Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea

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.


Worth The Wait   November 17, 2003
Bruce Loveitt (Ogdensburg, NY USA)
29 out of 33 found this review helpful

For those of you who have read Mr. Massie's "Dreadnought," which detailed the German/British battleship "arms race" leading up to WWI, and who have been waiting for years for the sequel....here it is. And is it great! Fans of the author know that he is a master of narrative history. His books read like good novels, and he excels at capturing personalities with telling anecdotes. At the beginning of "Castles Of Steel" he explains how Kaiser William compensated for his withered left arm, and basically useless left hand, by building up his right arm. William also wore large rings on the fingers of his right hand. He would shake hands with a steel-like grip and watch with amusement as his victim winced. To quote the author "...the hand shaker said merrily, 'Ha ha! The mailed fist! What!' " This small episode not only tells us a lot about William's personality, but the expression he uses also reminds us of his Anglophilia (he was, after all, Queen Victoria's grandson). In a similar way, Mr. Massie conjures up the characters of other people who are important to this story. On the British side: Beatty, Jellicoe, Churchill, Jacky Fisher, David Lloyd George, etc. On the German side: Hipper, Scheer, Tirpitz, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, etc. The major pre-publication concern about this book would have been: could Mr. Massie satisfy not just the fan of narrative history but also the fan of military history. After all, unlike the author's previous books, this book was to be primarily about battles rather than personalities. It turns out that we needn't have had any worries on that score, either. In particular, the descriptions of The Battle of the Falkland Islands and of Jutland are brilliant. The author explains the events leading up to the battles, the strategy, the tactics, etc. He takes us, in a clear manner, step-by-step through the battles and the aftermath. You feel as though you are on-deck with the various admirals as they make their decisions. Mr. Massie also covers the importance of Naval Intelligence during the war - the British, early on, broke the German code and usually knew ahead of time what was planned.(Despite the fact that, seemingly by magic, the British fleet always seemed to pop up whenever the German fleet ventured out to sea, the Germans refused to believe that their codes had been compromised.) Things might have turned out very differently in the several North Seas battles if it weren't for this. Mr. Massie also covers the British blockade of Germany, the Dardanelles/Gallipoli fiasco, the U-Boat War (and the sinking of the Lusitania), the entry of the United States into the war, etc. Another big plus for this book is that it will probably generate disagreement and discussion amongst academics and serious students of the war. Mr. Massie isn't afraid to tell us about who he admires and who he doesn't much care for. Thus, he clearly thinks Jellicoe superior to Beatty (especially at Jutland)and he thinks Jellicoe was treated in a very shabby manner by the politicians - especially David Lloyd George. Mr. Massie, while admiring Churchill, thinks he made many mistakes during his tenure as First Lord (and not just during the Dardanelles/Gallipoli period), and that these mistakes were caused by Churchill's overconfidence, coupled with his total lack of any background regarding naval affairs. Setting aside Jacky Fisher's histrionics and peevish personality, Mr. Massie generally gives the First Sea Lord high marks for his perspicacity regarding military matters. After all, Fisher made the WWI British navy what it was, and he also realized the importance of submarines. The author makes a strong case that Fisher clearly knew that the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaign, if done the way it was ultimately done, would be a huge mistake. Churchill, with his youth, energy, eloquence and misplaced (in this case) self-confidence wore down Fisher and, at least for awhile, got the First Sea Lord to shelve his doubts and get "on-board" regarding the scheme. Mr. Massie takes the sensible view that the German use of unrestricted submarine warfare forced a very reluctant Woodrow Wilson to commit the U.S. to the war. While American forces didn't win the war, the huge numbers of fresh troops streaming into Europe made it clear to Germany that she no longer had any realistic prospect of victory - hence, the German decision to accept an armistice. Mr. Massie wisely steers clear of counterfactuals, but it is interesting to think about what might have happened if Germany had resisted the use of unrestricted submarine warfare and the U.S. had stayed out of the war. At the very least, the one million German soldiers who were freed up for use on the Western front due to the collapse of Russia would not have been counterbalanced by the flood of American troops. A minor criticism of the book is the lack of maps. They are few and far between and some more would have been very helpful in following along during the extended battle sequences. But, hey, when a book is this good...well, you can't have everything!


