Bill Riddle wrote:
>>>Someone offered the Nautilus war patrol reports in a wordprocessing
document>>>
SNIP

Bill:

‘Twas me. Do you want it as an attached file, or snail-mailed? I’m not sure
if I have it here at home, or at the office, but I do have it. If in a file,
for DOS or Mac, and what software?

John Snyder
John_Snyder@bbs.macnexus.org

Only FOURTEEN four-stack ocean liners were built. Name them.

-Brooks

With all the currently-developing information on WW2 naval camouflage colors,
Randy Short and I are considering marketing a set of paint chips matched
directly from the 1929/42 Munsell Book of Color, which was the standard upon
which all USN paints were based and for which Alan Raven has provided RN
references. We also have a number of actual paint chips from which to provide
exact matches. We would propose to package logical sets of chips (for
instance, the USN purple-blues, USN greens, etc.), along with suggested
mixing formulas using readily-available model paints which Randy is
preparing. Modelers would then be able to mix their own paints to accurately
match their required camo colors, testing the mix against the paint chips. We
propose to begin with USN and RN colors, but are pursuing leads to match Axis
naval colors also, and would like to have the first sets available at the
IMPS Nationals this summer, as well as by mail-order at that time.

Our question: is there interest out there in the naval modeling community?

>>Mr. Bergerud,
>>
>> I must ask, have you ever read any of the works that I have cited?
Read this
>>work and if you still do not agree, then we will have to agree to
disagree. I
>>would, however, also like to suggest to you that before you make such a
>>strident ad hominem rebuttal in the future, you might want to consider what
>>is being addressed and just how informed you are on the recent scholarship.
>>After all, this subject is a long way from combat operations in the Pacific
>>during World War II.
>>
>> Chris Havern
>>
>>
I babysat Sumida’s book and it looked interesting. Has a lot of technical
detail that I find interesting. You’d be suprised how much of the technology
developed early in the 20th century showed up in the Pacific in 1942.
Lambert’s work is not published and, as you did not summarize the findings,
I can’t comment.

I studied Anglo-German relations under Raymond Sontag one of the best
diplomatic historians in US history. The naval race ended up a topic for a
seminar topic. I am on pretty good terms with some of the best people in the
field both here and in Germany.

It may be we are talking about different topics. I do not doubt that some of
the people inside the RN held a different view of the German fleet than
publically projected. However, it is real news to me if diplomatic
historians have changed their views concerning the importance of the
Anglo-German naval race in changing Britain’s foreign policy in the
generation before 1914. Quite the contrary: the development of the Triple
Entente would not have been possible without it.

I do not recall making any “strident ad hominem” rebuttals to anything
anyone said. One thing I like about mahan is the lack of mudslinging that
takes place on H-diplo. Take it easy.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

At 08:46 AM 22/1/98 -0500, Chris Havern wrote:
>SNIP A BIT Mr Bergerud engages in argument that I believe is
>misguided because it is based on an incomplete knowledge of the latest
>scholarship on the subject. The work of Jon Sumida and the
>soon-to-be-published work of Nicholas Lambert make clear that the
>British, while certainly wary of the burgeoning naval might of Germany,
>were not consumed with countering the threat posed by the High Seas
>Fleet. If they were obsessed with the Germans, then why build
>battlecruisers? The answer is concern with imperial defense and the
>countering of guerre de course along with having a vessel that was
>capable of serving like a battleship, not because of its armor, but
>because of its speed and ability to hit at greater range. This is what
>Fisher intended. I make this point, because Mr. Bergerud states that we
>cannot view the situation in 1914. I agree. Yet having said that, Mr.
>Bergerud fails to have an appreciable sense of what British goals were >in
the years of Fisher’s first stint as First Sea Lord. If he had, then >he
would know that there were several important factors influencing >British
policy that were totally unrelated to German building programs. >These
include finance, technological developments, and domestic politics
>vis a vis social spending.

