Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2025/Review essay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If my count is accurate then this is Angus Konstam's 107th book for Osprey Publishing, which is an incredible achievement, no matter what follows this sentence. The tome under review is part of the Fleet series and covers the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet during the First World War. On 1 November 1918 it comprised 30 dreadnought battleships, eight battle cruisers, two large light cruisers, four cruisers, six seaplane and aircraft carriers, 34 light cruisers, 12 flotilla leaders, and 129 destroyers, and a host of other vessels. Four dreadnought battleships of the United States Navy formed an integral part of the fleet.
|
Angus Konstam - Royal Navy Grand Fleet 1914–18 |
- By Simon Harley
In a work such as this one would assume that the organisation of the Grand Fleet would be described clearly and accurately. This is not the case, however. To give one example, that of the Commander-in-Chief's staff: in his flagship alone he had a Captain of the Fleet, a Chief of the Staff and a Flag Captain. What did these officers do? We are never told. The duties of the Flag Commander (also erroneously rendered as "Commander of the Fleet"), War Staff Officer, and Secretary are never explained. The Flag Lieutenant is not mentioned. Some squadrons had chiefs of the staff to their flag officers commanding, but we never read about these.
Errors of omission and commission abound. According to Konstam, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, who commanded the Grand Fleet from August 1914 to November 1916, had no fewer than three deputies or seconds-in-command: Vice-admirals Sir David Beatty, Sir Douglas Gamble, and Sir Cecil Burney. He even goes so far as to write, "In the event Jellicoe was killed, command of the Grand Fleet would devolve to Beatty". This is untrue, and can only be based on the late 1916 proposal from the Admiralty in Whitehall that Beatty should succeed Burney as second-in-command, which never actually happened. Of the three vice-admirals mentioned above, only Burney actually served as second-in-command to Jellicoe. He was formally granted the title of second-in-command in August 1915, but he had theoretically held the position since his appointment as Vice-Admiral Commanding the First Battle Squadron on 19 December 1914. Why? Because he was the second most senior officer in the Grand Fleet. Even before Burney's arrival in the fleet, neither Beatty nor Gamble were ever the second most senior: that was Sir George Warrender, Bt. When Beatty succeeded Jellicoe in November 1916, Burney was succeeded in command of the First Battle Squadron by Sir Charles Madden, who was also appointed second-in-command of the fleet. Because both Beatty and Madden were junior to Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, Bt. of the Fourth Battle Squadron, they were granted the acting rank of admiral, with seniorities of 27 November and 28 November 1916 respectively. Madden's appointment as second-in-command is never mentioned.
Rear-Admiral Osmond Brock, the Rear-Admiral Commanding First Battle Cruiser Squadron from 1915 to 1916, doesn't receive a mention in the list of ships and squadrons at Jutland, apparently because "Beatty commanded the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron directly", which is a fascinating error. The March 1915 appointment of The Honourable Somerset Gough-Calthorpe as acting vice-admiral and senior cruiser flag officer in succession to Beatty directly contradicts Konstam's claim that "There was no overall commander of cruisers in the Grand Fleet". The renaming of the Battle Cruiser Fleet to Battle Cruiser Force at the end of 1916 under the regularly mis-spelled William Pakenham is alluded to only in a caption, and the creation of a Light Cruiser Force in July 1917 under Trevylyan Napier is absent. The Second Battle of Heligoland Bight of November 1917, in which both Napier and Pakenham participated, is not referred to. The convoys to Scandinavia, German attacks on which in 1917 brought down Jellicoe but perversely not Beatty, do not feature.
Konstam's knowledge of Admiralty administration is similarly faulty. According to him the Board of Admiralty only comprised the political First Lord, four naval members, and the permanent secretary. The permanent secretary wasn't a member at the time, and he ignores two civil lords who were members—and another secretary to the board, the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary—for a total of seven members and two secretaries at the time of Jutland. After 1916 the size of the board began to increase: at the end of 1918 there were no fewer than 12 members of the board.
