‘The deflection of strategy by politics’. British grand strategy, a German Island and the Dardanelles debacle

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Notes

¹ M. Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of Two World Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1971).

² W. Philpott, ‘The General Staff and the Paradoxes of Continental War’ in D. French and B.H. Reid, eds, The British General Staff: Reform and Innovation, 1890–1939 (London: Cass 2002), 95–111, esp. 100.

³ G.F.R. Henderson, The Science of War: A Collection of Essays and Lectures 1891–1903, Col. N. Malcolm, ed. (London: Longmans 1906), 28.

⁴ A.D. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia 1853–1856 (Manchester University Press 1990), 84.

⁵ M. Seligmann, ‘Failing to Prepare for the Great War? The Absence of Grand Strategy in British War Planning before 1914ʹ, War in History 24/4 (November 2017), 414–37.

⁶ The book was criticised by those who believed that naval warfare was settled by ‘decisive’ battles. As Corbett pointed out, Napoleon only abdicated nine year after Trafalgar – the most ‘decisive’ naval battle. Such arguments reflected an inability to grasp the profound differences between military operational art and global strategy.

⁷ Corbett’s essay, ‘The Paradox of Imperialism’, appeared in the October 1900 edition of the Monthly Review., part of a series aimed at reforming the Party after recent divisions.

⁸ N.A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon: British Economic Warfare and the First World War (Harvard University Press 2012). This book manages to discuss economic war planning, at great length, without index entries for the Baltic, Denmark, or Sweden. This is typical of the ‘revisionist’ approach to this period, which consistently downplays the central theme of Fisher’s strategy against Germany.

⁹ Corbett sent Haldane a copy of his 1907 text, which Haldane read and approved.

¹⁰ The extensive bibliography makes no mention of George Drower’s 2002 text Heligoland, which provides a useful complement.