The only power capable of blocking the British to reach out the Pacific, the United States, evolved in fifteen years from a small fleet, even inferior (on paper) to the Spanish Fleet, to a "Great White Fleet" second to none, following the precepts of the great American naval theorician, tactician Alfred T. Repeated success against China and Russia gave the naval staff an almost blind confidence in their superiority, acute learners from an unsurpassed master, the English Navy. Japan in 1914 reached the peak of its development, showing the most powerful naval force in the Pacific. But the bleeding she suffered against the Japanese Navy deprived her of half its force, and fed a growing discontent that would have serious consequences in 1917.
In the twentieth century, this would be the ally of choice for Great Britain on the continent.Īnother former enemy turned ally, Russia, still had in 1905 the third fleet in the world, divided between the Baltic, Arctic and Black Sea. The bond was already created against a common enemy, Russia, by the Crimean War in the 1850s.
With "entente cordiale", France, the former arch-enemy was turned to an uneasy ally. By inventing the concept of the dreadnought and the battle cruiser in 1905, she obliged other nations to line up in a costly, exhausting and unprecedented arm's race. Through technological edge, numbers, and training, the Royal Navy was superior even to almost all combined fleets in the world, all possible alliances, as an invincible colossus. With the industrial revolution began the long "Victorian era", the golden age of the British Empire. This fleet was instrumental to gain or maintain a huge world colonial empire upon which the sun "never sets". In fact the whole XIXth Century's "Pax britannica" started after the Napoleonic era, to endure until the first world war, almost one century year for year. Confirmed and maintained at the highest level by the will of Queen Victoria and her advisers, the Royal Navy grow from uncertain equality with the French and Spanish fleets to at unchallenged supremacy. In 1914, the largest naval power was undoubtedly the British pride, her majesty's Royal Navy. Battles and naval actions, short biographies, illustrated by hundreds of illustrations, photos, detailed specifications, and dedicated maps.Īlthough naval operations have been somewhat less extensive than during the next war, they have nevertheless been at the center of important and sometimes decisive events and raged from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the North Sea. This section is dedicated to World War I Warships of all fleets, covering all the belligerents in 1914 and operations during the four years between the assassination of the Archduke of Austria in August 1914 to the Armistice in November 1918. I hope this portal page and the many fleets studies, battles studies and tech associated will help rectify this common belief. At least ten fleets did take part, the immense majority in the entente side. Battles and sirmishes went on from the North sea to the Baltic, the Channel to the Atlantic, north and south, the Mediterranean, the Black sea and even the Pacific. But war raged at sea neverthless, from the early hours of 1914 to the dying hours of 1918 and beyond, in the wake of the Russian Revolution and civil war. The Great War at sea is often brushed aside, overshadowed by the western front trench warfare or the daring do of WW1 pilots.