Rating: 
Summary: Castles of Steel
Review: It is seldom that one completes a work of and history. sits back and says with pleasure: "Why, that was just like Baby Bear's porridge just right!" But so it was with Robert K. Massie's excellent Castles of Steel, Castles of Steel is a brilliant work showing the marks of meticulous research, careful, thoughtful, and thorough analysis, and bearing the marks of professional authorship throughout.In Castles of Steel, Massie quite properly focuses on the Royal Navy and German Navy as those elements of the naval war that demonstrated the effect of sea power and influenced the outcome of the war,. He resists diversion to those theaters and incident that, while glamorous and interesting had no real influence on his theme. The book is subtitled: "Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea:" it is exactly that. The descriptions of the leaders on both sides is particlarly vivid with characterizations being expertly drawn and appropriately supported with anecdotal material. These characterizations add life and reality to the accounts and are well chosen to show the effect of personality upon events. Castles of Steel in endnoted in the modern way with no indication of reference notes where they apply. Expository notes--those which add information not suitable for inclusion in the text--are marked with asteriks and appear on the same page. This system should satisfy both those who study the book and those that read it. Both the money to buy this book and the time to read it are well spent.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Narrative - some bits missing
Review: It's hard to imagine a 900 page book is incomplete - but it is. The narrative is well written and very engaging, but I found myself using other resources such as an Atlas with better charts and the Internet during my reading to better understand what was happening in the battles. The book could have been improved by more and better maps [especially of Jutland - showing Jellicoe's turn, the German turnabouts and the German escape through the British wake]. A few tables incorporating sinkings and outcomes, and comparing ship types would have helped. What is the difference between an armored cruiser and a battle cruiser? Finally, a short epilogue indicating the ultimate ends of the the main characters [Jellicoe, Fisher, Beatty, the German admirals] would have tied things up nicely. It would have been nice to see Jellicoe's 1914 'tactics' letter in an appendix [I found it on the 'Net], etc. Excellent writing, but a few things like this would have topped it off.....
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully, Masterfully Done
Review: Massie is indeed a worthy member of that class of historians that, like Barbara. Tuchman, knows how to blend scholarship with great style, colourfull life and even entertaiment. In this case Massie deliver a full frescoe of the sea side of WWI. Petty and great men, big plans and microscopic decisions, madness and skill, folly and intelligence, all goes toguether and give to us a complete, detailed and at the same time overarching vision of that fateful but aparently second rate and often even quiet theater that was sea fight in the Great War.
The degree of detail of sometimes the most minute details -how may shells were expeded by that ship in that battle- will satisfy Psycho historians buff as me, but also a more casual -or theoretical- reader will meet the great line of the facts, the big picture, the big men.
Being a big book, I read it, nevertheless, in three days. It has been one of the most pleasant readings I have made since years.
Rating:
Summary: Good account
Review: Massie is probably the finest writer of popular history in the grand manner that there is. Not for him the niceties of sociology, political nuance, cultural studies and the like, but this is no criticism. Nor indeed I suspect is there much deep consultation of primary sources.
This is an excellent account of the war at sea during WW1 and a fine continuation of "Dreadnought". The book was like the war at sea, somehow a bit of an anticlimax after the build up of tension and expectations arising from the naval race before the war. The prewar race and the tensions these generated were expertly explained by Massie in "Dreadnought". Both the British and the Germans undoubtedly felt this frustration about the naval campaign. The British were frustrated in their designs by a degree of incompetence and bad luck (the escape of the Goeben, the battle of Coronel, the Dardanelles, the escape of the German battlecruisers at the battle of Dogger Bank and the miraculous escape of the High Seas Fleet at Jutland). The Germans were strategically defeated ultimately in most these actions, even if they sometimes claimed they were victories (such as at Jutland). The Dardanelles was a failure and Massie seems to subscribe to the views of many (including Keyes) who suggest that the Narrows could have been forced with more effort. Even in victory the British had nagging signs of failures of leadership, ship construction and ordnance - all this made the whole war less than the glorious Nelsonic denouement that the Royal Navy had expected prewar. The only action that seemed to prove the Royal Navy's élan was the Battle of the Bight and the crushing of von Spee's Pacific squadron at the battle of the Falkland Islands. The U boat war that followed Jutland was grim and decidedly unromantic. The Germans were disappointed that their powerful surface navy - whose existence had almost guaranteed that Britain would be their enemy, never was able to accomplish any of its goals, almost entirely due to the timidity of the Kaiser in ordering that his precious fleet was not to be risked in dangerous offensive actions.
