The Pre-Dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World

Naval War College Review Volume 62 Article 20 Number 4 Autumn 2009 The Late Victorian Navy: The rP e-dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World War John B. Hattendorf Roger Parkinson Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Hattendorf, John B. and Parkinson, Roger (2009) "The Late Victorian Navy: The rP e-dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World War," Naval War College Review: Vol. 62 : No. 4 , Article 20. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol62/iss4/20 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hattendorf and Parkinson: The Late Victorian Navy: The Pre-dreadnought Era and the Origins BOOK REVIEWS 171 that his fleet was so powerful that he Office files at the National Archives, could divide it and still sustain local su- Kew, and the private papers of Lord periority. However, because Mahan Salisbury, Britain’s prime minister in never considered a situation such as 1885, 1886–92, 1895–1902, at Hatfield this, one must judge him inadequate as House. a guide in the last year of the great Parkinson’scentralfocusisonthe Pacific War. background and the effect of Britain’s “No plan survives first major contact Naval Defence Act of 1889 in the period with the enemy,” wrote Helmut von that has come to be called––and even Moltke the Elder, chief of the German dismissed as––the “pre-Dreadnought” General Staff in the mid-nineteenth era. He is reported to be preparing a century. If this be true of plans, which follow-up work that will focus on the are far less abstract than theories, era of HMS Dreadnought from 1906 on- should one expect that Mahan provides ward. In the volume at hand, Parkinson adequate direction through all the con- argues that most historians of the pe- tingencies that a warrior might face? riod have accepted too easily Arthur Marder’s picture of Britain’s relative MICHAEL PEARLMAN U.S. Army Command and General Staff College naval weakness in comparison with (Retired) other European naval powers. In partic- ular, Parkinson shows that Britain was not by any means a weak naval power and that W. T. Stead’s famous articles in the Pall Mall Gazette of 1884 were Parkinson, Roger. The Late Victorian Navy: The based on a gross exaggeration of the ac- Pre-dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First tual state of affairs. The key consider- World War. New York: Boydell, 2008. 323pp. ation, he points out, was maintaining a $145 naval force that was equal to that of the Roger Parkinson’s study of the Royal next two largest naval powers, France Navy from 1878 to the 1890s provides a and Russia. The effort to maintain that useful overview of a period in British margin of supremacy in terms of naval naval history that is sometimes seen as a expenditures, tonnage, and warship neglected “Dark Age.” He takes issue numbers resulted in the Naval Defense with the standard work of the period, Act in 1889. Parkinson maintains this Arthur Marder’s first book, British Na- was the spark that ignited the naval race val Policy, 1880–1905: The Anatomy of that lasted until the Washington naval British Sea-Power (1940). In this pub- arms-limitation treaty of 1922. As a re- lished version of his University of sult, Britain’s strategic situation Exeter doctoral thesis completed under changed from one that was a relatively Dr. Michael Duffy, Parkinson expands stable balance between Britain facing on the insights of Oscar Parkes, Bryan France and Russia up to the 1880s to Ranft, Donald M. Schurman, Paul M. one of the late 1890s and early twenti- Kennedy,N.A.M.Rodger,JonT. eth century that became a “strategic Sumida, and John Beeler with his own meltingpotwithnotthreebuteight detailed research work in parliamentary major naval powers––Britain, France, papers, the Admiralty and Cabinet Russia, America, Germany, Japan, Italy, Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2009 1 Naval War College Review, Vol. 62 [2009], No. 4, Art. 20 172 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW and Austria-Hungary.” The instigation British archives clearly sets his work in of this naval arms race, Parkinson con- the context of recent writings by other cludes, was the consistent overreaction scholars of British naval history on this in Britain that resulted in the 1889 Na- period. The weakness of his work lies in val Act due to the influence on naval his complete reliance on older, and of- policy and strategy by the Royal Navy’s ten outdated, secondary works for his “Young Turks” and panic mongers–– chapter sections on competing navies, W. H. Hall, C. C. P. Fitzgerald, and such as the U.S. Navy, and the presence Lord Charles Beresford, abetted by in his sources of little, if anything, that leading writers like the Colomb broth- is not English on the Latin American ers and the historian John Knox navies or on those of France, Germany, Laughton, all of whom were and Russia. While readers may lament encouraged by older admirals such as these weaknesses, Parkinson’s book is, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thomas nevertheless, an important and stimu- Symonds and Sir Geoffrey lating contribution to the history of the Phipps-Hornby. late Victorian navy. In reaching these conclusions, Parkin- JOHN B. HATTENDORF son makes a useful contribution to Naval War College scholarship, and his original research in https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol62/iss4/20 2.

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