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The state of naval history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. J. R. Gardner
Affiliation:
Naval Historical Branch United Kingdom Ministry of Defence

Abstract

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Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Hamilton, C. I., Historical Journal, XXV, 2 (1982), 471–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This would also appear to be one of the rare occasions that a specialist book – Conway's fighting ships 1860–1905 – of the type categorized by N. A. M. Rodger (see note 22 below) has been reviewed in an academic journal. It is also only fair to note a review article covering a considerable number of naval books but not devoted exclusively to them in Historical Journal, XXXV, 2 (1992).Google Scholar

2 For example, in the English-speaking world, Corbett (1854–1923), Mahan (1840–1914) and Richmond (1871–1946) were relative latecomers to the field of the analysis of seapower in comparison to its practice. See Schurman, D. M., The education of a navy: the development of British strategic naval thought (London, 1965).Google Scholar

3 John, Harland, Seamanship in the age of sail: an account of the shiphandling of the sailing man-of-war 1600–1860, based on contemporary sources (London, 1984).Google Scholar

4 Thus, for example, Andrew, Lambert, The last sailing battlefieet: maintaining naval mastery 1813–1850 (London, 1991)Google Scholar – on one level a picture book – contains thorough and well documented scholarship overturning the long-held view put forward in Robert, Albion'sForests and seapower: the timber problem of the Royal Navy 1652–1862 (Harvard, 1926)Google Scholar that the Royal Navy was remiss in ensuring the supply of seasoned timber for future building.

5 Ehrman, J., The navy in the war of William III, 1689–1697 (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar; Baugh, D. A., British naval administration in the age of Walpole (Princeton, 1965)Google Scholar; Rodger, N. A. M., The wooden world: an anatomy of the Georgian navy (London, 1986)Google Scholar are useful examples of the administrative approach. Of the Grand strategy series, interestingly Ehrman contributed to this too. A relatively rare example of the ability to look with equal skill on administrative matters and operations too is Michael, Duffy, Soldiers, sugar and seapower: the British expeditions to the West Indies and the war against Revolutionary France (Oxford, 1987).Google Scholar

6 Bruijn, , Dutch navy, p. 32.Google Scholar

7 Bruijn, , Dutch navy, p. 74.Google Scholar

8 Bruijn, , Dutch navy, pp. 71–2.Google Scholar

9 Bruijn, , Dutch navy, p. 82.Google Scholar

10 Paul, Kennedy, The rise and fall of British naval mastery (London, 1976)Google Scholar and The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London 1988)Google Scholar as well as the more specific Jonathan, Israel, Dutch primacy in world trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford, 1989).Google Scholar

11 Richmond, H. W., The navy in the war of 1739–1748 (3 vols., Cambridge 1920), I, 137.Google Scholar

12 Harding, , Amphibious warfare, p. 29.Google Scholar

13 Harding, , Amphibious warfare, p. 198.Google Scholar

14 Harding's views on Vernon and more generally receive support from an independently researched article: de Zulueta, Julián, ‘Health and military factors in Vernon's failure at Cartagena’, Mariner's Mirror, LXXVII, 2 (1992), 127–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This also benefits from using Spanish sources, a course not followed by Harding.

15 Cyril, Hughes Hartmann, The angry admiral: the later career of Edward Vernon, Admiral of the White (London, 1953).Google Scholar

16 Harding, , Amphibious warfare, p. 221.Google Scholar

17 A good exposition of this in general, and particularly of Vernon's administration of the navy in Jamaica in this period is given in Duncan, Crewe'sYellow jack and the worm: British naval administration in the West Indies (Liverpool, 1993).Google Scholar

18 Harding, , Amphibious warfare, p. 141Google Scholar, notes Guise's support of Vernon's request to complete the complement of warships with soldiers.

19 A Temple Patterson, Palmerston's folly: the Portsdown and Spithead forts. The Portsmouth papers No. 3, 3rd issue (Portsmouth, 1985).

20 In Britain, for instance see Minto to Melbourne, 15 January 1840, Royal Archives, Windsor, Melbourne papers 859, box 9, fo. 43 for one of its earlier manifestations, and for an example later in the period demonstrating royal interest Auckland to Russell, 17 January 1848, London (Public Record Office [P.R.O]), PRO 30/22/7A, Russell papers, fos. 139–141.

21 Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, p. 39.Google Scholar

22 Rodger, N. A. M., ‘Britain’ in Ubi sumus: the state of naval and maritime history, edited by John, B. Hattendorf (Newport, Rhode Island, 1994), p. 46Google Scholar. Specifically, Hamilton lists D. K. Brown; Before the ironclad; development of ship design, propulsion and armament in the Royal Navy, 1815–1860 (London, 1990)Google Scholar and Andrew, Lambert, Battleships in transition: the creation of the steam battlefleet, 1815–1860 (London, 1984)Google Scholar. The publisher of these latter works is the Conway Maritime Press many of whose works combine copious illustrations with sound scholarship. It may seem wrong that this should be so, but Rodger's observation is itself a comment on the position of naval history in British academia.

23 Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, p. 94.Google Scholar

24 Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, pp. 148, 149.Google Scholar

25 For a modern example of how this technique can be used, see David, Rosenberg, ‘Process: the realities of formulating modern naval strategy’, in Mahan is not enough: the proceedings of a conference on the works of Sir Julian Corbett and Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, edited by James, Goldrick and John, B. Hattendorf (Newport, Rhode Island, 1993).Google Scholar

26 Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, p. 280.Google Scholar

27 Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, p. 189.Google Scholar

28 Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, p. 179.Google Scholar

29 For example, the heavier broadside weight of a nominally less potent 70/74 gun French line of battleships over British 90 gun vessels is noted including the difference between French and British pounds (emphasis added). Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 261.Google Scholar

30 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 16.Google Scholar

31 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 43.Google Scholar

32 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 92.Google Scholar

33 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 216Google Scholar and earlier comment on Bruijn's book (see above pp. 696–8).

34 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 253.Google Scholar

35 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 257Google Scholar. Jeremy, Black ‘Naval power and British foreign policy in the age of Pitt the Elder’, in Jeremy, Black and Philip, Woodvine (eds.), The British navy and the use of naval power (Leicester, 1988), pp. 91107.Google Scholar

36 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 293Google Scholar. A simplification of Corbett and Richmond's work would see them placing as much emphasis on the continuance of seaborne trade, as well as other maritime activities, whereas Mahan tended to stress the coming together of main battlefleets.

37 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 330Google Scholar. Norman Friedman poses a historiographical problem. Not only is he one of the best exponents living of the impact of technological change on navies and their operations, but he also writes in such a way as not to deter technophobes. However, as David Rosenberg observes in Goldrick and Hattendorf (see footnote 25 above) p. 182, Friedman is a physicist who does not footnote. This is not strictly true as a perusal of, for instance, Friedman's British carrier aviation; the evolution of the ships and their aircraft (Annapolis, Maryland, 1988)Google Scholar makes it clear that the author's research is not only deep, but he does reference at least some of his evidence, even if this is not of the density normally expected of historical works. van Creveld, Martin, Supplying war: logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (Cambridge, 1977).Google Scholar

38 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 443.Google Scholar

39 Glete, , Navies and nations, pp. 485, 486Google Scholar. See also Hamilton, , Anglo-French naval rivalry, pp. 230, 257Google Scholar which appear to note the symptom for which Glete has found the cause.

40 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 487.Google Scholar

41 Glete, , Navies and nations, p. 485.Google Scholar