Aerial navigation in warfare by Charles Hamilton Mitchell (1911) “The following paper was prepared at the request of the Chief of the General Staff, and read by the writer before the Corps of Guides, at…
The first live torpedo launch from a submarine was in 1888 from the Turkish Submarine Abdül Hamid. See: Wikipedia and RN Subs More about the history oif the torpedo can be found in this entry.…
There was a rash of scares reported in the press during 1909. This has been documented by: Alfred M. Gollin, ‘England Is No Longer an Island: The Phantom Airship Scare of 1909’, Albion: A Quarterly…
The following extracts of parliamentary business are taken from Hansard and other public records. [Extracts contain Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.] House Commons Debate, 14th May 1901. ARMY ORGANISATION Sir John…
Charles Lowe (1910) About German Spies – Contemporary Review, January 1910, pp.46-47 Journalist Charles Lowe wrote in 1910: “Among all the causes contributing to the continuance of a state of bad blood between England and…
Margaret Tait Flaws (2009) Spy Fever: The Post Office Affair At the beginning of the First World War, stories of spies abounded throughout the British Isles. It was in this atmosphere that the entire staff…
The first use of aeroplanes for reconnaissance and bombing occurred in the Italian-Turkish war in 1911. On October 23, 1911, an Italian pilot, Captain Carlo Piazza, flew over Turkish lines on the world’s first aerial…
Arthur Conan Doyle (1913) Great Britain and the Next War – published in Fortnightly Review, February 1913. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the few major authors of the time who clearly foresaw the…
The Fenian Ram was an early submarine developed by John Holland in the United States for the Fenian Brotherhood foe use by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Description from Wikipedia: Fenian Ram is a submarine designed…
In October 1904 the Russian Navy attacked a fleet of British trawlers. The Dogger Bank incident (also known as the North Sea Incident, the Russian Outrage or the Incident of Hull) occurred on the night…
Samuel Hynes (1969) Edwardian Turn of Mind: First World War and English Culture The Edwardian Turn of Mind brilliantly evokes the cultural temper of an age. The years between the death of Queen Victoria and…
Richard Freeman (2009) The Great Edwardian Naval Feud: Beresford’s Vendetta Against ‘Jackie’ Fisher Interesting background to the period when Britain was building up its naval capabilities. This is the story of the clash between two…
G.G. Rupert (1911) The Yellow Peril Rupert was influential in the development of the idea of the Yellow Peril, the theory that East Asians (the “yellow races”) were a present and future threat to the…
This genre of literature rose to prominence at a time when attitudes regarding Britain’s friends and potential enemies were changing. While France had traditionally been seen as Britain’s enemy there was a new potential threat…