A leading Danish historian presents a detailed account of the epic naval conflict between Denmark and a British fleet led by Vice Admiral Nelson.Fearing an alliance between Denmark and France, Britain sent a fleet of more than fifty ships to form a blockade off Great Yarmouth to prevent collaboration and ensure its naval superiority. But a series of diplomatic failures sent Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson into battle at Copenhagen.Written by the leading Danish au...

A gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century’s first great arms race, from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. MassieWith the biographer’s rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittery figures: the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz; the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow; Britain’s greatest twentieth-centur...

Victors write history. German Admiral Reinhard Scheer knew this, and wrote his own anyway. In this memoir of World War One, he says, "We are victors and vanquished at one and the same time, and in depicting our success the difficult problem confronts us of not forgetting that our strength did not last out to the end."Admiral Scheer took command of the German High Seas Fleet in 1916. He championed unrestricted submarine warfare as the key to winning, maintaining that it was...

A gripping biography of Admiral Nelson, Napoleonic War hero and one of Britain's greatest naval tacticians.In the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson sent the signal from his flagship HMS Victory, "England expects that every man will do his duty." His defeat of the French that day in 1805 was a decisive turning point in the Napoleonic Wars, establishing British control of the seas. His death in that heroic battle gave those words immortal signi...

This is the wartime history of the battleship HMS Royal Sovereign, along with the story of her four sister ships HMS Revenge, HMS Resolution, HMS Royal Oak and HMS Ramillies. These ships were built and launched during World War I and although old and slow, and bitterly criticised by Churchill and others as being "Coffin Ships", the Royal Sovereign class battleships in fact played a valiant and doughty role in World War II. The Royal Oak was an early loss, thanks mainly to pre-war Governmen...

A true account of a unique event in naval history from "a superb storyteller" ( Northern Mariner).On June 21, 1919, the German High Seas Fleet, one of the most formidable ever built, was deliberately sent to the bottom of the sea at the British Grand Fleet's principal anchorage at Orkney by its own officers and men.The Grand Scuttle became a folk legend in both Germany and Britain. However, few people are aware that Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter b...

A study and reassessment of the major World War II battle in the South Atlantic between the British and German navies.The Battle of the River Plate was the first major naval confrontation of the Second World War, and it is one of the most famous. The dramatic sea fight between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the British cruisers Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles off the coast of South America caught the imagination in ...

The bestselling complete history of the British Navy - our national story through a different prism.The story of our navy is nothing less than the story of Britain, our culture and our empire. Much more than a parade of admirals and their battles, this is the story of how an insignificant island nation conquered the world's oceans to become its greatest trading empire. Yet, as Ben Wilson shows, there was nothing inevitable about this rise to maritime domination, no...

Most people know that Britain was invaded by the Romans, by the Vikings and by the Normans. Many will know about the Spanish Armada, launched by Philip II in 1588 to bring Protestant England to submission. But fewer people know that Philip launched a second armada in 1596 or that invasion plans were drawn up by the French in 1692, 1708, 1743, 1756, 1759, 1796 and 1801, and by the French together with the Spanish in 1779. In 1719, Spanish troops even landed in Scotland. Charles XII and Pete...

In 1940 Hitler's Germany launched an unprovoked attack on little Denmark. The campaign was meticulously planned and over in hours. It saw the first ever use of paratroops in war, the first German amphibious landings of the war and the threat of terror bombing of cities and towns.The Fall of Denmark is often overlooked by historians as the campaign was over in a matter of hours. But the campaign does repay study for it revealed the traditional German staff work at its finest. Every ...

Who was responsible for the design of the Admiral Popov, the circular Russian battleship that wouldn't steer straight? Why did Lord Anson set out to circumnavigate the world with a crew of Chelsea pensioners? And how did the British cruiser HMS Trinidad manage to torpedo itself in the Arctic? The answers to these questions and details of numerous other entertaining and unbelievable historical events are revealed in this absorbing survey of naval incompetence from Roman times to the Falklands ...

The true story of how Britain's maritime power helped gain this country unparalleled dominance of the world's economy, Admirals celebrates the rare talents of the men who shaped the most successful fighting force in world history. Told through the lives and battles of eleven of our most remarkable admirals - men such as James II and Robert Blake - Andrew Lambert's book stretches from the Spanish Armada to the Second World War, culminating with the spirit which led Andrew Browne Cu...