Battle on the Seven Seas, German Cruiser Battles
1914-1918
Author: Gary Staff
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military Books
This book aims to deliver a narrative history of the German cruiser war from the German point of view. Drawing on contemporary sources, memoirs and official histories, the author walks through the cruiser battles in chronological order, devoting a chapter to each incident. In each chapter, he describes the strategic situation and reason why the battle took place before looking at the encounter in detail, describing the fleet and ship movements, exchanges of gunfire, damage and losses sustained and the conclusion of the battle. In the closing section of each chapter Staff often describes the perception of the outcome and is not afraid to include his own opinion of the performance of the combatants.
The descriptions of the battles are clear, listing the ships involved and the manoeuvres made, however the book comes to life when Staff quotes German combatant sources. The descriptions of the battle both from operational reports and after-action memoirs bring the book to life, giving the reader an insight into the way in which the naval war was fought. It is hard not to be impressed by the survivors reporting that their ship had “holes which a railway locomotive could be comfortably driven through!”
The emphasis on German sources results in an often one-sided view of the war; I felt the book was improved when Staff includes more information from the allied point of view to give a more rounded view. I can understand why Staff has not generally drawn in wider sources, after all it's a pretty chunky book anyway and his stated intention is to use lesser-used German material but the other perspective does add to the overall picture. For example, the inclusion of a British submarine captain's description of his attack on the Prinz Aldalbert and the subsequent German perspective of the struggle to keep the ship afloat and make it home made for one of my favourite bits of the book.
One thing I found unusual about the book is the inclusion of distances between ships in varying units of measurement. For example, the author has chosen, presumably because the Germans used it in the sources, to use hectometres (1 hectometre = 100 metres) as the main unit of measurement, however measurements are also given in metres on occasion and sometimes in nautical miles. It would have improved the readability of the text and reduced the reader's mental arithmetic, if where less common units of measurement were used, a conversion had been provided at the same time to a more common unit to provide continuity.
The book is 232 pages long with an index, bibliography, pages of chapter notes and 16 pages of black and white photographs. The photos are excellent with a mixture of shots ranging from peacetime pictures of ships, battle photos (notably a photo of Russian ships under fire and of the Bismark capsizing) and after-action battle damage pictures. Looking at these pictures, the ability of these ships to take punishment and still fight on is remarkable.
The author rightly draws attention to the willingness of the German navy to learn from some frightening near misses in 1915 to improve their fire control measures; a process that was to pay dividends throughout the war. In contrast, Britain was to lose a multiple ships to catastrophic explosions as explosive fires reached into ammunition magazines at least in part because the British learnt the wrong lesson; they had observed that the German rate of fire was significantly faster and therefore stored more “ready” ammunition near the guns, posing a greater risk!
In addition to the photographs, maps showing how individual battles were fought are scattered through the chapters, showing the routes taken by individual ships and explaining their relative positions over time. I'm not sure if it's my advancing years but some of the maps seemed to be printed with surprisingly small text that I struggled to read in anything less than a bright light; whilst I accept the limits of the A5 format, I doubt this was the author's intention!
If you are looking for a simple narrative account covering an aspect of the German naval effort, you should consider Gary Staff's contribution. His use of German sources to drive the narrative is admirable and certainly acts as a useful pointer of “further reading” for anyone keen to delve in to the German side of the naval conflict. The book's key strength is the inclusion of these.
The descriptions of the battles are clear, listing the ships involved and the manoeuvres made, however the book comes to life when Staff quotes German combatant sources. The descriptions of the battle both from operational reports and after-action memoirs bring the book to life, giving the reader an insight into the way in which the naval war was fought. It is hard not to be impressed by the survivors reporting that their ship had “holes which a railway locomotive could be comfortably driven through!”
The emphasis on German sources results in an often one-sided view of the war; I felt the book was improved when Staff includes more information from the allied point of view to give a more rounded view. I can understand why Staff has not generally drawn in wider sources, after all it's a pretty chunky book anyway and his stated intention is to use lesser-used German material but the other perspective does add to the overall picture. For example, the inclusion of a British submarine captain's description of his attack on the Prinz Aldalbert and the subsequent German perspective of the struggle to keep the ship afloat and make it home made for one of my favourite bits of the book.
One thing I found unusual about the book is the inclusion of distances between ships in varying units of measurement. For example, the author has chosen, presumably because the Germans used it in the sources, to use hectometres (1 hectometre = 100 metres) as the main unit of measurement, however measurements are also given in metres on occasion and sometimes in nautical miles. It would have improved the readability of the text and reduced the reader's mental arithmetic, if where less common units of measurement were used, a conversion had been provided at the same time to a more common unit to provide continuity.
The book is 232 pages long with an index, bibliography, pages of chapter notes and 16 pages of black and white photographs. The photos are excellent with a mixture of shots ranging from peacetime pictures of ships, battle photos (notably a photo of Russian ships under fire and of the Bismark capsizing) and after-action battle damage pictures. Looking at these pictures, the ability of these ships to take punishment and still fight on is remarkable.
The author rightly draws attention to the willingness of the German navy to learn from some frightening near misses in 1915 to improve their fire control measures; a process that was to pay dividends throughout the war. In contrast, Britain was to lose a multiple ships to catastrophic explosions as explosive fires reached into ammunition magazines at least in part because the British learnt the wrong lesson; they had observed that the German rate of fire was significantly faster and therefore stored more “ready” ammunition near the guns, posing a greater risk!
In addition to the photographs, maps showing how individual battles were fought are scattered through the chapters, showing the routes taken by individual ships and explaining their relative positions over time. I'm not sure if it's my advancing years but some of the maps seemed to be printed with surprisingly small text that I struggled to read in anything less than a bright light; whilst I accept the limits of the A5 format, I doubt this was the author's intention!
If you are looking for a simple narrative account covering an aspect of the German naval effort, you should consider Gary Staff's contribution. His use of German sources to drive the narrative is admirable and certainly acts as a useful pointer of “further reading” for anyone keen to delve in to the German side of the naval conflict. The book's key strength is the inclusion of these.
Reviewed by Chris Stevenson
Follow Chris on Twitter @WW1TheGreatWar
Follow Chris on Twitter @WW1TheGreatWar