Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (2003) by Robert K. Massie

Robert Massie is a genius. He writes long, but beautifully, crafting narratives that are compulsively readable while creating characters with the skill of a novelist. His scholarship is intensely detailed – the Battle of Jutland alone takes up 130 pages of text – but fluid and engaging.

“Castles of Steel” is the sequel to his award-winning “Dreadnought” (which very well might be my favorite piece of history). Here we learn what happens after the great naval arms race of the early twentieth century.

When war came, the British expected the Grand Fleet to give the German High Seas Fleet a thrashing in the North Sea, perhaps winning the war outright on “Der Tag,” the day, one mighty engagement of dreadnoughts. It was not to be. Indeed, the proud Royal Navy had its fair share of disappointments during the war. Ernest Troubridge was court-martialed for his failure to engage Gneisenau in the opening weeks of the war. Kit Craddock was annihilated by the German Pacific squadron off the west coast of Latin America at Coronel. David Beatty twice failed to trap the German battle cruiser raiding force after Scarborough and at Dogger Bank despite having advanced intelligence of the operation from Room 40. John De Roebuck lost three battleships in a failed attempt to take the Dardanelles by sea. Even successes, such as Frederick Sturdee’s destruction of Admiral von Spee’s squadron at the Falkland Islands was marred by inferior British gunnery and seamanship. The Germans, on the whole, were superior. “The ships were splendidly handled, the guns well aimed, and the signaling and damage control expert,” is how Massie describes the German navy in one typical example.

The British, for their part, resorted to finger-pointing. Beatty blamed his flag lieutenant Ralph Seymour for losing no less than three battles (Scarborough Raid, Dogger Bank) and Jutland and criticized the Admiralty for adopting a pusillanimous strategy against the German High Seas Fleet. “We are only playing at war,” he moaned. “We are nervous as cats, afraid of losing lives, losing ships, and running risks. Until we risk something, we shall never gain anything.”

What I found remarkable was just how relatively unprepared the Royal Navy was when battle came. According to Massie, the British had never practiced firing their heavy gunnery at maximum range and while steaming at full speed. Nor had they experienced the effects of smoke from their own ships that obscured visibility and effective spotting of gunfire. Moreover, there was persistent confusion concerning orders and signaling once the battle started. All were deficiencies that could have and should have been addressed in peacetime and were areas where the German navy shined by comparison. In addition, British ships were of inferior design and construction to their German counterparts, a fact that was highlighted by the destruction of the battle cruisers Inexorable and Queen Mary at Jutland. All told, the Royal Navy comes off as distinctly second rate when compared to the upstart Germans.

There was chivalry to the sea battles that may have been the last of its kind in modern warfare. Immaculately uniformed and well educated, the British and German naval officers were gentlemen and often pre-war acquaintances who held each other in the highest regard. Massie often notes how the opposing side admired the other’s seamanship and gunnery. Moreover, the officers and crew displayed remarkable sangfroid in the midst of physical carnage wrought by 1,500 lbs. shells and many times knowingly and willingly sacrificed their ships, losing all hands. It all reminded me of medieval knights on massive steel chargers dueling noble opponents.

Even if you’re familiar with the great naval battles of the First World War, the campaign at Gallipoli, and the German campaign of unrestricted warfare (“The truth was that the Germans had discovered a way to win the war and were on their way to accomplishing it”), you’ll likely learn much from “Castles of Steel.” I certainly did. For instance, one of the early British efforts at anti-submarine warfare involved the attempt to train seagulls to defecate on periscopes. Another consisted of divers armed with sacks to put over the periscopes and a hammer to shatter the glass. (Needless to say, neither approach was particularly effective.) The last casualties and prisoners of war occurred at Scapa Flow in June 1919 as the skleletal crews of the interned High Seas Fleet scuttled every ship as the British tried desperately to stop them. On a more personal note, I learned that the rakish David Beatty’s wife, Ethel, heiress to the American Marshall Field’s fortune, was once caught in bed with one of the admiral’s captains. Beatty, in turn, cuckolded the wife of another captain (“My visit to London was a visit to fairy land with a beautiful golden-haired Fairy Queen,” the admiral wrote and Massie quotes). For those with a keen interest in World War I or naval history “Steel Castles” is a “can’t miss.”