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Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
by Robert K. Massie
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Random House (2003-10-28)
ISBN: 0679456716
EAN: 9780679456711
Dewy Decimal #: 940.45941
Hardcover: 880 pages
Edition: 1
Release Date: 2003-10-28
SKU: 03152
Condition: Collectible: Very Go
Comments: Says first edition. Number line is 246897531. Book in great condition.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea power in the winning of the Great War.
The predominant image of this first world war is of mud and trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, poison gas, and slaughter. A generation of European manhood was massacred, and a wound was inflicted on European civilization that required the remainder of the twentieth century to heal.
But with all its sacrifice, trench warfare did not win the war for one side or lose it for the other. Over the course of four years, the lines on the Western Front moved scarcely at all; attempts to break through led only to the lengthening of the already unbearably long casualty lists.
For the true story of military upheaval, we must look to the sea. On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen. When war came, these two fleets of dreadnoughts—gigantic floating castles of steel able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away—were ready to test their terrible power against each other.
Their struggles took place in the North Sea and the Pacific, at the Falkland Islands and the Dardanelles. They reached their climax when Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each the home of a thousand men.
When the German High Seas Fleet retreated, the kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which, in its indiscriminate violence, brought a reluctant America into the war. In this way, the German effort to “seize the trident” by defeating the British navy led to the fall of the German empire.
Ultimately, the distinguishing feature of Castles of Steel is the author himself. The knowledge, understanding, and literary power Massie brings to this story are unparalleled. His portrayals of Winston Churchill, the British admirals Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and the Germans Scheer, Hipper, and Tirpitz are stunning in their veracity and artistry.
Castles of Steel is about war at sea, leadership and command, courage, genius, and folly. All these elements are given magnificent scope by Robert K. Massie’s special and widely hailed literary mastery.
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Customer Reviews
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Hits & and some misses
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-08-24
Having read this book a year ago I am still unsure what to think of it. The book is well written. It is very readible and its grammar is sound. Massie also adds to the dry facts by giving good descriptions of the various characters that played a part in the period. This makes the text lively and easy to get through. It reads more like a novel than a history book.
Massie also manages to place the military decisions in their proper political context. Especially the part on how the Germans came to their decision to wage an unrestricted u-boat war, and how this gave Woodrow Wilson his reasons to involve the United States are insightful.
However, there are a few things the reader must consider before buying the book. If you are looking for an account of naval warfare during WW 1, then this book is not it. It concentrates on the fight between Germany and the United Kingdom, but it does not deal with the naval war in the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic or the Black Sea. It also seems to 'stop' after Jutland. That battle took place in 1916 and it is as if the HSF and Royal Navy then fast forwarded to 1918. The first 2,5 years of the war take up nearly 80% of the book's pages.
Last but not least the book is written very much from the English point of view. The number of pages describing the German point of view are about 1 for every 2 pages on the British point of view. So, one is left with a good view from the British side, but that view is lacking from the German side (and also the French, American, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese and Austro-Hungarian side). Of course this is understandable to some extend. Massie chooses depth over breadth so choices on topics need to be made to avoid this becoming a multi-volume work.
So, all in all a very good, detailed and readible book. But not the last word on naval warfare during the Great War.
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Great look at the Navy in World War I
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-07-08
Robert Massie's approach to understanding World War I through the naval battles is original and thought provoking. It is one of the best he has ever written and the prefect accompaniment to his book Dreadnought. The book tracks how the German and British navies reacted during the war and the strategies employed by both. Whether it is the chasing of cruisers around South America or the battles between the Grand Fleet (Great Britain) and the High Seas Fleet (Germany) the detail and analysis is top notch. One of the more interesting side stories that Massie pursues is the invasion of the Turkish straights. This British naval disaster is captured perfectly by Massie and its overall importance in the war done well. Through his book you see a crystallization of British strategy that explains many of their actions in World War I as well as what will occur in World War II. Wireless telegraphy being new allows the First Sea Lord Winston Churchill to personally move ships which will become his method of operation in World War II.
The battle of Jutland is obviously a major focus of the book and done very well. The basic fleet movements are captured as well as the implications of strategy and the realities of command in World War I. The new development of Room 40 which was decoding German dispatches and relaying them to the British fleet proved pivotal over the course of the war. The British were not sure what to make of these initially and only used them sparingly. Following Jutland the book does an excellent job of showing how America was able to enter the war through the defeat of the German U-boats via the convoy. Overall the book is excellent and an amazing read for those who want to understand the aspects of naval warfare and World War I.
