Dimitri’s Reviews > Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea > Status Update

"All night long the listeners reported scraping and straining noises from below but these grew fainter & fainter.." They listened for hours and then the following afternoon heard a "sharp piercing noise. Only 1 thing in the world could make a sound like that.. the crack of a revolver. More of these pistol cracks followed. In all, 25 shots came from the bottom of the sea." Then, silence.

"On the day following Bernstoff's visit to Lansing (1 February 1917) colonel House came to the White House to find Wilson pacing the floor of his library, nervously rearranging his books..."

Gallipoli embodied that particularly British approach to war on the naval periphery, but Fisher would've preferred the Baltic as even post-Mahan ships couldn't sink forts with their flat trajectory at miles distant. But local reality defied the traditional power projection. At one point Hamilton noted that he was unable to take the offensive because half his men were carrying water and the other half were digging.

Nor later would the u boats been defeated [Without Room 40] In 1915, Further German support for moderation came from then Chief-of-Staff Falkenhayn who feared the effect a diplomatic break with the U.S. would have on neutrals, especially (then) Bulgaria, BUT as the condition of Germany continued to worsen in 1916 it seemed criminal to abstain from the one weapon that might mean rescue.

Locating Spree's armoured cruisers therefore was given 3rd priority, behind convoying troops to Europe and plucking ripe, poorky defended colonial plums.

At the same time, It remained Jellicoe's permanent conviction that to preserve British naval supremacy the Grand Fleet must always be concentrated.

Without the breaking of the German codes the battle of Dogger Bank and Jutland would not have been fought.

The war had scarcely begun when Germany admirals robbed of their intended wartime strategy finding the exits to the north sea barred & the lower north sea turned into a watery nomansland discovered that they did not know what to do. (Against a distant blockade.) The BEF shipping 4 days early (12/8) was an equally paralyzing surprise.