It is a fair statement that the only contenders in the war that really mattered were the British and the Germans and this part of the war is covered superbly. I have to say I would have liked some account of the other great powers - what about the Russian Baltic fleet? Or the French? The Austro-Hungarians had a fleet too- what did it do during the war? Then there was the Japanese, of course. None of these questions are answered. Massie has kept his attention on the items of real strategic importance which was probably the right choice, but I still have these questions and it would have been nice to be able to at least answer them in part after having read the book. Another failure of the book is that it does not have enough pictures of the castles of steel themselves. What about a picture of Canopus or the Cressy class etc. etc.? We readers want to see these vessels. Nor are the maps up to the standard required, particularly the one of Jutland which is entirely inadequate. I suspect that this is due to meanness on behalf of the publisher. With these kinds of books maps are very important.
Nevertheless, this is a wonderful read. As usual, Massie is top of the heap at this kind of writing so it is heartily recommended.
Rating:
Summary: I discovered a lot
Review: My knowlege of the war at sea 1914-1918 was limited to Jutland so I read this book to instruct me in the overview. I learned a lot of fascinating information, all of it presented in a readable and rewarding way. This is a sound study and deserves a wide readership. It is an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Dreadnought, Vol II
Review: Remarkable narrative. History as it best! This book is hard to put down. It continues from the fantastic Dreadnought, tranporting us to the naval batles of WWI. Highly recommeded.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Magnificent
Review: Robert K. Massie has produced another masterpiece of narrative history, comprehensive without being dry and fascinating in every detail. In Castles of Steel he takes up the story he started with his 1991 bestseller Dreadnought: the struggle between Britain and Germany for sea mastery during the Great War. The book begins with the final days of peace in July 1914, when Europe realized that the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand was about to trigger a major war. Massie describes the calculations of the British and German leadership as they moved toward conflict. One of Massie's greatest skills as a writer is his ability to create short but thorough biographical sketches, seen here most vividly in his treatments of Jellicoe and Beatty, the men who were to lead the British Grand Fleet. Massie also has an eye for odd humorous moments, as in his amusing description of the trick a German ship played on an unsuspecting French colony soon after war was declared. After the war actually begins Massie focusses on the manuevers of the British and German fleets as they prepare for action. Another narrative track traces the steps of the politicians like Winston Churchill and Prince Louis of Battenberg who are setting war policy. Massie's main focus is on the British, and he thoroughly analyzes successes like the Battle of Dogger Bank and disasters like the Gallipoli landings. The climax of the book is the Battle of Jutland in 1916, which was the only major clash between the two navies. Massie also documents the submarine war and details how it eventually brought the United States into the conflict. The last few pages of the book describes the scuttling of the surrendered German fleet at Scapa Flow, symbolic of the enormous waste caused by the whole conflict. Castles of Steel is a fitting companion to Dreadnought and will certainly be considered one of the most comprehensive, yet accessible, histories of the Great War.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, although not Massie's best.
Review: Robert K. Massie presents us in this book with his account of the confrontation between the British and German Fleets in the Great War. As could be expected from the author, the style of the book makes it a pleasure to read. Nevertheless, it must be considered less succesful than his previous masterpiece Dreadnought by two reasons: first, the technical and tactical details of naval war do not lend themselves easily to the human portraiture and anecdote on which Mr. Massie excels; and second, the story has been told so many times that most of the details are already known to any moderately knowledgeable person in military or naval history. This said, there are still many little known facts, for instance about the strenuous efforts of German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg to refrain his admirals and avoid confrontation with the United States, that are very instructive in refuting the simplistic vision of a monolithic, militaristic Germany. It is also very funny in a certain sense the tale of the Jutland battle: although gunfire was exchanged between the British and German fleets, the true battle was fought, for many years afterwards, between the two British admirals John Jellicoe and David Beatty. From Massie's account, as indeed from most recent analyses (notably Andrew Gordon's exceptional The Rules of the Game), Jellicoe emerges as a far more likable figure than the bombastic and self-serving Beatty. In summary, although this book does not reach the heights of Dreadnought, no person interested in history can go wrong in reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Decision at Sea
Review: Robert Masie has written an excellent follow-up to his history of the pre-World War I Naval Race. His account is more than fair to the major players, and I believe is absolutely right in singling out Admiral Jellicoe as the hero of both Jutland and the War at Sea. Jellicoe described by Churchill as the "only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon" served as the German fleets "jailer," knowing that by keeping the fleet bottled up in German home waters he could guarantee British superiority. One story missing from the book is the battle of Zeebruge -- the commando raid on the German sub base in German-occupied Belgium. A good read.
