Contemporary Warfare Sources

Farnham Bishop, 1916, The Story of the Submarine, The Century Co., New York PREFACE This book has been written for the nontechnical reader—for the man or boy who is interested in submarines and torpedoes, and would like to know something about the men who invented these things and how they came to do it. Much has been omitted that I should have liked to have put in, for this is a small book and the story of the submarine is much longer than most people realize. It is perhaps astonishing to think of the launching of an underseaboat in the ...

Charles Marvin (1886) Russia's Power of Attacking India, W.H. Allen & Co., London A very succesfull analysis of the threat to India from Russia in the late nineteenth century. PREFACE. In the spring of this year I wrote these words in 'The Russians at the Gates of Herat' : "Let me make the appeal that, if you thoroughly appreciate the importance of preserving Herat, you will not imply content yourself with silent acquiescence. The press and the platform are open to you to give publicity to your support, and if you have means you can help in the dissemination of ...

Dienstbach, C. and MacMechen, T.R. (1909) The Aerial Battleship. McLure's Magazine, August, 1909 An article discussing the role of airships in war. In the fall of 1908 the third airship built by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was bought by the German government, officially commissioned as a warship, and given a military crew. On May 29, 30, and 31 his fifth and last ship, the Zeppelin Il. made, without landing, a flight of thirty-six hours, covering 850 miles. This flight would have carried it from German soil to London, Paris, Vienna, or Stockholm, and back again. In secret trials by the ...

Fred T. Jane (1913) Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1913 Preface: As conjectured last year, considerable further changes have been produced in this edition. When, some five years ago, work on this annual was first commenced, the military aviator was an idle dream. Fighting men in dirigibles were a bare possibility but nothing more than that. Every amateur building an aeroplane (or even merely intending to build one) in his back garden was a possible "conqueror of the air." The aeroplane was going to oust the motor car as a sporting vehicle —eyeryone was quite certain about that! Beyond that, ...

Brassey, T.A. (192) The Naval Annual 1912 Provides a good description of the state of the world's navies a couple of years before WW1 and also a review of expenditure, capabilities and background. Preface: With the growth of naval preparations in almost, every country of the world. the work of preparing the Naval Annual for publication becomes heavier. The only important Power which has not increased her new construction during the year under review is the United States. Germany is adding to her naval programme; but even more noteworthy is the progress of the Navies of France and Russia. The ...

C. W. Sleeman (1880) Torpedoes and Torpedo Warfare: Containing a complete and concise account of the rise and progress of submarine warfare Preface In the following pages the Author has endeavoured to supply a want, viz. a comprehensive work on Torpedo Warfare, brought down to the latest date. The information has been obtained while practically engaged in torpedo work at home and abroad, and from the study of the principal books which have already appeared on the subject, and to the authors of which he would now beg to express his acknowledgments, viz.: "Submarine Warfare," by Lieut.-Commander Barnes, U.S.N.; "Notes ...

Jan Bloch (1900) Modern weapons and modern war, being an abridgment of "The war of the future in its technical, economic and political relations" translated from the Russian. Jan Bloch's Modern Weapons and Modern Warfare (1900) [is] the first systematic attempt to integrate a quantitative assessment of weapons technologies, statistical analysis, and measures of industrial output to predict the course Of a 'modern' twentieth-century war. Bloch's conclusion was a direct, almost flawless prevision of the 1914—1918 stalemate on the Western Front: the increased lethality of weapons and the increased level of production could only result in a battlefield environment so ...

Colonel A Court Repington (1910) New Wars for Old - The submarine menace - Blackwood's Magazine CLXXXVII Jan-June 1910 In a 1910 article for Blackwood's Magazine, Colonel Repington declared that 'It is also certain that it must be a perfectly hated Idea to senior officers of the Navy that a wretched little submarine should dominate waters in which a Dreadnought proudly sails.' Repington's choice of language is important: as a supporter of submarines, he sought to highlight the lack of rationality that coloured many people's views of the submarine. [Duncan Redford (2010) The Submarine: A Cultural History from the Great ...

R.P. Hearne (1908) Aerial Warfare & (1910) Airships in Peace and War (2nd Edn. of Aerial Warfare)  In 1908, the motoring journalist R. P. Hearne published Aerial Warfare, the first book on the subject to reach an audience beyond military strategists. Enormous advances in aviation resulted in the publication of this substantially revised edition in 1910. At a time of intense European military rivalry, the book highlighted differences in the way countries were adopting new aerial technology. Hearne makes the assumption that conflict with Germany at some point is inevitable, and identifies the airship as 'practically an invisible enemy'. At ...