|
Monographs These
have resulted from my main, as yet un-published, personal research into the
British Mercantile Marine during the Great War 1914-1919. Saliently, I had
information in far greater detail than could be used in the main
volumes, so used it for stand-alone monographs. The
first two were published as hard-copies in 2004. Unfortunately, numerous
problems with printers arose and so, I also produced digital versions (as
pdfs) of these and later monographs. While I still have some hard
copies of the first two that I can supply, if requested, they are now
routinely provided as digital copies. (See the foot of this page for prices etc.)
|
|
An Embarrassing Loss – H.M. Armed
Merchant Cruiser Oceanic 8th September 1914
Originally, the loss of Oceanic, one-time luxurious passenger
liner of the White Star Line and latterly, Armed Merchant Cruiser in naval
service, was only going to take a paragraph in the main work. All the
published accounts led back to one officer onboard. He was Charles
Lightoller, better known as the senior survivor of the Titanic. Taken
uncritically by these commentators, I became more than slightly suspicious of
his version of events. Although the navigator’s log and a handful of other
operational records are available for study, the courts of enquiry and
courts-martial papers are not. Nevertheless, reported on in the press, I have
managed to work out largely what actually brought this beautiful ship onto
the only shallow water in a very large area. Not only were there a series
of mistakes made onboard, but the courts-martial would seem to have been a
sham. In effect, the investigation and actions taken by the Royal Navy, in my
opinion, were less than worthy of respect. |
|
Internment of Enemy Aliens in Great Britain, within the Empire and at
Sea during 1914 This arose out of research into British
merchant mariners marooned in Germany in the autumn of 1914. In the course of
these studies, I began to realise that their plight had been made materially
worse by the British state. Partly out of curiosity, I then started
looking at how German civilians in Britain had been treated during these same
months. I found that this subject was almost entirely missing in British
accounts of this conflict and soon worked out why. The see-sawing policies of
the Home Office and War Office were not only far from reasonably
thought out; they were also utterly shambolic; and almost comic in operation.
And, there were darker wishes of elements within the War Office: especially
in M.I.5. But, the activities of the Admiralty and Royal Navy were downright
malevolent in the cynical breaking of international law. At least one
incident was, literally, an act of piracy. This is not a tale of the
British at their best. |
|
Learning to use Signals Intelligence: The Royal Navy from the
Development of Wireless to the War Years of 1914-15 The
Royal Navy’s Great War interception of German signals and telegrams, along
with the breaking of their naval and diplomatic codes and cyphers has been
written on frequently. In reviewing this material I
found that most of these accounts have been flawed inasmuch as even when
codes and cyphers have been understood, authors have dealt with all this
narrowly. Investigating from a wider perspective, such as taking wireless
communication capabilities into consideration, allows for significantly
different conclusions from those concentrating merely on ‘fleet action’. In doing so, it can be seen that Room 40’s products
were used far more sophistically than has been recognised by these
non-communicator authors.
As a point of interest, further study, especially of German sources,
has shown serious weaknesses though: particularly later in the war. As an
example, had there been direction-finding ærials
trained to the west and south-west of the British Isles, the interception of
U-boat signal traffic, especially from the powerful U-Kreuzers, it may
well have been possible to re-route convoys away from these threats.
Also, while I have produced a revised edition, it has not yet been
submitted to the British Library. This
is due to this institution’s computerised systems being compromised fatally,
through hacking, in October 2023. Although some new systems have been
constructed and launched, as far as I am aware it is not yet possible to
upload digital publications to their website.
Anyway, there are two changes in the current edition. I removed the
general preface, as it was no longer of any importance. Also, the short
section on Franz Rintelen, a German naval reservist that operated against the
Allies briefly in the United States in 1915, has also been removed. This is
because I had misinterpreted my own cryptic pencil notes on one original
document and relied on what proved to be my faulty memory. In reality, there
is no evidence that Rintelen ever transmitted information back to Germany in
his time in the U.S. |
|
Undermining the Allied Blockade: The Commission for Relief in
Belgium and the Comité de Secours et d’Alimentation from Autumn 1914 until Spring 1915 Vast
amounts of time, money and effort were expended by the Allies in naval
blockades of the Central Powers during the Great War. Eventually, these led
to real, if unequal, hardships within the populations of these
belligerent nations and also their neutral neighbours. However, not only were the civilians in
German-controlled Belgium and Northern France not subjected to Allied
blockade, they were fed and otherwise supplied by ‘charitable’ institutions.
It was maintained by two American authors post-war that not only were these
not genuinely charitable entities, they allowed German authorities to also
acquire a massive amount of food still being produced in Belgium illegally.
This is an investigation into the early phases that would indicate
strongly that the American authors’ claims had merit and that the Allied blockade
was undermined significantly as a result. Even so, the morals, or otherwise,
are not dealt with, as ultimately, readers will make their own minds up
according to their outlooks.
Incidentally, further research has shown that by the end of the war
the Germans were extracting much more from the western occupied
territories, to the detriment of the civilian populations. There are entries
in war diaries of British and Commonwealth troops advancing through these
recently-occupied areas that noted how gaunt and underfed the civilians were
– as opposed to those that they then encountered in the Rhineland. |
|
Royal Naval Gunnery and Minesweeping at the Dardanelles
February to March 1915 Although
there have been a great many published accounts of this Allied martial fiasco
in 1915, perhaps surprisingly, there are still elements of this campaign that
have not been researched well, or deeply. On reading a number of the general
accounts I suspected that the minesweeping aspects were not at all accurate.
Not only confirming this, on researching the early naval operations, I also
realised that much of the detail relating to the shore bombardments were also
not necessarily well understood.
This monograph seeks to show that the naval shore bombardments were
not likely to achieve success and separately that the minesweepers employed
never really stood a chance. On the latter, I have also sought to show that
the opinions of such characters as Winston Churchill and Roger Keyes were
entirely unfair, in blaming the reservists that tried to make the Straits
safe for the warships to transit. |
|
Insult to Injury: The suffering of hundreds of wounded
soldiers onboard H.M. Transport Saturnia after the first day of the
Battle of Gully Ravine 1915 This
was one of numerous incidents when wounded soldiery of the
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force were let down and suffered unnecessarily as
a consequence. While the shambles arising from poor planning in the initial
April Gallipoli landings is well known, this particular incident is not: even
although it appeared in the final report of the Dardanelles Commission.
This monograph takes over from where the Dardanelles Commission left
off. With access to records that the commissioners, apparently, never saw, or
if they did, time to study, more can be understood. Nevertheless, the
destruction of some important records leaves many questions unanswered.
This is also a second edition, in this case due to slight errors,
primarily in showing the total numbers of wounded inaccurately, with some
amendments. Unfortunately, these glitches arose in inadvertently uploading a
draft instead of the final, carefully-checked version. Doh! |
|
Those interested in these titles should note that they can only
be purchased through me at £10.00 each. Also, please note that I do not give credit, or discount, to
wholesalers, or retailers and nowadays I do not recognise Nielsen Booknet ‘orders’ either – these having proven to be a
complete waste of time, money and effort in my experience. |
|
|