Rating:
Summary: Massive Attack
Review: Robert Massie has done it again -- another "Massive" tome on a topic that doesn't initially seem fascinating, but turns out to be a spellbinding narrative of central importance. Before reading "Dreadnought", this book's predecessor, my understanding of the Anglo-German naval race was limited to a dry few paragraphs in general histories of World War I. Massie put the drama and all its personalities at center stage and showed how crucial Kaiser Willhelm II's vanity fleet was in provoking Britain's turn toward the Entente, an alignment which proved fatal to the Second Reich. "Castles of Steel" picks up the story with the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914. It is much more of a military history than its political/diplomatic precedessor, with detailed and often gripping descriptions of naval battles and pursuits. Massie neglects to offer a basic tutorial on the ships of the day, so it's up to the reader to learn on the job about the differences between battleships and battle cruisers, twelve inch guns and eight inch guns, coal and oil power, etc. But it can be done. Massie is at his best in describing the action of surface fleets. Each naval engagement of the war, from minor skirmishes and raids to epic battles like Jutland, are given microsopic treatment. Such a detailed narrative allows Massie to draw insights that might be invisible from a simplified overview. Events in war cause subtle chain reactions. One British admiral's caution in interpreting Winston Churchill's muddled orders lets a German ship escape and leads to his court martial; a few months later, on the other side of the world, one of his colleagues charges into a fatal and pointless battle to avoid the same fate. The escaped German ship is decisive in swinging Turkey into the war; within a year Churchill's career--and perhaps the war itself--is on the line in the daring and hapless Gallipoli operation to knock Turkey out. And so on. Castles of Steel will thoroughly dispell the notion that the two great fleets were largely passive throughout the war (excluding Jutland) and that the naval war was a bit of a sideshow to the real action on land. He shows how decisive even an indecisive result at sea could be--as long as Britain could maintain its blockade on Germany while avoiding strangulation of its commerce by the U-boat campaign. Massie is also strong on showing how Jutland--whatever its tactical outcome--must have been a strategic defeat for the High Seas Fleet, since it left the U-boats as Germany's only offensive option at sea. That in turn led to America's entry and Germany's certain defeat on land. Massie is not as interested in the details of the U-boat war. Although his chapter on the subject is able and informative, he does not attack it with the same passion and detail as he does the surface ships. In that he resembles his hero in this book, Admiral Jellicoe, a master of surface warfare who respects and fears these new weapons, but does not really make them his own. Like most military histories, this book could have used about ten times the maps the editors saw fit to include. Massie's narrative is masterful, but visual aids will always help to track the complex movements of hundreds of ships. I also wish that Massie had spent as much time getting inside the heads of the German commanders and sailors as he did their English counterparts. There is an inexplicable gap, for example, between the professional, courageous and highly capable High Seas Fleet at Jutland in 1916 and the demoralized, mutinous ships that failed to stir themselves from port eighteen months later to seek a final confrontation with the British. What happened to these men who had once been eager for a fight, and who claimed never to have been defeated? Massie gives us a few clues--the effects of the blockade, the deterioration of Germany's position on land, the (mostly) universal reluctance to engage in suicide missions. But this is one of the rare points on which the reader wishes for more detail. Still, Castles of Steel is a marvelous effort, and I am willing to pick up whatever Mr. Massie cares to write next and carry it straight to the cash register--that is, if I can lift it.
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