The Achievement of the British Navy in the World-War

Leyland, John, 1858？-1924Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
131K words
Chapters
14

Tags

English Originals World HistoryMilitary Historical ReappraisalNational StrengthMilitary StrategyStrategic AnalysisNaval HistoryMilitary CommandersWorld War I RecordDocumentary NarrativePopular NarrativeSocial Observation

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Achievement of the British Navy in the World-War by John LeylandAuthor: Leyland, John, 1858?-1924,Language: English, Class: D501: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: World War I (1914-1918), Release Date: Nov 22, 2017

Editor's review

This book is John Leyland's systematic assessment of the Royal Navy's performance in the First World War, an early work at the intersection of military and naval history. Its value lies not in offering the latest conclusions of present-day scholarship, but in showing how observers of the time viewed naval strategy, convoy duty, blockade, and fleet operations, letting readers grasp how British society then understood the relationship between sea power and national survival. Its scope covers the Navy's main tasks and operational environment during the war, making it useful as supplementary material for research on First World War naval history and for military history enthusiasts seeking insight into the narrative conventions and source style of the period. Because it was written early, readers should approach it with a critical sense of its sources, mindful of the author's standpoint and the limits of his era, and should not treat its judgments as settled fact. As a public-domain e-book, it is easy to search and excerpt, suits comparative reading alongside later studies, and works well in segments during commutes or while organizing materials.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and conclusion first to grasp the author's overall judgment on the Navy's role, then return to specific chapters.
  2. Prepare a First World War timeline and mark fleet actions and strategic turning points mentioned in the book as you read.
  3. Read alongside a modern history of the First World War at sea to distinguish period narrative from later scholarly conclusions.
  4. Use excerpting to record the author's views on blockade, convoy, and related issues for later citation in writing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14

FAQ

Is this book suitable as an introduction to First World War naval history? It can serve as a supplementary introduction, but not as the only one. It offers an assessment from the perspective of the time rather than a systematic textbook. It is best to grasp the basic First World War timeline and major naval events first, then read this book, so as to better understand why the author evaluates British naval performance as he does.
Are the book's views still reliable today? They should be treated with caution. The book was written early and carries the standpoint and cognitive limits of the author's era; some judgments may have been revised by later research. Read it as a historical source and period text rather than as settled fact, and preferably in conjunction with modern scholarly works.
How difficult is the English, and how should non-native readers approach it? The original is in English, in an early commentary style with long sentences. Non-native readers can first read the opening and closing paragraphs of chapters and the conclusion to grasp the main points, then work through details; ship and strategic terms can be looked up together. If only the gist is needed, reading in segments with translation tools can help.

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About the author

Leyland, John, 1858？-1924 Author · British · 1858–1924

John Leyland (1858?–1924) was a British writer and editor. Because public information is limited, his exact birth year and early life remain to be verified; he is known to have been active from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century and died in 1924. His works deal mainly with British local life, customs and history. He compiled guides to Shakespeare's birthplace and to various historic sites in Britain, combining first-hand observation with historical background in clear, readable prose that serves both as practical guidance and as engaging narrative. The library also holds his book on the achievements of the British Navy in the First World War, showing that his subject matter was not confined to local guides but extended to the naval performance and issues of his time. On the whole, his writing addressed general readers and contributed to popularizing knowledge of British places and history.