Earlier in the decade I acquired material from what I believe to be most of
the more important relevant sources and discussed with Nicholas Lambert his
interpretation of these sources and naval and other developments touched on
in the discussion so far. This was in connection with my research for my
study of the development of an independent Australian navy, published in
1995 under the title Statesmen & Sailors.
I agree with the general thrust of what both Chris Havern and Timothy
Francis have said, but would add the following remarks.
Capital ships didn’t grow on trees. They took many years from ordering to
commissioning and, once you started to build a battleship, that’s what you
ended up with. It was therefore crucial to order the right type of ship in
the first place.
Coupled with this was the fact that the supply of ordnance and mountings
for the main armament of the British ships was a constricting factor. There
was a shortage of the pits in which the 13.5 inch mountings could be
assembled. Export orders for large calibre ordnance and mountings from
Japan and Turkey had also to be met.
The British building crunch came in late 1908 when the British cabinet had
to decide what capital ships to order to meet what they understood to be
German building plans, with the intention to match these plans by 1912. A
mix of battleships and battlecruisers emerged.
As an aside, Churchill, who was President of the Board of Trade, allied
with Lloyd George to oppose any increase in government spending, being
still convinced of Germany’s peaceful intentions. It would be some time
before he changed his mind.
Fear of the effects of a German were reinforced by the
appreciation that the larger ships of the German merchant fleet, including
its transatlantic fleet and those ships trading with the Far East, were
carrying their wartime armament ready to be installed at the outbreak of
hostilities. In parenthesis, in the days when control of the main armament
of most warships was a very rudimentary affair, the prospect of a fast,
bulky merchant ship bristling with 6inch guns or their equivalent, was one
that had to be taken seriously.
This, coupled with the deployment of armoured cruisers such as Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau to distant waters, was a problem that battlecruisers were
ideally suited to handle.
Armoured cruisers were too old-fashioned, light cruisers were just that –
too light – to guarantee success.
This was, in my assessment, one of the principle reasons for the
establishment of the Fleet Units.
The German desire to acquire colonies, having ‘missed out’ in the first
round through not having been a nation, was realised by the British, and in
my opinion the task of the Grand Fleet was not only to protect the United
Kingdom but to prevent the High Seas Fleet from slipping by and taking part
in an overseas adventure as escort for a convoy of troopships.
Finally, in this quick and dirty response, the fear that the Netherlands,
with its valuable overseas colonial possessions, might decide to side with
Germany, never seems to get a mention, yet, in my assessment, the prospect
was taken seriously in Whitehall. Had this eventuated it would have placed
an entirely different cast on the situation.
As I said, a quick and dirty response. Always remembering that the thread
started off with a question about German developments and not the British
response.
Discussion, either on or off list, more than welcome.
Nothing at this stage on the Fisher destroyer flotilla and submarine
theories. That’s another kettle of fish/can of worms.
Yours aye Bob Nicholls

>Your first point reminds me of the old Anglophobe question, “What is it
>about the British that gives them the ‘divine right’ to have the world’s
>most powerful navy?”
>

No divine right, but in the context of the time and given Britain’s
geographic position and four hundred years of historic momentum, I think
it’s safe to say the Bitish were not going to yield naval supremecy to
Germany without a struggle.

>The second point clarify’s your interpretation. All I can say is that
>anyone who swallows Fischer’s socialist polemics needs to do some more
>reading on the neutral nature of the “relative balance of power.” Paul
>Kennedy’s “The Realities Behind Diplomacy” is a good place to start.

Fischer’s books are tough to take on every point. Yet there is no doubt that
he found the diplomatic smoking guns and nobody will ever look at Imperial
Germany in quite the same way. The German “wish list” very much included
colonial gains. They were secondary to central Europe, as one might expect
given the map, but they were there. I am not trying to deny the differences
between the 2d Reich and the Third. However, the perception throughout most
of Europe of Germany as a threat, as opposed to the bastion of a
conservative political order, was the gift of the Kaiser to his grateful
nation. For what its worth, many of his own ministers cringed when their
Ceaser had a bad day. The German Navy, as designed by Tirpitz, and supported
by the Kaiser, was a prolonged bad day and did more than any single factor
in bringing England into the midst of pre-1914 European diplomatic affairs.
It is true that on some issues London and Berlin cooperated. Yet the outline
of two hostile alliances was clear to anyone with eyes by August 1914. In my
opinion, this development would have been very unlikely without the
poisoning of relations between Britain and Germany. Perhaps the war would
have taken place anyway: if it had, there may well have been a
different winner.

>Fischer is an odd choice for you to use anyway, as the main victims of
>expansionist wartime (I won’t even bring up Fischer’s retroactive
>errors) German war aims were in Eastern Europe, not the British or
>French overseas empires.
>
>Timothy L. Francis
>Historian
>Naval Historical Center
>email address: Francis.Timothy@nhc.navy.mil
>voice: (202) 433-6802
>
>The above remarks are my opinions, not those of the U.S. Navy or the
>Department of Defense
>
>> ———-
>> From: rickt@cris.com[SMTP:rickt@cris.com]
>> Reply To: mahan@microworks.net
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 1998 8:53 PM
>> To: mahan@microworks.net
>> Subject: RE: The Kaiser’s Fleet
>>
>>If I may respectfully disagree with Mr. Francis there was a very big
>>difference between the High Seas Fleet and any other European Navy. As
>>Hegel reminds us, “quantity changes quality.”
>[snip]
>>In light of Fritz Fischer’s findings, I don’t think we
>>dismiss the threat as simple paranoia.
>
>
>
>
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

