel".

Simon

[Harley]

In the post this morning I received my copy of "Jutland 1916: Death in the Grey Wastes" by Nigel Steel and Peter Hart. I've just started skipping through it and the number of first-hand accounts quoted from is astounding - far more than anything else I've read. I'm seeing stuff I've never seen before.

Simon

[Joseph]

Simon,

Any quoting from personal accounts is always good. However, It really grates when Gordon sees fit to append some smart-ass comment after them.

I took the comments as if he had a grasp of his subject, and rather like.......you know you can speak a foriegn language when you can tell a joke in it.

Regards Charles

[Harley]

Making a joke in a foreign language does display a grasp of the subject (alas my A-level French means I can only insult people). I can't see how making irrelevant cheap swipes displays any sort of superior grasp of naval history. To me it suggests a historian who is far too easily distracted from the facts at hand.

Simon

[herakles]

Two things spring to mind about it though - when it came out it was criticised by the so-called "revisionist" school of historians of British naval history - which might actually be a big point in its favour. Simon

I'm wondering what you find difficult with the revisionist historians Simon. As they represent the school that has had access to much more recent and up to date information, I would have thought this was a good thing.

Perhaps it's that they do tend to attack earlier concepts, often those now widely within the sphere of myth. For instance, Ferguson, certainly a revisionist, has done much to credit the role of Haig in WW1 instead of the man being relegated to the world of failures.

[Harley]

I'm referring to the likes of Ruddock Mackay, Jon Sumida and (later) Nicholas Lambert who have tended to be very adept at twisting "facts", particularly where technology is concerned. Massie didn't shamelessly follow the new wave of thinking and got slammed by some of them.

I look at most military historians of the Great War today as "re-revisionists" who for the past thirty-odd years have been trying to repair the damage done by the populist "donkies" school.

Simon

[Harley]

I've just started going through "The Rules of the Game" again, but this time with a fine tooth-comb, and sticking EVERY misbegotten fact in a table. After reading through the first three chapters I'm coming across an example of error or flawed logic on average every three or four pages.

Perhaps the most striking omission so far from this supposedly amazing book about Jutland is that there is not one mention of the seaplane carrier "Campania" and her being left behind at Scapa Flow. Considering Gordon's supposed metier is command and control one would have thought this would be bread and butter for him.

Simon

[Tiornu]

I'm referring to the likes of Ruddock Mackay, Jon Sumida and (later) Nicholas Lambert who have tended to be very adept at twisting "facts", particularly where technology is concerned.
Shall we mention Brooks? His DREADNOUGHT GUNNERY book provides some antidote to Sumida.

[Harley]

I have plugged John Brooks on this forum before (and the fact that Routledge print the paperback version of "Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland" on demand at the reasonable price of twenty pounds). That said, on my occasional searchings of Google books it would appear that some authors (post-2005) either don't know about Brooks' contribution to the fire-control "debate", or have ignored it. And that's without even mentioning Dr. Norman Friedman.

Simon

[Tiornu]

Yes, that was very disappointing.

[Harley]

Tiornu, I was thinking more along the lines of the initial dreadnought-battlecruiser concept at any rate when referring to Massie's "Dreadnought". The odd thing is that I have only read of the supposed controversy second-hand - and have been unable to find any sort of reviews or critiques from the time "Dreadnought" was published. Am I barking up the wrong tree here?

Simon

[Tiornu]

I haven't read anything from Massie, so I guess that puts me in the third person on this. I just did a quick search for reviews of the book but found only two, one from JMH and one from America. Neither had any negative remarks on this particular topic. What exactly is the controversy about?

[Harley]

From what I recall, and it infuriates me that I can't remember where I read it, Massie was severely criticised for not taking into account the likes of Mackay and Sumida's writings on the Royal Navy in the Fisher era. That's all. I do distinctly recall that Massie took a hammering on it. I noticed JMH carried a quiet-enough review, so I'm wondering where on earth this criticism appeared, if ever there was any?

Simon