Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War

A book of history, complete with notes and references, but told in a most enjoyable way. Young students will thrill at learning of what people said and did.

For everybody who found the excuse of Archduke Francis Ferdanand's assasination unsatisfying, and everybody whose history teachers declined to give them a real answer, here it is.

As the title and cover picture suggest, Massie offers a patient and persistent history of this single ship, or, more accurately, this class of warship, at the center of the first modern arms race. It's a fascinating story of an emerging technology, but its real strength is the detailed account of the people at the center of events, from Jacky Fischer--clever and obsessed--to Kaiser Wilhelm--jealous and paranoid--to Tirpitz, Edward VII, and eventually Churchill. But it all serves Massie's grander ambition: to set in the richest possible economic, political, and technological context the irresistible pull of the first truly global war.

Massie's "Dreadnought" is, on one level, the stirring and fascinating tale of how two navies - British and German - evolved in the late part of the 19th century and emerged, in the 1910s, as two closely-matched, high-tech capital fleets at either end of the North Sea. On a deeper level, however, this history revises - or at least places in context - the land-borne histories of Barbara Tuchman and John Keegan, which explain the roots of World War One in terms of the "Guns of August" and the armies that mobilized over the summer of 1914. As Massie shows, the rivalry between Britan and Germany arose much earlier, and was borne not of competing General Staff plans but a bureaucratic desire - on both sides of the dispute, but more so on Tirpitz - to acquire more funding for the naval constuction programs. In order to acquire more funding, Tirpitz and his British counterparts had to identify a present or potential threat that justified a buildup in defense spending, and so the need to identify a potential naval adversary dictated that the parties would soon find themselves adverse to one another. Although Massie introduces the Prussian characters with panache - the walrus-mustached Bismarck; the fork-bearded Tirpitzm; the deformed Kaiser - he is best when describing the British rulers of the early twentieth century: Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith, Lloyd-George and the brilliant Sir Edward Grey. The clear "hero," however, is the brilliant Jacky Fisher, inventor of the epynomous "Dreadnought" battleship class, sponsor of the all-diesel turbine engine and relentless modernizer: if World War One turned entirely on the naval campaign (a thesis Massie pursues in the sequel, "Castles of Steel"), truly it was Fisher who saved the Empire from German aggression. A magisterial work, with much color and light, as well as many classic social vignettes.

This is one of finest works of non-fiction ever written! Anyone who would like a fundamental understanding of pre-World War I Europe and the political intrigue that went along with it, should read this fine work. One empire was firmly entrenched on the world stage, one nation wanted an empire and two other empires were crumbling. It is long but there is never a dull moment. Massie clearly lays out in fine detail, the naval arms between Great Britain and Germany. His research alone must have been quite an undertaking. The author also described in a very understandble way, the technological innovations that made these new battleships state of the art. But most importantly, he lays out his argument, that fundamentally Kaiser Wilhelm is responsible for World War I. This becomes clearer near the end of the book when Massie describes the final days of peace and how those events spun out of control. Those pages alone make the book worth reading. I disagree with a previous reviewer that the book was Anglo-centric. I think the Germans and the Brits come off as they really were. The Prussians were very belligerent. A united Germany was still a young "upstart" nation. Germany was a nation of immense cultural and technological richness, but a nation that always has seemed to make bad choices. The Kaiser had we would call today "an attitude" or a chip on his shoulder. I also had very little knowledge of the pre-war Balkans. Especailly enlightening was learning of the Balkan War of 1912. Massie has created a masterpiece that any student of history should read.

Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War examines the first arms race of the twentieth century, that of the modern battleship. Robert Massie lays out the development of the Dreadnought-class battleship and its implications, beginning with Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne and ending with the declaration of World War I. The focus is on the monarchies and constitutional governments, and the book closes with the sequence of declarations of general European war in the summer of 1914.Interestingly, the book does so from a biographical perspective. Virtually every word is focused on giving the reader a clear picture of the personalities involved, from the Queen herself to Kaiser Wilhelm (referred to unfailingly as William in the book), from Cecil Rhodes to Prince Bismarck. This makes the book somewhat more readable, but leaves the reader with the impression that the arms race (and thus the War) is entirely due to individual personalities. Very little time or attention is given to broader social developments, reducing the citizenry of each nation to little more than observers, often even less given the secrecy behind many of the developments.Kaiser Wilhelm is especially closely considered, making it clear that, at least in part, his own inferiority complex and vacillation between Anglophilia and Anglophobia led to Germany's near-inexorable march towards war. At times, he desired nothing more than the acceptance and respect of his grandmother and uncle (Victoria and Edward VII); at others, he would repudiate any possible tempering influence they might have had. After Bismarck, one chancellor after another rotated through the government, serving at the Emperor's pleasure (due to Bismarck's design in the constitution). Still, the volatile Emperor was occasionally easily manipulated by experienced politicians without realizing it. In most cases, this maintained peace and allowed the danger of war to pass.Particular attention is also given to Admiral Jacky Fisher, whose reforms in the British Navy at the close of its heyday are still seen in modern navies all over the world. During the great sail-to-steam conversion, it was his focus on gunnery and simulation of wartime situations that kept his Navy at the top of the game. Realizing the importance of speed in naval operations, he continued to push for steam vessels even when this was still controversial. The development of the modern battleship is due in large part to his driving force, constantly seeking to defend his island nation.Dreadnought does a fine job of illustrating the developments, both military and political, that led to the declaration of one of the most important wars of the last century, little-discussed though it may be. While Dreadnought spends practically no time on the war itself, gaining familiarity with this era of history leads to a sense of sadness at the loss of the world's innocence nearly one hundred years ago.

Often, non-military historians dismiss wars as "boring" and state the real "history" is what happens before or after the conflict. In Dreadnaught, Robert Massie thoroughly analyzes the decades before the Great War to illustrate how the war occurred. While the underlying theme is the naval arms race between Britain and Germany, Massie covers the royal family relationships across the continent, geo-political ambitions of the several European powers, the build up of armies, and the economic situation. Each of these elements contributed to the coming of war.Dreadnaught is perhaps the most detailed account presently available in a single volume, and it is worth the time to read this fine book. From clshes in eastern Europe to north Africa that were precursors to global conflict, to the heads of state involved to the military leaders, this book covers the entire historical landscape that puts World War I in proper perspective.Massie's work should remain the standard in its field for years to come. Though it is long, the reader will yearn for more when finished.

Dreadnought is a very big book about a very big subject, the origins of World War I. The consequences of which were, needless to say, complicated and diverse for the road to the great war can never really be exactly determined. For example, a plausible argument may be made that the seeds of WWI were laid when the Roman Empire ended some 1,500 years ago.(The origins of World War II, in contrast, are somewhat less complicated- the Treaty of Versailles being the predominate cause of the greatest war mankind has ever fought.)Author Robert Massie tries, and generally succeeds, in telling us about the events and personalities that precipitated the conflict. The isolationism of Great Britain, the rise of Imperial Germany, the ins and outs of pre-war British politics, etc. The heart of the book is Massie's description of the Dreadnought program- the brainchild of Admiral Jack Fisher -which was an attempt to build a battleship that would revolutionize naval combat and keep England safe from invasion. Instead, the Dreadnought kicked off an arms race between England and Germany that contributed mightily to WWI. Massie is, to say the least, a through historian. Everything is in here that could have played even the slightest role in bringing about the conflict. One senses that there is indeed too much information here. How important really was the political dispute over Imperial Preference, a proposal which would have given tariff preferences to British colonies over other imports, to the causing of the First World War? It is a fascinating tale, perhaps worthy of its own book, but hardly of great consequence here.However, one cannot fault Massies thoroughness or prose, for Dreadnought is a readable book that is probably the definitive work on the cause of the First World War. Outstanding. A book that any student of history can be very enthusiastic about.