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Naval Action in World War I
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-06-09
Castles of Steel is a spellbinding account of the British and German navies in World War I. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, it brings to life the ships and the personalities who sailed in them. It also displays Massie's customary command of the political figures who ordered the navies to sea. A fine read that will be enjoyed even by those who do not focus on military history.
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Definitive, Well Rounded Look at WWI Naval History
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-04-10
I quite liked the aspects of this book that dealt with the personalities of people like Jellicoe. While the sections on the politics of the Sea War tended to drag a little overall the book is an excellent summary of the major battles at sea during WWI. I rather hoped the sections on the submarines would be longer but the focus of the book was more on the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers.
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"There's something wrong with our bloody ships."
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-01-21
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Thinking that a second of his battlecruisers had just vaporized under German shelling at the Battle of Jutland in June 1916, British Admiral David Beatty muttered: "There's something wrong with our bloody ships." Then he ordered the ships to move in closer for another attack.
This episode, apparently quite famous in Britain, sums up the great ambivalence of the British view of war at sea in World War I. On the one hand, Beatty represents the best of British naval history - the aggressive and supremely confident commander angling for the offensive that will annihilate the enemy as Nelson did at Trafalgar. On the other hand, there was something wrong with the bloody ships. Why didn't the British navy wipe out the German navy? Was this the first hint that the world had finally caught up with the British Empire?
Massie picks up where he left off in "Dreadnought" to tell the tale of what happened to the great ships created in the prewar arms race. He tells the tale primarily from the British perspective, and his essential thesis is that the Brits should not be quite so ambivalent about the naval theater in World War I. The British strategy under Jellicoe, the commanding Admiral of the Grand Fleet, assumed that the German High Seas fleet in an of itself posed no threat. The goal, then, was not to take big risks in an attempt to wipe out the German fleet. Rather, the British goal was to maintain control of the seas, and if the Germans wanted to hide out in port for much of the war, that was just fine.
Massie persuasively demonstrates the soundness of Jellicoe's strategy. It was this control of the seas that allowed the Allies to slowly starve the German populace and war machine and, with the assistance of tenacity of the British and French troops on the Western Front (and with the not inconsiderable help of a 4 million man American army), win the war.
In addition, Massie sees the one great battle between the two full fleets, Jutland, as a great British victory. Britain lost more ships, but the Germans turn and ran when met with the superior firepower of the Grand Fleet and essentially stayed put in port thereafter. The battle is described with great vividness, and Massie can write a wonderful historical narrative.
Still, while focused on the British viewpoint, Massie gives the Germans their due. Beatty, who commanded a squadron under Jellicoe, foolishly failed to consolidate his forces and was trounced by German Admiral Hipper before Beatty successfully lured the rest of the German fleet back to Jellicoe, who gave them a good shelling after choosing the precisely correct maneuver. It is also clear that German engineering of their ships gave them important advantages. To be sure, German guns were less in number and were smaller in caliber. This size difference was critical at the time - it allowed the big British ships to stay out of the German range and just pound away. But German gunnery was far superior to the British, and unlike the "bloody" British ships, German ships were built not to sink.
Yet, while the Germans had begun to match Britain in naval engineering and seamanship, they could not hope to compete with the naval machine put together by the British Empire over the centuries. The Brits had ships, bases, allies, men all over the world. Thus, the German Far East squadron, when it tried to wreak havoc and return to Germany never really had a chance. The German High Seas fleet stayed in port for good reason: it takes more than a few good ships to control the seas.
Massie tells the tale of the shifting of the naval war to the submarine and explains how the convoy system won the war at sea.
The Gallipoli disaster is well told and Massie tends to be pro-Churchill. Churchill bears responsibility for the disaster, but not sole responsibility. As for Beatty, Massie can't help but admire him, yet, in the end, portrays him as the lesser man to Jellicoe and as a political operator who treated Jellicoe and Churchill quite shabbily.
The book's focus on the personalities and thinking of the high command is a flaw. The story of war is the story of logistics, luck, and the performance of junior officers and men at critical turning points. Commanders think they are moving chess pieces, and their thinking in doing so is fascinating. But it is also frequently a delusion, and Massie would have done well to turn some of the focus away from the high command.
This is a wonderfully written historical narrative and sustains its essential thesis that the big ships and overall superiority of the British navy helped win the war.
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