>
> Furthermore, his assessment of Tirpitz and Wilhelm II being fools that
>essentially got what they deserved is unfortunate because it is not only
>a gross generalization and misrepresentation, but it borders on
>character assassination. If I may, I’d also like to point out that the
>British declared war not because of the actions of the High Seas Fleet,
>but because the Imperial Army violated the treaty safeguarding the
>territorial integrity of Belgium. And as to the building of a
>medium-sized navy to deal with “Russia or France”, it appears that the
>treaty obligations of both aforementioned countries would have ensured
>that the Germans would have had to have a navy capable of dealing with
>both Russia and France. Finally I would like to say that “creating the
>impression” that you are a threat, does not necessarily mean that an
>actual threat is posed, at least as it is perceived by those who make
>policy.
>
> Chris Havern
>

I have seen every self-evident truth in the field of diplomatic history
“revised” in my generation. It’s the best way to get noticed. If you watch
carefully you can see the rehabilitation of at least elements of the Nazi
regime. Churchill has recently been portrayed as the man who unnecessarily
prolonged WWII, but also destroyed the British Empire in the process. Our
own various Cold War “revisionist” debate says a lot more about the US than
it does about the history of the Cold War. So allow me to be a little less
than impressed by news of “new research” concerning the Anglo-German naval
race.

It is no secret that Fischer had a lot of things on his fertile mind. (The
US for one.) The battlecruiser was a bad idea that sounded good. However it
is very bad history indeed to equate the arms race between Britain and
Germany with Fischer. He he was only one party and not the most important.
As E. Kehr argued in the 1930’s, the German fleet became the symbol of an
expansionist Germany (or at least a nation deprived of its “place in the
sun”) both inside Germany and out. The poisoning of relations between the
Germans and London should hit one on the head if you stand back a foot or
two. Prior to the German naval bills, Anglo-German relations were very good,
and had been for generations. Britain had maintained neutrality during
Bismarck’s wars and existed in a state of “splendid isolation” with no
evident desire to grow intimately involved in continental rivalries. We can
now see the Kaiser as a misunderstood, basically nice enough fellow who
wanted to please everybody if we like. At least he wasn’t Hitler.
(Personally, I think the Kaiser was the Crown Prince’s father in every sense
of the term and that is not a compliment.) At the time, his bombast, love of
military display, escapades in Morocco made Germany appear to be aggrieved
at its position in Europe, militarily powerful and potentially very
dangerous. The Kaiser chucked a perfectly good relationship with Russia out
the window soon after he fired Bismarck. (We take it for granted, but an
alliance between Czarist Russia and Republican France – when the French
Revolution was still very much alive in Europe’s political memory – came as
quite a shock.) Only the Kaiser could have shifted Britain from a position
of lofty neutrality to something close to a binding alliance with France by
1914. (The “division of labor” between the British and French navies prior
to 1914 would have had traditional British statesmen spinning in their
graves. It also says something about Tirpitz’s bathtub toys and their impact
on diplomacy.)

I do not argue for a mono-casual approach to the beginning of WWI. However,
I don’t see how you can chuck 75 years of diplomatic history out of the
widow and not see that when Britain was confronted by a naval rivalry from
Germany it had a drastic impact on British policy and was central to
Britain’s addition to the Triple Entente. Britain in the years before the
war was undergoing a series of domestic trials. The empire itself was under
domestic scrutiny. Yet not even the Labor Party was able to stop the British
naval expansion. The reason was simple: the Germans were building ships and
the British were determined not to be equalled in an area where their
survival had traditionally rested. That point was so simple and so basic to
the diplomatic history of Europe for three hundred years, it should need no
elaboration.

Play a simple mind game. Picture in 1900. The Kaiser proclaims the intention
of Germany to equal the naval might of Russia or France. In a decade Germany
builds a fine fleet, but one that is significantly smaller than Britain’s.
In the meantime, Tirpitz, the Kaiser and their imperialist supporters keep
their mouth shut. Do you think Britain would have been closely aligned with
France and Russia by 1914? They might have protested, but do you think they
would have declared war on Germany because of Belgium. And had they done so,
would the staff talks between Paris and London that allowed Britain’s
intervention to play a crucial role at the Marne taken place? I doubt all of
these things very much.

