Adrian Buck > Recent Status Updates

Heightened productivity and greater need to accumulate cash, with attendant stimulation of commerce at the most natural points of exchange - all followed from conquest.

the failure adequately to maintain the PAX ROMANA - underlay both social and economic regression.

Nine out of ten people, however, lived on the land in villages and villas.

Kamikaze attacks crippled American aircraft carriers. The damage from kamikaze attacks was quickly repaired on British carriers which had armoured flightdecks.

Everyone knew what was expected of them - and dreaded letting him down by not doing it - Nelson's leadership style again, and Nelson's tactics?

Johnnie Walker was the greatest U-boat hunter of the war. - Shocking then that I've haven't heard of him until now.

Sea power was entirely notional until tested by the exigencies of war. - there's technology and technology in use, the ability of officers and men to utilise the technology is as important as the technology itself.

But the political force that had propelled the Navy to world supremacy was sapped: the public accepted, even demanded, cuts for the senior service. - To what extent was the royal navy seem as a private good by British voters?

Steam power rendered these advantages pretty much null and void.

All we want is trade, declared Palmerston, and land is not necessary for trade.

1856 - And no more would British captains and crew make dazzling profits cruising the seas mopping up richly laden enemy merchantmen.

The Battle of Ushant, indecisive as it was in a tactical sense, may be one of the most naval battles in history - i.e. it led to the loss of the American colonies.

Once the basics of seamanship and gunnery were mastered everything else followed.

[Napoleon's] well-trained hordes would enter London and destroy the dockyards there and on the Medway and at Portsmouth and Plymouth. Britain would be finished as a naval power. Hence she would be ruined as a trading nation. Then his army would return across the Channel...

Sailors sometimes found it hard to pronounce the names of their ships, Bellerephon was 'Billy Ruffian', Polyphemus was 'Polly Infamous', and Agamemnon was 'Eggs and Bacon.

British sailors fought best when they were drilled, motivated, well nourished and in good health.

Alfred's strategy is called 'defence in depth'. It began on land...Global power was possible only when the British Isles were safeguarded.

In 1697 [Parliament] gained control over revenue raising and expenditure on the Army and Navy./ Now it had control over public finances, parliament was prepared to be generous as never before with it's constituents money.

The Tories, however saw Britain's future as a maritime power able to counterbalance European superpowers by building up her colonies in the New World.

The decision to professionalise the Navy [by the introduction of professional exams in 1677] marked a turning point in English military history.

[Charles and James's] greatest legacy was the creation of a professional corps of officers.

The creation of the idea of lateral thinking is a deliberate implied division to show up the deficiencies of vertical thinking - de Bono is a philosopher manqué, it's the only way of understanding what he's trying to do here.

Myths are internal organising frameworks for information - what would Jung say?

Many of the officers and men felt they were going to fight for the vanity of Cromwell. - that commonality of interest between ruler and ruled.

These limitations are inseparable from the advantages of the system since both arise from the same processes - a point that is universally applicable.

The nightmare scenario for the British navy has always been the unified opposition of the European Atlantic coast, closing British shipping within a pincer. Merely by geography, the Dutch navy was always in this position in respect of Britain. It was never a question of whether the British would defeat the Dutch, but when.

The Anglo-Dutch wars or the seventeenth century do not take up as much space in the present-day national historical consciousness. But the effect of this titanic struggle was to transform the Navy and British history.

Parliament enjoyed the advantages of control of the seas on easy terms - the King did not

On some occasions the slightest change at a sensitive point can lead to a huge overall change. On other occasions no amount of effort at an insensitive point will lead to the slightest over-all change. - The nature of learning

It was accepted that servants of the crown used their office for self-enrichment. - when did this end in the UK?