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Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea Posters
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List Price: $17.95Amazon.com's Price: $12.21 You Save: $5.74 (32%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.45941
EAN: 9780345408785
ISBN: 0345408780
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 880
Publication Date: November 02, 2004
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: November 02, 2004
Sales Rank: 53402
Studio: Ballantine Books
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea power in the winning of the Great War.
The predominant image of this first world war is of mud and trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, poison gas, and slaughter. A generation of European manhood was massacred, and a wound was inflicted on European civilization that required the remainder of the twentieth century to heal.
But with all its sacrifice, trench warfare did not win the war for one side or lose it for the other. Over the course of four years, the lines on the Western Front moved scarcely at all; attempts to break through led only to the lengthening of the already unbearably long casualty lists.
For the true story of military upheaval, we must look to the sea. On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen. When war came, these two fleets of dreadnoughts—gigantic floating castles of steel able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away—were ready to test their terrible power against each other.
Their struggles took place in the North Sea and the Pacific, at the Falkland Islands and the Dardanelles. They reached their climax when Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each the home of a thousand men.
When the German High Seas Fleet retreated, the kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which, in its indiscriminate violence, brought a reluctant America into the war. In this way, the German effort to “seize the trident” by defeating the British navy led to the fall of the German empire.
Ultimately, the distinguishing feature of Castles of Steel is the author himself. The knowledge, understanding, and literary power Massie brings to this story are unparalleled. His portrayals of Winston Churchill, the British admirals Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and the Germans Scheer, Hipper, and Tirpitz are stunning in their veracity and artistry.
Castles of Steel is about war at sea, leadership and command, courage, genius, and folly. All these elements are given magnificent scope by Robert K. Massie’s special and widely hailed literary mastery.
From the Hardcover edition.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
The Dreadnought, by Massie, describes the build up to WWI in the British and German navies--the arms race for assured mutual destruction of its time. That book ends on the first day of WWI. Castles of Steel takes up where Dreadnought ends and carries through the war. Like Dreadnought, Massie provides the mini-biographies of the participants, German and English but focuses here more on the Admirals ( the intelligent but eventually misused Jellicoe, the ambitious Beatty, hsi equally ambitious enemy ... Read More
Rating: -
Having read this book a year ago I am still unsure what to think of it. The book is well written. It is very readible and its grammar is sound. Massie also adds to the dry facts by giving good descriptions of the various characters that played a part in the period. This makes the text lively and easy to get through. It reads more like a novel than a history book.
Massie also manages to place the military decisions in their proper political context. Especially the part on how the Germans ... Read More
Rating:  -
Robert Massie's approach to understanding World War I through the naval battles is original and thought provoking. It is one of the best he has ever written and the prefect accompaniment to his book Dreadnought. The book tracks how the German and British navies reacted during the war and the strategies employed by both. Whether it is the chasing of cruisers around South America or the battles between the Grand Fleet (Great Britain) and the High Seas Fleet (Germany) the detail and analysis is top notch. ... Read More
Rating: -
Castles of Steel is a spellbinding account of the British and German navies in World War I. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, it brings to life the ships and the personalities who sailed in them. It also displays Massie's customary command of the political figures who ordered the navies to sea. A fine read that will be enjoyed even by those who do not focus on military history.
Rating: -
I quite liked the aspects of this book that dealt with the personalities of people like Jellicoe. While the sections on the politics of the Sea War tended to drag a little overall the book is an excellent summary of the major battles at sea during WWI. I rather hoped the sections on the submarines would be longer but the focus of the book was more on the dreadnoughts and battlecruisers.
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