I was in Washington on and off during the 70’s. Even US military leaders and
think-tank gurus that didn’t really believe the Red Army was going to come
blasting through the Fulda Gap could not figure out why the Red Navy was
expanding so fast. And they were worried. Put yourself in the shoes, not of
Jackie Fischer, but of Asquith and his government. What would you think
about a very rapid and very substantial increase in German naval power? What
do you see as the motivation in Berlin? Would this effect your diplomacy.
Betcha it would.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930

Bill,

I checked w/my boss who was a junior officer back in the ’50s. He says
that seniority was based on the individual first (if known) and the size
of the ship second–which can be tricky if the warships are roughly the
same size. It was never based, to his knowledge, on a “senior” Navy.

Apparently, when operating in a region with lots of other warships,
local commanders tend to circulate lists of officer and ship seniority
lists precisely to avoid the error of a junior officer of one navy not
rendering honors to a senior officer of another.

I guess that would mean the U.S. destroyer would not hesitate to render
honors to the British CV.

Timothy L. Francis
Historian
Naval Historical Center
email address: Francis.Timothy@nhc.navy.mil
voice: (202) 433-6802

The above remarks are my opinions, not those of the U.S. Navy or the
Department of Defense

> ———-
> From: Bill Riddle[SMTP:riddleb@fhu.disa.mil]
> Reply To: mahan@microworks.net
> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 1998 8:44 AM
> To: mahan@microwrks.com
> Subject: Passing Honors
>
> A thought in passing…
>
> When war ships pass each other (usually in the channel) they
> render
> “Passing Honors.” Which is the junior saluting and the senior
> returning the salute, based on the rank/date of rank or the
> captain.
>
> Again, I seem to recall that, when this involved ships of
> different
> nations, it was the “junior” navy that saluted the senior navy.
> And
> the US Navy was the senior navy in the world, so did not render
> honors
> to anyone, rather returned the salute when it was rendered.

Mr. Rowlett,

It is not my intent to engage in an ad hominem exchange, but I would
suggest to you that Jon Sumida’s book is very broad and implicitly takes
the conventional wisdom head on and proves, not that it is wrong or
stupid, but that it could not possibly be right. This is borne out by
the depth and breadth of the documentation cited in the footnotes.
Further, the associated scholarship of Nicholas Lambert on Fisher’s and,
by association, Churchill’s plans to build submarines and flotilla craft
for the defense of England against invasion not only bolsters this
conclusion, but carries it even further. In short, the “conventional
wisdom” on the subject of the Anglo-German Naval Race and the outbreak
of World War I has been shown to be not only inaccurate from a
historical perspective, but from a contemporary one as well. If that
were not the case, then Jon Sumida’s and Nichaolas Lambert’s scholarship
would not be the exceptions to the “conventional wisdom” that they are.

May I respectfully suggest that you read, or reread, In Defence of
Naval Supremacy, The Pollen Papers, and Jon Sumida’s articles in various
journals along with Nicholas Lambert’s book and recent articles. Then if
you still disagree with me, then we will have to just agree to disagree.

Sincerely,

Chris Havern
>

Taking a quick look in Sumida’s “Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching
Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered” (1997),
one finds that a) Mahan has more than just “one thesis” b) it seems
Mahan’s viewed individual ship designs as unimportant and c) I might
speculate that if Mahan rejected a Dreadnought-type program, it was done
so not because of its design, but for financial reasons. He wrote (in
1911) that “To prepare for war in time of peace is impractical to
commercial representative nations, because the people in general will
not give sufficient heed to military necessities, or to international
problems, to feel the pressure which induces readiness.” (88)

Of course, he wrote that line when the British government was still
struggling with vast amounts of social spending, to the significant
detriment of the Royal Navy. That probably influenced his thinking.

Timothy L. Francis
Historian
Naval Historical Center
email address: Francis.Timothy@nhc.navy.mil
voice: (202) 433-6802

The above remarks are my opinions, not those of the U.S. Navy or the
Department of Defense

> ———-
> From: Brooks Rowlett[SMTP:brooksar@indy.net]
> Reply To: mahan@microworks.net
> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 1998 12:12 PM
> To: mahan@microworks.net
> Subject: Re: The Kaiser’s Fleet
>
>And by the way, didn’t Mahan say the DREADNOUGHT was a mistake and >the
US should not follow suit? The idea being that individually powerful
ships
>wre contrary to his thesis? Of course he said this before director
>control and the advantages of all big guns combined with the produciton
>rates to make dreadnought – style BB’s the new standard.