In 1759, Britain faced an invasion threat from France, but two remarkable victories – the Battle of Lagos and later the Battle of Quiberon Bay – put paid to the plan. It was Admiral Sir Edward Hawke who delivered victory at the latter battle. So what kind of man was he, and what was his contribution to the history of the Royal Navy?
Naval Warfare
War of Words – ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’
Ordinarily, a gunboat was a lesser craft, mounting just a few guns. They were particularly useful in shallow waters that larger warships could not navigate.
The Courageous Class ‘Large Light Cruisers’
David Porter takes a look at everything that went wrong with the Large Light Cruiser.
MHM September 2019
The September issue of Military History Matters, the British military history magazine, is now on sale. To subscribe to the magazine, click here. To subscribe to the digital archive, click here. In this issue: Special: The Seven Days, 1862 The course of the American Civil War could have been entirely different. In a series of bloody battles fought from […]
The Novgorod: ‘Circular Ironclad’
The Novgorod’s design originated in 1868, when the Scottish shipbuilder John Elder proposed widening the beam of a warship to reduce the area to be protected. This would allow it to carry thicker armour and heavier guns than a conventional ship, and to have a shallower draught.
Yi Sun-sin: history’s greatest admiral
When we think of great naval commanders, Nelson immediately comes to mind. He fought 13 battles, winning 8. Admiral Yi Sun-sin fought 23 battles against Japan between 1592 and 1598, and won every one of them without losing a single ship. In 14 of these battles, moreover, not a single Japanese ship survived. How did he accomplish so much, and why was Japan unable to defeat him?
MHM January 2019
The January issue of MHM, the British military history magazine, is now on sale. To subscribe to the magazine, click here. To subscribe to the digital archive, click here. In this issue: The Long World War In our cover feature, Neil Faulkner argues that the First World War never really ended, and that the seeds of Nazism and the […]
The British Civil Wars at Sea, 1638-1653
Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, described the desertion of the Royal Navy to Parliament in 1642 as an ‘unspeakable ill consequence to the King’s affairs’. For a monarch who was not unmindful of the importance of the Navy, this would have been particularly painful to Charles I. In response, the King attempted to create […]
World War II at Sea: a global history
When first approached to review Craig L Symonds’ World War II at Sea, I was somewhat ambivalent about how much value another narrative history of this subject might add to the huge volume of extant literature. I really could not have been more wrong. Symonds’ work is gripping and well written, for sure, but it […]
Revolutionising naval warfare in the Dutch Golden Age
How did Michiel de Ruyter transform war at sea? Gone were the chaotic close-quarter mêlées, galleys, and archers. In came tight discipline, strategic formations, and the man–o’–war. We revisit the swashbuckling era of 17th-century naval conflict, when the Dutch – not the British – ruled the waves.
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