How the Navy Won the War

With its provocative title, you could be forgiven for thinking that this book will be examining the naval actions of WW1 to prove the superiority of the Royal Navy, but that is not the case, far from it. The author cleverly weaves a path through a range of the political, strategic, economic and tactical events referred to as the “14 turning points of the war”, as well as studies of the key figures. These include the battle of Heligoland Bight, Loos and Arras, the German 1918 Spring offensive, the attack on the Lusitania, unrestricted German submarine warfare and the introduction by the British of a convoy system. The lack of strategic clarity in 1914 by the British led to the deployment of the numerically weak BEF and little regard was taken of using the Navy other than for transporting the soldiers safely to France – a task it carried out superbly with very little loss throughout the war. As the war progressed – in Beatty’s words “it may have been fought on land but it was won at sea”, Heligoland Bight and Jutland showed the High Seas Fleet the dangers of a fleet action with the Grand Fleet. The pre-eminence of the British naval power enabled it to establish an increasingly effective blockade, literally starving Germany of everything from food to raw materials. A combination of poor national food distribution and drain of manpower from the German farming sector added to the misery. With internal discontent in 1916/17, the Kaiser authorised unrestricted attacks by U-boats on Allied merchant ships as the only hope of German victory. The Royal Navy reluctantly instituted a convoy system in April 1917, when merchant losses were running at 850,000 tons a month. Fisher said at the time: “Can the Army win the war before the Navy loses it?” The convoy system broke the stranglehold of the U-boats and is described as one of the reasons the Entente won the war. The author is a journalist and the book is deliberately challenging but enjoyable. With quotes from Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth and comparing Ludendorff to one of Paul McCartney’s songs, this is not the usual style of a military historian. His conclusion is that the Navy was as great a contributor to victory as the Army but at less cost. I enjoyed being challenged by this book, the style is both readable and stimulating. Fisher’s epitaph was: “Organiser of the Navy that won the Great War.” This book convinced me and is highly recommended!