It pays to read the full title of this book carefully: it is not about German cruisers as a type – in fact, it covers warships ranging from light cruisers (Kleine Kreuzer) with 4-inch guns to dreadnought-type battle cruisers (Grosse Kreuzer, in the German budget classification). It does not even contain a table of key technical data of the respective vessels. But ‘it does exactly what it says on the tin’: it deals very specifically with engagements of the First World War involving German cruisers.

The author’s aim is a “narrative” (Introduction), and he most certainly succeeds in this. The battles described, chapter by chapter, are Helgoland Bight 1914, Coronel 1914, Cape Sarych 1914, Falklands 1914, Dogger Bank 1915, Östergarn 1915, the Emden and Königsberg exploits, Skagerrak (Jutland) 1916, second battle of Helgoland Bight 1917, and Imbros 1918. Each chapter provides the wider context, a detailed description and a brief overall assessment. The narrative includes extensive quotations from German documents and publications in English translation which is often a bit too literal for my taste, but the general approach works very well. In most chapters, British and German accounts are quoted side by side, and it is these quotations that give the book its distinctive flavour and balance – there is no partiality here, and while there are still heroes and villains, the author finds them on both sides. Biographical sketches of the main protagonists help in understanding their attitudes and actions. In keeping with the aim of the book, the 43 photographs put an emphasis on battle damages and the computer-generated maps, while not always easy to read, make it possible to follow the development of each engagement (there are, for example, three maps for Dogger Bank and Östergarn each).

It is obvious that this book is based on extensive archive research and wide multilingual reading. The endnotes cite German and British publications and unpublished archive materials, as well as Russian published material (including memoirs, reports etc.). Readers may be intrigued to learn that the author rates German official accounts and documentary records higher than their British counterparts. But then, he is an Aussie, not British. Being a retired airline engineer, he has had an impressive output of well-researched and well-written books, at the rate of one book every two or three years over the last 15 or so years – surely the most productive retirement any naval enthusiast could wish for. His ‘production line’ also demonstrates his track record of research on the Kaiserliche Marine, with books on the battle for the Baltic Islands (Pen & Sword Maritime 2008), German battlecruisers (Seaforth 2014), and Jutland ‘through German eyes’ (Pen & Sword 2016).

But the research background does not make this a ‘heavy’ book – it is an absorbing read, the text flows, and even on battles which I thought I knew well, the author manages to find a fresh angle or a hitherto neglected aspect. And his balanced outlook does not mean he does not hold strong views. His narrative is punctuated by strong statements such as: “This was not the case” (p. 85) or “This statement is just untrue” (p. 65), followed by precise figures about speed or gun ranges correcting widespread misconceptions. The end of the book is somewhat abrupt because it is not rounded off by some kind of overall conclusion or retrospect. The only real oddity I could find in the entire book was in the bibliography where publications are listed in alphabetical order – of titles, not of authors’ surnames! None of my students would get away with that, but then, as the author states in his Introduction: “This book is not an academic book.”
Originally, the book was published in 2011 (Pen & Sword Maritime in the UK, Barnes & Noble in the US), and has been re-issued in paperback and e-book in 2018, at a price which is just over half that of the hardback edition.