booklets

Monographs resulting from my main personal research into the British Merchant Service during the Great War 1914-19 ...

Internment of Enemy Aliens in Great Britain,

within the Empire and at Sea during 1914

This arose out of research into British merchant mariners marooned in Germany in the autumn of 1914. In the course of these studies I began to realise that their plight had been made materially worse by the British State. Partly in comparison, but also out of curiosity, I then started looking at how German civilians in Britain had been treated during these same months. Something that has almost entirely been written out of British accounts of this conflict, I soon realised why. The see-sawing policies of the Home Office and War Office not only were far from reasonably thought out, were utterly shambolic and almost comic in operation. And, there were darker wishes of elements within the War Office: especially in M.I.5. But, the activities of the Admiralty and Royal Navy were downright malevolent in the cynical breaking of International Law. At least one incident was literally an act of piracy. This is not a tale of the British at their best.

Format:

Pages:

40 including appendices and index

Illustrations:

None

Price for electronic copies

Prices for hard copies (including postage):-

£5.00

U.K.

£8.00

Europe

£8.50

Outwith Europe

£9.50

An Embarrassing Loss -

H.M. Armed Merchant Cruiser Oceanic 8^th September 1914

Originally the loss of Oceanic, one time luxurious passenger liner of the White Star Line and latterly Armed Merchant Cruiser in naval service was only going to take up a paragraph or so in the book. All the published accounts led back to one officer onboard. He was Charles Lightoller, better known as the senior survivor of the Titanic. Taken uncritically by these commentators, I became more than slightly suspicious of his version of events. Although the navigator's log and a handful of other operational records are available for study, saliently the courts-martial papers are not. Nevertheless, reported on in the press I have managed to largely work out what actually brought this beautiful ship onto the only shallow area of water in a very large area. Not only were there a series of mistakes made onboard, but the courts-martial would seem to have been a sham. In effect the investigation and actions taken by the Royal Navy, in my opinion, were less than worthy of respect.

Format:

Pages:

34 including postscripts

Illustrations:

Five

Price for electronic copies

Prices (including postage):-

£5.00

U.K.

£14.50

Europe

£15.00

Outwith Europe

£17.00

Learning to use Signals Intelligence:

The Royal Navy from the Development of Wireless to the War

Years of 1914-15

The Royal Navy’s interception and breaking of German codes and cyphers is a subject that has often been written about. In reviewing this I found that most of these accounts have been flawed inasmuch as even when codes and cyphers have been understood, authors have dealt with this subject narrowly. Investigating this from a wider perspective, such as taking wireless communication capabilities into consideration, allows for significantly different conclusions from those concentrating merely on ‘fleet action’. In doing so, it can be seen that Room 40’s products were used far more sophistically than has been recognised by these non-communicator authors.

Format:

Pages:

Illustrations:

None

Price for electronic copies

£10.00

Undermining the Allied Blockade:

The Commission for Relief in Belgium and

the Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation

from Autumn 1914 until Spring 1915

Vast amounts of time, money and effort was put in by the Allies in blockading the Central Powers during the First World War. This, eventually, led to real hardships, not only for the civilian populations in these enemy countries, but also their neutral neighbours. However, not only were the populations in German-controlled Belgium and France not subjected to the Allied blockade, their populations were fed and otherwise supplied by ‘charitable’ institutions. It was maintained by two American authors post war that not only were these not genuinely charitable operations, they allowed German authorities to acquire a great deal of food still being produced in Belgium.

This is an investigation into the early phases of this that would strongly seem to indicate that this was indeed the case and that the Allied blockade was significantly undermined as a result. Nevertheless, the morals, or otherwise, are not dealt with as ultimately, readers will make up their own minds according to their outlooks.

Format:

Pages:

Illustrations:

None

Price for electronic copies

£10.00

Royal Naval Gunnery and Minesweeping at the Dardanelles

February to March 1915

Although there have been a great many accounts of this Allied martial fiasco in 1915, perhaps surprisingly, there are still elements of this campaign that have not been deeply, or well researched. On reading a number of the general accounts I suspected that the minesweeping aspects were not at all accurate. However, on researching the early naval operations I also realised that much of the detail relating to the shore bombardments were also not necessarily well understood.

This monograph seeks to show that the naval shore bombardments were not likely to achieve success and separately that these minesweepers never really stood a chance. On the latter, I have also sought to show that the opinions of such characters as Winston Churchill and Roger Keyes were entirely unfair, in blaming the reservists that tried to make the Straits safe for the warships to transit.

Format:

Pages:

Illustrations:

One map

Price for electronic copies

£10.00

*Insult to Injury: The suffering of hundreds of wounded soldiers onboard H.M. Transport Saturnia* after the first day of the Battle of Gully Ravine 1915**

This was one of many incidents where the wounded soldiery of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force were let down and suffered as a consequence. While the shambles arising from poor planning in the initial April landings is well known, this particular incident is not, even although it appears in the final report of the Dardanelles Commission. This monograph takes over from where the Dardanelles Commission left off. With access to records that the commissioners neither apparently had access to, or time to study, more of this can be understood, even if the destruction of some salient records leaves many questions unanswered.
Format:	A4
Pages:	86
Illustrations:	Five maps and one photograph
Price for electronic copies	£10.00

N.B. I have plans for other monographs, including one on the insignia of the British Mercantile Marine

Those interested in these titles should note that they can only be bought through me.

Also, please note that I do not give credit, or discount to wholesalers or retailers and nowadays I do not recognise Nielsen Booknet 'orders' – these proving to be a complete waste of time, money and effort in my experience.

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