Originally published in 1980 ‘Luxury’ Fleet (the phrase was Winston Churchill’s) was the first history of the Imperial German navy from 1888 to 1918. After tracing the historical background to German naval ambitions, the first two sections of the book analyse Admiral Tirpitz’s programme of building a battle fleet strong enough to engage the Royal Navy in the North Sea. The author shows the fleet in its European setting and describes the warships and the attitudes of the officer corps and seamen. The final section of the book discusses the tactical deployment of the German fleet during the First World War, both in home waters and overseas; and it weighs the balance between those who supported fleet actions in preference to those who favoured cruiser and submarine warfare.

For five centuries, since Vasco de Gama's ships began making the Indian Ocean a Portuguese lake, many governments used naval force to serve their political purposes. The sceptre of the seas passed from one nation to another, but political success did not always reward the strongest navy. This selective, international history of naval force as a political instrument, whether in peace or war, ranges from Calicut, navally cannonaded in 1501, to Baghdad, assailed by sea launched missiles in 1991.

This volume provides the first comprehensive history of the arms racing phenomenon in modern international politics, drawing both on theoretical approaches and on the latest historical research. Written by an international team of specialists, it is divided into four sections: before 1914; the inter-war years; the Cold War; and extra-European and post-Cold War arms races. Twelve case studies examine land and naval armaments before the First World War; air, land, and naval competition during the 1920s and 1930s; and nuclear as well as conventional weapons since 1945. Armaments policies are placed within the context of technological development, international politics and diplomacy, and social politics and economics. An extended general introduction and conclusion and introductions to each section provide coherence between the specialized chapters and draw out wider implications for policymakers and for political scientists. Arms Races in International Politics addresses two key questions: what causes arms races, and what is the connection between arms races and the outbreak of wars?

Belgium was once described as the 'dagger held at the throat of England', a collection of provinces that had long been a critical factor in British foreign policy, and the traditional concern was that Belgium, and especially the Flanders coast, would fall into the hands of the strongest continental power. In 1914, Germany's occupation of Belgium brought about the spectre of enemy ships only seventy miles from the British coast, and the coast of Flanders became, effectively, the naval flank of the Western Front.?Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was one of the few within the German navy who recognised the strategic potential of the three ports of Ostend, Zeebrugge and Brugges; that they were closer to England than the Helgoland Bight for access by small craft, and brought Germany to within a few hours sailing of the Thames estuary. This new book tells the story of the creation, purpose, operations and career of the MarineKorps Flandern. The Flanders harbours should have allowed the German navy to strike dangerous blows at vital British traffic in the Channel and southern North Sea but the MarineKorps was unable to fulfill the great expectations of von Tirpitz. The author not only explains how the German conducted operations, but also explains how the opportunites presented by the Flemish occupation were wasted away. A significant and insightful book on an important theatre of the War

Europe ruled the waves for most of the modern era and even when its navies were eclipsed in size by the US force, they continued to dominate world wars. In this unique history of Europe's naval forces, Larry Sondhaus charts the development of naval warfare from the transition to steam to recent actions in the Persian Gulf. Combining detailed technical information with an in-depth comparison of warfare and tactics across some of the key conflicts of the modern world, this is an absorbing account of European and British seapower, past and present.

This work examines how the navies of Great Britain, the USA, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, France and Italy confronted the various technological changes posed during different periods in the 20th century.

This is the first study of the Ludendorff Offensives of 1918 based extensively on key German records presumed to be lost forever after Potsdam was bombed in 1944. In 1997, David T. Zabecki discovered translated copies of these files in a collection of old instructional material at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He presents his findings here for the first time, with a thorough review of the surviving original operational plans and orders, to offer a wealth of fresh insights to the German Offensives of 1918. David T. Zabecki clearly demonstrates how the German failure to exploit the vulnerabilities in the BEF’s rail system led to the failure of the first two offensives, and how inadequacies in the German rail system determined the outcome of the last three offensives. This is a window into the mind of the German General Staff of World War I, with thorough analysis of the German planning and decision making processes during the execution of battles. This is also the first study in English or in German to analyze the specifics of the aborted Operation HAGEN plan. This is also the first study of the 1918 Offensives to focus on the ‘operational level of war’ and on the body of military activity known as ‘the operational art’, rather than on the conventional tactical or strategic levels. This book will be of great interest to all students of World War I, the German Army and of strategic studies and military theory in general.