A compelling history of the Great War at sea   November 6, 2003
Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States)
23 out of 26 found this review helpful

I would think that anyone who read and liked Robert Massie's "Dreadnought" should appreciate his new "Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea". As in the earlier book, although the ships and navies of the two rival nations are always at center stage, it is the people who built those ships and directed their activities and operated them and - in this book - fought them that really make the text vivid. And what personalities! Winston Churchill, the extraordinary Jacky Fisher who was the true father of the Dreadnought-type battleships that defined the era, the glamorous Admiral David Beatty who captivated the British public, Kaiser Wilhelm, Admiral Franz von Hipper ... If anything, the narrative in "Castles of Steel" is even more compelling than that of the first book because it deals with the drama and chaos of World War One itself. Massie's narrative lucidly explains the course of the naval war from the very opening days until the German High Seas Fleet scuttled itself after the conclusion of hostilities to prevent its delivery to its enemies. Along the way, several complex, controversial episodes are examined, including the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign and the Battle of Jutland, the great clash of battle fleets towards which decades of naval technical development had been aimed. Massie does not shy away from exploring the bitter in-fighting that erupted after the guns of battle had fallen silent, and he appears to present the arguments on both sides of controversies fairly. Although his portrait of Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty is as an ambitious politician whose directives sometimes seeded chaos rather than order, Massie by no means holds Churchill solely or perhaps even chiefly responsible for the Gallipoli debacle. The admirals and generals on the spot are shown to have repeatedly erred and provided London with faulty advice. With Jutland, Massie's basic sympathy is clearly with the quiet, somewhat cautious Jellicoe rather than with his flamboyant subordinate, David Beatty, who according to Massie later did much to rob Jellicoe of deserved credit while evading blame for his own errors. Although the great dreadnoughts and battle cruisers - the "castles of steel" of the title - are never far from the main narrative thrust, U-boat warfare and diplomatic maneuvering (and the politics of the British Admiralty) are given their due.

Although a long book at over 800 pages, "Castles of Steel" is nonetheless a powerful, fast-moving history of naval warfare as it emerged into the modern era of steel and radio.


The Forgotten Side of the Great War   June 29, 2004
Thomas M. Sullivan (Lake George, NY USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

Even a reasonably serious general reader of World War I histories is likely to be far better acquainted with the war on land than the war at sea. After all, what else is there to know besides the Battle of Jutland, the sinking of the Lusitania, the German U-boat offensive and the reactive convoy system? OK, some may have heard of Dogger Bank and recognize that Gallipoli was originally an entirely naval operation until practical difficulties turned it into the disastrous land offensive which has become synonymous with misadventures of the kind. That's it, right? Actually, no, not by a long shot. And if you want to know the "rest" of the WWI story, and perhaps come to agree with the view shared by Author Massie and many other historians that British sea power was the war's ultimate determinant, then this is the book for you.

Another reviewer points out that the book appears to have been largely derived from secondary sources, and that may well be true. But Massie's masterful amalgamation, if you will, nonetheless produces a stunning panorama that if not entirely original in its sources, is surely an example of the very finest scholarship of the kind and an "original" in both its sweep and its marvelous presentation in terms of language and story-telling.

I made the same "secondary source" comment about Winston Groom's 2002 book on the fighting in the Ypres salient, "A Storm in Flanders," but there is between the two works a distinction with a considerable difference. The Ypres story has been written about with sufficient frequency over the last 90 years that any new telling runs the risk of being downright familiar to serious WWI readers, and so it is with "Storm"; I could have sworn that I had in hand only a slight variation of the several works on the subject I have read. Thus, my conclusion that Groom's book amounted to little more than a nicely turned out rehash. Not at all worthless, just of limited value to the serious WWI reader.

Such is not the case with "Castles". The book undertakes nothing less than a thorough account of the entire war at sea and succeeds like nothing else I have ever encountered. Secondary the sources might have been, but the result is indisputably first-rate. Take our "five-star" word for it: you will not only enjoy the read, but will forever after be comfortable that you understand and appreciate the significance of the "forgotten" side of the war.


An epic account of the war at sea 1914-1918   November 3, 2003
Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel)
22 out of 28 found this review helpful

This book is simply the best, most extraordinary and knowledgeable account of the Great War at Sea 1914-18. No other study or similar volume compares to what Mr. Massie has done here.
This book follows on his excellent account of the build up to the Great War and the development of the dreadnought. His last book on this subject (Dreadnought: Britain Germany and the coming of the great war) detailed the great naval arms race that made war 'inevitable'. This book details the actual conflict.

The author argues that while the arms race made war inevitable the German high commands decision not to boldly use the navy condemned it to failure. The author tells many fascinating tales in his book. He has excellent character sketches of Churchill, Scheer and Tirpitz. He also looks at the amazing story of the 'Goeben' a German surface raider.
He looks at the advent of unrestricted submarine warfare. He also looks at the battles that did take place like the River Plate(Falklands) and Dogger Bank as well as the bombardment of British coastal cities by German ships.
The climax of the volume is the battle of Jutland. The author tells in stunning detail every action packed minute of this epic clash of steel on the high seas.
An amazing book, sure to be THE standard on the subject for years to come. Massie's prose is beyond comparison, he writes history to make you feel it, to give you an appetite for the wide range of subjects he touches upon. All WWI enthusiasts and naval buffs will love this book as will the common reader with an interest in history.