Failing to prepare for the great war? the absence of grand strategy in british war planning before 1914

• Autores: Matthew Seligmann
• Localización: War in history, ISSN-e 1477-0385, ISSN 0968-3445, Vol. 24, Nº. 4, 2017, págs. 414-437
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • It is a commonplace that the Royal Navy entered the Great War intending to strangle the German economy through a strategy of blockade. This was not so. Prior to 1912 blockade was mainly seen as a means of attaining operational intelligence; economic warfare was secondary. For legal reasons blockade had to be abandoned in 1912. Thereafter, only contraband control remained as a means of waging economic warfare, and this was seen purely as a way of luring the Germans to battle. In 1914 the Royal Navy had no grand strategy, a fact that explains its hesitant performance in the war.