Even the photo captions aren't free from error. Take the first photograph, taken aboard the Royal Oak, and caption: If one takes a closer look, it is rather clear that the officer on the right beside the turret is another officer of the Royal Marines. One can see his Sam Browne belt, and he is evidently wearing a field service cap and not a cocked hat. Evidently Konstam didn't know of a Grand Fleet Order from 1915 which stated that undress and mess undress would be "the only uniform likely to be worn during hostilities, and officers may land all others if they wish".
Another example is the second photograph, a colourised version of which adorns the front of Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I—which is in the "Further reading" section. According to Konstam it is from 1916, and he even states that the Orion in the foreground is wearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Arthur Leveson. But in the background one can clearly see the cage masts of the American battleships of the Sixth Battle Squadron, which didn't join the Grand Fleet until the end of 1917. Given that the squadron is mentioned once in the whole book (and not by name), the error is perhaps unsurprising. The flagship is therefore wearing the flag of Rear-Admiral William Goodenough. And what does Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I say about its cover photo? "Ships of the Orion Class in Moray Firth, Scotland. American ships are in the background."
The book devotes a fair amount of space to strategy and tactics. Much is made of the economic blockade, but the Tenth Cruiser Squadron and its successor Northern Patrol receive one mention apiece, and the connection between the two is not noted. The Northern Barrage also receives several mentions, but is stated/implied to be a Royal Navy creation from 1914 onwards and not the joint United States Navy-Royal Navy effort of 1918 that it was. In fact, the American contribution to the blockade and victory is essentially overlooked. This is tied into another problem with the book: Konstam has gone too far in claiming that the Grand Fleet was perfect and literally supreme: not only at sea, but on land. In the introduction he wrote, "By controlling the sea, and thus guaranteeing the effectiveness of the war-winning blockade, the Grand Fleet was the real arbiter of victory in World War I," ignoring a vast range of factors which together led to the Allied victory in 1918. And what of the Battle of Jutland? Personally, while I will freely admit that I believe it was a British victory, even I would strenuously disagree with Konstam's assertion that "Admiral Jellicoe had done everything right, and his fleet had performed perfectly. Were it not for that unusual German manoeuvre [the Gefechtskehrtwendung, or battle turn-away], the High Seas Fleet would have been caught in a trap and destroyed piecemeal." If Jellicoe's fleet had been so perfect then it would not have suffered such heavy losses and the battle turn-aways would have been countered, and British tactics, strategy, and materiel debated for over a century. When Konstam does stray from unreserved praise of the British navy, it is wildly off the mark, such as "Madden's main weakness though, was his lack of imagination", an odd attack which makes no sense to me and likely still less to the average reader.
The maps and graphics are fairly clear. As mentioned, not all flag officers are featured in some of them. Some of the details are not explained either: for example, on a map of Scapa Flow the wrecks of Opal, Narborough and Vanguard are displayed, but the circumstances of their loss are not explained anywhere. Many of the photographs in the book can either be found on Wikipedia or Commons, or on the IWM Collections website.
The foregoing reflects just a few of the errors in the book. I could go on, and on, and on. Osprey claimed in their promotional material that the book was "based on extensive primary source research". There is no evidence of this at all. The only primary source I think Konstam may have used is A. Temple Patterson's edited volumes of Jellicoe's Papers, but they do not even appear in the "Further reading" section. The publisher boasted in 2024 that "this book is an essential guide to the last time the Royal Navy would be indisputably the world's most powerful". I am sorry, but this book is not essential. Quite frankly it is not even remotely useful. Not so long ago, Osprey books featured in the Bugle. While they rightly have a place as a gateway (and more) to a subject, they may end up being the last word on that topic that a layperson ever reads. For that reason their accuracy and scope should be beyond reproach. However, Royal Navy Grand Fleet 1914–18 is so error-riddled and incomplete that it must be regarded as a missed opportunity, and not indicative of an author who should be at the height of his powers. Readers should stick to Wikipedia, more specialised literature and, if I may say so, The Dreadnought Project, which I co-edit (regrettably suffering from intermittent accessibility issues at the moment because of bots).
Publishing details: Konstam, Angus (2025). Royal Navy Grand Fleet 1914–18: Britain's last supreme naval fleet. Fleet. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781472866837.
|
